They knelt then, and Gyda uttered a prayer sweet enough to follow the Psalm.  A little louder than Wych Hazel’s low key, but not less quiet in tone.  It was not long; she took those two, as it were, in the arms of her love, and presented them as candidates for all the blessing of the Psalm; making her plea for the two, somehow, a compound and homogeneous one.

The sun was down:  it was time to get to horse—­for the riders.  Gyda’s farewells were very affectionate in feeling, though also very quiet in manner.

‘Will you come to see me again?’ she asked of Wych Hazel, while Rollo was gone out to see to the horses.

‘Will you let me?  I should like to come.’

‘Then you’ll come,’ said Gyda.  She had shaken hands with Rollo before.  But now when he came in for Wych Hazel he went up to where Gyda was standing, bent down and kissed her.

’Miss Kennedy, have you said “Tak foer maden?” ’

‘I?  No.  How should I?’ said Wych Hazel; ‘is it a spell?’

‘Come here,’ said he, laughing.  ’You must shake hands with Gyda and say, “Tak foer maden;” that is, “Thanks for the meat.”  That is Norwegian good manners, and you are in a Norwegian house.  Come and say it.’

She came shyly, trying to laugh too, and again held out her hand; stammering a little over the unaccustomed syllables, but rather because they were prescribed than because they were difficult.  Certainly if there was a spell in the air that night Wych Hazel thought it had got hold of her.

‘That’s proper,’ said Rollo, ’and now we’ll go.  It ought to have been said when we rose from table; but better late than never.  That’s your first lesson in Norse.’

Rollo had been in a sort of quiet, gay mood all the afternoon.  Out of the house and in the saddle this mood seemed to be exchanged for a different one.  He was silent, attending to his business with only a word here and there, alert and grave.  The words to the ear, however, were free and pleasant as ever.  At the bottom of the hill, in the meadow, he came close to Wych Hazel’s side.

‘Don’t canter here,’ said he.  ’Trot.  Not very fast, for the people are out from their work now, many of them.  But we’ll go as fast as we can.’

‘Fast as you like,’ she answered.  ‘I will follow your pace.’

‘No,’ said he, smiling; ‘we might run over somebody.’

The people were out from their work, and many of them stood in groups and parties along the sides of the street.  It was an irregular roadway, with here a mill and there a mill, on one side and on the other, and cottages scattered all along between and behind.  It had been an empty way when they came; it was populous now.  Men and women were there, sometimes in separate groups; and a fringe of children, boys and girls, on both sides of the road.  The general mill population seemed to be abroad.  They appeared to be doing nothing, all standing gazing at the riders.  The light was fading now, and the wretchedness of their looks was not so plainly to be seen in detail; and yet, somehow, the aggregate effect was quite in keeping with that of Truedchen’s appearance alone at the house above.