It must have been the
spring, and the bright day; I have thought it over since. Also, I
admired the curve of her eyebrows.
She said something about my place; how I had arranged things in the hut.
I had hung up skins of several sorts on the walls, and birds' wings; it
looked like a shaggy den on the inside. She liked it. "Yes, a den," she
said.
I had nothing to offer my visitors that they would care about; I thought
of it, and would have roasted a bird for them, just for amusement--let
them eat it hunter's fashion, with their fingers. It might amuse them.
And I cooked the bird.
Edwarda told about the Englishman. An old man, an eccentric, who talked
aloud to himself. He was a Roman Catholic, and always carried a little
prayer-book, with red and black letters, about with him wherever he
went.
"Was he an Irishman then?" asked the Doctor.
"An Irishman...?"
"Yes--since he was a Roman Catholic."
Edwarda blushed, and stammered and looked away.
"Well, yes, perhaps he was an Irishman."
After that she lost her liveliness. I felt sorry for her, and tried to
put matters straight again. I said:
"No, of course you are right: he was an Englishman. Irishmen don't go
travelling about in Norway."
We agreed to row over one day and see the fish-drying grounds.
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