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 …
When I had seen my visitors a few steps on their way, I walked home again and sat down to work at my fishing gear. My hand-net had been hung from a nail by the door, and several of the meshes were damaged by rust; I sharpened up some hooks, knotted them to lengths of line, and looked to the other nets. How hard it seemed to do any work at all to-day! Thoughts that had nothing to do with the business in hand kept coming and going; it occurred to me that I had done wrong in letting Edwarda sit on the bed all the time, instead of offering her a seat on the bench. I saw before me suddenly her brown face and neck; she had fastened her apron a little low down in front, to be long-waisted, as was the fashion; the girlish contour of her thumb affected me tenderly, and the little wrinkles above the knuckle were full of kindliness. Her mouth was large and rich.
I rose up and opened the door and looked out. I could hear nothing, and indeed there was nothing to listen for. I closed the door again; Æsop came up from his resting-place and noticed that I was restless about something. Then it struck me that I might run after Edwarda and ask her for a little silk thread to mend my net with. It would not be any pretence—I could take down the net and show her where the meshes were spoiled by rust. I was already outside the door when I remembered that I had silk thread myself in my fly-book; more indeed than I wanted. And I went back slowly, discouraged—to think that I had silk thread myself.
A breath of something strange met me as I entered the hut again; it seemed as if I were no longer alone there.
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