Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/263

 the door to look for him. How plainly he could see her upright little figure standing there under the eaves, her left hand resting on her hip, as was her habit—shading her eyes with her right, smiling her tender little smile so like her mother's, and which lighted up the stern lines of her face like a gleam of sunshine in a dark forest. Yes, his dreams carried him even further into the future. He saw their children running and playing on the sands, as happy as birds … no pale, unhealthy creatures of culture in velvet blouses, with faces prematurely old; but strong, healthy angels of nature and the fresh air, with peasants' roses on their cheeks, and eyes as clear and blue as the blue waves.

He had reached the top of the ridge above Skibberup, and looked down on the almost deserted village, with its little orchards still covered with withering bloom. When he got a little way down the slope he caught sight of Hansine, in the meadow behind her father's house, feeding a lamb with milk from a bottle. She had on her cherry-coloured dress, which she had worn the first time he saw her properly, and in which he always thought she looked her prettiest. Her head was covered with a big white sun bonnet completely hiding her face.

In a sudden fit of wild gaiety, which made him forget that it was church-time, he put his hands to his mouth and called "cuckoo!" She looked up hurriedly; and when she discovered him, let