Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/92



Be it so then; but be brief; for—I must say it—this is no place of safety for you.

Östråt is no place of safety for an outlaw? That I have long known. But you forget that an outlaw is unsafe wheresoever he may wander.

Speak then; I will not hinder you.

'Tis nigh on thirty years now since first I saw you. It was at Akershus in the house of Knut Alfson and his wife. You were little more than a child then; yet were you bold as the soaring falcon, and wild and headstrong too at times. Many were the wooers around you. I too held you dear—dear as no woman before or since. But you cared for nothing, thought of nothing, save your country's evil case and its great need.

I counted but fifteen summers then—remember that! And was it not as though a frenzy had seized us all in those days?

Call it what you will; but one thing I know—even the old and sober men among us thought