INGEBORG. [To HEMMING, who starts to go.] Wait,
Hemming!
Fasten my shoe buckle!
[LADY KIRSTEN and ARNE go out to the left.]
* * *
* *
[INGEBORG. HEMMING.]
INGEBORG. [Puts her foot forward.] See there,—fasten
it tight!
[HEMMING kneels and does her bidding.]
INGEBORG. [As she puts the other foot forward.]
There,—buckle this one too! Well,
why do you bow your head? Has something gone
wrong?
HEMMING. Do you demand that I shall speak honestly?
INGEBORG. Certainly I do.
HEMMING. Well, then you must know—
INGEBORG. [Quickly.] O no, it isn’t necessary.
[She moves away a few steps; HEMMING rises.]
HEMMING. Alas, Lady Ingeborg! Once you
were so kind to me; but now since you have become
a real grown-up lady—and especially, I
imagine, since you gave your betrothal vow—
INGEBORG. What then?
HEMMING. O nothing!—
[A pause.]
HEMMING. Can you remember,—we have
been up here once before?
INGEBORG. [Curtly.] I don’t remember!
HEMMING. You had run after your spotted goat,
and I followed you, as was always my custom,—yes,
that was a long time ago, but I remember it as if
it happened today; right down there lies the swamp,
which—
INGEBORG. [Comes nearer.] Was it the time we heard
the bear?
HEMMING. Yes, the very time.
INGEBORG. [Constantly becoming more animated.] I
found the goat again.
HEMMING. No, it was I who first discovered it.
INGEBORG. Yes, yes, you are right; up there
on the slope—
HEMMING. And then you took your garter.
INGEBORG. And bound it.
HEMMING. Yes, for we had come to pick strawberries.
INGEBORG. Over there on the hill, yes!
And you had made me a birch-bark scrip.
HEMMING. But then it was we heard—
INGEBORG. The bear, ha, ha, ha! We had
to cross the swamp just where it was the wettest,—
HEMMING. And then I took you in my arms.
INGEBORG. And jumped with me from tuft to tuft.
INGEBORG. [Laughing.] How frightened we were, the
two of us!
HEMMING. Of course I was most frightened for
your sake.
INGEBORG. And I for yours—
[Stops suddenly and as she continues to look at him
her face assumes an imperious and wounded expression.]
INGEBORG. What is it you stand here and say?
Why don’t you go? Is it fitting to speak
thus to your master’s daughter? Go, go;
you were to find my betrothed!
HEMMING. Alas, I forgot your betrothed; I forgot
that you are my master’s daughter.
INGEBORG. If you find him, I promise you an
embroidered jacket for Christmas,—so pleased
shall I be.
