“What I was going to say,” she begins:  “They gentlemen came up to Sellanraa that time; did you ever get to show them all those sacks of stone you’d got, eh, Brede?”

“Axel,” says Brede, “let me hoist you on my shoulders, and I’ll carry you down rest of the way.”

“Nay,” says Axel.  “For all it’s good of you to ask.”

So they go on; not far now to go.  Oline must make the best of her time on the way.  “Better if you’d saved him at the point of death,” says she.  “And how was it, Brede, you coming by and seeing him in deadly peril and heard his cry and never stopped to help?”

“You hold your tongue,” says Brede.

And it might have been easier for her if she had, wading deep in snow and out of breath, and a heavy burden and all, but ’twas not Oline’s way to hold her tongue.  She’d a bit in reserve, a dainty morsel.  Ho, ’twas a dangerous thing to talk of, but she dared it.

“There’s Barbro now,” says she.  “And how’s it with her?  Not run off and away, perhaps?”

“Ay, she has,” answers Brede carelessly.  “And left a place for you for the winter by the same.”

But here was a first-rate opening for Oline again; she could let it be seen now what a personage she was; how none could manage long without Oline—­Oline, that, had to be sent for near or far.  She might have been two places, ay, three, for that matter.  There was the parsonage—­they’d have been glad to have her there, too.  And here was another thing—­ay, let Axel hear it too, ’twould do no harm—­they’d offered her so-and-so much for the winter, not to speak of a new pair of shoes and a sheepskin into the bargain.  But she knew what she was doing, coming to Maaneland, coming to a man that was lordly to give and would pay her over and above what other folk did—­and so she’d come.  No, ’twas no need for Brede to trouble himself that gait—­when her Heavenly Father had watched over her all those years, and opened this door and that before her feet, and bidden her in.  Ay, and it seemed like God Himself had known what He was doing, sending her up to Maaneland that day, to save the life of one of His creatures on earth....

Axel was getting wearied again by now; his legs could hardly bear him, and seemed like giving up.  Strange, he had been getting better by degrees, able to walk, as the life and warmth came back into his body.  But now—­he must lean on Brede for support!  It seemed to begin when Oline started talking about her wages; and then, when she was saving his life again, it was worse than ever.  Was he trying to lessen her triumph once more?  Heaven knows—­but his mind seemed to be working again.  As they neared the house, he stopped, and said:  “Looks like I’ll never get there, after all.”

Brede hoists him up without a word, and carries him.  So they go on like that, Oline all venom, Axel up full length on Brede’s back.

“What I was going to say,” gets out Oline—­“about Barbro—­wasn’t she far gone with child?”