“Ho!” says Inger.  “Aren’t you going to stay on the mine, then, come winter?”

The men answer cautiously, that it doesn’t look like it, but can’t be sure.  But Gustaf is bolder, and laughs and says, looks like they’ve scraped out the bit of copper there was.

“You’ll not say that in earnest surely?” says Inger.  And the other men put in that Gustaf had better be careful not to say any such thing.

But Gustaf was not going to be careful; he said a great deal more, and as for Inger, ’twas strange how he managed to win her for himself, for all that he never seemed to put himself forward that way.  One of the other lads played a concertina, but ’twas not like Gustaf’s mouth-organ; another lad again, and a smart fellow he was too, tried to draw attention to himself by singing a song off by heart to the music, but that was nothing either, for all that he had a fine rolling voice.  And a little while after, there was Gustaf, and if he hadn’t got Inger’s gold ring on his little finger!  And how had it come about, when he never plagued nor pushed himself forward?  Oh, he was forward enough in his way, but quiet with it all, as Inger herself; they did not talk of things, and she let him play with her hand as if without noticing.  Later on, when she sat in one of the huts drinking coffee, there was a noise outside, high words between the men, and she knew it was about herself, and it warmed her.  A pleasant thing to hear, for one no longer young, for a woman getting on in years.

And how did she come home from the hills that Sunday evening?  Ho, well enough, virtuous as she had come, no more and no less.  There was a crowd of men to see her home, the crowd of them that would not turn back as long as Gustaf was there; would not leave her alone with him, not if they knew it!  Inger had never had such a gay time, not even in the days when she had been out in the world.

“Hadn’t Inger lost something?” they asked at last.

“Lost something?  No.”

“A gold ring, for instance?”

And at that Gustaf had to bring it out; he was one against all, a whole army.

“Oh, ’twas a good thing you found it,” said Inger, and made haste to say good-bye to her escort.  She drew nearer Sellanraa, saw the many roofs of the buildings; it was her home that lay there.  And she awoke once more, came back to herself, like the clever wife she was, and took a short cut through to the summer shed to look to the cattle.  On the way she passes by a place she knows; a little child had once lain buried there; she had patted down the earth with her hands, set up a tiny cross—­oh, but it was long ago.  Now, she was wondering if those girls had finished their milking in good time....