And a long while after, said Jensine:  “Well, there’s Leopoldine, she’s big now, and fit and all to do my work, seems.”

Ay, ’twas a sorrowful journey.

Chapter VII

A man walks up the way through the hills.  Wind and rain; the autumn downpour has begun, but the man cares little for that, he looks glad at heart, and glad he is.  ’Tis Axel Stroem, coming back from the town and the court and all—­they have let him go free.  Ay, a happy man—­first of all, there’s a mowing-machine and a harrow for him down at the quay, and more than that, he’s free, and not guilty.  Had taken no part in the killing of a child.  Ay, so things can turn out!

But the times he had been through!  Standing there as a witness, this toiler in the fields had known the hardest days of his life.  ’Twas no gain to him to make Barbro’s guilt seem greater, and for that reason he was careful not to say too much, he did not even say all he knew; every word had to be dragged out of him, and he answered mostly with but “Yes” and “No.”  Was it not enough?  Was he to make more of it than there was already?  Oh, but there were times when it looked serious indeed; there were the men of Law, black-robed and dangerous, easy enough for them, it seemed, just with a word or so, to turn the whole thing as they pleased, and have him sentenced.  But they were kindly folk after all, and did not try to bring him to destruction.  Also, as it happened, there were powerful influences at work trying to save Barbro, and it was all to his advantage as well.

Then what on earth was there for him to trouble about?

Barbro herself would hardly try to make things look worse than need be for her former master and lover; he knew terrible things about this and an earlier affair of the same sort; she could not be such a fool.  No, Barbro was clever enough; she said a good word for Axel, and declared that he had known nothing of her having borne a child till after it was all over.  He was different in some ways, perhaps, from other men, and they did not always get on well together, but a quiet man, and a good man in every way.  No, it was true he had dug a new grave and buried the body away there, but that was long after, and by reason he had thought the first place was not dry enough, though indeed it was, and ’twas only Axel’s odd way of thinking.

What need, then, for Axel to fear at all when Barbro took all the blame on herself that way?  And as for Barbro herself, there were mighty influences at work.

Fru Lensmand Heyerdahl had taken up the case.  She went about to high and low, never sparing herself, demanded to be called as a witness, and made a speech in court.  When her turn came, she stood there before them all and was a great lady indeed; she took up the question of infanticide in all its aspects, and gave the court a long harangue on the subject—­it almost seemed as if she had obtained permission beforehand