And Oline, poor creature, she might well be needing a pinch of coffee now and again, whether by chance she managed to get the money from Axel to pay for it, or bartered a goats’ milk cheese in exchange.  Oline was not altogether what she had been; the work at Maaneland was too hard for her; she was an old woman now, and it was leaving its mark.  Not that she ever confessed to any weakness or ageing herself; ho! she would have found plenty to say if she had been dismissed.  Tough and irrepressible was Oline; did her work, and found time to wander over to neighbours here or there for a real good gossip.  ’Twas her plain right, and there was little gossiping at Maaneland.  Axel himself was not given that way.

As for that Barbro case, Oline was displeased, ay, disappointed was Oline.  Both of them acquitted!  That Brede’s girl Barbro should be let off when Inger Sellanraa had got eight years was not to Oline’s taste at all; she felt an unchristian annoyance at such favouritism.  But the Almighty would look to things, no doubt, in His own good time!  And Oline nodded, as if prophesying divine retribution at a later date.  Naturally, also, Oline made no secret of her dissatisfaction with the finding of the court, more especially when she happened to fall out with her master, Axel, over any little trifle.  Then she would deliver herself, in the old soft-spoken way, of much deep and bitter sarcasm.  “Ay, ’tis strange how the law’s changed these days, for all the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah; but the word of the Lord’s my guide, as ever was, and a blessed refuge for the meek.”

Oh, Axel was sick and tired of his housekeeper now, and wished her anywhere.  And now with spring coming again, and all the season’s work to do alone; haymaking to come, and what was he to do?  ’Twas a poor look-out.  His brother’s wife, at Breidablik had written home to Helgeland trying to find a decent woman to help him, but nothing had come of it as yet.  And in any case, it would mean his having to pay for the journey.

Nay, ’twas a mean and wicked trick of Barbro to make away with the bit of a child and then run off herself.  A summer and two winters now he had been forced to make do with Oline, and no saying how much longer it might be yet.  And Barbro, the creature, did she care?  He had had a few words with her down in the village one day that winter, but never a tear had trickled slowly from her eyes to freeze on her cheek.

“What you’ve done with rings I gave you?” asks he.

“Rings?”

“Ay, the rings.”

“I haven’t got them now.”

“Ho, so you haven’t got them now?”

“’Twas all over between us,” said she.  “And I couldn’t wear them after that.  ’Tis not the way to go on wearing rings when it’s all over between you.”

“Well, I’d just like to know what you’ve done with them, that’s all.”

“Wanted me to give them back, maybe,” said she.  “Well, I never thought you’d have had me put you to that shame.”