“If ’twas me in your stead, I’d be thinking of other things than coffee at this hour,” says Barbro.

“Ay, ’tis as I say,” answers Oline. “’Twas never your way to wish and desire a fellow-creature’s end, but rather they should be converted and live.  What ... ay, I’m lying here and seeing things....  Is it with child you are now, Barbro?”

“What’s that you say?” cries Barbro furiously; and goes on again:  “Oh, ’twould serve you right if I took and heaved you out on the muck-heap for your wicked tongue.”

And at that the invalid was silent for one thoughtful moment, her mouth trembling as if trying so hard to smile, but dare not.

“I heard a some one calling last night,” says she.

“She’s out of her senses,” says Axel, whispering.

“Nay, out of my senses that I’m not.  Like some one calling it was.  From the woods, or maybe from the stream up yonder.  Strange to hear—­as it might be a bit of a child crying out.  Was that Barbro went out?”

“Ay,” says Axel.  “Sick of your nonsense, and no wonder.”

“Nonsense, you call it, and out of my senses, and all?  Ah, but not so far as you’d like to think,” says Oline.  “Nay, ’tis not the Almighty’s will and decree I should come before the Throne and before the Lamb as yet, with all I know of goings-on here at Maaneland.  I’ll be up and about again, never fear; but you’d better be fetching a doctor, Axel, ’tis quicker that way.  What about that cow you were going to give me?”

“Cow?  What cow?”

“That cow you promised me.  Was it Bordelin, maybe?”

“You’re talking wild,” says Axel.

“You know how you promised me a cow the day I saved your life.”

“Nay, that I never knew.”

At that Oline lifts up her head and looks at him.  Grey and bald she is, a head standing up on a long, scraggy neck—­ugly as a witch, as an ogress out of a story.  And Axel starts at the sight, and fumbles with a hand behind his back for the latch of the door.

“Ho,” says Oline, “so you’re that sort!  Ay, well—­say no more of it now.  I can live without the cow from this day forth, and never a word I’ll say nor breathe of it again.  But well that you’ve shown what sort and manner of man you are this day; I know it now.  Ay, and I’ll know it another time.”

But Oline, she died that night—­some time in the night; anyway, she was cold next morning when they came in.

Oline—­an aged creature.  Born and died....

’Twas no sorrow to Axel nor Barbro to bury her, and be quit of her for ever; there was less to be on their guard against now, they could be at rest.  Barbro is having trouble with her teeth again; save for that, all is well.  But that everlasting woollen muffler over her face, and shifting it aside every time there’s a word to say—­’twas plaguy and troublesome enough, and all this toothache is something of a mystery to Axel.  He has noticed, certainly, that she chews her food in a careful sort of way, but there’s not a tooth missing in her head.