“You haven’t a bit of bread to spare?” says his wife.

“Where do you come from?” asks Inger.

“From the water over beyond.  We’ve been walking all night.”

“And where are you going to now?”

“Across the hills.”

Inger makes up some food for them; when she comes out with it, the woman starts begging again:  a bit of stuff for a cap, a tuft of wool, a stump of cheese—­anything.  Inger has no time to waste, Isak and the children are in the hayfield.  “Be off with you now,” she says.

The woman tries flattery.  “We saw your place up here, and the cattle—­a host of them, like the stars in the sky.”

“Ay, a wonder,” says the man.  “You haven’t a pair of old shoes to give away to needy folk?”

Inger shuts the door of the house and goes back to her work on the hillside.  The man called after her—­she pretended not to hear, and walked on unheeding.  But she heard it well enough:  “You don’t want to buy any hares, maybe?”

There was no mistaking what he had said.  The Lapp himself might have spoken innocently enough; some one had told him, perhaps.  Or he might have meant it ill.  Be that as it may, Inger took it as a warning—­a message of what was to come....

The days went on.  The settlers were healthy folk; what was to come would come; they went about their work and waited.  They lived close to each other like beasts of the forest; they slept and ate; already the year was so far advanced that they had tried the new potatoes, and found them large and floury.  The blow that was to fall—­why did it not come?  It was late in August already, soon it would be September; were they to be spared through the winter?  They lived in a constant watchfulness; every night they crept close together in their cave, thankful that the day had passed without event.  And so the time went on until one day in October, when the Lensmand came up with a man and a bag.  The Law stepped in through their doorway.

The investigation took some time.  Inger was called up and examined privately; she denied nothing.  The grave in the wood was opened, and its contents removed, the body being sent for examination.  The little body—­it was dressed in Eleseus’ christening robe, and a cap sewn over with beads.

Isak seemed to find speech again.  “Ay,” said he, “it’s as bad as well can be with us now.  I’ve said before—­you ought never to have done it.”

“No,” said Inger.

“How did you do it?”

Inger made no answer.

“That you could find it in your heart....”

“She was just the same as myself to look at.  And so I took and twisted her face round.”

Isak shook his head slowly.

“And then she was dead,” went on Inger, beginning to cry.

Isak was silent for a while.  “Well, well, ’tis too late to be crying over it now,” said he.

“She had brown hair,” sobbed Inger, “there at the back of her head....”