If he had not stood there himself and heard it—­Inger talking softly to the cow in the shed—­he would not have believed.  But there he stood.  And all at once a black misgiving came into his mind:  a clever wife, ay, a manager of wonders—­but, after all....  No, it was too much, and that was the only word for it.  A spinning-wheel and carding-combs at a pinch; even the beads perhaps, though they were over fine to be come by in any way proper and natural.  But a cow, picked up straying on the road, maybe, or in a field—­it would be missed in no time, and have to be found.

Inger stepped out of the shed, and said with a proud little laugh: 

“It’s only me.  I’ve brought my cow along.”

“H’m,” said Isak.

“It was that made me so long—­I couldn’t go but softly with her over the hills.”

“And so you’ve brought a cow?” said he.

“Yes,” said she, all ready to burst with greatness and riches on earth.  “Don’t you believe me, perhaps?”

Isak feared the worst, but made no sign, and only said: 

“Come inside and get something to eat.”

“Did you see her?  Isn’t she a pretty cow?”

“Ay, a fine cow,” said Isak.  And speaking as carelessly as he could, he asked, “Where d’you get her?”

“Her name’s Goldenhorns.  What’s that wall to be for you’ve been building up here?  You’ll work yourself to death, you will.  Oh, come and look at the cow, now, won’t you?”

They went out to look, and Isak was in his underclothes, but that was no matter.  They looked and looked the cow all over carefully, in every part, and noted all the markings, head and shoulders, buttocks and thighs, where it was red and white, and how it stood.

“How old d’you think she might be?” asked Isak cautiously.

“Think?  Why, she’s just exactly a tiny way on in her fourth year.  I brought her up myself, and they all said it was the sweetest calf they’d ever seen.  But will there be feed enough here d’you think?”

Isak began to believe, as he was only too willing to do, that all was well.  “As for the feed, why, there’ll be feed enough, never fear.”

Then they went indoors to eat and drink and make an evening together.  They lay awake talking of Cow; of the great event.  “And isn’t she a dear cow, too?  Her second’s on the way.  And her name’s Goldenhorns.  Are you asleep, Isak?”

“No.”

“And what do you think, she knew me again; knew me at once, and followed me like a lamb.  We lay up in the hills a bit last night.”

“Ho?”

“But she’ll have to be tied up through the summer, all the same, or she’ll be running off.  A cow’s a cow.”

“Where’s she been before?” asked Isak at last.

“Why, with my people, where she belonged.  And they were quite sorry to lose her, I can tell you; and the little ones cried when I took her away.”