But nothing particularly beautiful nor grand about him?  No.  And here came her superiority.  Inger might well think to herself at times how she had seen finer men; handsome gentlemen with walking-sticks and handkerchiefs and starched collars to wear—­oh, those gentlemen of the town!  And so she kept Isak in his place, treated him, as it were, no better than he deserved.  He was only a peasant, a clodhopper of the wilds; if her mouth had been as it was now from the start she would never have taken him; be sure of that.  No, she could have done better than that!  The home he had given her, the life he offered her, were poor enough; she might at least have married some one from her own village, and lived among neighbours, with a circle of friends, instead of here like an outcast in the wilds.  It was not the place for her now; she had learned to look differently at life.

Strange, how one could come to look differently at things!  Inger found no pleasure now in admiring a new calf; she did not clap her hands in surprise when Isak came down from the hills with a big basket of fish; no, she had lived for six years among greater things.  And of late she had even ceased to be heavenly and sweet when she called him in to dinner.  “Your food’s ready, aren’t you coming in?” was all she said now.  And it didn’t sound nice.  Isak wondered a little at first; it was a curious way to speak; a nasty, uncaring, take-it-or-leave-it way to speak.  And he answered:  “Why, I didn’t know ’twas ready.”  But when Inger pointed out that he ought to have known, or might have guessed it, anyway, by the sun, he said no more, and let the matter drop.

Ah, but once he got a hold on her and used it—­that was when she tried to steal his money from him.  Not that Isak was a miser in that way, but the money was clearly his.  Ho, it was nearly being ruin and disaster for her that time!  But even then it was not exactly thoroughgoing, out-and-out wickedness on Inger’s part; she wanted the money for Eleseus—­for her blessed boy Eleseus in town, who was asking for his Daler again.  Was he to go there among all the fine folk and with empty pockets?  After all, she had a mother’s heart.  She asked his father for the money first, and, finding it was no good, had taken it herself.  Whether Isak had had some suspicion beforehand, or had found it out by accident—­anyhow, it was found out.  And suddenly Inger found herself gripped by both arms, felt herself lifted from the floor, and thumped down on to the floor again.  It was something strange and terrible—­a sort of avalanche.  Isak’s hands were not weak, not worn out now.  Inger gave a groan, her head fell back, she shivered, and gave up the money.

Even then Isak said little, though Inger made no attempt to hinder him from speaking.  What he did say was uttered, as it were, in one hard breath:  “Huttch!  You—­you’re not fit to have in the place!”

She hardly knew him again.  Oh, but it must have been long-stored bitterness that would not be repressed.