The strange men thought it too delightfully funny that she ran from them.  They could not resist pretending that they wished to catch her.  One of them climbed up on the railing, and all three shouted with a terrible voice.

Edith ran as one runs in dreams, panting, falling, terrified to death, with a horrible feeling of not getting away from one spot.  All sorts of emotions stormed through her, and shook her so that she thought she was going to die.  Yes, if one of those men laid his hand on her, she knew that she should die.  When she had reached the highest terrace, and dared to look back, she found that the men were still in the street, and were no longer looking at her.  Then she threw herself down on the ground, quite powerless.  The exertion had been greater than she could bear.  She felt something burst in her.  Then blood streamed from her lips.

She was found by the maids as they went home from the milking.  She was then half dead.  For the moment she was brought back to life, but no one dared to hope that she could live long.

She could not talk that day enough to tell in what way she had been frightened.  Had she done so, it is uncertain if the strange men had come alive from the town.  They fared badly enough as it was.  For after Petter Nord had come out to them again, and had told them that Halfvorson was not at home, all four of them in good accord went out through the gates, and found a sunny slope where they could sleep away the time until the shopman returned.

But in the afternoon, when all the men of the town, who had been working in the fields, came home again, the women told them about the tramps’ visit, about their threatening questions in the shop where they had bought the beer, and about all their boisterous behavior.  The women exaggerated and magnified everything, for they had sat at home and frightened one another the whole afternoon.  Their husbands believed that their houses and homes were in danger.  They determined to capture the disturbers of the peace, found a stout-hearted man to lead them, took thick cudgels with them and started off.

The whole town was alive.  The women came out on their doorsteps and frightened one another.  It was both terrible and exciting.

Before long the captors returned with their game.  They had them all four.  They had made a ring round them while they slept and captured them.  No heroism had been required for the deed.

Now they came back to the town with them, driving them as if they had been animals.  A mad thirst for revenge had seized upon the conquerors.  They struck for the pleasure of striking.  When one of the prisoners clenched his fist at them, he received a blow on the head which knocked him down, and thereupon blows hailed upon him, until he got up and went on.  The four men were almost dead.

The old poems are so beautiful.  The captured hero sometimes must walk in chains in the triumphal procession of his victorious enemy.  But he is proud and beautiful still in adversity.  And looks follow him as well as the fortunate one who has conquered him.  Beauty’s tears and wreaths belong to him still, even in misfortune.