o him. In the night he would suddenly realize that she was
missing from his side--and would find her in the kitchen stiff with
cold. He carried her back to bed, soothing her like a little child,
and she would fall asleep on his breast.

Her condition was such, that he never dared go from home, and leave
her alone with the children; he had to engage a woman to keep an eye
on her, and look after the house. She now neglected everything and
looked at the children as if they were the cause of her trouble.

One day when he was taking a load of peat to town, an awful thing
happened. What Hansine had been waiting for so long, now actually
took place. She sent the woman, who was supposed to be with her,
away on some excuse or other; and when Lars Peter returned, the
animals were bellowing and every door open. There was no sign of
wife or children. The poultry slipped past him, as he went round
calling. He found them all in the well. It was a fearful sight to
see the mother and four children lying in a row, first on the
cobble-stoned yard, wet and pitiful, and afterwards on the
sitting-room table dressed for burial. Without a doubt the sailor
had claimed his right! The mother had jumped down last, with the
youngest in her arms; they found her like this, tightly clasping the
child, though she had not deserved it.

Every one was deeply shocked by this dreadful occurrence. They would
willingly have given him a comforting and helping hand now; but it
seemed that nothing could be done to help him in his trouble. He did
not easily accept favors.

He busied himself round and about the dead, until the day of the
funeral. No one saw him shed a single tear, not even when the earth
was thrown on to the coffins, and people wondered at his composure;
he had clung so closely to them. He was probably one of those who
were cursed with inability to cry, thought the women.

After the funeral, he asked a neighbor to look after his animals; he
had to go to town, said he. With that he disappeared, and for two
years he was not seen; it was understood that he had gone to sea.
The farm was taken over by the creditors; there was no more than
would pay what he owed, so that at all events, he did not lose
anything by it.

One day he suddenly cropped up again, the same old Lars Peter,
prepared, like Job, to start again from the beginning. He had saved
a little money in the last two years, and bought a partly ruined
hut, a short distance north of his