ying: "Yes, I know I am defenceless, and you can plunge me
deeper and deeper yet; but for all that, if I choose to laugh you cannot
hinder me."

How much easier all things seemed, now that he looked no longer for any
good to come to him, and urged no claims against anyone either in heaven
or on earth. But when he was tired out with his work at the forge, there
was a satisfaction in saying to his wife: "No, Merle, didn't I tell
you I wouldn't have you carrying the water up? Give me the bucket."
"You?--you look fit for it, don't you?" "Hang it all, am I a man, or am
I not? Get back to your kitchen--that's the place for a woman." So he
carried water, and his mood was the brighter for it, though he might
feel at times as if his back were breaking. And sometimes, "I'm feeling
lazy, to-day, Merle," he would say. "If you don't mind I'll stay in bed
a bit longer." And she understood. She knew from experience that these
were the days when his nightmare headache was upon him, and that it was
to spare her he called it laziness.

They had a cow now, and a pig and some fowls. It was not exactly on the
same scale as at Loreng, but it had the advantage that he could manage
it all himself. Last year they had raised so many potatoes that they had
been able to sell a few bushels. They did not buy eggs any more--they
sold them. Peer carried them down himself to the local dealer, sold them
at market price, and bought things they might need with the money. Why
not? Merle did not think it beneath her to wash and scrub and do the
cooking. True enough, things had been different with them once, but it
was only Merle now who ever had moments of dreaming that the old days
might come back. Otherwise, for both him and her it was as if they had
been washed ashore on a barren coast, and must try to live through the
grey days as best they could.

It would happen once in a while that a mowing machine of the new
American type would be sent in by some farmer to the smithy for repairs.
When this happened, Peer would shut his lips close, with a queer
expression, look at the machine for a moment, and swallow something in
his throat. The man who had stolen this thing from him and bettered it
by a hairsbreadth was doubtless a millionaire by now on the strength of
it.

It cost him something of an effort to take these repairs in hand, but he
bowed his head and set to. Merle, poor girl, needed a pair of shoes.

At times, too, he would turn from the anvil an