ort, succeeded in getting it up, than it fell over again.

"It requires two to do this!" said she.

She once more stooped to take hold of the wheel, and while bending over
it flashed her roguish eyes on Skarlie. His were irresistibly attracted
to her face and superb form. The wheel was raised. Roennaug and Skarlie
rolled it forward between them, she skipping along on one side, he
limping on the other, amid merry words and much laughter. Magnhild
slowly followed. Roennaug cast back a look at her, over the top of
Skarlie's bald head; it sparkled with mirth and victory. But ere it was
withdrawn, its fire was scorching enough to have left two deeply seared
brown stripes on his neck and shoulders.

The distance was not very short. Skarlie groaned. Soon Roennaug felt
great drops of sweat rolling down from his face upon her hands. All the
more swiftly did she roll. His sentences became words, his words
syllables; he made a vigorous effort to conceal his exhaustion with a
laugh. At last he could neither roll himself nor the wheel; he dropped
down on the grass, red as a cluster of rowan berries, his eyes fixed in
their sockets, his mouth wide open. He gasped to recover his breath and
his senses.

Roennaug called to old Andreas, who at this moment appeared on the road
with a load of hay, to come and take the wheel. Then she drew her arm
through Magnhild's, bowed and thanked Skarlie--still in English--"many
thousand times for his admirable assistance." Now they could start the
next morning early--and so, "farewell!"

From the road they looked back. The attitude of Andreas indicated that
he was asking Skarlie how the wheel had come there. Skarlie made a
wrathful movement of the hand, as though he would like to sweep away
both the wheel and Andreas; or perhaps he was consigning them to a place
where the inhabitants of Norway are very apt to consign their least
highly-prized friends. The ladies now saw him turn his face toward them;
Roennaug promptly waved her handkerchief and cried back to him,
"Farewell!" The word was echoed through the evening air.

The two friends had not proceeded many steps before Roennaug paused to
give vent to the residue of her wrath. She poured out a stream of words,
in a half whisper. Magnhild could only distinguish a few of these words,
but those she did make out were from the vocabulary of the old days of
service on the road; they compared with Roennaug's present vocabulary as
the hippopotamus comp