d you be with mine? And
when I think how you sent that hare for nothing else but to ruin me
altogether--oh, you're no better than a heap of wickedness!"

"Am I?" says Oline. "Is it me you mean?"

"Yes, 'tis you I mean," says Inger, crying; "you've been a wicked
wretch, you have, and I'll not trust you. And you'd steal all the
wool, too, if you did come. And all the cheeses that'd go to your
people instead of mine...."

"Oh, you wicked creature to think of such a thing!" answers Oline.

Inger cries, and wipes her eyes, saying a word or so between. Oline
does not try to force her. If Inger does not care about the idea, 'tis
all the same to her. She can go and stay with her son Nils, as she has
always done. But now that Inger is to be sent away to prison, it will
be a hard time for Isak and the innocent children; Oline could stay
on the place and give an eye to things. "You can think it over," says
Oline.

Inger has lost the day. She cries and shakes her head and looks down.
She goes out as if walking in her sleep, and makes up a parcel of food
for Oline to take with her. "'Tis more than's worth your while," says
Oline.

"You can't go all that way without a bite to eat," says Inger.

When Oline has gone, Inger steals out, looks round, and listens. No,
no sound from the quarry. She goes nearer, and hears the children
playing with little stones. Isak is sitting down, holding the crowbar
between his knees, and resting on it like a staff. There he sits.

Inger steals away into the edge of the wood. There was a spot where
she had set a little cross in the ground; the cross is thrown down
now, and where it stood the turf has been lifted, and the ground
turned over. She stoops down and pats the earth together again with
her hands. And there she sits.

She had come out of curiosity, to see how far the little grave had
been disturbed by Oline; she stays there now because the cattle have
not yet come in for the night. Sits there crying, shaking her head,
and looking down.

Chapter VII

And the days pass.

A blessed time for the soil, with sun and showers of rain; the crops
are looking well. The haymaking is nearly over now, and they have got
in a grand lot of hay; almost more than they can find room for. Some
is stowed away under overhanging rocks, in the stable, under the
flooring of the house itself; the shed at the side is emptied of
everything to make room for more hay. Inger herself works early and
late