, and said: "Oh, I know you don't want to
frighten me. But you must take Sivert with you all the same."

Isak only sniffed.

"You might be taken poorly of a sudden, taken ill out in the
woods--you've not been over well lately."

Isak sniffed again. Ill? Tired, perhaps, and worn out a bit, but ill?
No need for Inger to start worrying and making a fool of him; he was
sound and well enough; ate, slept, and worked; his health was simply
terrific, it was incurable! Once, felling a tree, the thing had come
down on top of him, and broken his ear; but he made light of it. He
set the ear in place again, and kept it there by wearing his cap
drawn over it night and day, and it grew together again that way. For
internal complaints, he dosed himself with _treak_ boiled in milk to
make him sweat--liquorice it was, bought at the store, an old and
tried remedy, the _Teriak_ of the ancients. If he chanced to cut his
hand, he treated the wound with an ever-present fluid containing
salts, and it healed up in a few days. No doctor was ever Sent for to
Sellanraa.

No, Isak was not ill. A meeting with the Evil One might happen even
to the healthiest man. And he felt none the worse for his adventure
afterwards; on the contrary, it seemed to have strengthened him. And
as the winter drew on, and it was not such a dreadful time to wait
till the spring, he, the Man and the Leader, began to feel himself
almost a hero: he understood these things; only trust to him and
all would be well. In case of need, he could exorcise the Evil One
himself!

Altogether, the days were longer and lighter now; Easter was past,
Isak had hauled up all his timber, everything looked bright, human
beings could breathe again after another winter gone.

Inger was again the first to brighten up; she had been more cheerful
now for a long time. What could it be? Ho, 'twas for a very simple
reason; Inger was heavy again; expecting a child again. Everything
worked out easily in her life, no hitch anywhere. But what a mercy,
after the way she had sinned! it was more than she had any right
to expect. Ay, she was fortunate, fortunate. Isak himself actually
noticed something one day, and asked her straight out: "Looks to me as
if you're on the way again; what do you say yourself?"

"Ay, Lord be thanked, 'tis surely so," she answered.

They were both equally astonished. Not that Inger was past the age,
of course; to Isak's mind, she was not too old in any way. But still,