down
himself one night and stuck it through the door to her in the hayloft,
where she slept. 'Twas not done in any rough unmannerly way, not at
all; he had fidgeted with the door a long time so as to wake her, and
when she rose up on her elbow and asked, "What's the matter; can't you
find your way in this evening?" he understood the question was meant
for some one else, and it went through him like a needle; like a
sabre.

He walked back home--no walking-stick, no whistling. He did not care
about playing the man any longer. A stab at the heart is no light
matter.

And was that the last of it?

One Sunday he went down just to look; to peep and spy. With a sickly
and unnatural patience he lay in hiding among the bushes, staring over
at the hut. And when at last there came a sign of life and movement it
was enough to make an end of him altogether: Axel and Barbro came
out together and went across to the cowshed. They were loving and
affectionate now, ay, they had a blessed hour; they walked with their
arms round each other, and he was going to help her with the animals.
Ho, yes!

Eleseus watched the pair with a look as if he had lost all; as a
ruined man. And his thought, maybe, was like this: There she goes arm
in arm with Axel Stroem. How she could ever do it I can't think; there
was a time when she put her arms round me! And there they disappeared
into the shed.

Well, let them! Huh! Was he to lie here in the bushes and forget
himself? A nice thing for him--to lie there flat on his belly and
forget himself. Who was she, after all? But he was the man he was.
Huh! again.

He sprang to his feet and stood up. Brushed the twigs and dust from
his clothes and drew himself up and stood upright again. His rage and
desperation came out in a curious fashion now: he threw all care to
the winds, and began singing a ballad of highly frivolous import. And
there was an earnest expression on his face as he took care to sing
the worst parts loudest of all.

Chapter XIX

Isak came back from the village with a horse. Ay, it had come to that;
he had bought the horse from the Lensmand's assistant; the animal was
for sale, as Geissler had said, but it cost two hundred and forty
_Kroner_--that was sixty _Daler_. The price of horseflesh had gone up
beyond all bounds: when Isak was a boy the best horse could be bought
for fifty _Daler_.

But why had he never raised a horse himself? He had thought of it, had
imagined a nic