n again, and Isak went in to Inger: "We'll have rain
this night, God willing."

"Is it looking that way?"

"Ay. And the horse is shivering a bit, like they will."

Inger glanced towards the door and said, "Ay, you see, 'twill come
right enough."

A few drops fell. Hours passed, they had their supper, and when Isak
went out in the night to look, the sky was blue.

"Well, well," said Inger; "anyway, 'twill give the last bit of lichen
another day to dry," said she to comfort him all she could.

Isak had been getting lichen, as much as he could, and had a fine lot,
all of the best. It was good fodder, and he treated it as he would
hay, covering it over with bark in the woods. There was only a
little still left out, and now, when Inger spoke of it, he answered
despairingly, as if it were all one, "I'll not take it in if it is
dry."

"Isak, you don't mean it!" said Inger.

And next day, sure enough, he did not take it in. He left it out and
never touched it, just as he had said. Let it stay where it was,
there'd be no rain anyway; let it stay where it was in God's name!
He could take it in some time before Christmas, if so be as the sun
hadn't burnt it all up to nothing.

Isak was deeply and thoroughly offended. It was no longer a pleasure
and a delight to sit outside on the door-slab and look out over his
lands and be the owner of it all. There was the potato field flowering
madly, and drying up; let the lichen stay where it was--what did he
care? That Isak! Who could say; perhaps he had a bit of a sly little
thought in his mind for all his stolid simpleness; maybe he knew what
he was doing after all, trying to tempt the blue sky now, at the
change of the moon.

That evening it looked like rain once more. "You ought to have got
that lichen in," said Inger.

"What for?" said Isak, looking all surprised.

"Ay, you with your nonsense--but it might be rain after all."

"There'll be no rain this year, you can see for yourself."

But for all that, it grew curiously dark in the night. They could see
through the glass window that it was darker--ay, and as if something
beat against the panes, something wet, whatever it might be. Inger
woke up. "'Tis rain! look at the window-panes."

But Isak only sniffed. "Rain?--not a bit of it. Don't know what you're
talking about."

"Ah, it's no good pretending," said Inger.

Isak was pretending--ay, that was it. Rain it was, sure enough, and a
good heavy shower--but as soon