to church, the priest in
his dress with a silver cross, and the lights and the organ music.
After a long while Jensine says: "'Tis a shameful thing about Barbro
and all."

"What did your mother mean about you coming home soon?" asked Sivert.

"What she meant?"

"Ay. You thinking of leaving us, then?"

"Why, they'll be wanting me home some time, I doubt," says she.

"_Ptro_!" says Sivert, stopping his horse. "Like me to drive back with
you now, perhaps?"

Jensine looks at him; he is pale as death.

"No," says she. And a little after she begins to cry.

Rebecca looks in surprise from one to the other. Oh, but little
Rebecca was a good one to have on a journey like that; she took
Jensine's part and patted her and made her smile again. And when
little Rebecca looked threateningly at her brother and said she was
going to jump down and find a big stick to beat him, Sivert had to
smile too.

"But what did _you_ mean, now, I'd like to know?" says Jensine.

Sivert answered straight out at once: "I meant, if you don't care to
stay with us, why, we must manage without."

And a long while after, said Jensine: "Well, there's Leopoldine, she's
big now, and fit and all to do my work, seems."

Ay, 'twas a sorrowful journey.

Chapter VII

A man walks up the way through the hills. Wind and rain; the autumn
downpour has begun, but the man cares little for that, he looks glad
at heart, and glad he is. 'Tis Axel Stroem, coming back from the
town and the court and all--they have let him go free. Ay, a happy
man--first of all, there's a mowing-machine and a harrow for him down
at the quay, and more than that, he's free, and not guilty. Had taken
no part in the killing of a child. Ay, so things can turn out!

But the times he had been through! Standing there as a witness, this
toiler in the fields had known the hardest days of his life. 'Twas no
gain to him to make Barbro's guilt seem greater, and for that reason
he was careful not to say too much, he did not even say all he knew;
every word had to be dragged out of him, and he answered mostly with
but "Yes" and "No." Was it not enough? Was he to make more of it than
there was already? Oh, but there were times when it looked serious
indeed; there were the men of Law, black-robed and dangerous, easy
enough for them, it seemed, just with a word or so, to turn the whole
thing as they pleased, and have him sentenced. But they were kindly
folk after all, and did not try