All through the summer she went about singing bits of hymns, and she taught Eleseus to say prayers; but there grew up in her an unchristian hate of all Lapps, and she spoke plainly enough to any that passed. Some one might have sent them again; like as not they had a hare in their bag as before; let them go on their way, and no more about it.
"A hare? What hare?"
"Ho, you haven't heard perhaps what Os-Anders he did that time?"
"No."
"Well, I don't care who knows it—he came up here with a hare, when I was with child."
"Dear, and that was a dreadful thing! And what happened?"
"Never you mind what happened, just get along with you, that's all. Here's a bite of food, and get along."
"You don't happen to have an odd bit of leather anywhere, I could mend my shoe with?"
"No I But I'll give you a bit of stick if you don't get out!"
Now a Lapp will beg as humbly as could be, but say no to him, and he turns bad, and threatens. A pair of Lapps with two children came past the place; the children were sent up to the house to beg, and came back and said there was no one to be seen about the place. The four of them stood there a while talking in their own tongue, then the man went up to see. He went inside, and stayed. Then his wife went up, and the children after; all of them stood inside the doorway, talking Lapp. The man puts his head in the doorway and peeps through into the room; no one there either. The clock strikes the hour, and the whole family stand listening in wonder.
Inger must have had some idea there were strangers about; she comes hurrying down the hillside, and seeing Lapps, strange Lapps into the bargain, asks them straight out what they are doing there. "What do you want in here? Couldn't you see there was no one at home?"
"H'm …" says the man.
"Get out with you," says Inger again, "and go on your way."
The Lapps move out slowly, unwillingly. "We were just listening to that clock of yours," says the man; "'tis a wonder to hear, that it is."
"You haven't a bit of bread to spare?" says his wife.
"Where do you come from?" asks Inger.
"From the water over beyond. We've been walking all night."
"And where are you going to now?"
"Across the hills."
Inger makes up some food for them; when she comes out with it, the woman starts begging again: a bit of stuff for a cap, a tuft of wool, a stump of cheese—anything. Inger has no time to waste, Isak and the children are in the hayfield. "Be off with you now," she says.
The woman tries flattery. "We saw your place up here, and the cattle—a host of them, like the stars in the sky."
"Ay, a wonder," says the man. "You haven't a pair of old shoes to give away to needy folk?"
Inger shuts the door of the house and goes back to her work on the hillside. The man called after her—she pretended not to hear, and walked on unheeding. But she heard it well enough: "You don't want to buy any hares, maybe?"
There was no mistaking what he had said. The Lapp himself might have spoken innocently enough; some one had told him, perhaps. Or he might have meant it ill. Be that as it may, Inger took it as a warning—a message of what was to come….
The days went on. The settlers were healthy folk; what was to come would come; they went about their work and waited. They lived close to each other like beasts of the forest; they slept and ate; already the year was so far advanced that they had tried the new potatoes, and found them large and floury. The blow that was to fall—why did it not come? It was late in August already, soon it would be September; were they to be spared through the winter? They lived in a constant watchfulness; every night they crept close together in their cave, thankful that the day had passed without event. And so the time went on until one day in October, when the Lensmand came up with a man and a bag. The Law stepped in through their doorway.
The investigation took some time. Inger was called up and examined privately; she denied nothing. The grave in the wood was opened, and its contents removed, the body being sent for examination. The little body—it was dressed in Eleseus' christening robe, and a cap sewn over with beads.
Isak seemed to find speech again. "Ay," said he, "it's as bad as well can be with us now. I've said before—you ought never to have done it."
"No," said Inger.
"How did you do it?"
Inger made no answer.
"That you could find it in your heart…."
"She was just the same as myself to look at. And so I took and twisted her face round."
Isak shook his head slowly.
"And then she was dead," went on Inger, beginning to cry.
Isak was silent for a while. "Well, well, 'tis too late to be crying over it now," said he.
"She had brown hair," sobbed Inger, "there at the back of her head…."
And again no more was said.
Time went on as before. Inger was not locked up; the law was merciful. Lensmand Heyerdahl asked her questions just as he might have spoken to any one, and only said, "It's a great pity such things should happen at all." Inger asked who had informed against her, but the Lensmand answered that it was no one in particular; many had spoken of the matter, and he had heard of it from several quarters. Had she not herself said something about it to some Lapps?
Inger—ay, she had told some Lapps about Os-Anders, how he came and brought a hare that summer, and gave her unborn child the hare-lip. And wasn't it Oline who had sent the hare?—The Lensmand knew nothing about that. But in any case, he could not think of putting down such ignorant superstition in his report.
"But my mother saw a hare just before I was born," said Inger….
The barn was finished; a great big place it was, with hay-stalls on both sides and a threshing-floor in the middle. The shed and the other makeshift places were emptied now, and all the hay brought into the barn; the corn was reaped, dried in stacks, and carted in. Inger took up the carrots and turnips. All their crops were in now. And everything might have been well with them—they had all they needed. Isak had started on new ground again, before the frost came, to make a bigger cornfield; Isak was a tiller of the soil. But in November Inger said one day, "She would have been six months old now, and known us all."
"'Tis no good talking of that now," said Isak.
When the winter came, Isak threshed his corn on the new threshing-floor, and Inger helped him often, with an arm as quick to the work as his own, while the children played in the haystalls at the side. It was fine plump grain. Early in the new year the roads were good, and Isak started carting down his loads of wood to the village; he had his regular customers now, and the summer-dried wood fetched a good price. One day he and Inger agreed that they should take the fine bull-calf from Goldenhorns and drive it down to Fru Geissler, with a cheese into the bargain. She was delighted, and asked how much it cost.
"Nothing,"