Isak got up to leave the room. But Oline had opened her heart now,
unlocked the store of blackness within; ay, she gave out rays of
darkness, did Oline. Thank Heaven, none of her children had their
faces slit like a fire-breathing dragon, so to speak; but they were
none the worse for that, maybe. No, 'twasn't every one was so quick
and handy at getting rid of the young they bore--strangling them in a
twinkling....

"Mind what you're saying," shouted Isak. And to make his meaning
perfectly clear, he added: "You cursed old hag!"

But Oline was not going to mind what she was saying; not in the least,
he he! She turned up her eyes to heaven and hinted that a hare-lip
might be this or that, but some folk seemed to carry it too far, he
he!

Isak may well have been glad to get safely out of the house at last.
And what could he do but get Oline the shoes? A tiller of earth in the
wilds; no longer even something of a god, that he could say to his
servant, "Go!" He was helpless without Oline; whatever she did or
said, she had nothing to fear, and she knew it.

The nights are colder now, with a full moon; the marshlands harden
till they can almost bear, but thawing again when the sun comes out,
to an impassable swamp once more. Isak goes down to the village one
cold night, to order shoes for Oline. He takes a couple of cheeses
with him, for Fru Geissler.

Half-way down to the village a new settler has appeared. A well-to-do