throwing leaves down on him; he had caught them and tossed them back
again, so they had gone up and down in a thousand colors and forms; the
sun was shining, and the whole cliff glittered beneath its rays. On
awaking Oyvind looked around to find them all gone; then he remembered
the day before, and the burning, cruel pain in his heart began at once.
"This, I shall never be rid of again," thought he; and there came over
him a feeling of indifference, as though his whole future had dropped
away from him.

"Why, you have slept a long time," said his mother, who sat beside him
spinning. "Get up now and eat your breakfast; your father is already
in the forest cutting wood."

Her voice seemed to help him; he rose with a little more courage. His
mother was no doubt thinking of her own dancing days, for she sat
singing to the sound of the spinning-wheel, while he dressed himself
and ate his breakfast. Her humming finally made him rise from the
table and go to the window; the same dullness and depression he had
felt before took possession of him now, and he was forced to rouse
himself, and think of work. The weather had changed, there had come a
little frost into the air, so that what yesterday had threatened to
fall in rain, to-day came down as sleet. Oyvind put on his snow-socks,
a fur cap, his sailor's jacket and mittens, said farewell, and started
off, with his axe on his shoulder.

Snow fell slowly, in great, wet flakes; he toiled up over the coasting
hill, in order to turn into the forest on the left. Never before,
winter or summer, had he climbed this hill without recalling something
that made him happy, or to which he was looking forward. Now it was a
dull, weary walk. He slipped in the damp snow, his knees were stiff,