a wild devil, with much that was good in him. If any one differed
from him, he knocked him down; but he always helped those who got
into trouble. In this way no one ever left house and home; and as
he had the family fondness for adding to the farm, he bought land
up among the rocks and heather. But he wisely let it lie as it was.
He attached many to the farm by his assistance, and made them so
dependent that they never became free again. His tenants had to
leave their own work when he sent for them, and he was never at
a loss for cheap labor. The food he provided was scarcely fit for
human beings, but he always ate of the same dish himself. And the
priest was with him at the last; so there was no fault to find with
his departure from this life.

He had married twice, but his only child was a daughter by the
second wife, and there was something not quite right about her.
She was a woman at the age of eleven, and made up to any one she
met; but no one dared so much as look at her, for they were afraid
of the farmer's gun. Later on she went to the other extreme, and
dressed herself up like a man, and went about out on the rocks
instead of busying herself with something at home; and she let
no one come near her.

Kongstrup, the present master of Stone Farm, had come to the island
about twenty years before, and even now no one could quite make him
out. When he first came he used to wander about on the heath and do
nothing, just as she did; so it was hardly to be wondered at that
he got into trouble and had to marry her. But it was dreadful!

He was a queer fellow; but perhaps that was what people were like
where he came from? He first had one idea and then another, raised