ut she did not at
all wish to marry him.

Every day she went over the heather field and saw the log cabin
grow, miserable and without windows, with the sunlight filtering in
through the leaky walls.

Toenne's work progressed very quickly, but not with care. His
timbers were not bent square, the lark was scarcely taken off. He
laid the floor with split young trees. It was uneven and shaky. The
heather, which grew and blossomed under it,--for at year had passed
since the day when Toenne had lain aleep behind King Atle's pile,--
pushed up bold red clusters through the cracks, and ants without
number wandered out and in, inspecting the fragile work of man.

Wherever Jofrid went during those days, the thought never left her
that a house was being built for her there. A home was being
prepared for her upon the heath. And she knew that if she did not
enter there as mistress, the bear and the fox would make it their
home. For she knew Toenne well enough to understand that if he found
he had worked in vain, he would never move into the new house. He
would weep, poor man, when he heard that she would not live there.
It would be a new sorrow for him, as deep as when his mother died.
But he had himself to blame, because he had not asked her in time.

She thought that she gave him a sufficient hint in not helping him
with the house. She often felt impelled to do so. Every time she
saw any soft, white moss, she wanted to pick it to fill in the
leaky walls. She longed, too, to help Toenne to build the chimney.
As he was making it, all the smoke would gather in the house. But
it did not matter how it was. No food would ever be cooked there,
no ale brewed. Still it was odious that the house would never leave
her thoughts.

Toenne worked, glowing with eagerness, certain that Jofrid would
understand his meaning, if only the house were ready. He did not
wonder much about her; he had enough to do to hew and shape. The
days went quickly for him.

One afternoon, when Jofrid came over the moor, she saw that there
was a door in the cottage and a slab of stone for a threshold. Then
she understood that everything must now be ready, and she was much
agitated. Toenne had covered the roof with tufts of flowering
heather, and she was seized by an intense longing to enter under
that red roof. He was not at the new house and she decided to go
in. The house was built for her. It was her home. It was not
possible to resist the desire to see it.