k the ice round the seagulls and wild
ducks, which were frozen in the lake, and then carry them home under
his snow-covered cape. He would put them on the peat beside the
fireplace, where for days they stood on one leg gazing sickly into
the embers, until Soerine at last took them into the kitchen and
wrung their necks.

In spite of there being a fire day and night, the cold was felt
intensely in the Crow's Nest; it was impossible to heat the room.
Soerine, with the bread-knife, stuffed old rags into the cracks in
the wall; but one day when doing this, a big piece of the wall
collapsed. She filled up the hole with the eiderdown, and when Lars
Peter came home at night, he patched it up and nailed planks across
to keep it in place. The roof was not up too much either; the rats
and house-martens had worked havoc in it, so that it was like a
sieve, and the snow drifted into the loft. It was all bad.

Every day Soerine tried to rouse Lars Peter to do something.

But what could he do? "I can't work harder than I do, and steal I
won't," said he.

"What do the others do, who live in a pretty and comfortable house?"

Yes, how did other people manage? Lars Peter could not imagine. He
had never envied any one, nor drawn comparisons, so had never faced
the question before.

"You toil and toil, but never get any further, that I can see,"
Soerine continued.

"Do you really mean that?" Lars Peter looked at her with surprise
and sorrow.

"Yes, I do. What have you done? Aren't we just where we started?"

Lars Peter bent his head on hearing her hard words. But it was all
quite true; except for strict necessities, they had never money to
spare.

"There's so much wanted, and everything's so dear," said he
excusingly. "There's no trade either! We must just have patience,
till it comes round again."

"You with your patience and patience--maybe we can live on your
being patient and content? D'you know why folk call this the Crow's
Nest? Because nothing thrives for us, they say."

Lars Peter took his big hat from the nail behind the door and went
out. He was depressed, and sought comfort with the animals; they and
the children he understood, but grown-up people he could not. After
all, there must be something lacking in him, since all thought him a
peculiar fellow, just because he was happy and patient.

As soon as he had left the kitchen, the nag recognized his footstep,
and welcomed him with a whinny. He went into the stall