bending her head forward. Three children--their
small feet in clumsy shoes with big nails in them--stamped along in
front of their mother, whilst a fourth was clinging to her skirt. It
had also been looking for cranberries, and its little hands were
coloured red like those of its older sister and brothers, who were
carrying pails, measure and comb.

Pretty children, all four of them. They had the same dark eyes as
little Jean-Pierre, and they stared with them half boldly, half timidly
at the strange lady who was smiling at them.

The woman did not recognise the lady and gentleman again who had
given her a present in the Venn the day before--or did she only pretend
not to?

The rope which had kept the bundle together had cut deep into her
shoulders and bosom, now she undid it and threw off the burden with a
powerful jerk; and then, seizing hold of the axe lying near the
chopping-block, she began to chop up a couple of big branches with
powerful strokes.

"Hallo, Lisa," said the vestryman, "when you have chopped sufficient
wood to cook the cranberries, just wait a bit."

She looked up at him for a moment. The strange lady and gentleman
had gone a little aside--without previous arrangement. Let the
vestryman tell her first. It was not so simple a matter as they had
imagined. She was not very approachable.

Not a feature changed in the woman's reserved face; she went on with
her work in silence, her lips compressed. The wood was split up by
means of her powerful blows, and the pieces flew around her. Was she
listening at all to what the man was saying to her?

Yes--the spectators exchanged a hasty glance--and now she was
answering too in a more lively manner than they would have supposed,
judging from her sullen appearance.

Lisa Solheid raised her arm and pointed to the cottage in which the
little one was still screaming. Her speech--an almost barbaric
dialect--sounded rough, they understood nothing of it except a French
word here and there. The vestryman spoke Walloon too. Both of them
became excited, raised their voices and spoke to each other in a
loud voice; it sounded almost like quarrelling.

They did not seem to agree. Kate listened in suppressed terror.
Would she give it? Would he get it from her?

She pulled her husband's sleeve when nobody was looking. "Offer
more, give her some more, a hundred thalers is much too little." And he
must also promise the peasant something for his trouble. A hundred, two