and
feathers in her hat, maybe?"

"Ay, that may be."

"Ay," said Oline; "and she can thank me a little for all the way she's
grown so fine and grand."

"You?" asked Isak. It slipped out.

Oline answered humbly: "Ay, since 'twas my modest doing that she ever
went away."

Isak was speechless at that; all his words were checked, he sat there
staring. Had he heard aright? Oline sat there looking as if she had
said nothing. No, in a battle of words Isak was altogether lost.

He swung out of the house, full of dark thoughts. Oline, that beast
that throve in wickedness and grew fat on it--why had he not wrung her
neck the first year? So he thought, trying to pull himself together.
He could have done it--he? Couldn't he, though! No one better.

And then a ridiculous thing happened. Isak went into the shed and
counted the goats. There they are with their kids, the full number.
He counts the cows, the pig, fourteen hens, two calves. "I'd all but
forgotten the sheep," he says to himself; he counts the sheep, and
pretends to be all anxiety lest there should be any missing there.
Isak knows very well that there is a sheep missing; he has known that
a long time; why should he let it appear otherwise? It was this way.
Oline had tricked him nicely once before, saying one of the goats was
gone, though all the goats were there as they should be; he had made a
great fuss about it at the time, but to no purpose. It was always the
same when he came into conflict with Oline. Then, in the autumn, at
slaughtering time, he had seen at once that there was one ewe short,
but he had not found courage to call her to account for it at the
time. And he had not found that courage since.

But today he is stern; Isak is stern. Oline has made him thoroughly
angry this time. He counts the sheep over again, putting his
forefinger on each and counting aloud--Oline may hear it if she likes,
if she should happen to be outside. And he says many hard things about
Oline--says them out loud; how that she uses a new method of her own
in feeding sheep, a method that simply makes them vanish--here's a ewe
simply vanished. She is a thieving baggage, nothing less, and she may
know it! Oh, he would just have liked Oline to be standing outside and
hear it, and be thoroughly frightened for once.

He strides out from the shed, goes to the stable and counts the horse;
from there he will go in--will go into the house and speak his mind.
He walks so fast that his