harm....

He took a step forward again, but it was only a little one, and, to
tell the truth, he stepped back again immediately. The vision would
not give way. Isak knitted his brows, as if beginning to suspect
something. If it were the Evil One, why, let it be; the Evil One was
not all-powerful--there was Luther, for instance, who had nearly
killed the fiend himself, not to speak of many who had put him to
flight by the sign of the cross and Jesu name. Not that Isak meant
to defy the peril before him; it was not in his mind to sit down and
laugh in its face, but he certainly gave up his first idea of dying
and the next world. He took two steps forward straight at the vision,
crossed himself, and cried out: "In Jesu name!"

H'm. At the sound of his own voice he came, as it were, to himself
again, and saw Sellanraa over on the hillside once more. The two eyes
in the air had gone.

He lost no time in getting home, and took no steps to challenge the
spectre further. But when he found himself once more safely on his own
door-slab, he cleared his throat with a sense of power and security;
he walked into the house with lofty mien, like a man--ay, a man of the
world.

Inger started at the sight of him, and asked what made him so pale.

And at that he did not deny having met the Evil One himself.

"Where?" she asked.

"Over there. Right up towards our place."

Inger evinced no jealousy on her part. She did not praise him for it,
true, but there was nothing in her manner suggestive of a hard word
or a contemptuous kick. Inger herself, you see, had grown somewhat
lighter of heart and kindlier of late, whatever the cause; and now she
merely asked:

"The Evil One himself?"

Isak nodded: as far as he could see it was himself and no other.

"And how did you get rid of him?"

"I went for him in Jesu name," said Isak.

Inger wagged her head, altogether overwhelmed, and it was some time
before she could get his supper on the table.

"Anyhow," said she at last, "we'll have no more of you going out alone
in the woods by yourself."

She was anxious about him--and it did him good to know it. He made out
to be as bold as ever, and altogether careless whether he went alone
or in company; but this was only to quiet Inger's mind, not to
frighten her more than necessary with the awful thing that had
happened to himself. It was his place to protect her and them all; he
was the Man, the Leader.

But Inger saw through it also