"Don't scream so! You have changed very much."
"It's you, not I, that have changed. Why don't you give me an answer?"
"Because I have none to give. Last night Cushion-Kate was not at home. Early this morning she came back, and lit a fire for the first time in many days. She must have been at the grave yesterday, for the pastor found her red kerchief there, and sent it to her. Since then she has disappeared again; and her goat cries terribly, for it has had no fodder. The poor animal----"
"What do I care for the goat! I don't know how it is--either everybody is crazy or I am crazy myself. Is this my forest? Are those my fields? To whom do these horses and this wagon belong? Say, am I crazy?"
"If you go on in this way, you'll make both me and yourself so. For God's sake, don't torment us both! What do you want with Cushion-Kate just now?"
His wife had scarcely uttered these words, when Cushion-Kate rushed out of the forest, and grasped the horse's reins.
"Let go!" cried Peter. "Let go! or I'll drive over you."
"Hold still!" said Landolin. "Kate! I mean well by you."
"But I don't mean well by you. They didn't cut off your head. They didn't hang you. You shall hang yourself. There is your forest, with thousands and thousands of trees. They all wait for you to hang yourself on them."
"Oh, Kate! come here to me," besought his wife. But Kate continued to pour terrible execrations.