CHAPTER III.
THE TREE BY THE PARENTS’ HOUSE.
THE day before “All Souls” Mariann said to the children, “Go and find the mountain-ash berries; to-morrow we shall want them for the churchyard.”
“I know where I can find them,” said Dami, with a truly avaricious joy, and ran out of the village with such haste that Amrie could scarcely overtake him. When she arrived at the parental house, he was already upon the tree, and signed proudly to her that she should also come up, because he knew that she could not. He plucked the red berries and threw them down into the apron of his sister. She prayed him to break off the stems with the berries, and she would weave a crown. “That I shall not,” he answered, and yet there came no berry down afterwards without a stem.
“Listen, how the sparrows scold,” cried Dami from the tree. “They are angry because I take their food from them.” When he had plucked them all, he said, “I will not go down again from this tree, but will stay up here day and night, till I fall down dead. I will never go down to you, Amrie, unless you promise me something.”
“What then?”
“That you will never wear the present that the Landfried gave you—never, as long—as long as I can see it.”
“No!”
“Then I will never come down.”