Now it was an unfortunate thing, that after the wedding everything in the new household seemed to go wrong.
"The young people have had their heads turned," whispered the old women, and the poor Bride looked pale and disconsolate.
"It is a wretched house to have married into," she said to her mother. "Nothing but these poor boards for furniture, no good fields or garden—all so dull and disagreeable; and then my husband—he seems always discontented. I think I was happier at home;" and she tapped her foot impatiently.
Her mother argued and remonstrated, and at last began to weep bitterly.
"You must be bewitched, Elena, to complain like this! You have everything a reasonable girl can wish for."
"Everything? Why I have nothing!" cried Elena angrily, and ran from the room; leaving Terli, who was hiding in a water-bucket, to stamp his feet with delight.
"Ha! ha! it is going on excellently," he shouted in his little cracked voice. "Once let them have the water from the Trolls' well in their eyes, they'll never be contented again!" and he upset the bucket in which he was standing over the feet of the Bride's mother, who had to run home hastily to change her wet shoes.
"This is the work of the River-Trolls, I believe," she said to herself, as she held up her soaked skirts carefully. "I'll find out all about it on St. John's Eve, if I can't do so before"—and she nodded angrily towards the mountain torrent.
Days passed, and the sad temper of the newly-married couple did not improve.
They scarcely attempted to speak to each other, and groaned so much over the hardships of their life, that all their friends became tired of trying to comfort them.