Olof rose and followed his brother to the door, watching him as he strode along, with head bowed forward a little and arms swinging briskly at his sides.
"Each works best in his own way," he said to himself, smiling affectionately at the thought. "And maybe his way's like to be better for Koskela than they ever thought."
* * * * *
Olof turned off from the main road down a little forest track; he carried an axe on his shoulder.
An autumn morning, solemn and still. The night had been cold, the morning air was so fresh and light it almost lifted one from the ground—it seemed almost superfluous to tread at all.
A strange feeling had come upon Olof as he started out. Between the hedge-stakes on either side of the road hung bridges of the spider's work—netted and plaited and woven with marvellous art, and here and there a perfect web, the spider's masterpiece, hung like a wheel of tiny threads. Then as the sun came up, thread and cable caught its rays, till the road seemed lined with long festoons of silver, and decked at intervals with silver shields.
In the forest, too, it was the same—the path lined with silver hangings on either side, and webs of silver here and there along the way.
"Spiders bring luck, so they say," thought Olof.
"Well, at any rate, they're showing me the road this morning."
And he strode on briskly, eager to begin.