The ax? Oline digs down and down in the snow, and finds no ax. Manage without, then—and she strains at the tree to lift it where it lies, but with no more strength than a child; she can but shake the branches here and there. Tries for the ax again—it is all dark, but she digs with hands and feet. Axel cannot move a hand to point, only tell where it lay before, but 'tis not there now. "If it hadn't been so far to Sellanraa," says Axel.
Then Oline falls to searching her own ways, and Axel calls to her that there's no ax there. "Ay, well," says Oline, "I was but looking a bit. And what's this, maybe?" says she.
"You've found it?" says he.
"Ay, by the grace of the Lord Almighty," answers Oline, with high-sounding words.
But there's little pride in Axel now, no more than he'll give in that he was wrong after all, and maybe not all clear in his head. And what's he to do with the ax now 'tis there? He cannot stir, and Oline has to cut him free herself. Oh, Oline has wielded an ax before that day; had axed off many a load of firing in her life.
Axel cannot walk, one leg is dead to the hip, and something wrong with his back; shooting pains that make him groan curiously—ay, he feels but a part of himself, as if something were left behind there under the tree. "Don't know," says he—"don't know what it can be…." But Oline knows, and tells him now with solemn words; ay, for she has saved a human creature from death, and she knows it; 'tis the Almighty has seen fit to lay on her this charge, where He might have sent legions of angels. Let Axel consider the grace and infinite wisdom of the Almighty even in this! And if so be as it had been His pleasure to send a worm out of the earth instead, all things were possible to Him.
"Ay, I know," said Axel. "But I can't make out how 'tis with me—feels strange…."
Feels strange, does it? Oh, but only wait, wait just a little. 'Twas but to move and stretch the least bit at a time, till the life came back. And get his jacket on and get warm again. But never in all her days would she forget how the Angel of the Lord had called her out to the doorway that last time, that she might hear a voice—the voice of one crying in the forest. Ay, 'twas as in the days of Paradise, when trumpets blew and compassed round the walls of Jericho….
Ay, strange. But while she talked, Axel was taking his time, learning the use of his limbs again, getting to walk.
They get along slowly towards home, Oline still playing saviour and supporting him. They manage somehow. A little farther down they come upon Brede. "What's here?" says Brede. "Hurt yourself? Let me help a bit."