"Well, and I thought 'twas you had grown rich and grand. Wasn't it you had left you old Sivert's chest and all his money in? He he he!"
Oline was not pleased, not softened at being minded of that legacy. "Ay, old Sivert, he'd a kindly thought for me, and I'll not say otherwise. But once he was dead and gone, 'twas little they left after him in worldly goods. And you know yourself how 'tis to be stripped of all, and live under other man's roof; but old Sivert he's in palaces and mansions now, and the likes of you and me are left on earth to be spurned underfoot."
"Ho, you and your talk!" says Brede scornfully, and turns to Axel: "Well, I'm glad I came in time—help you back home. Not going too fast, eh?"
"No."
Talk to Oline, stand up and argue with Oline! Was never a man could do it but to his cost. Never in life would she give in, and never her match for turning and twisting heaven and earth to a medley of seeming kindness and malice, poison and senseless words. This to her face now: Brede making as if 'twas himself was bringing Axel home!
"What I was going to say," she begins: "They gentlemen came up to Sellanraa that time; did you ever get to show them all those sacks of stone you'd got, eh, Brede?"
"Axel," says Brede, "let me hoist you on my shoulders, and I'll carry you down rest of the way."
"Nay," says Axel. "For all it's good of you to ask."
So they go on; not far now to go. Oline must make the best of her time on the way. "Better if you'd saved him at the point of death," says she. "And how was it, Brede, you coming by and seeing him in deadly peril and heard his cry and never stopped to help?"
"You hold your tongue," says Brede.