Several times she had a view of the landscape first seen, but the country seemed as uninhabited as before. At last, however, she sighted a farmhouse just below. The house itself was fairly large, as if belonging to a rich estate, but all the outbuildings were small and mean, little better than any peasant's dwelling might possess.
She roused the sick man anew.
"Are we there now?"
"Yes," he answered, shaking off his drowsiness. "We're at Hånger now. I never thought to come seeking shelter here again."
Sigrun gave a cry. "Hånger!" For a moment she felt like a shipwrecked soul, with the waves already closing over her. "Hånger—that was where you said Sven Elversson ..."
"Ay," said the man. "And I'd never have come here by choice, but there's no help for it now."
"But—if he asked about his wife?"
"Why, I'll have to find something or other to say."
"That he should live here, of all places in the world," said Sigrun despairingly.
"He took the place because it's lonely like, and far away from folk. Ordinary people never come this way, but all sorts of tramps and vagabonds and poor folk, they go to him."