"Then one day it chanced that the peasant's wife was going out to the fair at harvest-time, and walking there among the booths she met the troll from her home. And she forgot herself, and passed the time of day with him. 'Good-day to you, gaffer,' she said, shaking hands with him; 'that's a fine piece of cloth you've bought there.'
"'Ay,' said the troll, 'and cheap too. There were two peasants quarrelling about the piece, and while they fought, I took up the parcel and made off.'
"After that they stood a bit talking easily together, but then suddenly the troll said: 'But how is this, old lady—how is it you can see me at all?'
"'Why, it's this way,' said she, 'I got a drop of water in my eye last time I came to your place, and ever since I can see you, whether you like it or not.'
"'Well, now, to be sure. And which eye was it, then?'
"'In the left,'" said the woman. And quick as light he raised his hand and struck out her left eye. Took the eye clean out, never leaving a bit of it. And after that she could never all her life see anything out of ordinary.
"And that was what Pastor did to me the first time we met," said Lotta in a high, shrill voice. "Pastor struck out my eye with the gift of sight out of my face, and ever since, my life's been all confusion. I can see, but only darkly; I can hear, but indistinctly, and I get no further, and find no one to listen to me. I'm poor and homeless, and I shall never be more than a poor working girl."
The Pastor sat quietly listening, and when Lotta stopped a moment for breath, he said, without a trace of anger:
"Go on with what you have to say, Lotta. I am sure you did not come to me to-day only to speak of these old things."
"No," said Lotta, "but I want Pastor to remember that, because I have wronged you greatly afterward, in my turn. It may be well now and then to know that there are old debts owing, so one can ask for payment. And I have great need of mercy and forgiveness, as you will see."