One day Tord flew into a real rage. One of his dogs, a big ferocious mastiff, had caught his leg in a fox trap which the bailiff persisted in putting out in spite of Tord’s prohibition. There was a terrible scene and Tord would probably have struck the old man in his own kitchen if Dagmar had not come between them. But from that moment Tord swore inwardly that Mattson should leave Järnö. He only waited for quarter day, which was the first of December, to give him notice.
You can imagine his malicious joy when the whole first week of December had passed without Mattson bringing the rent.
The old man only stared when at last he came with his poor notes and was told that he was to leave at once.
“I have lived here forty years,” he mumbled calmly, “And I have always been accustomed to pay some time in December after I have been into town and sold my salted herrings and mutton.”
He could not realize anything so catastrophic as that he should leave Järnö.
Tord stood there grey in the face shaking the lease in his hand. “Now I suppose I shall see something else than that damned calm in your eyes,” he thought.
“You have not paid in due time, and now you have got to clear out. Järnö is mine, you see, and I don’t want you here any longer.”
Mattson only shook his head. He went home with a very thoughtful expression, and the same day he hauled up the sail of his big boat to go into town to speak to the storekeeper and to people versed in law, in order to find out the rights of the matter. But his wife came up to Dagmar crying. And Dagmar begged for her and scolded Tord and said that he was disgusting, but it was no use. And then she cried too, because she was afraid of the loneliness, when she would be the only woman on the island. But Tord rushed out and stalked about alone the whole of the cold winter day with his lame dog and would not be mollified.
Mattson returned from his journey with a gloomy face, and offered to compromise by a payment of damages. Yes, he would even try to pay a higher rent. But Tord only shouted that he wanted to be left in peace.
The following day Mattson came again, and this time he was humble and alarmed, and begged as if for his life. And now it was a joy for Tord to look into his eyes. Yes, he had a great and lovely revenge on all the prudence and calmness of the world. He escaped with a cruel feeling of pleasure from the idler’s secret feeling of inferiority.