An expression of terror suddenly came over Dagmar’s face.
“You must be hungry,” she mumbled. “And I have only got a little salted herring.”
Stellan went out and blew three short sharp signals on a whistle. Then he returned.
“Don’t trouble about food,” he said. “My men will bring up all we need. But how shall we get hold of Tord?”
“Oh, he has not eaten anything today, and when he is hungry he will come and feed out of your hand.”
The men soon arrived carrying up boxes of food and wine. Dagmar excused herself for a moment and dived into a wardrobe to make herself smart.... She returned dressed in an old-fashioned, frayed red silk frock which hung round her thin body. But there still glimmered a last spark of beauty in her features.
When dinner was over she went out into the porch and hammered a broken zinc tub with a poker and shouted into the forest:
“Food, food, food!”
It sounded like the cry of an angry bird through the roaring of the wind.
Tord did not come.