“Ta’ mej fan if she will!” cried Black Eric, suddenly straightening his shoulders and throwing back his head. “It’s a good thing I came back just in time. What are you, a parcel of weaklings, to let her bring you bad luck with her curses?”
“She has done no harm,” ventured Olga, but her words sounded feeble.
“Done no harm!” shrieked Black Eric, cracking his whip. “There was the time when the spring was well on the way. The grain was already up from the ground. The wheat was doing bravely, and the rye was a foot tall. She hadn’t been seen for some time——”
“You’d been gone, then, too, I remember,” accused Olga. “You’d been gone, and we hadn’t seen her, and when you returned she——”
“That’s nothing to do with it!” he snapped. “She appeared, and cursed us——”
“She cursed you, you mean.” Olga hid behind her husband, peering out at Black Eric with hate in her eyes. “She has never troubled us——”
“The bad luck fell upon all alike, didn’t it? With the grain as green as could be, and no crows to speak of. Everything pointed to a good summer. And what happened, I ask you?” His tones rang out clearly now, swept over them with hypnotic spell.
“Come, Sven, before he gets us in his power,” she whispered.
“The rains came down and washed it all away. We had to sow the second time, and then it was too late, and we lost everything, even the seed. And the rains washed away much of our land, dragged it into the ravines——”
“That is true!” sighed the old man, looking even older and more wrinkled.