Larsson the elder now considered the opportunity at hand to give the bitter contest a more amicable turn. He stepped up to old Bertila, leading by the hands the two newly married pairs, and said:
"Dear old friend, let us not meddle in the Lord's business. Your boy and mine are a couple of great rascals, that is granted; but are they to blame that our Lord created one of them of fire and the other of water? Bertel is like a flame—burning hot, ambitious, high-reaching, brilliant, ephemeral, and I will bet anything that his little wife is of the same sort. My boy, here, is of the purest water."
"Stop!" cried the captain. "Water has never been my weak side!"
"Hold your tongue! My boy is the clear water ... flowing and unstable, contentedly keeping itself to the ground, and created especially to put out the other youngster's poetical blaze with its prosaic philosophy. As for his wife, she is of the same stuff. Do you not see, Bertila, that our Lord has intended the boys for friends? ... the fire to warm the water, and the water to quench the fire ... and you would make them enemies by taking from one and giving to the other. No, Bertila, do not do it, this is my advice; give your son what belongs to him; my son will not starve for want of it."
Bertila remained silent for a moment. Then he said vehemently:
"Do not teach me the meaning of the Lord. Can you believe that he, the fresh-baked nobleman, whom you compare with the fire, could be induced to give away the ring and take the axe in its place?"
"Never!" excitedly exclaimed Bertel.
Meri seized his hand, and looked beseechingly at him.
"Give away the ring," she said. "You know some of its dangers, but there is still one which I, from anguish, have not mentioned. All who wear this ring will die a violent death."
"What then!" exclaimed Bertel. "The death of the soldier on the battlefield is grand, and full of honour. I do not ask a better one."