"Ho, you and your talk!" says Brede scornfully, and turns to Axel: "Well, I'm glad I came in time--help you back home. Not going too fast, eh?" "No." Talk to Oline, stand up and argue with Oline! Was never a man could do it but to his cost. Never in life would she give in, and never her match for turning and twisting heaven and earth to a medley of seeming kindness and malice, poison and senseless words. This to her face now: Brede making as if 'twas himself was bringing Axel home! "What I was going to say," she begins: "They gentlemen came up to Sellanraa that time; did you ever get to show them all those sacks of stone you'd got, eh, Brede?" "Axel," says Brede, "let me hoist you on my shoulders, and I'll carry you down rest of the way." "Nay," says Axel. "For all it's good of you to ask." So they go on; not far now to go. Oline must make the best of her time on the way. "Better if you'd saved him at the point of death," says she. "And how was it, Brede, you coming by and seeing him in deadly peril and heard his cry and never stopped to help?" "You hold your tongue," says Brede. And it might have been easier for her if she had, wading deep in snow and out of breath, and a heavy burden and all, but 'twas not Oline's way to hold her tongue. She'd a bit in reserve, a dainty morsel. Ho, 'twas a dangerous thing to talk of, but she dared it. "There's Barbro now," says she. "And how's it with her? Not run off and away, perhaps?" "Ay, she has," answers Brede carelessly. "And left a place for you for the winter by the same." But here was a first-rate opening for Oline again; she could let it be seen now what a personage she was; how none could manage long without Oline--Oline, that, had to be sent for near or far. She might have been two places, ay, three, for that matter. There was the parsonage--they'd have been glad to have her there, too. And here was another thing--ay, let Axel hear it too, 'twould do no harm--they'd offered her so-and-so much for the winter, not to speak of a new pair of shoes and a sheepskin into the bargain. But she knew what she was doing, coming to Maaneland, coming to a man that was lordly to give and would pay her over and above what other folk did--and so she'd come. No, 'twas no need for Brede to trouble himself that gait--when her Heavenly Father had watched over her all those years, and opened this door and that before her feet, and bidden her in. Ay, and it seemed like God Himself had known what He was doing, sending her up to Maaneland that day, to save the life of one of His creatures on earth....