"He sends to me and doesn't stay in the place where I can find him; now if I go up that way, why should he expect me to come by the foot-path? That has doubtless occurred to him now, and he'll be going some other way--so that I shall never find him, and we shall be wandering about each other as in a fog." Barefoot sat down quietly on the stump of a tree. There was a fire within her as within the kiln, only the flames could not leap forth--the fire could merely smolder within. The birds were singing, the forest rustling--but what is all that when there is no clear, responsive note in the heart? Barefoot now remembered, as in a dream, how she had once cherished thoughts of love. What right had she to let such thoughts rise within her? Had she not misery enough in herself and in her brother? And this thought of love seemed to her now like the remembrance, in winter, of a bright summer's day. One merely remembers how sunny and warm it was--but that is all. Now she had to learn what it meant to "wait,"--to "wait" high up on a crag, where there is hardly a palm's breadth of room. And he who knows what it means, feels all his old misery--and more. She went into the charcoal-burner's log cabin, and there lay a cloth sack, hardly half full, and on the sack was her father's name. "Oh, how you have been dragged about!" she said, almost aloud. But she soon got over her excitement in her curiosity to see what Damie had brought back. "He must at least still have the shirts that I made for him out of Black Marianne's linen. And perhaps there is also a present from our uncle in America in it. But if he had anything good, would he have gone first to Coaly Mathew in the forest? Would he not have shown himself in the village at once?" Barefoot had plenty of time to indulge in these reflections; for the sack had been tied with a cord, which had been knotted in a most complicated way, and it required all her patience and skill to disentangle it. She emptied out everything that was in the sack and said with angry eyes: "Oh, you good-for-nothing! There's not a decent shirt left! Now you may have your choice whether you'll be called 'Jack in Tatters' or 'Tattered Jack.'" This was not a happy frame of mind in which to greet her brother for the first time. And Damie seemed to realize this; for he stood at the entrance of the log cabin and looked on, until Barefoot had put everything back into the sack. Then he stepped up to her and said: "God greet you, Amrei! I bring you nothing but dirty clothes, but you are neat, and will make me--" "Oh, dear Damie, how you look!" cried Barefoot, and she threw herself on his neck. But she quickly tore herself away from him, exclaiming: "For Heaven's sake! You smell of whisky! Have you got so far already?" "No, Coaly Mathew only gave me a little juniper spirit, for I could not stand up any longer. Things have gone badly with me, but I have not taken to drink--you may believe that, though, to be sure, I can't prove it."