For so is man, too weak to meet sorrow in all its bitterness! The pensioners honestly mourned for their friend, who was going away to die,—that withered lily, that mortally wounded singing swan; yet the oppression of their hearts was relieved when they saw him depart riding on the big ox’s back, while his fat body was shaken with sobs, his arms, outspread for the last embrace, sank down in despair, and his eyes sought sympathy in an unkind heaven. Out on the highway the mists began to clear for Patron Julius, and he perceived that he was sitting on the shaking back of an animal. And then people say that he began to ponder on what can happen in seventeen long years. Old Kajsa was visibly changed. Could the oats and clover of Ekeby cause so much? And he cried—I do not know if the stones in the road or the birds in the bushes heard it, but true it is that he cried—“The devil may torture me, if you have not got horns, Kajsa!” After another period of consideration he let himself slide gently down from the back of the ox, climbed up into the wagon, sat down on the luncheon-box, and drove on, deep in his thoughts. After a while, when he has almost reached Broby, he hears singing. It was the merry young ladies from Berga, and some of the judge’s pretty daughters, who were walking along the road. They had fastened their lunch-baskets on long sticks, which rested on their shoulders like guns, and they were marching bravely on in the summer’s heat, singing in good time. “Whither away, Patron Julius?” they cried, when they met him, without noticing the cloud of grief which obscured his brow. “I am departing from the home of sin and vanity,” answered Patron Julius. “I will dwell no longer among idlers and malefactors. I am going home to my mother.” “Oh,” they cried, “it is not true; you do not want to leave Ekeby, Patron Julius!” “Yes,” he said, and struck his wooden chest with his fist. “As Lot fled from Sodom and Gomorrah, so do I flee from Ekeby. There is not a righteous man there. But when the earth crumbles away under them, and the sulphur rain patters down from the sky, I shall rejoice in God’s just judgment. Farewell, girls; beware of Ekeby!” Whereupon he wished to continue on his way; but that was not at all their plan. They meant to walk up to Dunder Cliff, to climb it; but the road was long, and they felt inclined to ride in Julius’ wagon to the foot of the mountain. Inside of two minutes the girls had got their way. Patron Julius turned back and directed his course towards Dunder Cliff. Smiling, he sat on his chest, while the wagon was filled with girls. Along the road grew daisies and buttercups. The ox had to rest every now and then for a while. Then the girls climbed out and picked flowers. Soon gaudy wreaths hung on Julius’ head and the ox’s horns.