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Updated: September 5, 2025
"You got two hundred Daler!" shouts Inger, stopping again with a "Ptro!" "I did yes. And I've paid for my land a long while back," said Isak. "Well you are a wonder, you are!" Truly, it was a pleasure to see Inger all surprised, and make her a rich wife. Isak did not forget to add that he had no debts nor owings at the store or anywhere else.
The potatoes were flowering still, worse than before, and with big berries growing out at the tops, which was not as it should be; but none could say what might be at the roots Isak had not ventured to look. Then one day Inger went out and found over a score of little potatoes under one plant. "And they've five weeks more to grow in," said Inger.
'Yes, I am, said I. Well, then, he started on about how pleased they had been with her, and telling me over again all they'd taught her and done for her there taught her to write too, he said. And the little girl had been put out to nurse with decent people, and so on. Then I told him how things were at home, with Inger away.
The terrible woman with the hare-lip was kneeling on her, a great strong creature armed with a huge wooden ladle, heavy as a club. Oline was bruised already, and bleeding, but still sullenly refusing to cry out. "So you're trying to murder me too!" "Ay, kill you," says Inger, striking again. "There! I'll see you dead before I've done with you." She was certain of it now.
Many poems have been written about them, and they have been printed; but nobody knows anything more of the Old Woman of the Bogs than that, when the meadows and the ground begin to reek in summer, it is the old woman below who is brewing. Into her brewery it was that Inger sank, and no one could hold out very long there. A cesspool is a charming apartment compared with the old Bog-woman's brewery.
Inger looked at the bull and felt it over, asked what it had cost; little Sivert was allowed to sit on its back. "I shall miss the big one, though," said Inger. "So glossy and fine he was. I do hope they'll kill him nicely." It was the busy season now, and there was work enough. The animals were let loose; in the empty shed were cases and bins of potatoes left to grow.
Oh, that Inger, always trying to comfort and speak hopefully through her hare-lip. It was not pretty to hear when she spoke, for a sort of hissing, like steam from a leaky valve, but a comfort all the same out in the wilds. And a happy and cheerful soul she was at all times. "I wish you could manage to make another bed," she said to Isak one day. "Ho!" said he.
Whether Isak had had some suspicion beforehand, or had found it out by accident anyhow, it was found out. And suddenly Inger found herself gripped by both arms, felt herself lifted from the floor, and thumped down on to the floor again. It was something strange and terrible a sort of avalanche. Isak's hands were not weak, not worn out now.
"That any one should have to suffer so much for such as that be punished so severely for such a trifle!" thought Inger. "All these others are punished justly, for no doubt there was a great deal to punish; but ah, how I suffer!" And her heart became still harder than the substance into which she had been turned. "No one can be better in such society. I will not grow better here.
Oline had perhaps chanced to say something against her will, to this one or that. Those who came now brought news from Inger's own birthplace; what more natural than that Inger should give them a cup of coffee, and let them look at her sewing-machine!
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