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"Any wher," says an ancient writer, "after yow pass a myll without the tonne, the countrey is barren lyke, the hills craigy, the plaines full of marishes and mosses, the feilds are covered with heather or peeble stons, the come feilds mixt with thes bot few.
There was then heard a voice speaking within her belly, as it had been in a tonne, her lips not greatly moving: she all that while continuing by the space of three hours or more in a trance.
"We will give ourselves as slaves into his power, if he is not content with less." At these words Jofrid was seized by cold despair, and she hated Tönne from the depths of her soul. Everything she would lose appeared so plainly to her, freedom, for which her ancestors had ventured their lives, the house, her comforts, honor and happiness.
"Mark my words, Tönne," she said hoarsely, half choked with pain, "that the day you do that thing will be the day of my death." After that no more words were exchanged between them, but they remained sitting on the doorstep until the day came. Neither found a word to appease or to conciliate; each felt fear and scorn of the other.
Wherever Jofrid went during those days, the thought never left her that a house was being built for her there. A home was being prepared for her upon the heath. And she knew that if she did not enter there as mistress, the bear and the fox would make it their home. For she knew Tönne well enough to understand that if he found he had worked in vain, he would never move into the new house.
He laid the floor with split young trees. It was uneven and shaky. The heather, which grew and blossomed under it, for at year had passed since the day when Tönne had lain aleep behind King Atle's pile, pushed up bold red clusters through the cracks, and ants without number wandered out and in, inspecting the fragile work of man.
It seemed as if he suggested to her everything she answered Tönne. "We must acknowledge that we have neglected the child, and do penance," said Tönne. "Never will I suffer for what is not my fault," said Jofrid. "Who wanted the child to die? Not I, not I. What kind of a penance will you do? You need all your strength for work." "I have already tried with scourging," said Tönne.
"It is of no avail." "You see," she said, and laughed again. "We must try something else," Tönne went on with persistent determination. "We must confess." "What do you want to tell God, that He does not know?" mocked Jofrid. "Does He not guide your thoughts, Tönne? What will you tell Him?" She thought that Tönne was stupid and obstinate.
Jofrid would have liked to have talked about Tönne, but most of them never spoke of their husbands. Late one evening Jofrid and Tönne came home from the festivities. They went straight to bed. But hardly had they fallen asleep before they were waked by a feeble crying. "It is the child," they thought, still half asleep, and were angry at being disturbed.
One day Tönne took Jofrid to one of the clefts, where he had hidden his timber. He pulled aside the branches and moss and showed her the squared beams. "That was to have been mother's house," he said. The young girl was strangely slow in understanding a young man's thoughts. When he showed her his mother's logs she ought to have understood, but she did not understand.
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