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She and Sören had lived happily together; they had had their quarrels, but if anything serious happened, they always faced it together; neither of them had lived and worked for themselves only. It was so strange that they were now to be separated, Maren could not understand it. Why could they not be taken together? Where Sören went, Maren felt she too should be.
"Oh, trash," said Sören, "the girl may just as well try a little of everything, it will make a woman of her." But Maren wished to shelter her child, as long as she could. And so she arranged it in this way, that her daughter could drive home in the cart from Sands farm which was then carrying grain for the brewery.
In the lofty chestnut trees were many birds' nests, and also in the thickets and in the grassy meadows. It seemed as though the birds knew that they were protected here, and that no one must fire a gun at them. Little Marie came here with Soren. He knew how to climb, as we have already said, and eggs and fluffy-feathered young birds were brought down.
Apparently they had no thought of being cold throughout the winter. Maren looked at the familiar surroundings as they crossed the yard towards the scullery. Once in her young days she had been in service here for the sake of being nearer the home of her childhood and Sören. It was some years ago, that!
And if, now and then, one of his old friends invited him to a bachelor-party, he did as people are apt to do whose every-day fare is extremely frugal: he ate and drank too much. The lively but well-bred and circumspect Sören declined into a sort of butt, who made rambling speeches, and around whom the young whelps of the party would gather after dinner to make sport for themselves.
Sören thought in his own mind that it was a large sum of money for a poor babe, and hurried to close the bargain in case the farmer might draw back. "But, no gossip, mind you, now. No big talk about relationship and that kind of thing," said the farmer as he followed Sören out of the gate. "The child must take the girl's name and no claim on us." "No, of course not!" said Sören, eager to be off.
There was no one who understood Ditte as did her grandfather. They two could entertain each other by the hour. They spoke about sheep and ships and trees, which Ditte did not like, because they stood and made the wind blow. Sören explained to her that it was God who made the wind blow so that the fishermen need not toil with their oars so much.
This was the story as he tells it: His brother Morten truly a son of Belial cherished a deadly hatred toward pastor Soren Quist since the day the latter had refused him the hand of his daughter. As soon as he heard that the pastor's coachman had left him, he persuaded Niels to take the place.
But actually to make fools of themselves on this account rushing off with horse and cart to the doctor just as the gentry did, and make themselves, too, the laughing stock of the whole hamlet, when a draught of tansy would have the same effect this was what Sören could not put up with.
They had to look after her more seriously now that the outside world had tempted her. "We're not enough for her, seems like," said Sören despondently, "got a fancy for the unknown already." It was the first time she had turned away from them, and Sören recognized in that something of what he had experienced before, and for a moment a feeling of loneliness came over him.
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