It was roughly whittled from the root of a tree, and was not much bigger than his hand. Eirik did not know where it had come from—he had brought it with him from the place where he was fostered as a child, he believed; and he had a notion that it had been found under a rock, beneath which mound-folk dwelt—it was a gift from them. He had given away his childish toys long ago, for he saw that he was too big to play with such things without disgracing himself. But the horse seemed to be more than a toy, so he kept it up here under the King Rock.

Eirik knelt on the ground looking at the horse. It was dark and worn; one of its hind legs was so short that it stood on three, and it had an eye on only one side of its head, which stood out, a knot that had been cut away. It gave it such a weird look.

He took it up and placed it on the flat white stone that belonged to it. With closed eyes he walked backwards three times withershins about this altar, crooning softly the while:

“Sun sinks in the sea, carrion cumbers the foreshore,
Down go we to our doom, Fakse my fair one.…”

But having accomplished this, he did not care to make the sign of the cross backwards—that was sinful, and foolish besides. He had a misgiving that the whole game had always been foolish. He could never really have expected to see it turn into a copper horse with a silver bridle. But he had believed in a way that one day something wonderful must happen, after he had sung that ugly spell over it.

Jörund Rypa would think it a foolish game. He was always afraid that Jörund might come upon him while he was thus employed. It was not very likely—Jörund had kinsfolk who lived far up the parish and sometimes he came to stay with them, but it was scarcely to be imagined that he would show himself out here on the farthest rocks of Hestviken. Nevertheless Eirik was always afraid Jörund might come upon him. He felt in himself that Jörund would make nothing of it, would only think he was faddling here like a little child—and he could well believe that Jörund would bear the tale of it and make mock of him. Yet Jörund Rypa was, of all the lads of his own age Eirik had met, the only one of whom he wished to make a friend. But Jörund had not been in the neighbourhood for more than a year now—his home was in the east, by Eyjavatn.

Eirik sat with his hands clasped about his knees and his chin resting on them, gazing over at the manor.

It was now flooded by the evening sun, and the creek below was still as glass, so that it could not be seen where the land came to an end and the reflection began in the deep shadows under the foreshore, but below the quay with its sheds another quay stood on its head in the water, and deep down in the creek he saw the image of the sun-gilt rocks on the hill and the row of turf roofs, already slightly yellowed by the sun, and the meadows and all the fair strips of plough-land where the corn was now coming up finely and evenly—but across this mirrored Hestviken a bright wavy streak was drawn by the current.

The constant sound of bells from the wood under the Horse Crag came nearer. Ragna was calling the cows home: the herd came in sight at the gate at the brow of the wood. The line of roan and dappled cows moved forward along the edge of the top field.

Again a breath of distasteful memory crossed the boy’s mind. Just before his father went to Oslo he had sent him on an errand to Saltviken. Up on the hill he had met the cattle, and then he had gone and stuffed the cow-bell full of moss—not for any reason, it had just occurred to him to do it. But Jon, the herdsman, had gone on about it and complained to the master when he came home in the evening. And once more the devastating thing happened that his father was moved neither to wrath nor to laughter by his prank; he only muttered something about child’s tricks and looked unconcerned.

There went Liv up the path from the quay—she had been to the shed again, with Anki no doubt. Eirik moved uneasily. His body was hot and tingling, he felt guilty and ashamed. Though indeed he had done nothing wrong—he could not help it if she said such things to him, and it only made him angry and ashamed when she tried to take hold of him and hug him in the dark. What did she want of him? He was not yet grown up, and she had men enough without him, the ugly trollop.

But he could not get it out of his thoughts, for he guessed that she hung about his father too. And then it all came back to him, all the evil he had had in his mind when he found out about his father and Torhild Björnsdatter—his dread and his despair, not knowing whether he were sure of his right to his father and to Hestviken, and a miry flood of foul and evil thoughts and visions, and a mortal hatred that made his cheeks go white and cold when he thought of how he hated.

His father’s fits of silence, which lasted from morning to night, the tired, drawn look of his mouth, of his eyes with their thin, filmy lids—even the way he rose to his feet after a rest, to go back to his work, as though laboriously collecting his thoughts from far away—all this filled the child’s mind with insecurity. He guessed that he was living under the same roof with a pain of such a kind that it must strike him with terror if he ever saw it laid bare. And he hated, he raged against anything in the world that prevented him from ever having peace and happy days. And at the same time the boy could see that his father was still a handsome man, and no old man.