Crows and burning cabin and talking animals had vanished from his
memory. He was walking on a stubble-field, in West Vemminghoeg, tending a
goose-flock; and beside him, on the field, walked those same Smaland
children, with their geese. As soon as he saw them, he ran up on the
stone-hedge and shouted: "Oh, good-day, Osa goose-girl! Oh, good-day,
little Mats!"
But when the children saw such a little creature coming up to them with
outstretched hands, they grabbed hold of each other, took a couple of
steps backward, and looked scared to death.
When the boy noticed their terror he woke up and remembered who he was.
And then it seemed to him that nothing worse could happen to him than
that those children should see how he had been bewitched. Shame and
grief because he was no longer a human being overpowered him. He turned
and fled. He knew not whither.
But a glad meeting awaited the boy when he came down to the heath. For
there, in the heather, he spied something white, and toward him came the
white goosey-gander, accompanied by Dunfin. When the white one saw the
boy running with such speed, he thought that dreadful fiends were
pursuing him. He flung him in all haste upon his back and flew off with
him.
THE OLD PEASANT WOMAN
_Thursday, April fourteenth_.
Three tired wanderers were out in the late evening in search of a night
harbour.
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