And then he says:  ‘You’re a noodle!’ ‘What?’ says I, ’You’re insured?—­Well then, if the cattle would have been paid for, my clothes shall be paid for—­and some of my dead father’s clothes were among them, and fourteen guilders, and my watch, and my pipe.’  And says he:  ’Go smoke it!  My property is insured, but not my servant’s property.’  And I says:  ’We’ll see about that—­I’ll take it to court!’ Whereupon he says:  ’Now you may go at once.  Threatening a lawsuit is the same as giving notice.  I would have given you a few guilders, but now you shan’t have a farthing.  And now, hurry up—­away with you!’ And so here I am.  And I think I ought to take my nigh horse with me, for I saved his life, and he would be glad to go with me, wouldn’t you?  But I have never learned to steal, and I shouldn’t know what to do now.  The best thing for me to do is to jump into the water.  For I shall never amount to anything as long as I live, and I have nothing now.”

“But I still have something, and I will help you out.”

“No, I won’t do that any longer—­always depending upon you.  You have a hard enough time earning what you have.”

Barefoot tried to comfort her brother, and succeeded so far that he consented to go home with her.  But they had scarcely gone a hundred paces, when they heard something trotting along behind them.  It was the horse; he had broken loose and had followed Damie, who was obliged to drive back the creature he was so fond of by flinging stones at it.

Damie was ashamed of his misfortune, and would hardly show his face to any one; for it is a peculiarity of weak natures that they feel their strength, not in their own self-respect, but always wish to show how much they can really do by some visible achievement.  Misfortune they regard as evidence of their own weakness, and if they cannot hide it, they hide themselves.

Damie would go no farther than the first houses in the village.  Black Marianne gave him a coat that had belonged to her slain husband; Damie felt a terrible repugnance at putting it on, and Amrei, who had before spoken of her father’s coat as something sacred, now found just as many arguments to prove that there was nothing in a coat after all, and that it did not matter in the least who had once worn it.

Coaly Mathew, who lived not far from Black Marianne, took Damie as his assistant at tree-felling and charcoal-burning.  This solitary life pleased Damie best; for he only wanted to wait until the time came when he could be a soldier, and then he would enter the army as a substitute and remain a soldier all his life.  For in a soldier’s life there is justice and order, and no one has brothers and sisters, and no one has his own house, and a man is provided with clothing and meat and drink; and if there should be a war, why a brave soldier’s death is after all the best.