Tord was to learn to his annoyance that Mattson with his foresight and experience had stood like a rock between him and a thousand worries and difficulties. But this only strengthened him in his angry resolve to help himself. In a furious north wind he and the old gardener sailed twelve miles to the nearest store and there he bought a boatload of preserved food, ham, potatoes, flour and lamp oil. They had to hack their way out of the harbour through ice half an inch thick, frozen during the night, so it was high time....
Then came the real winter and locked them in with dark and unsafe ice.
At the end of February the old gardener fell on the very slippery ground when he was carrying water from the well, and broke his leg above the knee. Fortunately the ice bore just then, so they were able to get him into hospital. They could not tempt another servant out to the eagle’s nest, so now they had to shift for themselves. Tord was not able to climb the hill with water and wood, so they had to move into Mattson’s humble cottage for the winter. In the spring Tord had soundings made but they found no water up on the hill: so he had to bring out more workmen to construct a proper road up. All this cost money—so much that even Tord realized he could not go on for ever. Then he bought fishing and shooting implements and a few goats in order to help him out, and he took to cattle breeding. But now for the first time he really missed Mattson’s experience.... He did not know where to try for the cod. He did not know how to deal with a tangled net. The ducks flew past when he lay out in the skerries. And the goats soon dried up; and besides, they became so wild that he could not catch them. So during the course of the summer these means of support failed him, and he had to turn to expensive preserved food again.
Dagmar had not much time to run about naked in the sunshine this summer. There was not so much left that was “beautiful and wonderful and lovely.” But she had not quite lost her gypsy-like boisterousness and freedom from care, though when there was no alcohol left and the bad weather really set in, it might happen that she grew sulky and quarrelsome. Once towards the autumn when she had had special cause for anxiety she mentioned town, but Tord flew into such a rage that she was frightened and flew out into the kitchen with her cards and her pipe. And Tord strolled about the shores for weeks cogitating in dull anger on the shameless weakness and faithlessness of women.