Now and then he groaned, and Maren would hurry to his side. "What ails you, Sören, can't you tell me?" said she earnestly.
"Ails me? Nothing ails me, Maren, but death," answered Sören. Maren would have liked to try her own remedies on him, but might just as well spare her arts for a better occasion; Sören had seen a black hole in the ground; there was no cure for that.
So matters stood. Maren knew as well as he, that this was the end; but she was a sturdy nature, and never liked to give in. She would have wrestled with God himself for Sören, had there been anything definite to fight about. But he was fading away, and for this there was no cure; though if only the poison could be got out of his blood, he might even yet be strong again.
But Sören refused to be bled. "Folks die quickly enough without," said he, incredulous as he had always been. Maren was silent and went back to her work with a sigh. Sören never did believe in anything, he was just as unbelieving as he had been in his young days--if only God would not be too hard on him.
At first Sören longed to have the child with him always, and every other minute Maren had to bring her to the bedside. The little one did not like to sit quietly on a chair beside Grandad's bed, and as soon as she saw a chance of escape, off she would run. This was hardest of all to Sören, he felt alone and forsaken, all was blackness and despair.
Before long, however, he lost all interest in the child, as he did in everything else. His mind began to wander from the present back to bygone days; Maren knew well what it meant. He went further and still further back to his youth and childhood. Strange it was how much he could remember things which otherwise had been forgotten. And it was not rambling nonsense that he talked, but all true enough; people older than he who came from the hamlet to visit him confirmed it, and wondered at hearing him speak of events that must have happened when he was but two or three years old. Sören forgot the latter years of his life, indeed he might never have lived them so completely had they faded from his mind.
This saddened Maren. They had lived a long life, and gone through so much together, and how much more pleasant it would have been, if they could have talked of the past together once more before they parted. But Sören would not listen, when it came to their mutual memories. No, the garden on the old farm--where Sören lived when five years old--that he could remember! Where this tree stood, and that--and what kind of fruit it bore.