Chapter 1
Ivar was sitting at a cobbler's bench in the barn, mending
harness by the light of a lantern and repeating to himself the
101st Psalm. It was only five o'clock of a mid-October day, but a
storm had come up in the afternoon, bringing black clouds, a cold
wind and torrents of rain. The old man wore his buffalo-skin coat,
and occasionally stopped to warm his fingers at the lantern.
Suddenly a woman burst into the shed, as if she had been blown in,
accompanied by a shower of rain-drops. It was Signa, wrapped in a
man's overcoat and wearing a pair of boots over her shoes. In time
of trouble Signa had come back to stay with her mistress, for she
was the only one of the maids from whom Alexandra would accept much
personal service. It was three months now since the news of th
