Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/230

208 "Harm watches while men sleep; but man's scathe is the worst scathe. When one pot strikes against another, both break. Take the saddle and lay it on Blackie, and ride to fetch the sheriff, my lad, and then we shall be out of harm's way, for our clerk's sake. Mishaps never come single, but it's hard to drown on dry land." That was what the master said.

Yes! the lad rode off to the sheriff, and after a while the sheriff came. But, as the saying is, more haste, worse speed, and work done in haste will never last. So it took time before they got the doctor and witnesses to come. Now you all know we owe a death to God; but then it was made as plain as day that our clerk had been killed three times before he tumbled into the well. First the ladle of lead had taken away his breath, next he had a bullet through his forehead, and third and last his neck was broken. Surely he was "fey" when he set out to see the goody. It is hard to tell how all this was found out at last; but tongues will clack behind a man's back, and hard things are said of a man when he's dead.