Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 4).djvu/136

 In the black chest myself to be driven away! Oh, what must a mortal abide and live through! God help me in mercy; The whole house is bare! What the Hegstad-churl left now the Bailiff has taken. Not even the clothes on my back have they spared. Fie! Shame on them all that have judged so hardly!

[Seats herself on the edge of the bed.

Both the land and the farm-place are lost to our line; The old man was hard, but the law was still harder;— There was no one to help me, and none would show mercy; Peer was away; not a soul to give counsel.

But here, in this house, you may dwell till you die.

Ay, the cat and I live on charity.

God help you, mother; your Peer's cost you dear.

Peer? Why, you're out of your senses, sure! Ingrid came home none the worse in the end. The right thing had been to hold Satan to reckoning;—