"He's a good fellow and if he talks strangely he can make himself useful,--which is more than can be said of certain people.
He can saw and chop the wood, make hay, feed the cattle, pull a strong oar, and sweep and keep the garden,--can't you, Sigurd ?" She laid her hand on Sigurd's shoulder, and he nodded his head emphatically, as she enumerated his different talents.

"And as for climbing,--he can guide you anywhere over the hills, or up the streams to the big waterfalls--no one better.

And if you mean by peculiar,--that my mistress is different to other people, why, I know she is, and am glad of it,--at any rate, she's a great deal too kind-hearted to shut this poor boy up in a house for madmen! He'd die if he couldn't have the fresh air." She paused, out of breath with her rapid utterance, and Mr.Dyceworthy held up his hands in dignified astonishment.
"You talk too glibly, young woman," he said.

"It is necessary that I should instruct you without loss of time, as to how you should be sparing of your words in the presence of your superiors and betters--" Bang! The door was closed with a decision that sent a sharp echo through the silent, heated air, and Mr.Dyceworthy was left to contemplate it at his leisure.

Full of wrath, he was about to knock peremptorily and insist that it should be re-opened; but on second thoughts he decided that it was beneath his dignity to argue with a servant, much less with a declared lunatic like Sigurd,--so he made the best of his way back to his boat, thinking gloomily of the hard labor awaiting him in the long pull back to Bosekop.
Other thoughts, too, tortured and harrassed his brain, and as he again took the oars and plied them wearily through the water, he was in an exceedingly unchristian humor.