CHAPTER X.
One afternoon later in the summer, as his mother and a girl were raking hay, while Oyvind and his father were carrying it in, there came a little barefooted and bareheaded boy, skipping down the hill-side and across the meadows to Oyvind, and gave him a note.
"You run well, my boy," said Oyvind.
"I am paid for it," answered the boy.
On being asked if he was to have an answer, the reply was No; and the boy took his way home over the cliff, for some one was coming after him up on the road, he said.

Oyvind opened the note with some difficulty, for it was folded in a strip, then tied in a knot, then sealed and stamped; and the note ran thus:-- "He is now on the march; but he moves slowly.

Run into the woods and hide yourself! THE ONE YOU KNOW." "I will do no such thing," thought Oyvind; and gazed defiantly up the hills.

Nor did he wait long before an old man appeared on the hill-top, paused to rest, walked on a little, rested again.

Both Thore and his wife stopped to look.