Asathor's Vengeance by Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen

IT was right up under the steel mountain wall where the farm of Kvaerk / lay. How any man of common sense could have hit upon the idea of / building a house there, where none but the goat and the hawk had easy / access, had been, and I am afraid would ever be, a matter of wonder to / the parish people. However, it was not Lage Kvaerk who had built / the house, so he could hardly be made responsible for its situation. / Moreover, to move from a place where one's life has once struck deep / root, even if it be in the chinks and crevices of stones and rocks, is / about the same as to destroy it. An old tree grows but poorly in a new / soil. So Lage Kvaerk thought, and so he said, too, whenever his wife / Elsie spoke of her sunny home at the river.

Gloomy as Lage usually was, he had his brighter moments, and people / noticed that these were most likely to occur when Aasa, his daughter, / was near. Lage was probably also the only being whom Aasa's presence / could cheer; on other people it seemed to have the very opposite effect; / for Aasa was -- according to the testimony of those who knew her -- the most / peculiar creature that ever was born. But perhaps no one did know her; / if her father was right, no one really did -- at least no one but himself.