Chapter XIX

Isak came back from the village with a horse. Ay, it had come to that; he had bought the horse from the Lensmand's assistant; the animal was for sale, as Geissler had said, but it cost two hundred and forty Kroner--that was sixty Daler. The price of horseflesh had gone up beyond all bounds: when Isak was a boy the best horse could be bought for fifty Daler.

But why had he never raised a horse himself? He had thought of it, had imagined a nice little foal--that he had been waiting for these two years past. That was a business for folk who could spare the time from their land, could leave waste patches lying waste till they got a horse to carry home the crop. The Lensmand's assistant had said: "I don't care about paying for a horse's keep myself; I've no more hay than my womenfolk can get it in by themselves while I'm away on duty."

The new horse was an old idea of Isak's, he had been thinking of it for years; it was not Geissler who had put him up to it. And he had also made preparations such as he could; a new stall, a new rope for tethering it in the summer; as for carts, he had some already, he must make some more for the autumn. Most important of all was the fodder, and he had not forgotten that, of course; or why should he have thought it so important to get that last patch broken up last year if it hadn't been to save getting rid of one of the cows, and yet have enough keep for a new horse? It was, sown for green fodder now; that was for the calving cows.

Ay, he had thought it all out. Well might Inger be astonished again, and clap her hands just as in the old days.

Isak brought news from the village; Breidablik was to be sold, there was a notice outside the church. The bit of crop, such as it was,--hay and potatoes,--to go with the rest. Perhaps the live stock too; a few beasts only, nothing big.

"Is he going to sell up the home altogether and leave nothing?" cried Inger. "And where's he going to live?"

"In the village."

It was true enough. Brede was going back to the tillage. But he had first tried to get Axel Ström to let him live there with Barbro. He didn't succeed. Brede would never dream of interfering with the relations between his daughter and Axel, so he was careful not to make himself a nuisance, though to be sure it was a hard set-back, with all the rest. Axel was going to get his new house built that autumn; well, then, when he and Barbro moved in there, why couldn't Brede and his family have a hut? No! 'Twas so with Brede, he didn't look at things like a farmer and a settler on new land; he didn't understand that Axel had to move out because he wanted the hut for his growing stock; the hut was to be a new cowshed. And even when this was explained to him, he failed to see the point of view; surely human beings should come before animals, he said. No, a settler's way was different; animals first; a man could always find himself a shelter for the winter. But Barbro put in a word herself now: "Ho, so you put the animals first and us after? 'Tis just as well I know it!" So Axel had made enemies of a whole family because he hadn't room to house them. But he would not give way. He was no good-natured fool, was Axel, but on the contrary he had grown more and more careful; he knew well that a crowd like that moving in would give him so many more mouths to fill. Brede bade his daughter be quiet, and tried to make out that he himself would rather move down to the village again; couldn't endure life in the wilderness, he said--'twas only for that reason he was selling the place.

Oh, but to tell the truth it was not so much Brede was selling the place; 'twas the Bank and the storekeeper were selling up Breidablik, though for the sake of appearances they let it be done in Brede's name. That way, he thought he was saved from disgrace. And Brede was not altogether dejected when Isak met him; he consoled himself with the thought that he was still Inspector on the telegraph line; that was a regular income, anyway, and in time he would be able to work up to his old position in the place as the Lensmand's companion and this and that. He was something affected at the change, of course; 'twas not so easy to say good-bye to a place where one had lived and toiled and moiled so many years, and come to care for. But Brede, good man, was never long cast down. 'Twas his best point, the charm of him. He had once in his life taken it into his head to be a tiller of the soil, 'twas an inspiration had come to him. True, he had not made a success of it, but he had taken up other plans in the same airy way and got on better; and who could say--perhaps his samples of ore might after all turn out something wonderful in time! And then look at Barbro, he had got her fixed up there at Maaneland, and she'd not be leaving Axel Ström now, that he could swear--'twas plain indeed for any one to see.

No, there was nothing to fear as long as he had his health and could work for himself and those that looked to him, said Brede Olsen. And the children were just growing up, and big enough now to go out and make their own way in the world, said he. Helge was gone to the herring fisheries already, and Katrine was going to help at the doctor's. That left only the two youngest--well, well, there was a third on the way, true, but, anyhow ...

Isak had more news from the village: the Lensmand's lady had had a baby. Inger suddenly interested at this: "Boy or girl?"

"Why, I didn't hear which," said Isak.

But the Lensmand's lady had had a child after all--after all the way she'd spoken at the women's club about the increasing birth-rate among the poor; better give women the franchise and let them have some say in their own affairs, she said. And now she was caught. Yes, the parson's wife had said, "She's had some say in lots of things--but her own affairs are none the better for it, ha ha ha!" And that was a clever saying that went the round of the village, and there were many that understood what was meant--Inger no doubt as well; it was only Isak who did not understand.

Isak understood his work, his calling. He was a rich man now, with a big farm, but the heavy cash payments that had come to him by a lucky chance he used but poorly; he put the money aside. The land saved him. If he had lived down in the village, maybe the great world would have affected even him; so much gaiety, so many elegant manners and ways; he would have been buying useless trifles, and wearing a red Sunday shirt on weekdays. Here in the wilds he was sheltered from all immoderation; he lived in clear air, washed himself on Sunday mornings, and took a bath when he went up to the lake. Those thousand Daler--well, 'twas a gift from Heaven, to be kept intact. What else should he do? His ordinary outgoings were more than covered by the produce of his fields and stock.

Eleseus, of course, knew better; he had advised his father to put the money in the Bank. Well, perhaps that was the best, but Isak had put off doing it for the present--perhaps it would never be done at all. Not that Isak was above taking advice from his son; Eleseus was no fool, as he showed later on. Now, in the haymaking season, he had tried his hand with the scythe--but he was no master hand at that, no. He kept close to Sivert, and had to get him to use the whetstone every time. But Eleseus had long arms and could pick up hay in first-rate fashion. And he and Sivert and Leopoldine, and Jensine the servant-maid, they were all busy now in the fields with the first lot of hay that year. Eleseus did not spare himself either, but raked away till his hands were blistered and had to be wrapped in rags. He had lost his appetite for a week or so, but worked none the worse for it now. Something had come over the boy; it looked perhaps as if a certain unhappy love affair or something of the sort, a touch of never-to-be-forgotten sorrow and distress, had done him a world of good. And, look you, he had by now smoked the last of the tobacco he had brought with him from town; ordinarily, that would have been enough to make a clerk go about banging doors and expressing himself emphatically upon many points; but no, Eleseus only grew the steadier for it firmer and more upright; a man indeed. Even Sivert, the jester, could not put him out of countenance. Today the pair of them were lying out on boulders in the river to drink, and Sivert imprudently offered to get some extra fine moss and dry it for tobacco--"unless you'd rather smoke it raw?" he said.

"I'll give you tobacco," said Eleseus, and reaching out, ducked Sivert head and shoulders in the water. Ho, one for him! Sivert came back with his hair still dripping.

"Looks like Eleseus he's turning out for the good," thought Isak to himself, watching his son at work. And to Inger he said: "H'm--wonder if Eleseus he'll be staying home now for good?"

And she just as queerly cautious again: "'Tis more than I can say. No, I doubt if he will."

"Ho! Have you said a word of it to himself?"

"No--well, yes, I've talked a bit with him, maybe. But that's the way I think."

"Like to know, now--suppose he'd a bit of land of his own...."

"How do you mean?"

"If he'd work on a place of his own?"

"No."

"Well, have you said anything?"

"Said anything? Can't you see for yourself? No, I don't see anything in him Eleseus, that way."

"Don't sit there talking ill of him," said Isak impartially. "All I can see is, he's doing a good day's work down there."

"Ay, maybe," said Inger submissively.

"And I can't see what you've got to find fault with the lad," cried Isak, evidently displeased. "He does his work better and better every day, and what can you ask more?"

Inger murmured: "Ay, but he's not like he used to be. You try talking to him about waistcoats."

"About waistcoats? What d'you mean?"

"How he used to wear white waistcoats in summer when he was in town, so he says."

Isak pondered this a while; it was beyond him. "Well, can't he have a white waistcoat?" he said. Isak was out of his depth here; of course it was only women's nonsense; to his mind, the boy had a perfect right to a white waistcoat, if it pleased him; anyhow, he couldn't see what there was to make a fuss about, and was inclined to put the matter aside and go on.

"Well, what do you think, if he had Brede's bit of land to work on?"

"Who?" said Inger.

"Him Eleseus."

"Breidablik? Nay, 'tis more than's worth your while."

The fact was, she had already been talking over that very plan with Eleseus, she had heard it from Sivert, who could not keep the secret. And indeed, why should Sivert keep the matter secret when his father had surely told him of it on purpose to feel his way? It was not the first time he had used Sivert as a go-between. Well, but what had Eleseus answered? Just as before, as in his letters from town, that no, he would not throw away all he had learned, and be an insignificant nothing again. That was what he had said. Well, and then his mother had brought out all her good reasons, but Eleseus had said no to them all; he had other plans for his life. Young hearts have their unfathomable depths, and after what had happened, likely enough he did not care about staying on with Barbro as a neighbour. Who could say? He had put it loftily enough in talking to his mother; he could get a better position in town than the one he had; could go as clerk to one of the higher officials. He must get on, he must rise in the world. In a few years, perhaps, he might be a Lensmand, or perhaps a lighthouse keeper, or get into the Customs. There were so many roads open to a man with learning.

However it might be, his mother came round, was drawn over to his point of view. Oh, she was so little sure of herself yet; the world had not quite lost its hold on her. Last winter she had gone so far as to read occasionally a certain excellent devotional work which she had brought from Trondhjem, from the Institute; but now, Eleseus might be a Lensmand one day!

"And why not?" said Eleseus. "What's Heyerdahl himself but a former clerk in the same department?"

Splendid prospects. His mother herself advised him not to give up his career and throw himself away. What was a man like that to do in the wilds?

But why should Eleseus then trouble to work hard and steadily as he was doing now on his father's land? Heaven knows, he had some reason, maybe. Something of inborn pride in him still, perhaps; he would not be outdone by others; and besides, it would do him no harm to be in his father's good books the day he went away. To tell the truth, he had a number of little debts in town, and it would be a good thing to be able to settle them at once--improve his credit a lot. And it was not a question now of a mere hundred Kroner, but something worth considering.

Eleseus was far from stupid, but on the contrary, a sly fellow in his way. He had seen his father come home, and knew well enough he was sitting there in the window at that moment, looking out. No harm in putting his back into it then for a bit, working a little harder for the moment--it would hurt no one, and might do himself good.

Eleseus was somehow changed; whatever it might be, something in him had been warped, and quietly spoiled; he was not bad, but something blemished. Had he lacked a guiding hand those last few years? What could his mother do to help him now? Only stand by him and agree. She could let herself be dazzled by her son's bright prospects for the future, and stand between him and his father, to take his part--she could do that.

But Isak grew impatient at last over her opposition; to his mind, the idea about Breidablik was by no means a bad one. Only that very day, coming up, he had stopped the horse almost without thinking, to look out with a critical eye over the ill-tended land; ay, it could be made a fine place in proper hands.

"Why not worth while?" he asked Inger now. "I've that much feeling for Eleseus, anyway, that I'd help him to it."

"If you've any feeling for him, then say never a word of Breidablik again," she answered.

"Ho!"

"Ay, for he's greater thoughts in his head than the like of us."

Isak, too, is hardly sure of himself here, and it weakens him; but he is by no means pleased at having shown his hand, and spoken straight out about his plan. He is unwilling to give it up now.

"He shall do as I say," declares Isak suddenly. And he raises his voice threateningly, in case Inger by any chance should be hard of hearing. "Ay, you may look; I'll say no mere. It's midway up, with a schoolhouse by, and everything; what's the greater thoughts he's got beyond that, I'd like to know? With a son like that I might starve to death--is that any better, d'you think? And can you tell me why my own flesh and blood should turn and go contrary to--to my own flesh and blood?"

Isak stopped; he realized that the more he talked the worse it would be. He was on the point of changing his clothes, getting out of his best things he had put on to go down to the village in; but no, he altered his mind, he would stay as he was--whatever he meant by that. "You'd better say a word of it to Eleseus," he says then.

And Inger answers: "Best if you'd say it yourself. He won't do as I say."

Very well, then, Isak is head of the house, so he should think; now see if Eleseus dares to murmur! But, whether it were because he feared defeat, Isak draws back now, and says: "Ay, 'tis true, I might say a word of it myself. But by reason of having so many things to do, and busy with this and that, I've something else to think of."

"Well ...?" said Inger in surprise.

And Isak goes off again--not very far, only to the farther fields, but still, he goes off. He is full of mysteries, and must hide himself out of the way. The fact is this: he had brought back a third piece of news from the village today, and that was something more than the rest, something enormous; and he had hidden it at the edge of the wood. There it stands, wrapped up in sacking and paper; he uncovers it, and lo, a huge machine. Look! red and blue, wonderful to see, with a heap of teeth and a heap of knives, with joints and arms and screws and wheels--a mowing-machine. No, Isak would not have gone down today for the new horse if it hadn't been for that machine.

He stands with a marvellously keen expression, going over in his mind from beginning to end the instructions for use that the storekeeper had read out; he sets a spring here, and shifts a bolt there, then he oils every hole and every crevice, then he looks over the whole thing once more. Isak had never known such an hour in his life. To pick up a pen and write one's mark on a paper, a document--ay, 'twas a perilous great thing that, no doubt. Likewise in the matter of a new harrow he had once brought up--there were many curiously twisted parts in that to be considered. Not to speak of the great circular saw that had to be set in its course to the nicety of a pencil line, never swaying east nor west, lest it should fly asunder. But this--this mowing-machine of his--'twas a crawling nest of steel springs and hooks and apparatus, and hundreds of screws--Inger's sewing-machine was a bookmarker compared with this!

Isak harnessed himself to the shafts and tried the thing. Here was the wonderful moment. And that was why he kept out of sight and was his own horse.

For--what if the machine had been wrongly put together and did not do its work, but went to pieces with a crash! No such calamity happened, however; the machine could cut grass. And so indeed it ought, after Isak had stood there, deep in study, for hours. The sun had gone down. Again he harnesses himself and tries it; ay, the thing cuts grass. And so indeed it ought!

When the dew began to fall close after the heat of the day, and the boys came out, each with his scythe to mow in readiness for next day, Isak came in sight close to the house and said:

"Put away scythes for tonight. Get out the new horse, you can, and bring him down to the edge of the wood."

And on that, instead of going indoors to his supper as the others had done already, he turned where he stood and went back the way he had come.

"D'you want the cart, then?" Sivert called after him.

"No," said his father, and walked on.

Swelling with mystery, full of pride; with a little lift and throw from the knee at every step, so emphatically did he walk. So a brave man might walk to death and destruction, carrying no weapon in his hand.

The boys came up with the horse, saw the machine, and stopped dead. It was the first mowing-machine in the wilds, the first in the village--red and blue, a thing of splendour to man's eyes. And the father, head of them all, called out, oh, in a careless tone, as if it were nothing uncommon: "Harness up to this machine here."

And they drove it; the father drove. Brrr! said the thing, and felled the grass in swathes. The boys walked behind, nothing in their hands, doing no work, smiling. The father stopped and looked back. H'm, not as clear as it might be. He screws up a nut here and there to bring the knives closer to the ground, and tries again. No, not right yet, all uneven; the frame with the cutters seems to be hopping a little. Father and sons discuss what it can be. Eleseus has found the instructions and is reading them. "Here, it says to sit up on the seat when you drive--then it runs steadier," he says.

"Ho!" says his father. "Ay, 'tis so, I know," he answers. "I've studied it all through." He gets up into the seat and starts off again; it goes steadily now. Suddenly the machine stops working--the knives are not cutting at all. "Ptro! What's wrong now?" Father down from his seat, no longer swelling with pride, but bending an anxious, questioning face down over the machine. Father and sons all stare at it; something must be wrong. Eleseus stands holding the instructions.

"Here's a bolt or something," says Sivert, picking up a thing from the grass.

"Ho, that's all right, then," says his father, as if that was all that was needed to set everything in order. "I was just looking for that bolt." But now they could not find the hole for it to fit in--where in the name of wonder could the hole be, now?

And it was now that Eleseus could begin to feel himself a person of importance; he was the man to make out a printed paper of instructions. What would they do without him? He pointed unnecessarily long to the hole and explained: "According to the illustration, the bolt should fit in there."

"Ay, that's where she goes," said his father. "'Twas there I had it before." And, by way of regaining lost prestige, he ordered Sivert to set about looking for more bolts in the grass. "There ought to be another," he said, looking very important, as if he carried the whole thing in his head. "Can't you find another? Well, well, it'll be in its hole then, all right."

Father starts off again.

"Wait a minute--this is wrong," cried Eleseus. Ho, Eleseus standing there with the drawing in his hand, with the Law in his hand; no getting away from him! "That spring there goes outside," he says to his father.

"Ay, what then?"

"Why, you've got it in under, you've set it wrong. It's a steel spring, and you have to fix it outside, else the bolt jars out again and stops the knives. You can see in the picture here."

"I've left my spectacles behind, and can't see it quite," says his father, something meekly. "You can see better--you set it as it should go. I don't want to go up to the house for my spectacles now."

All in order now, and Isak gets up. Eleseus calls after him: "You must drive pretty fast, it cuts better that way--it says so here."

Isak drives and drives, and everything goes well, and Brrr! says the machine. There is a broad track of cut grass in his wake, neatly in line, ready to take up. Now they can see him from the house, and all the womenfolk come out; Inger carries little Rebecca on her arm, though little Rebecca has learned to walk by herself long since. But there they come--four womenfolk, big and small--hurrying with straining eyes down towards the miracle, flocking down to see. Oh, but now is Isak's hour. Now he is truly proud, a mighty man, sitting high aloft dressed in holiday clothes, in all his finery; in jacket and hat, though the sweat is pouring off him. He swings round in four big angles, goes over a good bit of ground, swings round, drives, cuts grass, passes along by where the women are standing; they are dumbfounded, it is all beyond them, and Brrr! says the machine.

Then Isak stops and gets down. Longing, no doubt, to hear what these folk on earth down there will say; what they will find to say about it all. He hears smothered cries; they fear to disturb him, these beings on earth, in his lordly work, but they turn to one another with awed questionings, and he hears what they say. And now, that he may be a kind and fatherly lord and ruler to them all, to encourage them, he says: "There, I'll just do this bit, and you can spread it tomorrow."

"Haven't you time to come in and have a bite of food?" says Inger, all overwhelmed.

"Nay, I've other things to do," he answers.

Then he oils the machine again; gives them to understand that he is occupied with scientific work. Drives off again, cutting more grass. And, at long last, the womenfolk go back home.

Happy Isak--happy folk at Sellanraa!

Very soon the neighbours from below will be coming up. Axel Ström is interested in things, he may be up tomorrow. But Brede from Breidablik, he might be here that very evening. Isak would not be loth to show them his machine, explain it to them, tell them how it works, and all about it. He can point out how that no man with a scythe could ever cut so fine and clean. But it costs money, of course--oh, a red-and-blue machine like that is a terribly costly thing!

Happy Isak!

But as he stops for oil the third time, there! his spectacles fall from his pocket. And, worst of all, the two boys saw it. Was there a higher power behind that little happening--a warning against overweening pride? He had put on those spectacles time and again that day to study the instructions, without making out a word; Eleseus had to help him with that. Eyah, Herregud, 'twas a good thing, no doubt, to be book-learned. And, by way of humbling himself, Isak determines to give up his plan of making Eleseus a tiller of soil in the wilds; he will never say a word of it again.

Not that the boys made any great business about that matter of the spectacles; far from it. Sivert, the jester, had to say something, of course; it was too much for him. He plucked Eleseus by the sleeve and said: "Here, come along, we'll go back home and throw those scythes on the fire. Father's going to do all the mowing now with his machine!" And that was a jest indeed.

Book Two

Chapter I

Sellanraa is no longer a desolate spot in in the waste; human beings live here--seven of them, counting great and small. But in the little time the haymaking lasted there came a stranger or so, folk wanting to see the mowing-machine. Brede Olsen was first, of course, but Axel Ström came, too, and other neighbours from lower down--ay, from right down in the village. And from across the hills came Oline, the imperishable Oline.

This time, too, she brought news with her from her own village; 'twas not Oline's way to come empty of gossip. Old Sivert's affairs had been gone into, his accounts reckoned up, and the fortune remaining after him come to nothing. Nothing!

Here Oline pressed her lips together and looked from one to another. Well, was there not a sigh--would not the roof fall down? Eleseus was the first to smile.

"Let's see--you're called after your Uncle Sivert, aren't you?" he asked softly.

And little Sivert answered as softly again:

"That's so. But I made you a present of all that might come to me after him."

"And how much was it?"

"Between five and ten thousand."

"Daler?" cried Eleseus suddenly, mimicking his brother.

Oline, no doubt, thought this ill-timed jesting. Oh, she had herself been cheated of her due; for all that she had managed to squeeze out something like real tears over old Sivert's grave. Eleseus should know best what he himself had written--so-and-so much to Oline, to be a comfort and support in her declining years. And where was that support? Oh, a broken reed!

Poor Oline; they might have left her something--single golden gleam in her life! Oline was not over-blessed with this world's goods. Practised in evil--ay, well used to edging her way by tricks and little meannesses from day to day; strong only as a scandalmonger, as one whose tongue was to be feared; ay, so. But nothing could have made her worse than before; least of all a pittance left her by the dead. She had toiled all her life, had borne children, and taught them her own few arts; begged for them, maybe stolen for them, but always managing for them somehow--a mother in her poor way. Her powers were not less than those of other politicians; she acted for herself and those belonging to her, set her speech according to the moment, and gained her end, earning a cheese or a handful of wool each time; she also could live and die in commonplace insincerity and readiness of wit. Oline--maybe old Sivert had for a moment thought of her as young, pretty, and rosy-cheeked, but now she is old, deformed, a picture of decay; she ought to have been dead. Where is she to be buried? She has no family vault of her own; nay, she will be lowered down in a graveyard to lie among the bones of strangers and unknown; ay, to that she comes at last--Oline, born and died. She had been young once. A pittance left to her now, at the eleventh hour? Ay, a single golden gleam, and this slave-woman's hands would have been folded for a moment. Justice would have overtaken her with its late reward; for that she had begged for her children, maybe stolen for them, but always managed for them some way. A moment--and the darkness would reign in her as before; her eyes glower, her fingers feel out graspingly--how much? she would say. What, no more? she would say. She would be right again. A mother many times, realizing life--it was worthy of a great reward.

But all went otherwise. Old Sivert's accounts had appeared more or less in order after Eleseus had been through them; but the farm and the cow, the fishery and nets were barely enough to cover the deficit. And it was due in some measure to Oline that things had turned out no worse; so earnest was she in trying to secure a small remainder for herself that she dragged to light forgotten items that she, as gossip and newsmonger for years, remembered still, or matters outstanding which others would have passed over on purpose, to avoid causing unpleasantness to respectable fellow-citizens. Oh, that Oline! And she did not even say a word against old Sivert now; he had made his will in kindness of heart, and there would have been a plenty after him, but that the two men sent by the Department to arrange things had cheated her. But one day all would come to the ears of the Almighty, said Oline threateningly.

Strange, she found nothing ridiculous in the fact that she was mentioned in the will; after all, it was an honour of a sort; none of her likes were named there with her!

The Sellanraa folk took the blow with patience; they were not altogether unprepared. True, Inger could not understand it--Uncle Sivert that had always been so rich....

"He might have stood forth an upright man and a wealthy before the Lamb and before the Throne," said Oline, "if they hadn't robbed him."

Isak was standing ready to go out to his fields, and Oline said: "Pity you've got to go now, Isak; then I shan't see the new machine, after all. You've got a new machine, they say?"

"Ay."

"Ay, there's talk of it about, and how it cuts quicker than a hundred scythes. And what haven't you got, Isak, with all your means and riches! Priest, our way, he's got a new plough with two handles; but what's he, compared with you, and I'd tell him so to his face."

"Sivert here'll show you the machine; he's better at working her than his father," said Isak, and went out.

Isak went out. There is an auction to be held at Breidablik that noon, and he is going; there's but just time to get there now. Not that Isak any longer thinks of buying the place, but the auction--it is the first auction held there in the wilds, and it would be strange not to go.

He gets down as far as Maaneland and sees Barbro, and would pass by with only a greeting, but Barbro calls to him and asks if he is going down. "Ay," said Isak, making to go on again. It is her home that is being sold, and that is why he answers shortly.

"You going to the sale?" she asks.

"To the sale? Well, I was only going down a bit. What you've done with Axel?"

"Axel? Nay, I don't know. He's gone down to sale. Doubt he'll be seeing his chance to pick up something for nothing, like the rest."

Heavy to look at was Barbro now--ay, and sharp and bitter-tongued!

The auction has begun; Isak hears the Lensmand calling out, and sees a crowd of people. Coming nearer, he does not know them all; there are some from other villages, but Brede is fussing about, in his best finery, and chattering in his old way. "Goddag, Isak. So you're doing me the honour to come and see my auction sale. Thanks, thanks. Ay, we've been neighbours and friends these many years now, and never an ill word between us." Brede grows pathetic. "Ay, 'tis strange to think of leaving a place where you've lived and toiled and grown fond of. But what's a man to do when it's fated so to be?"

"Maybe 'twill be better for you after," says Isak comfortingly.

"Why," says Brede, grasping at it himself, "to tell the truth, I think it will. I'm not regretting it, not a bit. I won't say I've made a fortune on the place here, but that's to come, maybe; and the young ones getting older and leaving the nest--ay, 'tis true the wife's got another on the way; but for all that...." And suddenly Brede tells his news straight out: "I've given up the telegraph business."

"What?" asks Isak.

"I've given up that telegraph."

"Given up the telegraph?"

"Ay, from new year to be. What was the good of it, anyway? And supposing I was out on business, or driving for the Lensmand or the doctor, then to have to look after the telegraph first of all--no, there's no sense nor meaning in it that way. Well enough for them that's time to spare. But running over hill and dale after a telegraph wire for next to nothing wages, 'tis no job that for Brede. And then, besides, I've had words with the people from the telegraph office about it--they've been making a fuss again."

The Lensmand keeps repeating the bids for the farm; they have got up to the few hundred Kroner the place is judged to be worth, and the bidding goes slowly, now, with but five or ten Kroner more each time.

"Why, surely--'tis Axel there's bidding," cries Brede suddenly, and hurries eagerly across. "What, you going to take over my place too? Haven't you enough to look after?"

"I'm bidding for another man," says Axel evasively.

"Well, well, 'tis no harm to me, 'twasn't that I meant."

The Lensmand raises his hammer, a new bid is made, a whole hundred Kroner at once; no one bids higher, the Lensmand repeats the figure again and again, waits for a moment with his hammer raised, and then strikes.

Whose bid?

Axel Ström--on behalf of another.

The Lensmand notes it down: Axel Ström as agent.

"Who's that you buying for?" asks Brede. "Not that it's any business of mine, of course, but...."

But now some men at the Lensmand's table are putting their heads together; there is a representative from the Bank, the storekeeper has sent his assistant; there is something the matter; the creditors are not satisfied. Brede is called up, and Brede, careless and light-hearted, only nods and is agreed--"but who'd ever have thought it didn't come up to more?" says he. And suddenly he raises his voice and declares to all present:

"Seeing as we've an auction holding anyhow, and I've troubled the Lensmand all this way, I'm willing to sell what I've got here on the place: the cart, live stock, a pitchfork, a grindstone. I've no use for the things now; we'll sell the lot!"

Small bidding now. Brede's wife, careless and light-hearted as himself, for all the fulness of her in front, has begun selling coffee at a table. She finds it amusing to play at shop, and smiles; and when Brede himself comes up for some coffee, she tells him jestingly that he must pay for it like the rest. And Brede actually takes out his lean purse and pays. "There's a wife for you," he says to the others. "Thrifty, what?"

The cart is not worth much--it has stood too long uncovered in the open; but Axel bids a full five Kroner more at last, and gets the cart as well. After that Axel buys no more, but all are astonished to see that cautious man buying so much as he has.

Then came the animals. They had been kept in their shed today, so as to be there in readiness. What did Brede want with live stock when he had no farm to keep them on? He had no cows; he had started farming with two goats, and had now four. Besides these, there were six sheep. No horse.

Isak bought a certain sheep with flat ears. When Brede's children led it out from the shed, he started bidding at once, and people looked at him. Isak from Sellanraa was a rich man, in a good position, with no need of more sheep than he had. Brede's wife stops selling coffee for a moment, and says: "Ay, you may buy her, Isak; she's old, 'tis true, but she's two and three lambs every blessed year, and that's the truth."

"I know it," said Isak, looking straight at her. "I've seen that sheep before."

He walks up with Axel Ström on the way back, leading his sheep on a string. Axel is taciturn, seemingly anxious about something, whatever it might be. There's nothing he need be troubled about that one can see, thinks Isak; his crops are looking well, most of his fodder is housed already, and he has begun timbering his house. All as it should be with Axel Ström; a thought slowly, but sure in the end. And now he had got a horse.

"So you've bought Brede's place?" said Isak. "Going to work it yourself?"

"No, not for myself. I bought it for another man."

"Ho!"

"What d'you think; was it too much I gave for it?"

"Why, no. Tis good land for a man that'll work it as it should."

"I bought it for a brother of mine up in Helgeland."

"Ho!"

"Then I thought perhaps I'd half a mind to change with him, too."

"Change with him--would you?"

"And perhaps how Barbro she'd like it better that way."

"Ay, maybe," said Isak.

They walk on for a good way in silence. Then says Axel:

"They've been after me to take over that telegraph business."

"The telegraph? H'm. Ay, I heard that Brede he's given it up."

"H'm," says Axel, smiling. "'Tis not so much that way of it, but Brede that's been turned off."

"Ay, so," says Isak, and trying to find some excuse for Brede. "It takes a deal of time to look after, no doubt."

"They gave him notice to the new year, if he didn't do better."

"H'm."

"You don't think it'd be worth my while to take it?"

Isak thought for a long while, and answered: "Ay, there's the money, true, but still...."

"They've offered me more."

"How much?"

"Double."

"Double? Why, then, I'd say you should think it over."

"But they've made the line a bit longer now. No, I don't know what's best to do--there's not so much timber to sell here as you've got on yours, and I've need to buy more things for the work that I've got now. And buying things needs money in 'cash, and I've not so much out of the land and stock that there's much over to sell. Seems to me I'll have to try a year at the telegraph to begin with...."

It did not occur to either of them that Brede might "do better" and keep the post himself.

When they reached Maaneland, Oline was there already, on her way down. Ay, a strange creature, Oline, crawling about fat and round as a maggot, and over seventy years and all, but still getting about. She sits drinking coffee in the hut, but seeing the men come up, all must give way to that, and she comes out.

"Goddag, Axel, and welcome back from the sale. You'll not mind me looking in to see how you and Barbro's getting on? And you're getting on finely, to see, and building a new house and getting richer and richer! And you been buying sheep, Isak?"

"Ay," said Isak. "You know her, maybe?"

"If I know her? Nay...."

"With these flat ears, you can see."

"Flat ears? How d'you mean now? And what then? What I was going to say: Who bought Brede's place, after all? I was just saying to Barbro here, who'd be your neighbours that way now? said I. And Barbro, poor thing, she sits crying, as natural enough, to be sure; but the Almighty that's decreed her a new home here at Maaneland ... Flat ears? I've seen a deal of sheep in my day with flat ears and all. And I'll tell you, Isak, that machine of yours, 'twas almost more than my old eyes could see nor understand. And what she'll have cost you I won't even ask for I never could count so far. Axel, if you've seen it, you know what I mean; 'twas all as it might be Elijah and his chariot of fire, and Heaven forgive me that I say it...."

When the hay was all in, Eleseus began making preparations for his return to town. He had written to the engineer to say he was coming, but received the extraordinary reply that times were bad, and they would have to economize; the office would have to dispense with Eleseus' services, and the chief would do the work himself.

The deuce and all! But after all, what did a district surveyor want with an office staff? When he had taken Eleseus on as a youngster, he had done so, no doubt, only to show himself as a great man to these folks in the wilds; and if he had given him clothes and board till his confirmation, he had got some return for it in the way of writing work, that was true. Now the boy was grown up, and that made all the difference.

"But," said the engineer, "if you do come back I will do all I can to get you a place somewhere else, though it may be a difficult matter, as there are more young men than are wanted looking out for the same thing. With kind regards...."

Eleseus would go back to town, of course, there could be no question about that. Was he to throw himself away? He wanted to get on in the world. And he said nothing to those at home as to the altered state of affairs; it would be no use, and, to tell the truth, he felt a little out of humour with the whole thing.

Anyhow, he said nothing. The life at Sellanraa was having its effect on him again; it was an inglorious, commonplace life, but quiet and dulling to the sense, a dreamy life; there was nothing for him to show off about, a looking-glass was a thing he had no use for. His town life had wrought a schism in himself, and made him finer than the others, made him weaker; he began indeed to feel that he must be homeless anywhere. He had come to like the smell of tansy again--let that pass. But there was no sense at all in a peasant lad's standing listening in the morning to the girls milking the cows and thinking thus: they're milking, listen now; 'tis almost by way of something wonderful to hear, a kind of song in nothing but little streams, different from the brass bands in the town and the Salvation Army and the steamer sirens. Music streaming into a pail....

It was not the way at Sellanraa to show one's feelings overmuch, and Eleseus dreaded the moment when he would have to say good-bye. He was well equipped now; again his mother had given him a stock of woven stuff for underclothes, and his father had commissioned some one to hand him money as he went out of the door. Money--could Isak really spare such a thing as money? But it was so, and no otherwise. Inger hinted that it would doubtless be the last time; for was not Eleseus going to get on and rise in the world by himself?

"H'm," said Isak.

There was an atmosphere of solemnity, of stillness in the home; they had each had a boiled egg at the last meal, and Sivert stood outside all ready to go down with his brother and carry his things. It was for Eleseus to begin.

He began with Leopoldine. Well and good, she said good-bye in return, and managed it very well. Likewise Jensine the servant-maid, she sat carding wool and answered good-bye--but both girls stared at him, confound them! and all because he might perhaps be the least bit red about the eyes. He shook hands with his mother, and she cried of course quite openly, never caring to remember how he hated crying." Goo--ood-bye and bl--bless you!" she sobbed out. It was worst with his father; worst of all with him. Oh, in every way; he was so toil-worn and so utterly faithful; he had carried the children in his arms, had told them of the seagulls and other birds and beasts, and the wonders of the field; it was not so long ago, a few years.... Father stands by the glass window, then suddenly he turns round, grasps his son's hand, and says quickly and peevishly: "Well, good-bye. There's the new horse getting loose," and he swings out of the door and hurries away. Oh, but he had himself taken care to let the new horse loose a while ago, and Sivert, the rascal, knew it too, as he stood outside watching his father, and smiling to himself. And, anyway, the horse was only in the rowens.

Eleseus had got it over at last.

And then his mother must needs come out on the door-slab and hiccup again and say, "God bless you!" and give him something. "Take this--and you're not to thank him, he says you're not to. And don't forget to write; write often."

Two hundred Kroner.

Eleseus looked down the field: his father was furiously at work driving a tethering-peg into the ground; he seemed to find it a difficult matter, for all that the ground was soft enough.

The brothers set off down the road; they came to Maaneland, and there stood Barbro in the doorway and called to them to come up.

"You going away again, Eleseus? Nay, then, you must come in and take a cup of coffee at least."

They go into the hut, and Eleseus is no longer a prey to the pangs of love, nor wishful to jump out of windows and take poison; nay, he spreads his light spring overcoat across his knees, taking care to lay it so the silver plate is to be seen; then he wipes his hair with his handkerchief, and observes delicately: "Beautiful day, isn't it--simply classic!"

Barbro too is self-possessed enough; she plays with a silver ring on one hand and a gold ring on the other--ay, true enough, if she hasn't got a gold ring too--and she wears an apron reaching from neck to feet, as if to say she is not spoiled as to her figure, whoever else may be that way. And when the coffee is ready and her guests are drinking, she sews a little to begin with on a white cloth, and then does a little crochet-work with a collar of some sort, and so with all manner of maidenly tasks. Barbro is not put out by their visit, and all the better; they can talk naturally, and Eleseus can be all on the surface again, young and witty as he pleases.

"What have you done with Axel?" asks Sivert.

"Oh, he's about the place somewhere," she answers, pulling herself up. "And so we'll not be seeing you this way any more, I doubt?" she asks Eleseus.

"It's hardly probable," says he.

"Ay, 'tis no place for one as is used to the town. I only wish I could go along with you."

"You don't mean that, I know."

"Don't mean it? Oh, I've known what it is to live in town, and what it's like here; and I've been in a bigger town than you, for that matter--and shouldn't I miss it?"

"I didn't mean that way," says Eleseus hastily. "After you being in Bergen itself and all." Strange, how impatient she was, after all!

"I only know that if it wasn't for having the papers to read, I'd not stay here another day," says she.

"But what about Axel, then, and all the rest?--'twas that I was thinking."

"As for Axel, 'tis no business of mine. And what about yourself--I doubt there'll be some one waiting for you in town?"

And at that, Eleseus couldn't help showing off a little and closing his eyes and turning over the morsel on his tongue: perhaps true enough there was some one waiting for him in town. Oh, but he could have managed this ever so differently, snapped at the chance, if it hadn't been for Sivert sitting there! As it was, he could only say: "Don't talk such nonsense!"

"Ho," said she--and indeed she was shamefully ill-humoured today--"nonsense, indeed! Well, what can you expect of folk at Maaneland? we're not so great and fine as you--no."

Oh, she could go to the devil, what did Eleseus care; her face was visibly dirty, and her condition plain enough now even to his innocent eyes.

"Can't you play a bit on the guitar?" he asked.

"No," answered Barbro shortly. "What I was going to say: Sivert, couldn't you come and help Axel a bit with the new house a day or so? If you could begin tomorrow, say, when you come back from the village?"

Sivert thought for a moment. "Ay, maybe. But I've no clothes."

"I could run up and fetch your working clothes this evening, so they'll be here when you get back."

"Ay," said Sivert, "if you could."

And Barbro unnecessarily eager now: "Oh, if only you would come! Here's summer nearly gone already, and the house that should be up and roofed before the autumn rains. Axel, he's been going to ask you a many times before, but he couldn't, somehow. Oh, you'd be helping us no end!"

"I'll help as well as I can," said Sivert.

And that was settled.

But now it was Eleseus' turn to be offended. He can see well enough that it's clever of Barbro and all that, to look out and manage to her own advantage and Axel's too, and get help for the building and save the house, but the whole thing is a little too plain; after all, she is not mistress of the place as yet, and it's not so long since he himself had kissed her--the creature! Was there never an atom of shame in her at all?

"Ay," said Eleseus, then suddenly: "I'll come back again in time and be a godfather when you're ready."

She sent him a glance, and answered in great offence: "Godfather, indeed! And who's talking nonsense now, I'd like to know? 'Twill be time enough for you when I send word I'm looking out for godfathers." And what could Eleseus do then but laugh foolishly and wish himself out of the place!

"Here's thanks!" says Sivert, and gets up from his seat to go.

"Here's thanks!" says Eleseus also; but he did not rise nor bow as a man should do in saying thanks for a cup of coffee; not he, indeed--he would see her at the devil for a bitter-tongued lump of ugliness.

"Let me look," said Barbro. "Oh yes; the young men I stayed with in town, they had silver plates on their overcoats too, much bigger than this," said she. "Well, then, you'll come in on your way back, Sivert, and stay the night? I'll get your clothes all right."

And that was good-bye to Barbro.

The brothers went on again. Eleseus was not distressed in any way in the matter of Barbro; she could go to the devil--and, besides, he had two big bank-notes in his pocket! The brothers took care not to touch on any mournful things, such as the strange way father had said good-bye, or how mother had cried. They went a long way round to avoid being stopped at Breidablik, and made a jest of that little ruse. But when they came down in sight of the village, and it was time for Sivert to turn homeward again, they both behaved in somewhat unmanly fashion. Sivert, for instance, was weak enough to say: "I doubt it'll be a bit lonely, maybe, when you're gone."

And at that Eleseus must fall to whistling, and looking to his shoes, and finding a splinter in his finger, and searching after something in his pockets; some papers, he said, couldn't make out ... Oh, 'twould have gone ill with them if Sivert had not saved things at the last. "Touch!" he cried suddenly, and touched his brother on the shoulder and sprang away. It was better after that; they shouted a word of farewell or so from a distance, and went each on his own way.

Fate or chance--whatever it might be. Eleseus went back, after all, to the town, to a post that was no longer open for him, but that same occasion led to Axel Ström's getting a man to work for him.

They began work on the house the 21st of August, and ten days later the place was roofed in. Oh, 'twas no great house to see, and nothing much in the way of height; the best that could be said of it was that it was a wooden house and no turf hut. But, at least, it meant that the animals would have a splendid shelter for the winter in what had been a house for human beings up to then.

Chapter II

On the 3rd of September Barbro was not to be found. 'Twas not that she was altogether lost, but she was not up at the house.

Axel was doing carpenter's work the best he could; he was trying hard to get a glass window and a door set in the new house, and it was taking all his time to do it. But being long past noon, and no word said about coming in to dinner, he went in himself into the hut. No one there. He got himself some food, and looked about while he was eating. All Barbro's clothes were hanging there; she must be out somewhere, that was all. He went back to his work on the new building, and kept at it for a while, then he looked in at the hut again--no, nobody there. She must be lying down somewhere. He sets out to find her.

"Barbro!" he calls. No. He looks all round the houses, goes across to some bushes on the edge of his land, searches about a long while, maybe an hour, calls out--no. He comes on her a long way off, lying on the ground, hidden by some bushes; the stream flows by at her feet, she is barefoot and bareheaded, and wet all up the back as well.

"You lying here?" says he. "Why didn't you answer?"

"I couldn't," she answers, and her voice so hoarse he can scarcely hear.

"What--you been in the water?"

"Yes. Slipped down--oh!"

"Is it hurting you now?"

"Ay--it's over now."

"Is it over?" says he.

"Yes. Help me to get home."

"Where's ...?"

"What?"

"Wasn't it--the child?"

"No. Twas dead."

"Was it dead?"

"Yes."

Axel is slow of mind, and slow to act. He stands there still. "Where is it, then?" he asks.

"You've no call to know," says she. "Help me back home. Twas dead. I can walk if you hold my arm a bit."

Axel carries her back home and sets her in a chair, the water dripping off her. "Was it dead?" he asks.

"I told you 'twas so," she answers.

"What have you done with it, then?"

"D'you want to smell it? D'you get anything to eat while I was away?"

"But what did you want down by the water?"

"By the water? I was looking for juniper twigs."

"Juniper twigs? What for?"

"For cleaning the buckets."

"There's none that way," says he.

"You get on with your work," says she hoarsely, and all impatient. "What was I doing by the water? I wanted twigs for a broom. Have you had anything to eat, d'you hear?"

"Eat?" says he. "How d'you feel now?"

"Tis well enough."

"I doubt I'd better fetch the doctor up."

"You'd better try!" says she, getting up and looking about for dry clothes to put on. "As if you'd no better to do with your money!"

Axel goes back to his work, and 'tis but little he gets done, but makes a bit of noise with planing and hammering, so she can hear. At last he gets the window wedged in, and stops the frame all round with moss.

That evening Barbro seems not to care for her food, but goes about, all the same, busy with this and that--goes to the cowshed at milking-time, only stepping a thought more carefully over the door-sill. She went to bed in the hayshed as usual. Axel went in twice to look at her, and she was sleeping soundly. She had a good night.

Next morning she was almost as usual, only so hoarse she could hardly speak at all, and with a long stocking wound round her throat. They could not talk together. Days passed, and the matter was no longer new; other things cropped up, and it slipped aside. The new house ought by rights to have been left a while for the timber to work together and make it tight and sound, but there was no time for that now; they had to get it into use at once, and the new cowshed ready. When it was done, and they had moved in, they took up the potatoes, and after that there was the corn to get in. Life was the same as ever.

But there were signs enough, great or small, that things were different now at Maaneland. Barbro felt herself no more at home there now than any other serving-maid; no more bound to the place. Axel could see that his hold on her had loosened with the death of the child. He had thought to himself so confidently: wait till the child comes! But the child had come and gone. And at last Barbro even took off the rings from her fingers, and wore neither.

"What's that mean?" he asked.

"What's it mean?" she said, tossing her head.

But it could hardly mean anything else than faithlessness and desertion on her part.

And he had found the little body by the stream. Not that he had made any search for it, to speak of; he knew pretty closely where it must be, but he had left the matter idly as it was. Then chance willed it so that he should not forget it altogether; birds began to hover above the spot, shrieking grouse and crows, and then, later on, a pair of eagles at a giddy height above. To begin with, only a single bird had seen something buried there, and, being unable to keep a secret like a human being, had shouted it abroad. Then Axel roused himself from his apathy, and waited for an opportunity to steal out to the spot. He found the thing under a heap of moss and twigs, kept down by flat stones, and wrapped in a cloth, in a piece of rag. With a feeling of curiosity and horror he drew the cloth a little aside--eyes closed, dark hair, a boy, and the legs crossed--that was all he saw. The cloth had been wet, but was drying now; the whole thing looked like a half-wrung bundle of washing.

He could not leave it there in the light of day, and in his heart, perhaps, he feared some ill to himself or to the place. He ran home for a spade and dug the grave deeper; but, being so near the stream, the water came in, and he had to shift it farther up the bank. As he worked, his fear lest Barbro should come and find him disappeared; he grew defiant and thoroughly bitter. Let her come, and he would make her wrap up the body neatly and decently after her, stillborn or no! He saw well enough all he had lost by the death of the child; how he was faced now with the prospect of being left without help again on the place--and that, moreover, with three times the stock to care for he had had at first. Let her come--he did not care! But Barbro--it might be she had some inkling of what he was at; anyway, she did not come, and Axel had to wrap up the body himself as best he could and move it to the new grave. He laid down the turf again on top, just as before, hiding it all. When he had done, there was nothing to be seen but a little green mound among the bushes.

He found Barbro outside the house as he came home.

"Where you been?" she asked.

The bitterness must have left him, for he only said: "Nowhere. Where've you been?"

Oh, but the look on his face must have warned her; she said no more, but went into the house.

He followed her.

"Look here," he said, and asked her straight out, "What d'you mean by taking off those rings?"

Barbro, maybe, found it best to give way a little; she laughed, and answered: "Well, you are serious today--I can't help laughing! But if you want me to put on the rings and wear them out weekdays, why, I will!" And she got out the rings and put them on.

But seeing him look all foolish and content at that, she grew bolder. "Is there anything else I've done, I'd like to know?"

"I'm not complaining," answered he. "And you've only to be as you were before, all the time before, when you first came. That's all I mean."

'Tis not so easy to be always together and always agree.

Axel went on: "When I bought that place after your father, 'twas thinking maybe you'd like better to be there, and so we could shift. What d'you think?"

Ho, there he gave himself away; he was afraid of losing her and being left without help, with none to look to the place and the animals again--she knew! "Ay, you've said that before," she answered coldly.

"Ay, so I have; but I've got no answer."

"Answer?" said she. "Oh, I'm sick of hearing it."

Axel might fairly consider he had been lenient; he had let Brede and his family stay on at Breidablik, and for all that he had bought the good crop with the place, he had carted home no more than a few loads of hay, and left the potatoes to them. It was all unreasonable of Barbro to be contrary now; but she paid no heed to that, and asked indignantly: "So you'd have us move down to Breidablik now, and turn out a whole family to be homeless?"

Had he heard aright? He sat for a moment staring and gaping, cleared his throat as if to answer thoroughly, but it came to nothing; he only asked: "Aren't they going to the village, then?"

"Don't ask me," said Barbro. "Or perhaps you've got a place for them to be there?"

Axel was still loth to quarrel with her, but he could not help letting her see he was surprised at her, just a little surprised. "You're getting more and more cross and hard," said he, "though you don't mean any harm, belike."

"I mean every word I say," she answered. "And why couldn't you have let my folks come up here?--answer me that! Then I'd have had mother to help me a bit. But you think, perhaps, I've so little to do, I've no need of help?"

There was some sense in this, of course, but also much that was unreasonable altogether. If Bredes had come, they would have had to live in the hut, and Axel would have had no place for his beasts--as badly off as before. What was the woman getting at?--had she neither sense nor wit in her head?

"Look here," said he, "you'd better have a servant-girl to help."

"Now--with the winter coming on and less to do than ever? No, you should have thought of that when I needed it."

Here, again, she was right in a way; when she had been heavy and ailing--that was the time to talk of help. But then Barbro herself had done her work all the time as if nothing were the matter; she had been quick and clever as usual, did all that had to be done, and had never spoken a word about getting help.

"Well, I can't make it out, anyway," said he hopelessly.

Silence.

Barbro asked: "What's this about you taking over the telegraph after father?"

"What? Who said a word about that?"

"Well, they say it's to be."

"Why," said Axel, "it may come to something; I'll not say no."

"Ho!"

But why d'you ask?"

"Nothing," said Barbro; "only that you've turned my father out of house and home, and now you're taking the bread out of his mouth."

Silence.

Oh, but that was the end of Axel's patience. "I'll tell you this," he cried, "you're not worth all I've done for you and yours!"

"Ho!" said Barbro.

"No!" said he, striking his fist on the table. And then he got up.

"You can't frighten me, so don't think," whimpered Barbro, and moved over nearer the wall.

"Frighten you?" he said again, and sniffed scornfully. "I'm going to speak out now in earnest. What about that child? Did you drown it?"

"Drown it?"

"Ay. It's been in the water."

"Ho, so you've seen it? You've been--" "sniffing at it," she was going to say, but dared not; Axel was not to be played with just then, by his looks. "You've been and found it?"

"I saw it had been in the water."

"Ay," said she, "and well it might. 'Twas born in the water; I slipped in and couldn't get up again."

"Slipped, did you?"

"Yes, and the child came before I could get out."

"H'm," said he. "But you took the bit of wrapping with you before you went out--was that in case you should happen to fall in?"

"Wrapping?" said she again.

"A bit of white rag--one of my shirts you'd cut half across."

"Ay," said Barbro, "'twas a bit of rag I took with me to carry back juniper twigs in."

"Juniper twigs?"

"Yes. Didn't I tell you that was what I'd been for?"

"Ay, so you said. Or else it was twigs for a broom."

"Well, no matter what it was...."

It was an open quarrel between them this time. But even that died away after a time, and all was well again. That is to say, not well exactly--no, but passable. Barbro was careful and more submissive; she knew there was danger. But that way, life at Maaneland grew even more forced and intolerable--no frankness, no joy between them, always on guard. It could not last long, but as long as it lasted at all, Axel was forced to be content. He had got this girl on the place, and had wanted her for himself and had her, tied his life to her; it was not an easy matter to alter all that. Barbro knew everything about the place: where pots and vessels stood, when cows and goats were to bear, if the winter feed would be short or plenty, how much milk was for cheese and how much for food--a stranger would know nothing of it all, and even so, a stranger was perhaps not to be had.

Oh, but Axel had thought many a time of getting rid of Barbro and taking another girl to help; she was a wicked thing at times, and he was almost afraid of her. Even when he had the misfortune to get on well with her he drew back at times in fear of her strange cruelty and brutal ways; but she was pretty to look at, and could be sweet at times, and bury him deep in her arms. So it had been--but that was over now. No, thank you--Barbro was not going to have all that miserable business over again. But it was not so easy to change.... "Let's get married at once, then," said Axel, urging her.

"At once?" said she. "Nay; I must go into town first about my teeth, they're all but gone as it is."

So there was nothing to do but go on as before. And Barbro had no real wages now, but far beyond what her wages would have been; and every time she asked for money and he gave it, she thanked him as for a gift. But for all that Axel could not make out where the money went--what could she want money for out in the wilds? Was she hoarding for herself? But what on earth was there to save and save for, all the year round?

There was much that Axel could not make out. Hadn't he given her a ring--ay, a real gold ring? And they had got on well together, too, after that last gift; but it could not last for ever, far from it; and he could not go on buying rings to give her. In a word--did she mean to throw him over? Women were strange creatures! Was there a man with a good farm and a well-stocked place of his own waiting for her somewhere else? Axel could at times go so far as to strike his fist on the table in his impatience with women and their foolish humours.

A strange thing, Barbro seemed to have nothing really in her head but the thought of Bergen and town life. Well and good. But if so, why had she come back at all, confound her! A telegram from her father would never have moved her a step in itself; she must have had some other reason. And now here she was, eternally discontented from morning to night, year after year. All these wooden buckets, instead of proper iron pails; cooking-pots instead of saucepans; the everlasting milking instead of a little walk round to the dairy; heavy boots, yellow soap, a pillow stuffed with hay; no military bands, no people. Living like this....

They had many little bouts after the one big quarrel. Ho, time and again they were at it! "You say no more about it, if you're wise," said Barbro. "And not to speak of what you've done about father and all."

Said Axel: "Well, what have I done?"

"Oh, you know well enough," said she. "But for all that you'll not be Inspector, anyway."

"Ho!"

"No, that you won't. I'll believe it when I see it."

"Meaning I'm not good enough, perhaps?"

"Oh, good enough and good enough.... Anyway, you can't read nor write, and never so much as take a newspaper to look at."

"As to that," said he, "I can read and write all I've any need for. But as for you, with all your gabble and talk ... I'm sick of it."

"Well, then, here's that to begin with," said she, and threw down the silver ring on the table.

"Ho!" said he, after a while. "And what about the other?"

"Oh, if you want your rings back that you gave me, you can have them," said she, trying to pull off the gold one.

"You can be as nasty as you please," said he. "If you think I care...." And he went out.

And naturally enough, soon after, Barbro was wearing both her rings again.

In time, too, she ceased to care at all for what he said about the death of the child. She simply sniffed and tossed her head. Not that she ever confessed anything, but only said: "Well, and suppose I had drowned it? You live here in the wilds and what do you know of things elsewhere?" Once when they were talking of this, she seemed to be trying to get him to see he was taking it all too seriously; she herself thought no more of getting rid of a child than the matter was worth. She knew two girls in Bergen who had done it; but one of them had got two months' imprisonment because she had been a fool and hadn't killed it, but only left it out to freeze to death; and the other had been acquitted. "No," said Barbro, "the law's not so cruel hard now as it used to be. And besides, it's not always it gets found out." There was a girl in Bergen at the hotel who had killed two children; she was from Christiania, and wore a hat--a hat with feathers in. They had given her three months for the second one, but the first was never discovered, said Barbro.

Axel listened to all this and grew more than ever afraid of her. He tried to understand, to make out things a little in the darkness, but she was right after all; he took these things too seriously in his way. With all her vulgar depravity, Barbro was not worth a single earnest thought. Infanticide meant nothing to her, there was nothing extraordinary in the killing of a child; she thought of it only with the looseness and moral nastiness that was to be expected of a servant-girl. It was plain, too, in the days that followed; never an hour did she give herself up to thought; she was easy and natural as ever, unalterably shallow and foolish, unalterably a servant-girl. "I must go and have my teeth seen to," she said. "And I want one of those new cloaks." There was a new kind of half-length coat that had been fashionable for some years past, and Barbro must have one.

And when she took it all so naturally, what could Axel do but give way? And it was not always that he had any real suspicion of her; she herself had never confessed, had indeed denied time and again, but without indignation, without insistence, as a trifle, as a servant-girl would have denied having broken a dish, whether she had done so or not. But after a couple of weeks, Axel could stand it no longer; he stopped dead one day in the middle of the room and saw it all as by a revelation. Great Heaven! every one must have seen how it was with her, heavy with child and plain to see--and now with her figure as before--but where was the child? Suppose others came to look for it? They would be asking about it sooner or later. And if there had been nothing wrong, it would have been far better to have had the child buried decently in the churchyard. Not there in the bushes, there on his land....

"No. 'Twould only have made a fuss," said Barbro. "They'd have cut it open and had an inquest, and all that. I didn't want to be bothered."

"If only it mayn't come to worse later on," said he.

Barbro asked easily: "What's there to worry about? Let it lie where it is." Ay, she smiled, and asked: "Are you afraid it'll come after you? Leave all that nonsense, and say no more about it."

"Ay, well...."

"Did I drown the child? I've told you it drowned itself in the water when I slipped in. I never heard such things as you get in your head. And, anyway, it would never be found out," said she.

"'Twas found out all the same with Inger at Sellanraa," said Axel.

Barbro thought for a moment. "Well, I don't care," said she. "The law's all different now, and if you read the papers you'd know. There's heaps that have done it, and don't get anything to speak of." Barbro sets out to explain it, to teach him, as it were--getting him to take a broad view of things. It was not for nothing she herself had been out in the world and seen and heard and learned so much; now she could sit here and be more than a match for him. She had three main arguments which she was continually advancing: In the first place, she had not done it. In the second, it was not such a terrible thing, after all, if she had done it. But in the third place, it would never be found out.

"Everything gets found out, seems to me," he objected.

"Not by a long way," she answered. And whether to astonish him or to encourage him, or perhaps from sheer vanity and as something to boast of, all of a sudden she threw a bombshell. Thus: "I've done something myself that never got found out."

"You?" said he, all unbelieving. "What have you done?"

"What have I done? Killed something."

She had not meant, perhaps, to go so far, but she had to go on now; there he was, staring at her. Oh, and it was not grand, indomitable boldness even; it was mere bravado, vulgar showing off; she wanted to look big herself, and silence him. "You don't believe me?" she cried. "D'you remember that in the paper about the body of a child found in the harbour? 'Twas me that did it."

"What?" said he.

"Body of a child. You never remember anything. We read about it in the paper you brought up."

After a moment he burst out: "You must be out of your senses!"

But his confusion seemed to incite her more, to give her a sort of artificial strength; she could even give the details. "I had it in my box--it was dead then, of course--I did that as soon as it was born. And when we got out into the harbour, I threw it overboard."

Axel sat dark and silent, but she went on. It was a long time back now, many years, the time she had first come to Maaneland. So, there, he could see 'twas not everything was found out, not by a long way! What would things be like if everything folk did got out? What about all the married people in the towns and the things they did? They killed their children before they were born--there were doctors who managed that. They didn't want more than one, or at most two children, and so they'd get in a doctor to get rid of it before it come. Ho, Axel need not think that was such a great affair out in the world!

"Ho!" said Axel. "Then I suppose you did get rid of the last one too, that way?"

"No, I didn't," she answered carelessly as could be, "for I dropped it," she said. But even then she must go on again about it being nothing so terrible if she had. She was plainly accustomed to think of the thing as natural and easy; it did not affect her now. The first time, perhaps, it might have been a little uncomfortable, something of an awkward feeling about it, to kill the child; but the second? She could think of it now with a sort of historic sense: as a thing that had been done, and could be done.

Axel went out of the house heavy in mind. He was not so much concerned over the fact that Barbro had killed her first child--that was nothing to do with himself. That she had had a child at all before she came to him was nothing much either; she was no innocent, and had never pretended to be so, far from it. She had made no secret of her knowledge, and had taught him many things in the dark. Well and good. But this last child--he would not willingly have lost it; a tiny boy, a little white creature wrapped up in a rag. If she were guilty of that child's death, then she had injured him, Axel--broken a tie that he prized, and that could not be replaced. But it might be that he wronged her, after all: that she had slipped in the water by accident. But then the wrapping--the bit of shirt she had taken with her....

Meantime, the hours passed; dinner-time came, and evening. And when Axel had gone to bed, and had lain staring into the dark long enough, he fell asleep at last, and slept till morning. And then came a new day, and after that day other days....

Barbro was the same as ever. She knew so much of the world, and could take lightly many little trifles that were terrible and serious things for folk in the wilds. It was well in a way; she was clever enough for both of them, careless enough for both. And she did not go about like a terrible creature herself. Barbro a monster? Not in the least. She was a pretty girl, with blue eyes, a slightly turned-up nose, and quick-handed at her work. She was utterly sick and tired of the farm and the wooden vessels, that took such a lot of cleaning; sick and tired, perhaps, of Axel and all, of the out-of-the-way life she led. But she never killed any of the cattle, and Axel never found her standing over him with uplifted knife in the middle of the night.

Only once it happened that they came to talk again of the body in the wood. Axel still insisted that it ought to have been buried in the churchyard, in consecrated ground; but she maintained as before that her way was good enough. And then she said something which showed that she was reasoned after her fashion--ho, was sharp enough, could see beyond the tip of her nose; could think, with the pitiful little brain of a savage.

"If it gets found out I'll go and talk to the Lensmand; I've been in service with him. And Fru Heyerdahl, she'll put in a word for me, I know. It's not every one that can get folk to help them like that, and they get off all the same. And then, besides, there's father, that knows all the great folks, and been assistant himself, and all the rest."

But Axel only shook his head.

"Well, what's wrong with that?"

"D'you think your father'd ever be able to do anything?"

"A lot you know about it!" she cried angrily. "After you've ruined him and all, taking his farm and the bread out of his mouth."

She seemed to have a sort of idea herself that her father's reputation had suffered of late, and that she might lose by it. And what could Axel say to that? Nothing. He was a man of peace, a worker.

Chapter III

That winter, Axel was left to himself again at Maaneland. Barbro was gone. Ay, that was the end of it.

Her journey to town would not take long, she said; 'twas not like going to Bergen; but she wasn't going to stay on here losing one tooth after another, till she'd a mouth like a calf. "What'll it cost?" said Axel.

"How do I know?" said she. "But, anyway, it won't cost you anything. I'll earn the money myself."

She had explained, too, why it was best for her to go just then; there were but two cows to milk, and in the spring there would be two more, besides all the goats with kids, and the busy season, and work enough right on till June.

"Do as you please," said Axel.

It was not going to cost him anything, not at all. But she must have some money to start with, just a little; there was the journey, and the dentist to pay, and besides, she must have one of the new cloaks and some other little things. But, of course, if he didn't care to....

"You've had money enough up to now," said he.

"H'm," said she. "Anyway, it's all gone."

"Haven't you put by anything?"

"Put by anything? You can look in my box it you like. I never put by anything in Bergen, and. I got more wages then."

"I've no money to give you," said he.

He had but little faith in her ever coming back at all, and she had plagued him so much with her humours this way and that; he had grown indifferent at last. And though he gave her money in the end, it was nothing to speak of; but he took no notice when she packed away an enormous hoard of food to take with her, and he drove her down himself, with her box, to the village to meet the steamer.

And that was done.

He could have managed alone on the place, he had learned to do so before, but it was awkward with the cattle; if ever he had to leave home, there was none to look to them. The storekeeper in the village had urged him to get Oline to come for the winter, she had been at Sellanraa for years before; she was old now, of course, but fit and able to work. And Axel did send for Oline, but she had not come, and sent no word.

Meantime, he worked in the forest, threshed out his little crop of corn, and tended his cattle. It was a quiet and lonely life. Now and again Sivert from Sellanraa would drive past on his way to and from the village, taking down loads of wood, or hides, or farm produce, but rarely bringing anything up home; there was little they needed to buy now at Sellanraa.

Now and again, too, Brede Olsen would come trudging along, more frequently of late--whatever he might be after. It looked as if he were trying to make himself indispensable to the telegraph people in the little time that remained, so as to keep his job. He never came in to see Axel now that Barbro was gone, but went straight by--a piece of high-and-mightiness ill fitted to his state, seeing that he was still living on at Breidablik and had not moved. One day, when he was passing without so much as a word of greeting, Axel stopped him, and asked when he had thought of getting out of the place.

"What about Barbro, and the way she left you?" asked Brede in return. And one word led to another: "You sent her off with neither help nor means, 'twas a near thing but she never got to Bergen at all."

"Ho! So she's in Bergen, is she?"

"Ay, got there at last, so she writes, but little thanks to you."

"I'll have you out of Breidablik, and that sharp," said Axel.

"Ay, if you'd be so kind," said the other, with a sneer. "But we'll be going of ourselves at the new year," he said, and went on his way.

So Barbro was gone to Bergen--ay, 'twas as Axel had thought. He did not take it to heart. Take it to heart? No, indeed; he was well rid of her. But for all that, he had hoped a little until then that she might come back. 'Twas all unreasonable, but somehow he had come to care overmuch for the girl--ay, for that devil of a girl. She had her sweet moments, unforgettable moments, and it was on purpose to hinder her from running off to Bergen that he had given her so little money for the journey. And now she had gone there after all. A few of her clothes still hung in the house, and there was a straw hat with birds' wings on, wrapped up in a paper, in the loft, but she did not come to fetch them. Eyah, maybe he took it to heart a little, only a little. And as if to jeer at him, as a mighty jest in his trouble, came the paper he had ordered for her every week, and it would not stop now till the new year.

Well, well, there were other things to think about. He must be a man.

Next spring he would have to put up a shed against the north wall of the house; the timber would have to be felled that winter, and the planks cut. Axel had no timber to speak of, not growing close, but there were some heavy firs scattered about here and there on the outskirts of his land, and he marked out those on the side toward Sellanraa, to have the shortest way to cart his timber up to the sawmill.

And so one morning he gives the beasts an extra feed, to last them till the evening, shuts all doors behind him, and goes out felling trees. Besides his ax and a basket of food, he carried a rake to clear the snow away. The weather was mild, there had been a heavy snowstorm the day before, but now it had stopped. He follows the telegraph line all the way to the spot, then pulls off his jacket and falls to work. As the trees are felled, he strips off the branches, leaving the clean trunks, and piles up the small wood in heaps.

Brede Olsen comes by on his way up--trouble on the line, no doubt, after yesterday's storm. Or maybe Brede was out on no particular errand, but simply from pure zeal--ho, he was mighty keen on his duty of late, was Brede! The two men did not speak, did not so much as lift a hand in greeting.

The weather is changing again, the wind is getting up. Axel marks it, but goes on with his work. It is long past noon, and he has not yet eaten. Then, felling a big fir, he manages to get in the way of its fall, and is thrown to the ground. He hardly knew how it happened--but there it was. A big fir swaying from the root: a man will have it fall one way, the storm says another--and the storm it is that wins. He might have got clear after all, but the lie of the ground was hidden by snow. Axel made a false step, lost his footing, and came down in a cleft of rock, astride of a boulder, pinned down by the weight of a tree.

Well, and what then? He might still have got clear, but, as it chanced, he had fallen awkwardly as could be--no bones broken, as far as he could tell, but twisted somehow, and unable to drag himself out. After a while he gets one hand free, supporting himself on the other, but the ax is beyond his reach. He looks round, takes thought, as any other beast in a trap would do; looks round and takes thought and tries to work his way out from under the tree. Brede must be coming by on his way down before long, he thinks to himself, and gives himself a breathing-space.

He does not let it trouble him much at first, it was only annoying to lose time at his work; there is no thought in his mind of being in danger, let alone in peril of his life. True, he can feel the hand that supports him growing numbed and dead, his foot in the cleft growing cold and helpless too; but no matter, Brede must be here soon.

Brede did not come.

The storm increased, Axel felt the snow driving full in his face. Ho, 'tis coming down in earnest now, says he to himself, still never troubling much about it all--ay, 'tis as if he blinks at himself through the snow, to look out, for now things are beginning in earnest! After a long while he gives a single shout. The sound would hardly carry far in the gale, but it would be upward along the line, towards Brede. Axel lies there with all sorts of vain and useless thoughts in his head: if only he could reach the ax, and perhaps cut his way out! If he could only get his hand up--it was pressing against something sharp, an edge of stone, and the stone was eating its way quietly and politely into the back of his hand. Anyhow, if only that infernal stone itself had not been there--but no one has ever yet heard tell of such a touching act of kindness on the part of a stone.

Getting late now, getting later, the snow drifting thick; Axel is getting snowed up himself. The snow packs all innocently, all unknowing, about his face, melting at first, till the flesh grows cold, and then it melts no longer. Ay, now 'tis beginning in earnest!

He gives two great shouts, and listens.

His ax is getting snowed up now; he can see but a bit of the haft. Over there is his basket of food, hung on a tree--if he could but have reached it, and had a feed--oh, huge big mouthfuls! And then he goes one step farther in his demands, and asks yet more: if he only had his coat on--it is getting cold. He gives another swinging shout....

And there is Brede. Stopped in his tracks, standing still, looking toward the man as he calls; he stands there but for a moment, glancing that way, as if to see what is amiss.

"Reach me the ax here, will you?" calls Axel, a trifle weakly.

Brede looks away hurriedly, fully aware now of what is the matter; he glances up at the telegraph wires and seems to be whistling. What can he mean by that?

"Here, reach me the ax, can't you?" cries Axel louder. "I'm pinned here under a tree."

But Brede is strangely full of zeal in his duty now, he keeps on looking at the telegraph wires, and whistling all the time. Note, also, that he seems to be whistling gaily, as it were vengefully.

"Ho, so you're going to murder me--won't even reach me the ax?" cries Axel. And at that it seems as if there is trouble farther down the line, which Brede must see to without delay. He moves off, and is lost to sight in the driving snow.

Ho--well and good! But after that, well, it would just serve things generally right if Axel were to manage by himself after all, and get at the ax without help from any one. He strains all the muscles of his chest to lift the huge weight that bears him down; the tree moves, he can feel it shake, but all he gains by that is a shower of snow. And after a few more tries, he gives up.

Growing dark now. Brede is gone--but how far can he have got? Axel shouts again, and lets off a few straightforward words into the bargain. "Leave me here to die, would you, like a murderer?" he cries. "Have ye no soul nor thought of what's to come? And the worth of a cow, no less, to lend a helping hand. But 'tis a dog you are and ever were, Brede, and leaving a man to die. Ho, but there's more shall know of this, never fear, and true as I'm lying here. And won't even come and reach me that ax...."

Silence. Axel strains away at the tree once more, lifts it a little, and brings down a new shower of snow. Gives it up again and sighs; he is worn out now, and getting sleepy. There's the cattle at home, they'll be standing in the hut and bellowing for food, not a bite nor a drop since the morning; no Barbro to look to them now--no. Barbro's gone, run off and gone, and taken both her rings, gold and silver, taken them with her. Getting dark now, ay, evening, night; well, well.... But there's the cold to reckon with too; his beard is freezing, soon his eyes will freeze too as well; ay, if he had but his jacket from the tree there ... and now his leg--surely, it can't be that--but all the same one leg feels dead now up to the hip. "All in God's hands," he says to himself--seems like he can talk all godly and pious when he will. Getting dark, ay; but a man can die without the light of a lamp. He feels all soft and good now, and of sheer humility he smiles, foolishly and kindly, at the snowstorm round; 'tis God's own snow, an innocent thing! Ay, he might even forgive Brede, and never say a word....

He is very quiet now, and growing ever more sleepy, ay, as if some poison were numbing him all over. And there is too much whiteness to look at every way; woods and lands, great wings, white veils, white sails; white, white ... what can it be? Nonsense, man! And he knows well enough it is but snow; he is lying out in the snow; 'tis no fancy that he is lying there, pinned down beneath a tree.

He shouts again at hazard, throws out a roar; there in the snow a man's great hairy chest swelling to a roar, bellowing so it could be heard right down at the hut, again and again. "Ay, and a swine and a monster," he cries after Brede again; "never a thought of how you're leaving me to lie and be perished. And couldn't even reach me the ax, that was all I asked; and call yourself a man, or a beast of the field? Ay, well then, go your way, and good luck to you if that's your will and thought to go...."

He must have slept; he is all stiff and lifeless now, but his eyes are open; set in ice, but open, he cannot wing nor blink--has he been sleeping with open eyes? Dropped off for a second maybe, or for an hour, God knows, but here's Oline standing before him. He can hear her asking: "In Jesu name, say if there's life in you!" And asking him if it is him lying there, and if he's lost his wits or no.

Always something of a jackal about Oline; sniffing and scenting out, always on the spot where there was trouble; ay, she would nose it out. And how could she ever have managed through life at all if it hadn't been that same way? Axel's word had reached her, and for all her seventy years she had crossed the field to come. Snowed up at Sellanraa in the storm of the day before, and then on again to Maaneland; not a soul on the place; fed the cattle, stood in the doorway listening, milked the cows at milking-time, listening again; what could it be?...

And then a cry comes down, and she nods; Axel, maybe, or maybe the hill-folk, devils--anyway, something to sniff and scent and find--to worm out the meaning of it all, the wisdom of the Almighty with the dark and the forest in the hollow of His hand--and He would never harm Oline, that was not worthy to unloose the latchet of His shoes....

And there she stands.

The ax? Oline digs down and down in the snow, and finds no ax. Manage without, then--and she strains at the tree to lift it where it lies, but with no more strength than a child; she can but shake the branches here and there. Tries for the ax again--it is all dark, but she digs with hands and feet. Axel cannot move a hand to point, only tell where it lay before, but 'tis not there now. "If it hadn't been so far to Sellanraa," says Axel.

Then Oline falls to searching her own ways, and Axel calls to her that there's no ax there. "Ay, well," says Oline, "I was but looking a bit. And what's this, maybe?" says she.

"You've found it?" says he.

"Ay, by the grace of the Lord Almighty," answers Oline, with high-sounding words.

But there's little pride in Axel now, no more than he'll give in that he was wrong after all, and maybe not all clear in his head. And what's he to do with the ax now 'tis there? He cannot stir, and Oline has to cut him free herself. Oh, Oline has wielded an ax before that day; had axed off many a load of firing in her life.

Axel cannot walk, one leg is dead to the hip, and something wrong with his back; shooting pains that make him groan curiously--ay, he feels but a part of himself, as if something were left behind there under the tree. "Don't know," says he--"don't know what it can be...." But Oline knows, and tells him now with solemn words; ay, for she has saved a human creature from death, and she knows it; 'tis the Almighty has seen fit to lay on her this charge, where He might have sent legions of angels. Let Axel consider the grace and infinite wisdom of the Almighty even in this! And if so be as it had been His pleasure to send a worm out of the earth instead, all things were possible to Him.

"Ay, I know," said Axel. "But I can't make out how 'tis with me--feels strange...."

Feels strange, does it? Oh, but only wait, wait just a little. 'Twas but to move and stretch the least bit at a time, till the life came back. And get his jacket on and get warm again. But never in all her days would she forget how the Angel of the Lord had called her out to the doorway that last time, that she might hear a voice--the voice of one crying in the forest. Ay, 'twas as in the days of Paradise, when trumpets blew and compassed round the walls of Jericho....

Ay, strange. But while she talked, Axel was taking his time, learning the use of his limbs again, getting to walk.

They get along slowly towards home, Oline still playing saviour and supporting him. They manage somehow. A little farther down they come upon Brede. "What's here?" says Brede. "Hurt yourself? Let me help a bit."

Axel takes no heed. He had given a promise to God not to be vengeful, not to tell of what Brede had done, but beyond that he was free. And what was Brede going up that way again for now? Had he seen that Oline was at Maaneland, and guessed that she would hear?

"And it's you here, Oline, is it?" goes on Brede easily. "Where d'you find him? Under a tree? Well, now, 'tis a curious thing," says he. "I was up that way just now on duty, along the line, and seems like I heard some one shouting. Turns round and listens quick as a flash--Brede's the man to lend a hand if there's need. And so 'twas Axel, was it, lying under a tree, d'you say?"

"Ay," says Axel. "And well you knew that saw and heard as well. But never helping hand...."

"Good Lord, deliver us!" cries Oline, aghast. "As I'm a sinner...."

Brede explains. "Saw? Why, yes, I saw you right enough. But why didn't you call out? You might have called out if there was anything wrong. I saw you right enough, ay, but never thought but you were lying down a bit to rest."

"You'd better say no more," says Axel warningly. "You know well enough you left me there and hoping I'd never rise again."

Oline sees her way now; Brede must not be allowed to interfere. She must be indispensable, nothing can come between her and Axel that could make him less completely indebted to herself. She had saved him, she alone. And she waves Brede aside; will not even let him carry the ax or the basket of food. Oh, for the moment she is all on Axel's side--but next time she comes to Brede and sits talking to him over a cup of coffee, she will be on his.

"Let me carry the ax and things, anyway," says Brede.

"Nay," says Oline, speaking for Axel. "He'll take them himself."

And Brede goes on again: "You might have called to me, anyway; we're not so deadly enemies that you couldn't say a word to a man?--You did call? Well, you might have shouted then, so a man could hear. Blowing a gale and all.... Leastways, you might have waved a hand."

"I'd no hand to wave," answers Axel. "You saw how 'twas with me, shut down and locked in all ways."

"Nay, that I'll swear I didn't. Well, I never heard. Here, let me carry those things."

Oline puts in: "Leave him alone. He's hurt and poorly."

But Axel's mind is getting to work again now. He has heard of Oline before, and understands it will be a costly thing for him, and a plague besides, if she can claim to have saved his life all by herself. Better to share between them as far as may be. And he lets Brede take the basket and the tools; ay, he lets it be understood that this is a relief, that it eases him to get rid of it. But Oline will not have it, she snatches away the basket, she and no other will carry what's to be carried there. Sly simplicity at war on every side. Axel is left for a moment without support, and Brede has to drop the basket and hold him, though Axel can stand by himself now, it seems.

Then they go on a bit that way, Brede holding Axel's arm, and Oline carrying the things. Carrying, carrying, full of bitterness and flashing fire; a miserable part indeed, to carry a basket instead of leading a helpless man. What did Brede want coming that way at all--devil of a man!

"Brede," says she, "what's it they're saying, you've sold your place and all?"

"And who's it wants to know?" says Brede boldly.

"Why, as to that, I'd never thought 'twas any secret not to be known."

"Why didn't you come to the sale, then, and bid with the rest?"

"Me--ay, 'tis like you to make a jest of poor folk."

"Well, and I thought 'twas you had grown rich and grand. Wasn't it you had left you old Sivert's chest and all his money in? He he he!"

Oline was not pleased, not softened at being minded of that legacy. "Ay, old Sivert, he'd a kindly thought for me, and I'll not say otherwise. But once he was dead and gone, 'twas little they left after him in worldly goods. And you know yourself how 'tis to be stripped of all, and live under other man's roof; but old Sivert he's in palaces and mansions now, and the likes of you and me are left on earth to be spurned underfoot."

"Ho, you and your talk!" says Brede scornfully, and turns to Axel: "Well, I'm glad I came in time--help you back home. Not going too fast, eh?"

"No."

Talk to Oline, stand up and argue with Oline! Was never a man could do it but to his cost. Never in life would she give in, and never her match for turning and twisting heaven and earth to a medley of seeming kindness and malice, poison and senseless words. This to her face now: Brede making as if 'twas himself was bringing Axel home!

"What I was going to say," she begins: "They gentlemen came up to Sellanraa that time; did you ever get to show them all those sacks of stone you'd got, eh, Brede?"

"Axel," says Brede, "let me hoist you on my shoulders, and I'll carry you down rest of the way."

"Nay," says Axel. "For all it's good of you to ask."

So they go on; not far now to go. Oline must make the best of her time on the way. "Better if you'd saved him at the point of death," says she. "And how was it, Brede, you coming by and seeing him in deadly peril and heard his cry and never stopped to help?"

"You hold your tongue," says Brede.

And it might have been easier for her if she had, wading deep in snow and out of breath, and a heavy burden and all, but 'twas not Oline's way to hold her tongue. She'd a bit in reserve, a dainty morsel. Ho, 'twas a dangerous thing to talk of, but she dared it.

"There's Barbro now," says she. "And how's it with her? Not run off and away, perhaps?"

"Ay, she has," answers Brede carelessly. "And left a place for you for the winter by the same."

But here was a first-rate opening for Oline again; she could let it be seen now what a personage she was; how none could manage long without Oline--Oline, that, had to be sent for near or far. She might have been two places, ay, three, for that matter. There was the parsonage--they'd have been glad to have her there, too. And here was another thing--ay, let Axel hear it too, 'twould do no harm--they'd offered her so-and-so much for the winter, not to speak of a new pair of shoes and a sheepskin into the bargain. But she knew what she was doing, coming to Maaneland, coming to a man that was lordly to give and would pay her over and above what other folk did--and so she'd come. No, 'twas no need for Brede to trouble himself that gait--when her Heavenly Father had watched over her all those years, and opened this door and that before her feet, and bidden her in. Ay, and it seemed like God Himself had known what He was doing, sending her up to Maaneland that day, to save the life of one of His creatures on earth....

Axel was getting wearied again by now; his legs could hardly bear him, and seemed like giving up. Strange, he had been getting better by degrees, able to walk, as the life and warmth came back into his body. But now--he must lean on Brede for support! It seemed to begin when Oline started talking about her wages; and then, when she was saving his life again, it was worse than ever. Was he trying to lessen her triumph once more? Heaven knows--but his mind seemed to be working again. As they neared the house, he stopped, and said: "Looks like I'll never get there, after all."

Brede hoists him up without a word, and carries him. So they go on like that, Oline all venom, Axel up full length on Brede's back.

"What I was going to say," gets out Oline--"about Barbro--wasn't she far gone with child?"

"Child?" groans Brede, under the weight. Oh, 'tis a strange procession; but Axel lets himself be carried all the way till he's set down at his own door.

Brede puffs and blows, mightily out of breath.

"Ay, or how--was it ever born, after all?" asks Oline.

Axel cuts in quickly with a word to Brede: "I don't know how I'd ever have got home this night but for you." And he does not forget Oline: "And you, Oline, that was the first to find me. I've to thank you both for it all."

That was how Axel was saved....

* * * * *

The next few days Oline would talk of nothing but the great event; Axel was hard put to it to keep her within bounds. Oline can point out the very spot where she was standing in the room when an angel of the Lord called her out to the door to hear a cry for help--Axel goes back to his work in the woods, and when he has felled enough, begins carting it up to the sawmill at Sellanraa.

Good, regular winter work, as long as it lasts; carting up rough timber and bringing back sawn planks. The great thing is to hurry and get through with it before the new year, when the frost sets in in earnest, and the saw cannot work. Things are going on nicely, everything as well as could be wished. If Sivert happens to come up from the village with an empty sledge, he stops and takes a stick of timber on the way, to help his neighbour. And the pair of them talk over things together, and each is glad of a talk with the other.

"What's the news down village?" asks Axel.

"Why, nothing much," says Sivert. "There's a new man coming to take up land, so they say."

A new man--nothing in that; 'twas only Sivert's way of putting it. New men came now every year or so, to take up land; there were five new holdings now below Breidablik. Higher up, things went more slowly, for all that the soil was richer that way. The one who had ventured farthest was Isak, when he settled down at Sellanraa; he was the boldest and the wisest of them all. Later, Axel Ström had come--and now there was a new man besides. The new man was to have a big patch of arable land and forest down below Maaneland--there was land enough.

"Heard what sort of a man it is?" asked Axel.

"Nay," said Sivert. "But he's bringing up houses all ready made, to fix up in no time."

"Ho! A rich man, then?"

"Ay, seems like. And a wife and three children with him; and horse and cattle."

"Why, then, 'twill be a rich man enough. Any more about him?"

"No. He's three-and-thirty."

"And what's his name?"

"Aron, they say. Calls his place Storborg."

"Storborg? H'm. 'Tis no little place, then." [Footnote: "Stor" = great]

"He's come up from the coast. Had a fishery there, so they say."

"H'm--fishery. Wonder if he knows much about farming?" says Axel. "That all you heard? Nothing more?"

"No. He paid all down in cash for the title-deeds. That's all I heard. Must have made a heap of money with his fishery, they say. And now he's going to start here with a store."

"Ho! A store?"

"Ay, so they say."

"H'm. So he's going to start a store?"

This was the one really important piece of news, and the two neighbours talked it over every way as they drove up. It was a big piece of news--the greatest event, perhaps, in all the history of the place; ay, there was much to say of that. Who was he going to trade with, this new man? The eight of them that had settled on the common lands? Or did he reckon on getting custom from the village as well? Anyway, the store would mean a lot to them; like as not, it would bring up more settlers again. The holdings might rise in value--who could say?

They talked it over as if they would never tire. Ay, here were two men with their own interests and aims, as great to them as other men's. The settlement was their world; work, seasons, crops were the adventures of their life. Was not that interest and excitement enough? Ho, enough indeed! Many a time they had need to sleep but lightly, to work on long past meal-times; but they stood it, they endured it and were none the worse; a matter of seven hours lying pinned down beneath a tree was not a thing to spoil them for life as long as their limbs were whole. A narrow world, a life with no great prospects? Ho, indeed! What of this new Storborg, a shop and a store here in the wilds--was not that prospect enough?

They talked it over until Christmas came....

Axel had got a letter, a big envelope with a lion on it; it was from the State. He was to fetch supplies of wire, a telegraph apparatus, tools and implements, from Brede Olsen, and take over inspection of the line from New Year's Day.

Chapter IV

Teams of horses driving up over the moors, carting up houses for the new man come to settle in the wilds; load after load, for days on end. Dump the things down on a spot that is to be called Storborg; 'twill answer to its name, no doubt, in time. There are four men already at work up in the hills, getting out stone for a wall and two cellars.

Carting loads, carting new loads. The sides of the house are built and ready beforehand, 'tis only to fix them up when the spring comes; all reckoned out neatly and accurately in advance, each piece with its number marked, not a door, not a window lacking, even to the coloured glass for the verandah. And one day a cart comes up with a whole load of small stakes. What's them for? One of the settlers from lower down can tell them; he's from the south, and has seen the life before. "'Tis for a garden fence," says he. So the new man is going to have a garden laid out in the wilds--a big garden.

All looked well; never before had there been such carting and traffic up over the moors, and there were many that earned good money letting out their horses for the work. This, again, was matter for discussion. There was the prospect of making money in the future; the trader would be getting his goods from different parts; inland or overseas, they would have to be carted up from the sea with teams of horses.

Ay, it looked as if things were going to be on a grander scale all round. Here was a young foreman or manager in charge of the carting work; a lordly young spark he was, and grumbled at not getting horses enough, for all that there were not so many loads to come.

"But there can't be so much more to come now, with the houses all up," they said.

"Ho, and what about the goods?" he answered.

Sivert from Sellanraa came clattering up homeward, empty as usual, and the foreman called to him: "Hi, what are you coming up empty for? Why didn't you bring up a load for us here?"

"Why, I might have," said Sivert. "But I'd no knowledge of it."

"He's from Sellanraa; they've two horses there," some one whispered.

"What's that? You've got two horses?" says the foreman. "Bring them down, then, the pair of them, to help with the cartage here. We'll pay you well."

"Why," says Sivert, "that's none so bad, dare say. But we're pressed just now, and can't spare the time."

"What? Can't spare the time to make money!" says the foreman.

But they had not always time at Sellanraa, there was much to do on the place. They had hired men to help--the first time such a thing had ever been done at Sellanraa--two stoneworkers from the Swedish side, to get out stone for a new cowshed.

This had been Isak's great idea for years past, to build a proper cowshed. The turf hut where the cattle were housed at present was too small, and out of repair; he would have a stone-built shed with double walls and a proper dung-pit under. It was to be done now. But there were many other things to be done as well, one thing always leading to another; the building work, at any rate, seemed never to be finished. He had a sawmill and a cornmill and a summer shed for the cattle; it was but reasonable he should have a smithy. Only a little place, for odd jobs as need arose; it was a long way to send down to the village when the sledge-hammer curled at the edges or a horseshoe or so wanted looking to. Just enough to manage with, that was all--and why shouldn't he? Altogether, there were many outbuildings, little and big, at Sellanraa.

The place is growing, getting bigger and bigger, a mighty big place at last. Impossible now to manage without a girl to help, and Jensine has to stay on. Her father, the blacksmith, asks after her now and again, if she isn't coming home soon; but he does not make a point of it, being an easy-going man, and maybe with his own reasons for letting her stay. And there is Sellanraa, farthest out of all the settlements, growing bigger and bigger all the time; the place, that is, the houses and the ground, only the folk are the same. The day is gone when wandering Lapps could come to the house and get all they wanted for the asking; they come but rarely now, seem rather to go a long way round and keep out of sight; none are even seen inside the house, but wait without if they come at all. Lapps always keep to the outlying spots, in dark places; light and air distress them, they cannot thrive; 'tis with them as with maggots and vermin. Now and again a calf or a lamb disappears without a trace from the outskirts of Sellanraa, from the farthest edge of the land--there is no helping that. And Sellanraa can bear the loss. And even if Sivert could shoot, he has no gun, but anyway, he cannot shoot; a good-tempered fellow, nothing warlike; a born jester: "And, anyway, I doubt but there's a law against shooting Lapps," says he.

Ay, Sellanraa can bear the loss of a head or so of cattle here and there; it stands there, great and strong. But not without its troubles for all that. Inger is not altogether pleased with herself and with life all the year round, no; once she made a journey to a place a long way off, and it seems to have left an ugly discontent behind. It may disappear for a time, but always it returns. She is clever and hard-working as in her best days, and a handsome, healthy wife for a man, for a barge of a man--but has she no memories of Trondhjem; does she never dream? Ay, and in winter most of all. Full of life and spirits at times, and wanting no end of things--but a woman cannot dance by herself, and so there was no dancing at Sellanraa. Heavy thoughts and books of devotion? Ay, well.... But there's something, Heaven knows, in the other sort of life, something splendid and unequalled. She has learned to make do with little; the Swedish stoneworkers are something, at any rate; strange faces and new voices about the place, but they are quiet, elderly men, given to work rather than play. Still, better than nothing--and one of them sings beautifully at his work; Inger stops now and again to listen. Hjalmar is his name.

And that is not all the trouble at Sellanraa. There is Eleseus, for instance--a disappointment there. He had written to say that his place in the engineer's office was no longer open, but he was going to get another all right--only wait. Then came another letter; he was expecting something to turn up very shortly, a first-rate post; but meantime, he could not live on nothing at all, and when they sent him a hundred-Krone note from home, he wrote back to say it was just enough to pay off some small debts he had.... "H'm," said Isak. "But we've these stoneworker folk to pay, and a deal of things ... write and ask if he wouldn't rather come back here and lend a hand."

And Inger wrote, but Eleseus did not care about coming home again; no, no sense in making another journey all to no purpose; he would rather starve.

Well, perhaps there was no first-rate post vacant just then in the city, and Eleseus, perhaps, was not as sharp as a razor in pushing his way. Heaven knows--perhaps he wasn't over clever at his work either. Write? ay, he could write well enough, and quick and hard-working maybe, but there might be something lacking for all that. And if so, what was to become of him?

When he arrived from home with his two hundred Kroner, the city was waiting for him with old accounts outstanding, and when those were paid, well, he had to get a proper walking-stick, and not the remains of an umbrella. There were other little things as well that were but reasonable--a fur cap for the winter, like all his companions wore, a pair of skates to go on the ice with as others did, a silver toothpick, which was a thing to clean one's teeth, and play with daintily when chatting with friends over a glass of this or that. And as long as he had money, he stood treat as far as he was able; at a festive evening held to celebrate his return to town, he ordered half a dozen bottles of beer, and had them opened sparingly, one after another. "What--twenty Ore for the waitress?" said his friends; "ten's quite enough."

"Doesn't do to be stingy," said Eleseus.

Nothing stingy nor mean about Eleseus, no; he come from a good home, from a big place, where his father the Margrave owned endless tracts of timber, and four horses and thirty cows and three mowing-machines. Eleseus was no liar, and it was not he who had spread abroad all the fantastic stories about the Sellanraa estate; 'twas the district surveyor who had amused himself talking grandly about it a long while back. But Eleseus was not displeased to find the stories taken more or less for truth. Being nothing in himself, it was just as well to be the son of somebody that counted for something; it gave him credit, and was useful that way. But it could not last for ever; the day came when he could no longer put off paying, and what was he to do then? One of his friends came to his help, got him into his father's business, a general store where the peasants bought their wares--better than nothing. It was a poor thing for a grown lad to start at a beginner's wage in a little shop; no short cut to the position of a Lensmand; still, it gave him enough to live on, helped him over the worst for the present--oh, 'twas not so bad, after all. Eleseus was willing and good-tempered here too, and people liked him; he wrote home to say he had gone into trade.

This was his mother's greatest disappointment. Eleseus serving in a shop--'twas not a whit better than being assistant at the store down in the village. Before, he had been something apart, something different from the rest; none of their neighbours had gone off to live in a town and work in an office. Had he lost sight of his great aim and end? Inger was no fool; she knew well enough that there was a difference between the ordinary and the uncommon, though perhaps she did not always think to reckon with it. Isak was simpler and slower of thought; he reckoned less and less with Eleseus now, when he reckoned at all; his eldest son was gradually slipping out of range. Isak no longer thought of Sellanraa divided between his two sons when he himself should be gone.

* * * * *

Some way on in spring came engineers and workmen from Sweden; going to build roads, put up hutments, work in various ways, blasting, levelling, getting up supplies of food, hiring teams of horses, making arrangements with owners of land by the waterside; what--what was it all about? This is in the wilds, where folk never came but those who lived there? Well, they were going to start that copper mine, that was all.

So it had come to something after all; Geissler had not been merely boasting.

It was not the same big men that had come with him that time--no, the two of them had stayed behind, having business elsewhere, no doubt. But the same engineer was there, and the mining expert that had come at first. They bought up all the sawn planks Isak could spare, bought food and drink and paid for it well, chatted in kindly fashion and were pleased with Sellanraa. "Aerial railway," they said. "Cable haulage from the top of the fjeld down to the waterside," they said.

"What, down over all this moorland here?" said Isak, being slow to think. But they laughed at that.

"No, on the other side, man; not this way, 'twould be miles to go. No, on the other side of the fjeld, straight down to the sea; a good fall, and no distance to speak of. Run the ore down through the air in iron tanks; oh, it'll work all right, you wait and see. But we'll have to cart it down at first; make a road, and have it hauled down in carts. We shall want fifty horses--you see, we'll get on finely. And we've more men on the works than these few here--that's nothing. There's more coming up from the other side, gangs of men, with huts all ready to put up, and stores of provisions and material and tools and things--then we meet and make connection with them half-way, on the top, you see? We'll make the thing go, never fear--and ship the ore to South America. There's millions to be made out of it."

"What about the other gentlemen," asked Isak, "that came up here before?"

"What? Oh, they've sold out. So you remember them? No, they've sold. And the people that bought them out have sold again. It's a big company now that owns the mine--any amount of money behind it."

"And Geissler, where'll he be now?" asks Isak.

"Geissler? Never heard of him. Who's he?"

"Lensmand Geissler, that sold you the place first of all."

"Oh, him! Geissler was his name? Heaven knows where he is now. So you remember him too?"

* * * * *

Blasting and working up in the hills, gangs of men at work all through the summer--there was plenty doing about the place. Inger did a busy trade in milk and farm produce, and it amused her--going into business, as it were, and seeing all the many folk coming and going. Isak tramped about with his lumbering tread, and worked on his land; nothing disturbed him. Sivert and the two stoneworkers got the new cowshed up. It was a fine building, but took a deal of time before it was finished, with only three men to the work, and Sivert, moreover, often called away to help in the fields. The mowing-machine was useful now; and a good thing, too, to have three active women that could take a turn at the haymaking.

All going well; there was life in the wilds now, and money growing, blossoming everywhere.

And look at Storborg, the new trader's place--there was a business on a proper scale! This Aron must be a wizard, a devil of a fellow; he had learned somehow beforehand of the mining operations to come, and was on the spot all ready, with his shop and store, to make the most of it. Business? He did business enough for a whole State--ay, enough for a king! To begin with, he sold all kinds of household utensils and workmen's clothes; but miners earning good money are not afraid to spend it; not content with buying necessaries only; they would buy anything and everything. And most of all on Saturday evenings, the trading station at Storborg was crowded with folk, and Aron raking money in; his clerk and his wife were both called in to help behind the counter, and Aron himself serving and selling as hard as he could go at it--and even then the place would not be empty till late at night. And the owners of horse-flesh in the village, they were right; 'twas a mighty carting and hauling of wares up to Storborg; more than once they had to cut off corners of the old road and make new short cuts--a fine new road it was at last, very different from Isak's first narrow path up through the wilds. Aron was a blessing and a benefactor, nothing less, with his store and his new road. His name was not Aron really, that being only his Christian name; properly, he was Aronsen, and so he called himself, and his wife called him the same. They were a family not to be looked down upon, and kept two servant-girls and a lad.

As for the land at Storborg, it remained untouched for the present. Aronsen had no time for working on the soil--where was the sense of digging up a barren moor? But Aronsen had a garden, with a fence all round, and currant bushes and asters and rowans and planted trees--ay, a real garden. There was a broad path down it, where Aronsen could walk o' Sundays and smoke his pipe, and in the background was the verandah of the house, with panes of coloured glass, orange and red and blue. Storborg ... And there were children--three pretty little things about the place. The girl was to learn to play her part as daughter of a wealthy trader, and the boys were to learn the business themselves--ay, three children with a future before them!

Aronsen was a man to take thought for the future, or he would not have come there at all. He might have stuck to his fishery, and like enough been lucky at that and made good money, but 'twas not like going into business; nothing so fine, a thing for common folk at best. People didn't take off their hats to a fisherman. Aronsen had rowed his boat before, pulling at the oars; now he was going to sail instead. There was a word he was always using: "Cash down." He used it all sorts of ways. When things went well, they were going "cash down." His children were to get on in the world, and live more "cash down" even than himself. That was how he put it, meaning that they should have an easier life of it than he had had.

And look you, things did go well; neighbours took notice of him, and of his wife--ay, even of the children. It was not the least remarkable thing, that folk took notice of the children. The miners came down from their work in the hills, and had not seen a child's face for many days; when they caught sight of Aronsen's little ones playing in the yard, they would talk kindly to them at once, as if they had met three puppies at play. They would have given them money, but seeing they were the trader's children, it would hardly do. So they played music for them on their mouth-organs instead. Young Gustaf came down, the wildest of them all, with his hat over one ear, and his lips ever ready with a merry word; ay, Gustaf it was that came and played with them for long at a time. The children knew him every time, and ran to meet them; he would pick them up and carry them on his back, all three of them, and dance with them. "Ho!" said Gustaf, and danced with them. And then he would take out his mouth-organ and play tunes and music for them, till the two servant-girls would come out and look at him, and listen, with tears in their eyes. Ay, a madcap was Gustaf, but he knew what he was doing!

Then after a bit he would go into the shop and throw his money about, buying up a whole knapsack full of things. And when he went back up the road again, it was with a whole little stock-in-trade of his own--and he would stop at Sellanraa on the way and open his pack and show them. Notepaper with a flower in the corner, and a new pipe and a new shirt, and a fringed neckerchief--sweets for the womenfolk, and shiny things, a watch-chain with a compass, a pocket-knife--oh, a host of things. Ay, there were rockets he had bought to let off on Sunday, for every one to see. Inger gave him milk, and he joked with Leopoldine, and picked up little Rebecca and swung her up in the air--"Hoy huit!"

"And how's the building getting on?" he asked the Swedes--Gustaf was a Swede himself, and made friends with them too. The building was getting on as best it could, with but themselves to the work. Why, then, he'd come and give them a hand himself, would Gustaf, though that was only said in jest.

"Ay, if you only would," said Inger. For the cowshed ought to be ready by the autumn, when the cattle were brought in.

Gustaf let off a rocket, and having let off one, there was no sense in keeping the rest. As well let them off too--and so he did, half a dozen of them, and the women and children stood round breathless at the magic of the magician; and Inger had never seen a rocket before, but the wild fire of them somehow reminded her of the great world she had once seen. What was a sewing-machine to this? And when Gustaf finished up by playing his mouth-organ, Inger would have gone off along the road with him for sheer emotion....

The mine is working now, and the ore is carted down by teams of horses to the sea; a steamer had loaded up one cargo and sailed away with it to South America, and another steamer waits already for the next load. Ay, 'tis a big concern. All the settlers have been up to look at the wonderful place, as many as can walk. Brede Olsen has been up, with his samples of stone, and got nothing for his pains, seeing that the mining expert was gone back to Sweden again. On Sundays, there was a crowd of people coming up all the way from the village; ay, even Axel Ström, who had no time to throw away, turned off from his proper road along the telegraph line to look at the place. Hardly a soul now but has seen the mine and its wonders. And at last Inger herself, Inger from Sellanraa, puts on her best, gold ring and all, and goes up to the hills. What does she want there?

Nothing, does not even care to see how the work is done. Inger has come to show herself, that is all. When she saw the other women going up, she felt she must go too. A disfiguring scar on her upper lip, and grown children of her own, has Inger, but she must go as the others did. It irks her to think of the others, young women, ay ... but she will try if she can't compete with them all the same. She has not begun to grow stout as yet, but has still a good figure enough, tall and natty enough; she can still look well. True, her colouring is not what it used to be, and her skin is not comparable to a golden peach--but they should see for all that; ay, they should say, after all, she was good enough!

They greet her kindly as she could wish; the workmen know her, she has given them many a drink of milk, and they show her over the mine, the huts, the stables and kitchens, the cellars and storesheds; the bolder men edge in close to her and take her lightly by the arm, but Inger does not feel hurt at all, it does her good. And where there are steps to go up or down, she lifts her skirts high, showing her legs a trifle; but she manages it quietly, as if without a thought. Ay, she's good enough, think the men to themselves.

Oh, but there is something touching about her, this woman getting on in years; plain to see that a glance from one of these warm-blooded menfolk came all unexpectedly to her; she was grateful for it, and returned it; she was a woman like other women, and it thrilled her to feel so. An honest woman she had been, but like enough 'twas for lack of opportunity.

Getting on in years....

Gustaf came up. Left two girls from the village, and a comrade, just to come. Gustaf knew what he was at, no doubt; he took Inger's hand with more warmth, more pressure than was needed, and thanked her for the last pleasant evening at Sellanraa, but he was careful not to plague her with attention.

"Well, Gustaf, and when are you coming to help us with the building?" says Inger, going red. And Gustaf says he will come sure enough before long. His comrades hear it, and put in a word that they'll all be coming down before long.

"Ho!" says Inger. "Aren't you going to stay on the mine, then, come winter?"

The men answer cautiously, that it doesn't look like it, but can't be sure. But Gustaf is bolder, and laughs and says, looks like they've scraped out the bit of copper there was.

"You'll not say that in earnest surely?" says Inger. And the other men put in that Gustaf had better be careful not to say any such thing.

But Gustaf was not going to be careful; he said a great deal more, and as for Inger, 'twas strange how he managed to win her for himself, for all that he never seemed to put himself forward that way. One of the other lads played a concertina, but 'twas not like Gustaf's mouth-organ; another lad again, and a smart fellow he was too, tried to draw attention to himself by singing a song off by heart to the music, but that was nothing either, for all that he had a fine rolling voice. And a little while after, there was Gustaf, and if he hadn't got Inger's gold ring on his little finger! And how had it come about, when he never plagued nor pushed himself forward? Oh, he was forward enough in his way, but quiet with it all, as Inger herself; they did not talk of things, and she let him play with her hand as if without noticing. Later on, when she sat in one of the huts drinking coffee, there was a noise outside, high words between the men, and she knew it was about herself, and it warmed her. A pleasant thing to hear, for one no longer young, for a woman getting on in years.

And how did she come home from the hills that Sunday evening? Ho, well enough, virtuous as she had come, no more and no less. There was a crowd of men to see her home, the crowd of them that would not turn back as long as Gustaf was there; would not leave her alone with him, not if they knew it! Inger had never had such a gay time, not even in the days when she had been out in the world.

"Hadn't Inger lost something?" they asked at last.

"Lost something? No."

"A gold ring, for instance?"

And at that Gustaf had to bring it out; he was one against all, a whole army.

"Oh, 'twas a good thing you found it," said Inger, and made haste to say good-bye to her escort. She drew nearer Sellanraa, saw the many roofs of the buildings; it was her home that lay there. And she awoke once more, came back to herself, like the clever wife she was, and took a short cut through to the summer shed to look to the cattle. On the way she passes by a place she knows; a little child had once lain buried there; she had patted down the earth with her hands, set up a tiny cross--oh, but it was long ago. Now, she was wondering if those girls had finished their milking in good time....

The work at the mine goes on, but there are whisperings of something wrong, the yield is not as good as it had promised. The mining expert, who had gone back home, came out again with another expert to help him; they went about blasting and boring and examining all the ground. What was wrong? The copper is fine enough, nothing wrong with that, but thin, and no real depth in it; getting thicker to the southward, lying deep and fine just where the company's holding reached its limit--and beyond that was Almenning, the property of the State. Well, the first purchasers had perhaps not thought so much of the thing, anyway. It was a family affair, some relatives who had bought the place as a speculation; they had not troubled to secure the whole range, all the miles to the next valley, no; they had but taken over a patch of ground from Isak Sellanraa and Geissler, and then sold it again.

And what was to be done now? The leading men, with the experts and the foremen, know well enough; they must start negotiations with the State at once. So they send a messenger off at full speed to Sweden, with letters and plans and charts, and ride away themselves down to the Lensmand below, to get the rights of the fjeld south of the water. And here their difficulties begin; the law stands in their way; they are foreigners, and cannot be purchasers in their own right. They knew all about that, and had made arrangements. But the southern side of the fjeld was sold already--and that they did not know. "Sold?"

"Ay, long ago, years back."

"Who bought it then?"

"Geissler."

"What Geissler?--oh, that fellow--h'm."

"And the title-deeds approved and registered," says the Lensmand. "'Twas bare rock, no more, and he got it for next to nothing."

"Who is this fellow Geissler that keeps cropping up? Where is he?"

"Heaven knows where he is now!"

And a new messenger is sent off to Sweden. They must find out all about this Geissler. Meanwhile, they could not keep on all the men; they must wait and see.

So Gustaf came down to Sellanraa, with all his worldly goods on his back, and here he was, he said. Ay, Gustaf had given up his work at the mine--that is to say, he had been a trifle too outspoken the Sunday before, about the mine and the copper in the mine; the foreman had heard of it, and the engineer, and Gustaf was given his discharge. Well, good-bye then, and maybe 'twas the very thing he wanted; there could be nothing suspicious now about his coming to Sellanraa. They set him to work at once on the cowshed.

They worked and worked at the stone walls, and when a few days later another man came down from the mine, he was taken on too; now there were two spells, and the work went apace. Ay, they would have it ready by the autumn, never fear.

But now one after another of the miners came down, dismissed, and took the road to Sweden; the trial working was stopped for the present. There was something like a sigh from the folk in the village at the news; foolish folk, they did not understand what a trial working was, that it was only working on trial, but so it was. There were dark forebodings and discouragement among the village folk; money was scarcer, wages were reduced, things were very quiet at the trading station at Storborg. What did it all mean? Just when everything was going on finely, and Aronsen had got a flagstaff and a flag, and had bought a fine white bearskin for a rug to have in the sledge for the winter, and fine clothes for all the family ... Little matters these, but there were greater things happening as well. Here were two new men had bought up land for clearing in the wilds; high up between Maaneland and Sellanraa, and that was no small event for the whole of that little outlying community. The two new settlers had built their turf huts and started clearing ground and digging. They were hard-working folk, and had done much in a little time. All that summer they had bought their provisions at Storborg, but when they came down now, last time, there was hardly anything to be had. Nothing in stock--and what did Aron want with heavy stocks of this and that now the work at the mine had stopped? He had hardly anything of any sort on the place now--only money. Of all the folk in the neighbourhood, Aronsen was perhaps the most dejected; his reckoning was all upset. When some one urged him to cultivate his land and live on that till better times, he answered: "Cultivate the land? 'Twas not that I came and set up house here for."

At last Aronsen could stand it no longer; he must go up to the mine and see for himself how things were. It was a Sunday. When he got to Sellanraa, he wanted Isak to go with him, but Isak had never yet set foot on the mine since they had started; he was more at home on the hillside below. Inger had to put in a word. "You might as well go with Aronsen, when he asks you," she said. And maybe Inger was not sorry to have him go; 'twas Sunday, and like as not she wanted to be rid of him for an hour or so. And so Isak went along.

There were strange things to be seen up there in the hills; Isak did not recognize the place at all now, with its huts and sheds, a whole town of them, and carts and waggons and great gaping holes in the ground. The engineer himself showed them round. Maybe he was not in the best of humour just now, that same engineer, but he had tried all along to keep away the feeling of gloom that had fallen upon the village folk and the settlers round--and here was his chance, with no less persons than the Margrave of Sellanraa and the great trader from Storborg on the spot.

He explained the nature of the ore and the rocks in which it was found. Copper, iron, and sulphur, all were there together. Ay, they knew exactly what there was in the rocks up there--even gold and silver was there, though not so much of it. A mining engineer, he knows a deal of things.

"And it's all going to shut down now?" asked Aronsen.

"Shut down?" repeated the engineer in astonishment. "A nice thing that'd be for South America if we did!" No, they were discontinuing their preliminary operations for a while, only for a short time; they had seen what the place was like, what it could produce; then they could build their aerial railway and get to work on the southern side of the fjeld. He turned to Isak: "You don't happen to know where this Geissler's got to?"

"No."

Well, no matter--they'd get hold of him all right. And then they'd start to work again. Shut down? The idea!

Isak is suddenly lost in wonder and delight over a little machine that works with a treadle--simply move your foot and it works. He understands it at once--'tis a little smithy to carry about on a cart and take down and set up anywhere you please.

"What's a thing like that cost, now?" he asks.

"That? Portable forge? Oh, nothing much." They had several of the same sort, it appeared, but nothing to what they had down at the sea; all sorts of machines and apparatus, huge big things. Isak was given to understand that mining, the making of valleys and enormous chasms in the rock, was not a business that could be done with your fingernails--ha ha!

They stroll about the place, and the engineer mentions that he himself will be going across to Sweden in a few days' time.

"But you'll be coming back again?" says Aronsen.

Why, of course. Knew of no reason why the Government or the police should try to keep him.

Isak managed to lead round to the portable forge once more and stopped, looking at it again. "And what might a bit of a machine like that cost?" he asked.

Cost? Couldn't say off-hand--a deal of money, no doubt, but nothing to speak of in mining operations. Oh, a grand fellow was the engineer; not in the best of humour himself just then, perhaps, but he kept up appearances and played up rich and fine to the last. Did Isak want a forge? Well, he might take that one--the company would never trouble about a little thing like that--the company would make him a present of a portable forge!

An hour after, Aronsen and Isak were on their way down again. Aronsen something calmer in mind--there was hope after all. Isak trundles down the hillside with his precious forge on his back. Ay, a barge of a man, he could bear a load! The engineer had offered to send a couple of men down with it to Sellanraa next morning, but Isak thanked him--'twas more than worth his while. He was thinking of his own folk; 'twould be a fine surprise for them to see him come walking down with a smithy on his back.

But 'twas Isak was surprised after all.

A horse and cart turned into the courtyard just as he reached home. And a highly remarkable load it brought. The driver was a man from the village, but beside him walked a gentleman at whom Isak stared in astonishment--it was Geissler.

Chapter V

There were other things that might have given Isak matter for surprise, but he was no great hand at thinking of more than one thing at a time. "Where's Inger?" was all he said as he passed by the kitchen door. He was only anxious to see that Geissler was well received.

Inger? Inger was out plucking berries; had been out plucking berries ever since Isak started--she and Gustaf the Swede. Ay, getting on in years, and all in love again and wild with it; autumn and winter near, but she felt the warmth in herself again, flowers and blossoming again. "Come and show where there's cloudberries," said Gustaf; "cranberries," said he. And how could a woman say no? Inger ran into her little room and was both earnest and religious for several minutes; but there was Gustaf standing waiting outside, the world was at her heels, and all she did was to tidy her hair, look at herself carefully in the glass, and out again. And what if she did? Who would not have done the same? Oh, a woman cannot tell one man from another; not always--not often.

And they two go out plucking berries, plucking cloudberries on the moorland, stepping from tuft to tuft, and she lifts her skirts high, and has her neat legs to show. All quiet everywhere; the white grouse have their young ones grown already and do not fly up hissing any more; they are sheltered spots where bushes grow on the moors. Less than an hour since they started, and already they are sitting down to rest. Says Inger: "Oh, I didn't think you were like that?" Oh, she is all weakness towards him, and smiles piteously, being so deep in love--ay, a sweet and cruel thing to be in love, 'tis both! Right and proper to be on her guard--ay, but only to give in at last. Inger is so deep in love--desperately, mercilessly; her heart is full of kindliness towards him, she only cares to be close and precious to him.

Ay, a woman getting on in years....

"When the work's finished, you'll be going off again," says she.

No, he wasn't going. Well, of course, some time, but not yet, not for a week or so.

"Hadn't we better be getting home?" says she.

"No."

They pluck more berries, and in a little while they find a sheltered place among the bushes, and Inger says: "Gustaf, you're mad to do it." And hours pass--they'll be sleeping now, belike, among the bushes. Sleeping? Wonderful--far out in the wilderness, in the Garden of Eden. Then suddenly Inger sits upright and listens: "Seems like I heard some one down on the road away off?"

The sun is setting, the tufts of heather darkening in shadow as they walk home. They pass by many sheltered spots, and Gustaf sees them, and Inger, she sees them too no doubt, but all the time she feels as if some one were driving ahead of them. Oh, but who could walk all the way home with a wild handsome lad, and be on her guard all the time? Inger is too weak, she can only smile and say: "I never knew such a one."

She comes home alone. And well that she came just then, a fortunate thing. A minute later had not been well at all. Isak had just come into the courtyard with his forge, and Aronsen--and there is a horse and cart just pulled up.

"Goddag," says Geissler, greeting Inger as well. And there they stand, all looking one at another--couldn't be better....

Geissler back again. Years now since he was there, but he is back again, aged a little, greyer a little, but bright and cheerful as ever. And finely dressed this time, with a white waistcoat and gold chain across. A man beyond understanding!

Had he an inkling, maybe, that something was going on up at the mine, and wanted to see for himself? Well, here he was. Very wide awake to look at, glancing round at the place, at the land, turning his head and using his eyes every way. There are great changes to note; the Margrave had extended his domains. And Geissler nods.

"What's that you're carrying?" he asks Isak. "'Tis a load for one horse in itself," says he.

"'Tis for a forge," explains Isak. "And a mighty useful thing to have on a bit of a farm," says he--ay, calling Sellanraa a bit of a farm, no more!

"Where did you get hold of it?"

"Up at the mine. Engineer, he gave me the thing for a present, he said."

"The company's engineer?" says Geissler, as if he had not understood.

And Geissler, was he to be outdone by an engineer on a copper mine? "I've heard you'd got a mowing-machine," says he, "and I've brought along a patent raker thing that's handy to have." And he points to the load on the cart. There it stood, red and blue, a huge comb, a hayrake to be driven with horses. They lifted it out of the cart and looked at it; Isak harnessed himself to the thing and tried it over the ground. No wonder his mouth opened wide! Marvel on marvel coming to Sellanraa!

They spoke of the mine, of the work up in the hills. "They were asking about you, quite a lot," said Isak.

"Who?"

"The engineer, and all the other gentlemen. 'Have to get hold of you somehow,' they said."

Oh, but here Isak was saying overmuch, it seemed. Geissler was offended, no doubt; he turned sharp and curt, and said: "Well, I'm here, if they want me."

Next day came the two messengers back from Sweden, and with them a couple of the mine-owners; on horseback they were, fine gentlemen and portly; mighty rich folk, by the look of them. They hardly stopped at Sellanraa at all, simply asked a question or so about the road, without dismounting, and rode on up the hill. Geissler they pretended not to see, though he stood quite close. The messengers with their loaded packhorses rested for an hour, talked to the men at work on the building, learned that the old gentleman in the white waistcoat and gold chain was Geissler, and then they too went on again. But that same evening one of them came riding down to the place with a message by word of mouth for Geissler to come up to the gentlemen at the mines. "I'm here if they want me," was the answer Geissler sent back.

Geissler was grown an important personage, it seemed; thought himself a man of power, of all the power in the world; considered it, perhaps, beneath his dignity to be sent for by word of mouth. But how was it he had come to Sellanraa at all just then--just when he was most wanted? A great one he must be for knowing things, all manner of things. Anyway, when the gentlemen up at the mine had Geissler's answer, there was nothing for it but they must bestir themselves and come all the way down to Sellanraa again. The engineer and the two mining experts came with them.

So many crooked ways and turnings were there before that meeting was brought about. It looked ill to start with; ay, Geissler was over-lordly by far.

The gentlemen were polite enough this time; begged him to excuse their having sent a verbal message the day before, being tired out after their journey. Geissler was polite in return, and said he too was tired out after his journey, or he would have come. Well, and then, to get to business; Would Geissler sell the land south of the water?

"Do you wish to purchase on your own account, may I ask," said Geissler, "or are you acting as agents?"

Now this could be nothing but sheer contrariness on Geissler's part; he could surely see for himself that rich and portly gentlemen of their stamp would not be acting as agents. They went on to discuss terms. "What about the price?" said they.

"The price?--yes," said Geissler, and sat thinking it over. "A couple of million," said he.

"Indeed?" said the gentlemen, and smiled. But Geissler did not smile.

The engineer and the two experts had made a rough investigation of the ground, made a few borings and blastings, and here was their report: the occurrence of ore was due to eruption; it was irregular, and from their preliminary examination appeared to be deepest in the neighbourhood of the boundary between the company's land and Geissler's decreasing from there onwards. For the last mile or so there was no ore to be found worth working.

Geissler listened to all this with the greatest nonchalance. He took some papers from his pocket, and looked at them carefully; but the papers were not charts nor maps--like as not they were things no way connected with the mine at all.

"You haven't gone deep enough," said he, as if it were something he had read in his papers. The gentlemen admitted that at once, but the engineer asked: How did he know that--"You haven't made borings yourself, I suppose?"

And Geissler smiled, as if he had bored hundreds of miles down through the globe, and covered up the holes again after.

They kept at it till noon, talking it over this way and that, and at last began to look at their watches. They had brought Geissler down to half a million now, but not a hair's breadth farther. No; they must have put him out sorely some way or other. They seemed to think he was anxious to sell, obliged to sell, but he was not--ho, not a bit; there he sat, as easy and careless as themselves, and no mistaking it.

"Fifteen, say twenty thousand would be a decent price anyway," said they.

Geissler agreed that might be a decent price enough for any one sorely in need of the money, but five-and-twenty thousand would be better. And then one of the gentlemen put in--saying it perhaps by way of keeping Geissler from soaring too far: "By the way, I've seen your wife's people in Sweden--they sent their kind regards."

"Thank you," said Geissler.

"Well," said the other gentleman, seeing Geissler was not to be won over that way, "a quarter of a million ... it's not gold we're buying, but copper ore."

"Exactly," said Geissler. "It's copper ore."

And at that they lost patience, all of them, and five watch-cases were opened and snapped to again; no more time to fool away now; it was time for dinner. They did not ask for food at Sellanraa, but rode back to the mine to get their own.

And that was the end of the meeting.

Geissler was left alone.

What would be in his mind all this time--what was he pondering and speculating about? Nothing at all, maybe, but only idle and careless? No, indeed, he was thinking of something, but calm enough for all that. After dinner, he turned to Isak, and said: "I'm going for a long walk over my land up there; and I'd have liked to have Sivert with me, same as last time."

"Ay, so you shall," said Isak at once.

"No; he's other things to do, just now."

"He shall go with you at once," said Isak, and called to Sivert to leave his work. But Geissler held up his hand, and said shortly: "No."

He walked round the yard several times, came back and talked to the men at their work, chatting easily with them and going off and coming back again. And all the time with this weighty matter on his mind, yet talking as if it were nothing at all. Geissler had long been so long accustomed to changes of fortune, maybe he was past feeling there was anything at stake now, whatever might be in the air.

Here he was, the man he was, by the merest chance. He had sold the first little patch of land to his wife's relations, and what then? Gone off and bought up the whole tract south of the water--what for? Was it to annoy them by making himself their neighbour? At first, no doubt, he had only thought of taking over a little strip of the land there, just where the new village would have to be built if the workings came to anything, but in the end he had come to be owner of the whole fjeld. The land was to be had for next to nothing, and he did not want a lot of trouble with boundaries. So, from sheer idleness he had become a mining king, a lord of the mountains; he had thought of a site for huts and machine sheds, and it had become a kingdom, stretching right down to the sea.

In Sweden, the first little patch of land had passed from hand to hand, and Geissler had taken care to keep himself informed as to its fate. The first purchasers, of course, had bought foolishly, bought without sense or forethought; the family council were not mining experts, they had not secured enough land at first, thinking only of buying out a certain Geissler, and getting rid of him. But the new owners were no less to be laughed at; mighty men, no doubt, who could afford to indulge in a jest, and take up land for amusement's sake, for a drunken wager, or Heaven knows what. But when it came to trial workings, and exploiting the land in earnest, then suddenly they found themselves butting up against a wall--Geissler.

Children! thought Geissler, maybe, in his lofty mind; he felt his power now, felt strong enough to be short and abrupt with folk. The others had certainly done their best to take him down a peg; they imagined they were dealing with a man in need of money, and threw out hints of some fifteen or twenty thousand--ay, children. They did not know Geissler. And now here he stood.

They came down no more that day from the fjeld, thinking best, no doubt, not to show themselves over-anxious. Next morning they came down, packhorses and all, on their way home. And lo--Geissler was not there.

Not there?

That put an end to any ideas they might have had of settling the manner in lordly wise, from the saddle; they had to dismount and wait. And where was Geissler, if you please? Nobody could tell them; he went about everywhere, did Geissler, took an interest in Sellanraa and all about it; the last they had seen of him was up at the sawmill. The messengers were sent out to look for him, but Geissler must have gone some distance, it seemed, for he gave no answer when they shouted. The gentlemen looked at their watches, and were plainly annoyed at first, and said: "We're not going to fool about here waiting like this. If Geissler wants to sell, he must be on the spot." Oh, but they changed their tone in a little while; showed no annoyance after a while, but even began to find something amusing in it all, to jest about it. Here were they in a desperate case; they would have to lie out there in the desolate hills all night. And get lost and starve to death in the wilds, and leave their bones to bleach undiscovered by their mourning kin--ay, they made a great jest of it all.

At last Geissler came. Had been looking round a bit--just come from the cattle enclosure. "Looks as if that'll be too small for you soon," said he to Isak. "How many head have you got up there now altogether?" Ay, he could talk like that, with those fine gentlemen standing there watch in hand. Curiously red in the face was Geissler, as if he had been drinking. "Puh!" said he. "I'm all hot, walking."

"We half expected you would be here when we came," said one of the gentlemen.

"I had no word of your wanting to see me at all," answered Geissler, "otherwise I might have been here on the spot."

Well, and what about the business now? Was Geissler prepared to accept a reasonable offer today? It wasn't every day he had a chance of fifteen or twenty thousand--what? Unless, of course.... If the money were nothing to him, why, then....

This last suggestion was not to Geissler's taste at all; he was offended. A nice way to talk! Well, they would not have said it, perhaps, if they had not been annoyed at first; and Geissler, no doubt, would hardly have turned suddenly pale at their words if he had not been out somewhere by himself and got red. As it was, he paled, and answered coldly:

"I don't wish to make any suggestion as to what you, gentlemen, may be in a position to pay--but I know what I am willing to accept and what not. I've no use for more child's prattle about the mine. My price is the same as yesterday."

"A quarter of a million Kroner?"

"Yes."

The gentlemen mounted their horses." Look here," said one, "we'll go this far, and say twenty-five thousand."

"You're still inclined to joke, I see," said Geissler. "But I'll make you an offer in sober earnest: would you care to sell your bit of a mine up there?"

"Why," said they, somewhat taken aback--"why, we might do that, perhaps."

"I'm ready to buy it," said Geissler.

Oh, that Geissler! With the courtyard full of people now, listening to every word; all the Sellanraa folk, and the stoneworkers and the messengers. Like as not, he could never have raised the money, nor anything near it, for such a deal; but, again, who could say? A man beyond understanding was Geissler. Anyhow, his last words rather disconcerted those gentlemen on horseback. Was it a trick? Did he reckon to make his own land seem worth more by this manoeuvre?

The gentlemen thought it over; ay, they even began to talk softly together about it; they got down from their horses again. Then the engineer put in a word; he thought, no doubt, it was getting beyond all bearing. And he seemed to have some power, some kind of authority here. And the yard was full of folk all listening to what was going on. "We'll not sell," said he.

"Not?" asked his companions.

"No."

They whispered together again, and they mounted their horses once more--in earnest this time. "Twenty-five thousand!" called out one of them. Geissler did not answer, but turned away, and went over to talk to the stoneworkers again.

And that was the end of their last meeting.

Geissler appeared to care nothing for what might come of it. He walked about talking of this, that, and the other; for the moment he seemed chiefly interested in the laying of some heavy beams across the shell of the new cowhouse. They were to get the work finished that week, with a temporary roof--a new fodder loft was to be built up over later on.

Isak kept Sivert away from the building work now, and left him idle--and this he did with a purpose, that Geissler might find the lad ready at any time if he wanted to go exploring with him in the hills. But Isak might have saved himself the trouble; Geissler had given up the idea, or perhaps forgotten all about it. What he did was to get Inger to pack him up some food, and set off down the road. He stayed away till evening.

He passed the two new clearings that had been started below Sellanraa, and talked to the men there; went right down to Maaneland to see what Axel Ström had got done that year. Nothing very great, it seemed; not as much as he might have wished, but he had put in some good work on the land. Geissler took an interest in this place, too, and asked him: "Got a horse?"

"Ay."

"Well, I've a mowing-machine and a harrow down south, both new; I'll send them up, if you like."

"How?" asked Axel, unable to conceive such magnificence, and thinking vaguely of payment by instalments.

"I mean I'll make you a present of them," said Geissler.

"'Tis hard to believe," said Axel.

"But you'll have to help those two neighbours of yours up above, breaking new land."

"Ay, never fear for that," said Axel; he could still hardly make out what Geissler meant by it all. "So you've machines and things down south?"

"I've a deal of things to look after," said Geissler. Now, as a matter of fact, Geissler had no great deal of things to look after, but he liked to make it appear so. As for a mowing-machine and a harrow, he could buy them in any of the towns, and send up from there.

He stayed talking a long while with Axel Ström about the other settlers near; of Storborg, the trading station; of Axel's brother, newly married, who had come to Breidablik, and had started draining the moors and getting the water out. Axel complained that it was impossible to get a woman anywhere to help; he had none but an old creature, by name Oline; not much good at the best of times, but he might be thankful to have her as long as she stayed. Axel had been working day and night part of that summer. He might, perhaps, have got a woman from his own parts, from Helgeland, but that would have meant paying for her journey, besides wages. A costly business all round. Axel further told how he had taken over the inspection of the telegraph line, but rather wished he had left it alone.

"That sort of thing's only fit for Brede and his like," said Geissler.

"Ay, that's a true word," Axel admitted. "But there was the money to think of."

"How many cows have you got?"

"Four. And a young bull. 'Twas too far to go up to Sellanraa to theirs."

But there was a far weightier matter Axel badly wanted to talk over with Geissler; Barbro's affair had come to light, somehow, and an investigation was in progress. Come to light? Of course it had. Barbro had been going about, evidently with child and plain to see, and she had left the place by herself all unencumbered and no child at all. How had it come about?

When Geissler understood what the matter was, he said quite shortly: "Come along with me." And he led Axel with him away from the house. Geissler put on an important air, as one in authority. They sat down at the edge of the wood, and Geissler said: "Now, then, tell me all about it."

Come to light? Of course it had; how could it be helped? The place was no longer a desert, with never a soul for miles; and, moreover, Oline was there. What had Oline to do with it? Ho! and, to make things worse, Brede Olsen had made an enemy of her himself. No means of getting round Oline now; here she was on the spot, and could worm things out of Axel a bit at a time. 'Twas just such underhand work she lived for; ay, lived by, in some degree. And here was the very thing for her--trust Oline for scenting it out! Truth to tell, Oline was grown too old now to keep house and tend cattle at Maaneland; she ought to have given it up. But how could she? How could she leave a place where a fine, deep mystery lay simply waiting to be brought to light? She managed the winter's work; ay, she got through the summer, too, and it was a marvel of strength she gained from the mere thought of being able one day to show up a daughter of Brede himself. The snow was not gone from the fields that spring before Oline began poking about. She found the little green mound by the stream, and saw at once that the turf had been laid down in squares. She had even had the luck to come upon Axel one day standing by the little grave, and treading it down. So Axel knew all about it! And Oline nodded her grey head--ay, it was her turn now!

Not but Axel was a kindly man enough to live with, but miserly; counted his cheeses, and kept good note of every tuft of wool; Oline could not do as she liked with things, not by a long way. And then that matter of the accident last year, when she had saved him--if Axel had been the right sort, he would have given her the credit for it all, and acknowledged his debt to her alone. But not a bit of it--Axel still held to the division he had made on the spot. Ay, he would say, if Oline hadn't happened to come along, he would have had to lie out there in the cold all night; but Brede, he'd been a good help too, on the way home. And that was all the thanks she got! Oline was full of indignation--surely the Lord Almighty must turn away His face from His creatures! How easy it would have been for Axel to lead out a cow from its stall, and bring it to her and say: "Here's a cow for you, Oline." But no. Not a word of it.

Well, let him wait--wait and see if it might not come to cost him more than the worth of a cow in the end!

All through that summer, Oline kept a look-out for every passer-by, and whispered to them and nodded and confided things to them in secret. "But never a word I've said," so she charged them every time. Oline went down to the village, too, more than once. And now there were rumours and talk of things about the place, ay, drifting like a fog, settling on faces and getting into ears; even the children going to school at Breidablik began nodding secrets among themselves. And at last the Lensmand had to take it up; had to bestir himself and report it, and ask for instructions. Then he came up with a book to write in and an assistant to help him; came up to Maaneland one day and investigated things and wrote things down, and went back again. But three weeks after, he came up once more, investigating and writing down again, and this time, he opened a little green mound by the stream, and took out the body of a child. Oline was an invaluable help to him; and in return he had to answer a host of questions she put. Among other things, he said yes, it might perhaps come to having Axel arrested too. At that, Oline clasped her hands in dismay at all the wickedness she had got mixed up with here, and only wished she were out of the place, far away from it all. "But the girl," she whispered, "what about Barbro herself?"

"The girl Barbro," said the Lensmand, "she's under arrest now in Bergen. The law must take its course," said he. And he took the little body and went back again to the village....

Little wonder, then, that Axel Ström was anxious. He had spoken out to the Lensmand and denied nothing; he was in part responsible for the coming of the child at all, and in addition, he had dug a grave for it. And now he was asking Geissler what he had better do next. Would he have to go in to the town, to a new and worse examination, and be tortured there?

Geissler was not the man he had been--no; and the long story had wearied him, he seemed duller now, whatever might be the cause. He was not the bright and confident soul he had been that morning. He looked at his watch, got up, and said:

"This'll want thinking over. I'll go into it thoroughly and let you know before I leave."

And Geissler went off.

He came back to Sellanraa that evening, had a little supper, and went to bed. Slept till late next morning, slept, rested thoroughly; he was tired, no doubt, after his meeting with the Swedish mine-owners. Not till two days after did he make ready to leave. He was his lordly self again by then, paid liberally for his keep, and gave little Rebecca a shining Krone.

He made a speech to Isak, and said: "It doesn't matter in the least if nothing came of the deal this time, it'll come all right later on. For the present, I'm going to stop the working up there and leave it a bit. As for those fellows--children! Thought they would teach me, did they? Did you hear what they offered me? Twenty-five thousand!"

"Ay," said Isak.

"Well," said Geissler, and waved his hand as if dismissing all impertinent offers of insignificant sums from his mind, "well, it won't do any harm to the district if I do stop the working there a bit--on the contrary, it'll teach folk to stick to their land. But they'll feel it in the village. They made a pile of money there last summer; fine clothes and fine living for all--but there's an end of that now. Ay, it might have been worth their while, the good folks down there, to have kept in with me; things might have been different then. Now, it'll be as I please."

But for all that, he did not look much of a man to control the fate of villages, as he went away. He carried a parcel of food in his hand, and his white waistcoat was no longer altogether clean. His good wife might have equipped him for the journey up this time out of the rest of the forty thousand she had once got--who could say, perhaps she had. Anyhow, he was going back poor enough.

He did not forget to look in at Axel Ström on the way down, and give the results of his thinking over. "I've been looking at it every way," said he. "The matter's in abeyance for the present, so there's nothing to be done just yet. You'll be called up for a further examination, and you'll have to say how things are...."

Words, nothing more. Geissler had probably never given the matter a thought at all. And Axel agreed dejectedly to all he said. But at last Geissler flickered up into a mighty man again, puckered his brows, and said thoughtfully: "Unless, perhaps, I could manage to come to town myself and watch the proceedings."

"Ay, if you'd be so good," said Axel.

Geissler decided in a moment. "I'll see if I can manage it, if I can get the time. But I've a heap of things to look after down south. I'll come if I can. Good-bye for now. I'll send you those machines all right."

And Geissler went.

Would he ever come again?

Chapter VI

The rest of the workmen came down from the mine. Work is stopped. The fjeld lies dead again.

The building at Sellanraa, too, is finished now. There is a makeshift roof of turf put on for the winter; the great space beneath is divided into rooms, bright apartments, a great salon in the middle and large rooms at either end, as if it were for human beings. Here Isak once lived in a turf hut together with a few goats--there is no turf hut to be seen now at Sellanraa.

Loose boxes, mangers, and bins are fitted up. The two stoneworkers are still busy, kept on to get the whole thing finished as soon as possible, but Gustaf is no hand at woodwork, so he says, and he is leaving. Gustaf has been a splendid lad at the stonework, heaving and lifting like a bear; and in the evenings, a joy and delight to all, playing his mouth-organ, not to speak of helping the womenfolk, carrying heavy pails to and from the river. But he is going now. No, Gustaf is no hand at woodwork, so he says. It looks almost as if he were in a hurry to get away.

"Can't it wait till tomorrow?" says Inger.

No, it can't wait, he's no more work to do here, and besides, going now, he will have company across the hills, going over with the last; gang from the mines.

"And who's to help me with my buckets now?" says Inger, smiling sadly.

But Gustaf is never at a loss, he has his answer ready, and says "Hjalmar." Now Hjalmar was the younger of the two stoneworkers, but neither of them was young as Gustaf himself, none like him in any way.

"Hjalmar--huh!" says Inger contemptuously. Then suddenly she changes her tone, and turns to Gustaf, thinking to make him jealous. "Though, after all, he's nice to have on the place, is Hjalmar," says she, "and so prettily he sings and all."

"Don't think much of him, anyway," says Gustaf. He does not seem jealous in the least.

"But you might stay one more night at least?"

No, Gustaf couldn't stay one more night--he was going across with the others.

Ay, maybe Gustaf was getting tired of the game by now. 'Twas a fine thing to snap her up in front of all the rest, and have her for his own the few weeks he was there--but he was going elsewhere now, like as not to a sweetheart at home--he had other things in view. Was he to stay on loafing about here for the sake of her? He had reason enough for bringing the thing to an end, as she herself must know; but she was grown so bold, so thoughtless of any consequence, she seemed to care for nothing. No, things had not held for so very long between them--but long enough to last out the spell of his work there.

Inger is sad and down-hearted enough; ay, so erringly faithful that she mourns for him. 'Tis hard for her; she is honestly in love, without any thought of vanity or conquest. And not ashamed, no; she is a strong woman full of weakness; she is but following the law of nature all about her; it is the glow of autumn in her as in all things else. Her breast heaves with feeling as she packs up food for Gustaf to take with him. No thought of whether she has the right, of whether she dare risk this or that; she gives herself up to it entirely, hungry to taste, to enjoy. Isak might lift her up to the roof and thrust her to the floor again--ay, what of that! It would not make her feel the less.

She goes out with the parcel to Gustaf.

Now she had set the bucket by the steps on purpose, in case he should care to go with her to the river just once more. Maybe she would like to say something, to give him some little thing--her gold ring; Heaven knows, she was in a state to do anything. But there must be an end of it some time; Gustaf thanks her, says good-bye, and goes.

And there she stands.

"Hjalmar!" she calls out aloud--oh, so much louder than she need. As if she were determined to be gay in spite of all--or crying out in distress.

Gustaf goes on his way....

* * * * *

All through that autumn there was the usual work in the fields all round, right away down to the village: potatoes to be taken up, corn to be got in, the horned cattle let loose over the ground. Eight farms there are now and all are busy; but at the trading station, at Storborg, there are no cattle, and no green lands, only a garden. And there is no trade there now, and nothing for any to be busy about there.

They have a new root crop at Sellanraa called turnips, sending up a colossal growth of green waving leaves out of the earth, and nothing can keep the cows away from them--the beasts break down all hedgework, and storm in, bellowing. Nothing for it but to set Leopoldine and little Rebecca to keep guard over the turnip fields, and little Rebecca walks about with a big stick in her hand and is a wonder at driving cows away. Her father is at work close by; now and again he comes up to feel her hands and feet, and ask if she is cold. Leopoldine is big and grown up now; she can knit stockings and mittens for the winter while she is watching the herds. Born in Trondhjem, was Leopoldine, and came to Sellanraa five years old. But the memory of a great town with many people and of a long voyage on a steamer is slipping away from her now, growing more and more distant; she is a child of the wilds and knows nothing now of the great world beyond the village down below where she has been to church once or twice, and where she was confirmed the year before....

And the little casual work of every day goes on, with this thing and that to be done beside; as, for instance, the road down below, that is getting bad one or two places. The ground is still workable, and Isak goes down one day with Sivert, ditching and draining the road. There are two patches of bog to be drained.

Axel Ström has promised to take part in the work, seeing that he has a horse and uses the road himself--but Axel had pressing business in the town just then. Heaven knows what it could be, but very pressing, he said it was. But he had asked his brother from Breidablik to work with them in his stead.

Fredrik was this brother's name. A young man, newly married, a light-hearted fellow who could make a jest, but none the worse for that; Sivert and he are something alike. Now Fredrik had looked in at Storborg on his way up that morning, Aronsen of Storborg being his nearest neighbour, and he is full of all the trader has been telling him. It began this way; Fredrik wanted a roll of tobacco. "I'll give you a roll of tobacco when I have one," said Aronsen.

"What, you've no tobacco in the place?"

"No, nor won't order any. There's nobody to buy it. What d'you think I make out of one roll of tobacco?"

Ay, Aronsen had been in a nasty humour that morning, sure enough; felt he had been cheated somehow by that Swedish mining concern. Here had he set up a store out in the wilds, and then they go and shut down the work altogether!

Fredrik smiles slyly at Aronsen, and makes fun of him now. "He's not so much as touched that land of his," says he, "and hasn't even feed for his beasts, but must go and buy it. Asked me if I'd any hay to sell. No, I'd no hay to sell. 'Ho, d'you mean you don't want to make money?' said Aronsen. Thinks money's everything in the world, seems like. Puts down a hundred-Krone note on the counter, and says 'Money!' 'Ay, money's well enough,' says I. 'Cash down,' says he. Ay, he's just a little bit touched that way, so to speak, and his wife she goes about with a watch and chain and all on weekdays--Lord He knows what can be she's so set on remembering to the minute."

Says Sivert: "Did Aronsen say anything about a man named Geissler?"

"Ay. Said something about he'd be wanting to sell some land he'd got. And Aronsen was wild about it, he was--'fellow that used to be Lensmand and got turned out,' he said, and 'like as not without so much as a five Krone in his books, and ought to be shot!' 'Ay, but wait a bit,' says I, 'and maybe he'll sell after all.' 'Nay,' says Aronsen, 'don't you believe it. I'm a business man,' says he, 'and I know--when one party puts up a price of two hundred and fifty thousand, and the other offers twenty-five thousand, there's too big a difference; there'll be no deal ever come out of that. Well, let 'em go their own way, and see what comes of it,' says he. 'I only wish I'd never set my foot in this hole, and a poor thing it's been for me and mine.' Then I asked him if he didn't think of selling out himself. 'Ay,' says he, 'that's just what I'm thinking of. This bit of bogland,' says he, 'a hole and a desert--I'm not making a single Krone the whole day now,' says he."

They laughed at Aronsen, and had no pity for him at all.

"Think he'll sell out?" asks Isak.

"Well, he did speak of it. And he's got rid of the lad he had already. Ay, a curious man, a queer sort of man, that Aronsen, 'tis sure. Sends away his lad could be working on the place getting in winter fuel and carting hay with that horse of his, but keeps on his storeman--chief clerk, he calls him. 'Tis true enough, as he says, not selling so much as a Krone all day, for he's no stock in the place at all. And what does he want with a chief clerk, then? I doubt it'll be just by way of looking grand and making a show, must have a man there to stand at a desk and write up things in books. Ha ha ha! ay, looks like he's just a little bit touched that way, is Aronsen."

The three men worked till noon, ate food from their baskets, and talked a while. They had matters of their own to talk over, matters of good and ill to folk on the land; no trifles, to them, but things to be discussed warily; they are clear-minded folk, their nerves unworn, and not flying out where they should not. It is the autumn season now, a silence in the woods all round; the hills are there, the sun is there, and at evening the moon and the stars will come; all regular and certain, full of kindliness, an embrace. Men have time to rest here, to lie in the heather, with an arm for a pillow.

Fredrik talks of Breidablik, how 'tis but little he's got done there yet awhile.

"Nay," says Isak, "'tis none so little already, I saw when I was down that way."

This was praise from the oldest among them, the giant himself, and Fredrik might well be pleased. He asks frankly enough: "Did you think so, now? Well, it'll be better before long. I've had a deal of things to hinder this year; the house to do up, being leaky and like to fall to pieces; hayloft to take down and put up again, and no sort of room in the turf hut for beasts, seeing I'd cow and heifer more than Brede he'd ever had in his time," says Fredrik proudly.

"And you're thriving like, up here?" asks Isak.

"Ay, I'll not say no. And wife, she's thriving too, why shouldn't we? There's good room and outlook all about; we can see up and down the road both ways. And a neat little copse by the house all pretty to look at, birch and willow--I'll plant a bit more other side of the house when I've time. And it's fine to see how the bogland's dried only since last year's ditching--'tis all a question now what'll grow on her this year. Ay, thrive? When we've house and home and land and all--'tis enough for the two of us surely."

"Ho," says Sivert slyly, "and the two of you--is that all there's ever to be?"

"Why, as to that," says Fredrik bravely, "'tis like enough there'll be more to come. And as to thriving--well, the wife's not falling off anyway, by the looks of her."

They work on until evening, drawing up now and again to straighten their backs, and exchange a word or so.

"And so you didn't get the tobacco?" says Sivert.

"No, that's true. But 'twas no loss, for I've no use for it, anyway," says Fredrik.

"No use for tobacco?"

"Nay. 'Twas but for to drop in at Aronsen's like, and hear what he'd got to say." And the two jesters laughed together at that.

On the way home, father and son talk little, as was their way; but Isak must have been thinking out something for himself; he says:

"Sivert?"

"Ay?" says Sivert again.

"Nay, 'twas nothing."

They walk on a good ways, and Isak begins again:

"How's he get on, then, with his trading, Aronsen, when he's nothing to trade with?"

"Nay," says Sivert. "But there's not folk enough here now for him to buy for."

"Ho, you think so? Why, I suppose 'tis so, ay, well...."

Sivert wondered a little at this. After a while his father went on again:

"There's but eight places now in all, but there might be more before long. More ... well, I don't know...."

Sivert wondering more than ever--what can his father be getting at? The pair of them walk on a long way in silence; they are nearly home now.

"H'm," says Isak. "What you think Aronsen he'd ask for that place of his now?"

"Ho, that's it!" says Sivert. "Want to buy it, do you?" he asks jestingly. But suddenly he understands what it all means: 'tis Eleseus the old man has in mind. Oh, he's not forgotten him after all, but kept him faithfully in mind, just as his mother, only in his own way, nearer earth, and nearer to Sellanraa.

"'Twill be going for a reasonable price, I doubt," says Sivert. And when Sivert says so much, his father knows the lad has read his thought. And as if in fear of having spoken out too clearly, he falls to talking of their road-mending; a good thing they had got it done at last.

For a couple of days after that, Sivert and his mother were putting their heads together and holding councils and whispering--ay, they even wrote a letter. And when Saturday came round Sivert suddenly wanted to go down to the village.

"What you want to go down village again for now?" said his father in displeasure. "Wearing boots to rags...." Oh, Isak was more bitter than need be; he knew well enough that Sivert was going to the post.

"Going to church," says Sivert.

'Twas all he could find by way of excuse, and his father muttered:" Well, what you want to go for ...?"

But if Sivert was going to church, why, he might harness up and take little Rebecca with him. Little Rebecca, ay, surely she might have that bit of a treat for once in her life, after being so clever guarding turnips and being all ways the pearl and blessing of them all, ay, that she was. And they harnessed up, and Rebecca had the maid Jensine to look after her on the way, and Sivert said never a word against that either.

While they are away, it so happens that Aronsen's man, his chief clerk, from Storborg, comes up the road. What does this mean? Why, nothing very much, 'tis only Andresen, the chief clerk from Storborg, come up for a bit of a walk this way--his master having sent him. Nothing more. And no great excitement among the folk at Sellanraa over that--'twas not as in the old days, when a stranger was a rare sight on their new land, and Inger made a great to-do. No, Inger's grown quieter now, and keeps to herself these days.

A strange thing that book of devotion, a guide upon the way, an arm round one's neck, no less. When Inger had lost hold of herself a little, lost her way a little out plucking berries, she found her way home again by the thought of her little chamber and the holy book; ay, she was humble now and a Godfearing soul. She can remember long years ago when she would say an evil word if she pricked her finger sewing--so she had learned to do from her fellow-workers round the big table in the Institute. But now she pricks her finger, and it bleeds, and she sucks the blood away in silence. 'Tis no little victory gained to change one's nature so. And Inger did more than that. When all the workmen were gone, and the stone building was finished, and Sellanraa was all forsaken and still, then came a critical time for Inger; she cried a deal, and suffered much. She blamed none but herself for it all, and she was deeply humbled. If only she could have spoken out to Isak, and relieved her mind, but that was not their way at Sellanraa; there was none of them would talk their feelings and confess things. All she could do was to be extra careful in the way she asked her husband to come in to meals, going right up to him to say it nicely, instead of shouting from the door. And in the evenings, she looked over his clothes, and sewed buttons on. Ay, and even more she did. One night she lifted up on her elbow and said:

"Isak?"

"What is it?" says Isak.

"Are you awake?"

"Ay."

"Nay, 'twas nothing," says Inger. "But I've not been all as I ought."

"What?" says Isak. Ay, so much he said, and rose up on his elbow in turn.

They lay there, and went on talking. Inger is a matchless woman, after all; and with a full heart, "I've not been as I ought towards you," she says, "and I'm that sorry about it."

The simple words move him; this barge of a man is touched, ay, he wants to comfort her, knowing nothing of what is the matter, but only that there is none like her. "Naught to cry about, my dear," says Isak. "There's none of us can be as we ought."

"Nay, 'tis true," she answers gratefully. Oh, Isak had a strong, sound way of taking things; straightened them out, he did, when they turned crooked. "None of us can be as we ought." Ay, he was right. The god of the heart--for all that he is a god, he goes a deal of crooked ways, goes out adventuring, the wild thing that he is, and we can see it in his looks. One day rolling in a bed of roses and licking his lips and remembering things; next day with a thorn in his foot, desperately trying to get it out. Die of it? Never a bit, he's as well as ever. A nice look-out it would be if he were to die!

And Inger's trouble passed off too; she got over it, but she keeps on with her hours of devotion, and finds a merciful refuge there. Hard-working and patient and good she is now every day, knowing Isak different from all other men, and wanting none but him. No gay young spark of a singer, true, in his looks and ways, but good enough, ay, good enough indeed! And once more it is seen that the fear of the Lord and contentment therewith are a precious gain.

And now it was that the little chief clerk from Storborg, Andresen, came up to Sellanraa one Sunday, and Inger was not in the least affected, far from it; she did not so much as go in herself to give him a mug of milk, but sent Leopoldine in with it, by reason that Jensine the maid was out. And Leopoldine could carry a mug of milk as well as need be, and she gave it him and said, "Here you are," and blushed, for all she was wearing her Sunday clothes and had nothing to be ashamed of, anyway.

"Thanks, 'tis overkind of you," says Andresen. "Is your father at home?" says he.

"Ay; he'll be about the place somewhere."

Andresen drank and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and looked at the time. "Is it far up to the mines?" he asked.

"No, 'tis an hour's walk, or hardly that."

"I'm going up to look over them, d'you see, for him, Aronsen--I'm his chief clerk."

"Ho!"

"You'll know me yourself, no doubt; I'm Aronsen's chief clerk. You've been down buying things at our place before."

"Ay."

"And I remember you well enough," says Andresen. "You've been down twice buying things."

"'Tis more than could be thought, you'd remember that," says Leopoldine, and had no more strength after that, but stood holding by a chair.

But Andresen had strength enough, he went on, and said: "Remember you? Well, of course I should." And he said more:

"You wouldn't like to walk up to the mine with me?" said he.

And a little after something went wrong with Leopoldine's eyes; everything turned red and strange about her, and the floor was slipping away from under, and Chief Clerk Andresen was talking from somewhere ever so far off. Saying: "Couldn't you spare the time?"

"No," says she.

And Heaven knows how she managed to get out of the kitchen again. Her mother looked at her and asked what was the matter. "Nothing," said Leopoldine.

Nothing, no, of course. But now, look you, 'twas Leopoldine's turn to be affected, to begin the same eternal round. She was well fitted for the same, overgrown and pretty and newly confirmed; an excellent sacrifice she would make. A bird is fluttering in her young breast, her long hands are like her mother's, full of tenderness, full of sex. Could she dance?--ay, indeed she could. A marvel where she had managed to learn it, but learn it they did at Sellanraa as well as elsewhere. Sivert could dance, and Leopoldine too; a kind of dancing peculiar to the spot, growth of the new-cleared soil; a dance with energy and swing: schottische, mazurka, waltz and polka in one. And could not Leopoldine deck herself out and fall in love and dream by daylight all awake? Ay, as well as any other! The day she stood in church she was allowed to borrow her mother's gold ring to wear; no sin in that, 'twas only neat and nice; and the day after, going to her communion, she did not get the ring on till it was over. Ay, she might well show herself in church with a gold ring on her finger, being the daughter of a great man on the place--the Margrave.

When Andresen came down from the mine, he found Isak at Sellanraa, and they asked him in, gave him dinner and a cup of coffee. All the folk on the place were in there together now, and took part in the conversation. Andresen explained that his master, Aronsen, had sent him up to see how things were at the mines, if there was any sign of beginning work there again soon. Heaven knows, maybe Andresen sat there lying all the time, about being sent by his master; he might just as well have hit on it for his own account--and anyway, he couldn't have been at the mines at all in the little time he'd been away.

"'Tis none so easy to see from outside if they're going to start work again," said Isak.

No, Andresen admitted that was so; but Aronsen had sent him, and after all, two pair of eyes could see better than one.

But here Inger seemingly could contain herself no longer; she asked: "Is it true what they're saying, Aronsen is going to sell his place again?"

Andresen answers: "He's thinking of it. And a man like him can surely do as he likes, seeing all the means and riches he's got."

"Ho, is he so rich, then?"

"Ay," says Andresen, nodding his head; "rich enough, and that's a true word."

Again Inger cannot keep silence, but asks right out:

"I wonder, now, what he'd be asking for the place?"

Isak puts in a word here; like as not he's more curious to know than Inger herself, but it must not seem that the idea of buying Storborg is any thought of his; he makes himself a stranger to it, and says now:

"Why, what you want to know for, Inger?"

"I was but asking," says she. And both of them look at Andresen, waiting. And he answers:

Answers cautiously enough that as to the price, he can say nothing of that, but he knows what Aronsen says the place has cost him.

"And how much is that?" asks Inger, having no strength to keep her peace and be silent.

"'Tis sixteen hundred Kroner" says Andresen.

Ho, and Inger claps her hands at once to hear it, for if there is one thing womenfolk have no sense nor thought of, 'tis the price of land and properties. But, anyway, sixteen hundred Kroner is no small sum for folk in the wilds, and Inger has but one fear, that Isak may be frightened off the deal. But Isak, he sits there just exactly like a fjeld, and says only: "Ay, it's the big houses he's put up."

"Ay," says Andresen again, "'tis just that. 'Tis the fine big houses and all."

Just when Andresen is making ready to go, Leopoldine slips out by the door. A strange thing, but somehow she cannot bring herself to think of shaking hands with him. So she has found a good place, standing in the new cowshed, looking out of a window. And with a blue silk ribbon round her neck, that she hadn't been wearing before, and a wonder she ever found time to put it on now. There he goes, a trifle short and stout, spry on his feet, with a light, full beard, eight or ten years older than herself. Ay, none so bad-looking to her mind!

And then the party came back from church late on Sunday night. All had gone well, little Rebecca had slept the last few hours of the way up, and was lifted from the cart and carried indoors without waking. Sivert has heard a deal of news, but when his mother asks, "Well, what you've got to tell?" he only says: "Nay, nothing much. Axel he's got a mowing-machine and a harrow."

"What's that?" says his father, all interested. "Did you see them?"

"Ay, I saw them right enough. Down on the quay."

"Ho! So that was what he must go in to town for," says his father. And Sivert sits there swelling with pride at knowing better, but says never a word.

His father might just as well believe that Axel's pressing business in the town had been to buy machines; his mother too might think so for all that. Ho, but there was neither of them thought so in their hearts; they had heard whispers enough of what was the matter; of a new child-murder case in the wilds.

"Time for bed," says his father at last.

Sivert goes off to bed, swelling with knowledge. Axel had been summoned for examination; 'twas a big affair--the Lensmand had gone with him--so big indeed that the Lensmand's lady, who had just had another child, had left the baby and was gone in to town with her husband. She had promised to put in a word to the jury herself.

Gossip and scandal all abroad in the village now, and Sivert saw well enough that a certain earlier crime of the same sort was being called to mind again. Outside the church, the groups would stop talking as he came up, and had he not been the man he was, perhaps some would have turned away from him. Good to be Sivert those days, a man from a big place to begin with, son of a wealthy landowner--and then beside, to be known as a clever fellow, a good worker; he ranked before others, and was looked up to for himself. Sivert had always been well liked among folk. If only Jensine did not learn too much before they got home that day! And Sivert had his own affairs to think of--ay, folk in the wilds can blush and pale as well as other. He had seen Jensine as she left the church with little Rebecca; she had seen him too, but went by. He waited a bit, and then drove over to the smith's to fetch them.

They were sitting at table, all the family at dinner. Sivert is asked to join them, but has had his dinner, thanks. They knew he would be coming, they might have waited that bit of a while for him--so they would have done at Sellanraa, but not here, it seemed.

"Nay, 'tis not what you're used to, I dare say," says the smith's wife. And, "What news from church?" says the smith, for all he had been at church himself.

When Jensine and little Rebecca were seated up in the cart again, says the smith's wife to her daughter: "Well, good-bye, Jensine; we'll be wanting you home again soon." And that could be taken two ways, thought Sivert, but he said nothing. If the speech had been more direct, more plain and outspoken, he might perhaps ... He waits, with puckered brows, but no more is said.

They drive up homeward, and little Rebecca is the only one with a word to say; she is full of the wonder of going to church, the priest in his dress with a silver cross, and the lights and the organ music. After a long while Jensine says: "'Tis a shameful thing about Barbro and all."

"What did your mother mean about you coming home soon?" asked Sivert.

"What she meant?"

"Ay. You thinking of leaving us, then?"

"Why, they'll be wanting me home some time, I doubt," says she.

"Ptro!" says Sivert, stopping his horse. "Like me to drive back with you now, perhaps?"

Jensine looks at him; he is pale as death.

"No," says she. And a little after she begins to cry.

Rebecca looks in surprise from one to the other. Oh, but little Rebecca was a good one to have on a journey like that; she took Jensine's part and patted her and made her smile again. And when little Rebecca looked threateningly at her brother and said she was going to jump down and find a big stick to beat him, Sivert had to smile too.

"But what did you mean, now, I'd like to know?" says Jensine.

Sivert answered straight out at once: "I meant, if you don't care to stay with us, why, we must manage without."

And a long while after, said Jensine: "Well, there's Leopoldine, she's big now, and fit and all to do my work, seems."

Ay, 'twas a sorrowful journey.