Oh, but Brede would sell out anyhow, even at a loss; what was the good of a farm for him?  He was home-sick for the village again, the easy gossiping life there, and the little shop—­it suited him better than settling down here to work, and trying to forget the world outside.  Could he ever forget the Christmas trees and parties, or the national feastings on Constitution Day, or the bazaars held in the meeting-rooms?  He loved to talk with his kind, to exchange news and views, but who was there to talk with here?  Inger up at Sellanraa had seemed to be one of his sort for a while, but then she had changed—­there was no getting a word out of her now.  And besides, she had been in prison; and for a man in his position—­no, it would never do.

No, he had made a mistake in ever leaving the village; it was throwing himself away.  He noted with envy that the Lensmand had got another assistant, and the doctor another man to drive for him; he had run away from the people who needed him, and now that he was no longer there, they managed without him.  But the men who had taken his place—­they were no earthly good, of course.  Properly speaking, he, Brede, ought to be fetched back to the village in triumph!

Then there was Barbro—­why had he backed up the idea of getting her to go as help to Sellanraa?  Well, that was after talking over things with his wife.  If all went well, it might mean a good future for the girl, perhaps a future of a sort for all of them.  All very well to be housekeeper for two young clerks in Bergen, but who could say what she would get out of that in the long run?  Barbro was a pretty girl, and liked to look well; there might be a better chance for her here, after all.  For there were two sons at Sellanraa.

But when Brede saw that this plan would never come to anything, he hit on another.  After all, there was no great catch in marrying into Inger’s lot—­Inger who had been in prison.  And there were other lads to be thought of besides those two Sellanraa boys—­there was Axel Stroem, for instance.  He had a farm and a hut of his own, he was a man who scraped and saved and little by little managed to get hold of a bit of live stock and such-like, but with no wife, and no woman to help him.  “Well, I don’t mind telling you, if you take Barbro, she’ll be all the help you’ll need,” said Brede to him.  “Look, here’s her picture; you can see.”

And after a week or so, came Barbro.  Axel was in the midst of his haymaking, and had to do his mowing by day and haymaking by night, and all by himself—­and then came Barbro!  It was a godsend.  Barbro soon showed she was not afraid of work; she washed clothes and cleaned things, cooked and milked and helped in the hayfield—­helped to carry in the hay, she did.  Axel determined to give her good wages, and not lose by it.

She was not merely a photograph of a fine lady here.  Barbro was straight and thin, spoke somewhat hoarsely, showed sense and experience in various ways—­she was not a child.  Axel wondered what made her so thin and haggard in the face.  “I’d know you by your looks,” he said; “but you’re not like the photograph.”