“What’ll you be bringing up next?” said Inger.

Isak brought up a host of things.  Brought up planks and a saw he had got in exchange for timber; a grindstone, a wafer iron, tools—­all in exchange for his logs.  Inger was bursting with riches, and said each time:  “What, more things!  When we’ve cattle and all a body could think of!”

They had enough to meet their needs for no little time to come, and were well-to-do folk.  What was Isak to start on again next spring?  He had thought it all out, tramping down beside his loads of wood that winter; he would clear more ground over the hillside and level it off, cut up more logs to dry through the summer, and take down double loads when the snow came fit for sledging.  It worked out beautifully.

But there was another matter Isak had thought of times out of number:  that Goldenhorns, where had she come from, whose had she been?  There was never a wife on earth like Inger.  Ho! a wild thing she was, that let him do as he pleased with her, and was glad of it.  But—­suppose one day they were to come for the cow, and take it away—­and worse, maybe, to come after?  What was it Inger herself had said about the horse:  “You haven’t stolen it, I suppose, or found it?” That was her first thought, yes.  That was what she had said; who could say if she were to be trusted—­what should he do?  He had thought of it all many a time.  And here he had brought up a mate himself for the cow—­for a stolen cow, maybe!

And there was the horse he would have to return again.  A pity—­for ’twas a little friendly beast, and grown fond of them already.

“Never mind,” said Inger comfortingly.  “Why, you’ve done wonders already.”

“Ay, but just now with the spring coming on—­and I’ve need of a horse....”

Next morning he drove off quietly with the last load, and was away two days.  Coming back on foot the third day, he stopped as he neared the house, and stood listening.  There was a curious noise inside....  A child crying—­Eyah, Herregud!...  Well, there it was; but a terrible strange thing.  And Inger had never said a word.

He stepped inside, and there first thing of all was the packing-case—­the famous packing-case that he had carried home slung round his neck in front; there it was, hung up by a string at each end from the ceiling, a cradle and a bedplace for the child.  Inger was up, pottering about half-dressed—­she had milked the cow and the goats, as it might have been just an ordinary day.

The child stopped crying.  “You’re through with it already?” said Isak.

“Ay, I’m through with it now.”

“H’m.”

“It came the first evening you were gone.”

“H’m.”

“I’d only to get my things off and hang up the cradle there, but it was too much for me, like, and I had to lie down.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Why, I couldn’t say to a minute when it’d be.  ’Tis a boy.”