“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 Stroem’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.