“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.