“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.