with a book to write in and an assistant to help him; came up to Maaneland one day and investigated things and wrote things down, and went back again.  But three weeks after, he came up once more, investigating and writing down again, and this time, he opened a little green mound by the stream, and took out the body of a child.  Oline was an invaluable help to him; and in return he had to answer a host of questions she put.  Among other things, he said yes, it might perhaps come to having Axel arrested too.  At that, Oline clasped her hands in dismay at all the wickedness she had got mixed up with here, and only wished she were out of the place, far away from it all.  “But the girl,” she whispered, “what about Barbro herself?”

“The girl Barbro,” said the Lensmand, “she’s under arrest now in Bergen.  The law must take its course,” said he.  And he took the little body and went back again to the village....

Little wonder, then, that Axel Stroem was anxious.  He had spoken out to the Lensmand and denied nothing; he was in part responsible for the coming of the child at all, and in addition, he had dug a grave for it.  And now he was asking Geissler what he had better do next.  Would he have to go in to the town, to a new and worse examination, and be tortured there?

Geissler was not the man he had been—­no; and the long story had wearied him, he seemed duller now, whatever might be the cause.  He was not the bright and confident soul he had been that morning.  He looked at his watch, got up, and said: 

“This’ll want thinking over.  I’ll go into it thoroughly and let you know before I leave.”

And Geissler went off.

He came back to Sellanraa that evening, had a little supper, and went to bed.  Slept till late next morning, slept, rested thoroughly; he was tired, no doubt, after his meeting with the Swedish mine-owners.  Not till two days after did he make ready to leave.  He was his lordly self again by then, paid liberally for his keep, and gave little Rebecca a shining Krone.

He made a speech to Isak, and said:  “It doesn’t matter in the least if nothing came of the deal this time, it’ll come all right later on.  For the present, I’m going to stop the working up there and leave it a bit.  As for those fellows—­children!  Thought they would teach me, did they?  Did you hear what they offered me?  Twenty-five thousand!”

“Ay,” said Isak.

“Well,” said Geissler, and waved his hand as if dismissing all impertinent offers of insignificant sums from his mind, “well, it won’t do any harm to the district if I do stop the working there a bit—­on the contrary, it’ll teach folk to stick to their land.  But they’ll feel it in the village.  They made a pile of money there last summer; fine clothes and fine living for all—­but there’s an end of that now.  Ay, it might have been worth their while, the good folks down there, to have kept in with me; things might have been different then.  Now, it’ll be as I please.”