Says Sivert:  “Did Aronsen say anything about a man named Geissler?”

“Ay.  Said something about he’d be wanting to sell some land he’d got.  And Aronsen was wild about it, he was—­’fellow that used to be Lensmand and got turned out,’ he said, and ’like as not without so much as a five Krone in his books, and ought to be shot!’ ’Ay, but wait a bit,’ says I, ‘and maybe he’ll sell after all.’  ‘Nay,’ says Aronsen, ‘don’t you believe it.  I’m a business man,’ says he, ’and I know—­when one party puts up a price of two hundred and fifty thousand, and the other offers twenty-five thousand, there’s too big a difference; there’ll be no deal ever come out of that.  Well, let ’em go their own way, and see what comes of it,’ says he.  ’I only wish I’d never set my foot in this hole, and a poor thing it’s been for me and mine.’  Then I asked him if he didn’t think of selling out himself.  ‘Ay,’ says he, ’that’s just what I’m thinking of.  This bit of bogland,’ says he, ’a hole and a desert—­I’m not making a single Krone the whole day now,’ says he.”

They laughed at Aronsen, and had no pity for him at all.

“Think he’ll sell out?” asks Isak.

“Well, he did speak of it.  And he’s got rid of the lad he had already.  Ay, a curious man, a queer sort of man, that Aronsen, ’tis sure.  Sends away his lad could be working on the place getting in winter fuel and carting hay with that horse of his, but keeps on his storeman—­chief clerk, he calls him.  ’Tis true enough, as he says, not selling so much as a Krone all day, for he’s no stock in the place at all.  And what does he want with a chief clerk, then?  I doubt it’ll be just by way of looking grand and making a show, must have a man there to stand at a desk and write up things in books.  Ha ha ha! ay, looks like he’s just a little bit touched that way, is Aronsen.”

The three men worked till noon, ate food from their baskets, and talked a while.  They had matters of their own to talk over, matters of good and ill to folk on the land; no trifles, to them, but things to be discussed warily; they are clear-minded folk, their nerves unworn, and not flying out where they should not.  It is the autumn season now, a silence in the woods all round; the hills are there, the sun is there, and at evening the moon and the stars will come; all regular and certain, full of kindliness, an embrace.  Men have time to rest here, to lie in the heather, with an arm for a pillow.

Fredrik talks of Breidablik, how ’tis but little he’s got done there yet awhile.

“Nay,” says Isak, “’tis none so little already, I saw when I was down that way.”

This was praise from the oldest among them, the giant himself, and Fredrik might well be pleased.  He asks frankly enough:  “Did you think so, now?  Well, it’ll be better before long.  I’ve had a deal of things to hinder this year; the house to do up, being leaky and like to fall to pieces; hayloft to take down and put up again, and no sort of room in the turf hut for beasts, seeing I’d cow and heifer more than Brede he’d ever had in his time,” says Fredrik proudly.