“And you’re thriving like, up here?” asks Isak.

“Ay, I’ll not say no.  And wife, she’s thriving too, why shouldn’t we?  There’s good room and outlook all about; we can see up and down the road both ways.  And a neat little copse by the house all pretty to look at, birch and willow—­I’ll plant a bit more other side of the house when I’ve time.  And it’s fine to see how the bogland’s dried only since last year’s ditching—­’tis all a question now what’ll grow on her this year.  Ay, thrive?  When we’ve house and home and land and all—­’tis enough for the two of us surely.”

“Ho,” says Sivert slyly, “and the two of you—­is that all there’s ever to be?”

“Why, as to that,” says Fredrik bravely, “’tis like enough there’ll be more to come.  And as to thriving—­well, the wife’s not falling off anyway, by the looks of her.”

They work on until evening, drawing up now and again to straighten their backs, and exchange a word or so.

“And so you didn’t get the tobacco?” says Sivert.

“No, that’s true.  But ’twas no loss, for I’ve no use for it, anyway,” says Fredrik.

“No use for tobacco?”

“Nay.  ’Twas but for to drop in at Aronsen’s like, and hear what he’d got to say.”  And the two jesters laughed together at that.

On the way home, father and son talk little, as was their way; but Isak must have been thinking out something for himself; he says: 

“Sivert?”

“Ay?” says Sivert again.

“Nay, ’twas nothing.”

They walk on a good ways, and Isak begins again: 

“How’s he get on, then, with his trading, Aronsen, when he’s nothing to trade with?”

“Nay,” says Sivert.  “But there’s not folk enough here now for him to buy for.”

“Ho, you think so?  Why, I suppose ’tis so, ay, well....”

Sivert wondered a little at this.  After a while his father went on again: 

“There’s but eight places now in all, but there might be more before long.  More ... well, I don’t know....”

Sivert wondering more than ever—­what can his father be getting at?  The pair of them walk on a long way in silence; they are nearly home now.

“H’m,” says Isak.  “What you think Aronsen he’d ask for that place of his now?”

“Ho, that’s it!” says Sivert.  “Want to buy it, do you?” he asks jestingly.  But suddenly he understands what it all means:  ’tis Eleseus the old man has in mind.  Oh, he’s not forgotten him after all, but kept him faithfully in mind, just as his mother, only in his own way, nearer earth, and nearer to Sellanraa.

“’Twill be going for a reasonable price, I doubt,” says Sivert.  And when Sivert says so much, his father knows the lad has read his thought.  And as if in fear of having spoken out too clearly, he falls to talking of their road-mending; a good thing they had got it done at last.

For a couple of days after that, Sivert and his mother were putting their heads together and holding councils and whispering—­ay, they even wrote a letter.  And when Saturday came round Sivert suddenly wanted to go down to the village.