“You can stay, yes,” he said.  “I shall be wanting an assistant to look after the place when I’m away on business—­opening up connections in Bergen and Trondhjem,” said he.

And Andresen was no bad man to have, as it soon proved; he was a good worker, and looked after things well when Eleseus was away.  ’Twas only at first he had been somewhat inclined to show and play the fine gentleman, and that was the fault of his master Aronsen.  It was different now.  In the spring, when the bogs were thawed some depth, Sivert came down from Sellanraa to Storborg, to start a bit of ditching for his brother, and lo, Andresen himself went out on the land digging too.  Heaven knows what possessed him to do it, for ’twas no work of his, but that was the sort of man he was.  It was not thawed deep enough yet, and they could not get as far as they wanted by a long way, but it was something done, at any rate.  It was Isak’s old idea to drain the bogs at Storborg and till the land there properly; the bit of a store was only to be an extra, a convenience, to save folk going all the way down to the village for a reel of thread.

So Sivert and Andresen stood there digging, and talking now and again when they stopped for a rest.  Andresen had also somehow or other managed to get hold of a gold piece, a twenty-Krone piece, and Sivert would gladly have had the bright thing himself; but Andresen would not part with it—­kept it wrapped up in tissue paper in his chest.  Sivert proposed a wrestling match for the money—­see who could throw the other; but Andresen would not risk it.  Sivert offered to stake twenty Kroner in notes against the gold piece, and do all the digging himself into the bargain if he won; but Andresen took offence at that.  “Ho,” said he, “and you’d like to go back home, no doubt, and say I’m no good at working on the land!” At last they agreed to set twenty-five Kroner in notes against the gold twenty-Krone piece, and Sivert slipped home to Sellanraa that night to ask his father for the money.

A young man’s trick, the pretty play of youth!  A night’s sleep thrown away, to walk miles up and miles down again, and work next day as usual—­’twas nothing to a young man in his strength, and a bright gold piece was worth it all.  Andresen was a little inclined to make fun of him over the deal, but Sivert was not at a loss; he had only to let fall a word of Leopoldine.  “There!  I was nearly forgetting.  Leopoldine she asked after you....”  And Andresen stopped his work of a sudden and went very red.

Pleasant days for them both, draining and ditching, getting up long arguments for fun, and working, and arguing again.  Now and then Eleseus would come out and lend a hand, but he soon tired.  Eleseus was not strong either of body or will, but a thorough good fellow for all that....

“Here’s that Oline coming along,” Sivert the jester would say.  “Now you’ll have to go in and sell her a paper of coffee.”  And Eleseus was glad enough to go.  Selling Oline some trifle or other meant so many minutes’ rest from throwing heavy clods.