Isak thought it over.  “I could do it all right in winter,” he said.

“That’s no good.  It would have to be for the whole year, summer and winter alike.”

“Can’t be done,” said Isak.  “Spring and summer and autumn I’ve my work on the land, and no time for other things.”

The engineer looked at him for quite a while, and then put an astonishing question, as follows:  “Can you make more money that way?”

“Make more money?” said Isak.

“Can you earn more money in a day by working on the land than you could by working for us?”

“Why, as to that, I can’t say,” answered Isak.  “It’s just this way, you see—­’tis the land I’m here for.  I’ve many souls and more beasts to keep alive—­and ’tis the land that keeps us.  ’Tis our living.”

“If you won’t, I can find some one else,” said the engineer.

But Isak only seemed rather relieved at the threat.  He did not like to disoblige the great man, and tried to explain. “’Tis this way,” he said, “I’ve a horse and five cows, besides the bull.  I’ve twenty sheep and sixteen goats.  The beasts, they give us food and wool and hide; we must give them food.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said the other shortly.

“Well, and so I say, how am I to feed them when I’ve to run away all times in the busy season, to work on the telegraph line?”

“Say no more about it,” said the engineer.  “I’ll get the man down below you, Brede Olsen; he’ll be glad to take it.”  He turned to his men with a brief word:  “Now, lads, we’ll be getting on,”

Now Oline had heard from the way Isak spoke that he was stiff-necked and unreasonable in his mind, and she would make the most of it.

“What was that you said, Isak?  Sixteen goats?  There’s no more than fifteen,” said she.

Isak looked at her, and Oline looked at him again, straight in the face.

“Not sixteen goats?” said he.

“No,” said she, looking helplessly towards the strangers, as if to say how unreasonable he was.

“Ho!” said Isak softly.  He drew a tuft of his beard between his teeth and stood chewing it.

The engineer and his men went on their way.

Now, if Isak had wanted to show his displeasure with Oline and maybe thrash her for her doings, here was his chance—­a Heaven-sent chance to do that thing.  They were alone in the house; the children had gone after the men when they went.  Isak stood there in the middle of the room, and Oline was sitting by the stove.  Isak cleared his throat once or twice, just to show that he was ready to say something if he pleased.  But he said nothing.  That was his strength of soul.  What, did he not know the number of his goats as he knew the fingers on his hands—­was the woman mad?  Could one of the beasts be missing, when he knew every one of them personally and talked to them every day—­his goats that were sixteen in number?  Oline must have traded away one of them the day before, when the woman from Breidablik had come up to look at the place.  “H’m,” said Isak, and this time words were on the very tip of his tongue.  What was it Oline had done?  Not exactly murder, perhaps, but something not far from it.  He could speak in deadly earnest of that sixteenth goat.