“Why, Eleseus, he gives a hand with this, and little Sivert helps with that,” said Isak proudly.

Little Leopoldine was asking for something to eat.  Oh, the pretty little creature; a ladybird up on a cart!  She talked with a sing in her voice, with a strange accent, as she had learned in Trondhjem.  Inger had to translate now and again.  She had her brothers’ features, the brown eyes and oval cheeks that all had got from their mother; ay, they were their mother’s children, and well that they were so!  Isak was something shy of his little girl, shy of her tiny shoes and long, thin, woollen stockings and short frock; when she had come to meet her strange papa she had curtseyed and offered him a tiny hand.

They got up into the woods and halted for a rest and a meal all round.  The horse had his fodder; Leopoldine ran about in the heather, eating as she went.

“You’ve not changed much,” said Inger, looking at her husband.

Isak glanced aside, and said, “No, you think not?  But you’ve grown so grand and all.”

“Ha ha!  Nay, I’m an old woman now,” said she jestingly.

It was no use trying to hide the fact:  Isak was not a bit sure of himself now.  He could find no self-possession, but still kept aloof, shy, as if ashamed of himself.  How old could his wife be now?  She couldn’t be less than thirty—­that is to say, she couldn’t be more, of course.  And Isak, for all that he was eating already, must pull up a twig of heather and fall to biting that.

“What—­are you eating heather?” cried Inger laughingly.

Isak threw down the twig, took a mouthful of food, and going over to the road, took the horse by its forelegs and heaved up its forepart till the animal stood on its hindlegs.  Inger looked on with astonishment.

“What are you doing that for?” she asked.

“Oh, he’s so playful,” said Isak, and set the horse down again.

Now what had he done that for?  A sudden impulse to do just that thing; perhaps he had done it to hide his embarrassment.

They started off again, and all three of them walked a bit of the way.  They came to a new farm.

“What’s that there?” asked Inger.

“’Tis Brede’s place, that he’s bought.”

“Brede?”

“Breidablik, he calls it.  There’s wide moorland, but the timber’s poor.”

They talked of the new place as they passed on.  Isak noticed that
Brede’s cart was still left out in the open.

The child was growing sleepy now, and Isak took her gently in his arms and carried her.  They walked and walked.  Leopoldine was soon fast asleep, and Inger said: 

“We’ll wrap her up in the rug, and she can lie down in the cart and sleep as long as she likes.”

“’Twill shake her all to pieces,” said Isak, and carries her on.  They cross the moors and get into the woods again.

“Ptro!” says Inger, and the horse stops.  She takes the child from Isak, gets him to shift the chest and the sewing-machine, making a place for Leopoldine in the bottom of the cart.  “Shaken? not a bit of it!”