They were going in again together, but Eleseus recollected he had something he must do over at the sawmill, or rather, at the cornmill; something he must look to, and it would take some time—­he wouldn’t be finished just yet.  Sivert went in alone.

There sat the engineer, paying out notes and silver, and when he had finished, Inger gave him milk to drink, a jug and a glass, and he thanked her.  Then he talked to little Leopoldine, and then, noticing the drawings on the walls, asked straight out who had done that.  “Was it you?” he asked, turning to Sivert.  The man felt, perhaps, he owed something for Inger’s hospitality, and praised the drawings just to please her.  Inger, on her part, explained the matter as it was:  it was her boys had made the drawings—­both of them.  They had no paper till she came home and looked to things, so they had marked all about the walls.  But she hadn’t the heart to wash it off again.

“Why, leave it as it is,” said the engineer.  “Paper, did you say?” And he took out a heap of big sheets.  “There, draw away on that till I come round again.  And how are you off for pencils?”

Sivert stepped forward simply with the stump he had, and showed how small it was.  And behold, the man gave him a new coloured pencil, not even sharpened.  “There, now you can start afresh.  But I’d make the horses red if I were you, and do the goats with blue.  Never seen a blue horse, have you?”

And the engineer went on his way.

That same evening, a man came up from the village with a basket—­he handed out some bottles to the workmen, and went off again.  But after he had gone, it was no longer so quiet about the place; some one played an accordion, the men talked loudly, and there was singing, and even dancing, at Sellanraa.  One of the men asked Inger out to dance, and Inger—­who would have thought it of her?—­she laughed a little laugh and actually danced a few turns round.  After that, some of the others asked her, and she danced not a little in the end.

Inger—­who could say what was in her mind?  Here she was dancing gaily, maybe for the first time in her life; sought after, riotously pursued by thirty men, and she alone, the only one to choose from, no one to cut her out.  And those burly telegraph men—­how they lifted her!  Why not dance?  Eleseus and Sivert were fast asleep in the little chamber, undisturbed by all the noise outside; little Leopoldine was up, looking on wonderingly at her mother as she danced.

Isak was out in the fields all the time; he had gone off directly after supper, and when he came home to go to bed, some one offered him a bottle.  He drank a little, and sat watching the dancing, with Leopoldine on his lap.

“’Tis a gay time you’re having,” said he kindly to Inger—­“footing it properly tonight!”

After a while, the music stopped, and the dance was over.  The workmen got ready to leave—­they were going down to the village for the rest of the evening, and would be there all next day, coming back on Monday morning.  Soon all was quiet again at Sellanraa; a couple of the older men stayed behind, and turned in to sleep in the barn.