He was far from gentle, too, the next day, and that a Sunday; went off and looked to the sawmill, looked to the cornmill, looked over the fields, with the children or by himself.  Inger tried once to join him, but Isak turned away:  “I’m going up to the river,” he said.  “Something up there....”

There was trouble in his mind, like enough, but he bore it silently, and made no scene.  Oh, there was something great about Isak; as it might be Israel, promised and ever deceived, but still believing.

By Monday the tension was less marked, and as the days went on, the impression of that unhappy Saturday evening grew fainter.  Time can mend a deal of things; a spit and a shake, a meal and a good night’s rest, and it will heal the sorriest of wounds.  Isak’s trouble was not so bad as it might have been; after all, he was not certain that he had been wronged, and apart from that, he had other things to think of; the harvesting was at hand.  And last, not least, the telegraph line was all but finished now; in a little while they would be left in peace.  A broad light road, a king’s highway, had been cut through the dark of the forest; there were poles and wires running right up over the hills.

Next Saturday paytime, the last there was to be, Isak managed to be away from home—­he wished it so.  He went down into the village with cheese and butter, and came back on Sunday night.  The men were all gone from the barn; nearly all, that is; the last man stumbled out of the yard with his pack on his shoulder—­all but the last, that is.  That it was not altogether safe as yet Isak could see, for there was a bundle left on the floor of the barn.  Where the owner was he could not say, and did not care to know, but there was a peaked cap on top of the bundle—­an offence to the eye.

Isak heaved the bundle out into the yard, flung the cap out after it, and closed the door.  Then he went into the stable and looked out through the window.  And thought, belike:  “Let the bundle stay there, and let the cap lie there, ’tis all one whose they may be.  A bit of dirt he is, and not worth my while”—­so he might have thought.  But when the fellow comes for his bundle, never doubt but that Isak will be there to take him by the arm and make that arm a trifle blue.  And as for kicking him off the place in a way he’d remember—­why, Isak would give him that too!

Whereupon Isak left his window in the stable and went back to the cowshed and looked out from there, and could not rest.  The bundle was tied up with string; the poor fellow had no lock to his bag, and the string had come undone—­Isak could not feel sure he had not dealt over hardly with that bundle.  Whatever it might be—­he was not sure he had acted rightly.  Only just now he had been in the village, and seen his new harrow, a brand-new harrow he had ordered—­oh, a wonderful machine, an idol to worship, and it had just come.  A thing like that must carry a blessing with it.  And the powers above, that guide the footsteps of men, might be watching him now at this moment, to see if he deserved a blessing or not.  Isak gave much thought to the powers above; ay, he had seen God with his own eyes, one night in harvest-time, in the woods; it was rather a curious sight.