“Pocket-money?” said Isak.  “Is that money to keep in your pocket, maybe?”

“That must be it, no doubt,” said Inger.  “So as not to be altogether without.  And it’s not much; only a Daler now and then.”

“Ay, that’s just it,” said Isak harshly.  “A Daler now and a Daler then....”  But his harshness was all because he missed Eleseus himself, and wanted him home.  “It makes too many Dalers in the long run,” said he.  “I can’t keep, on like this; you must write and tell him he can have no more.”

“Ho, very well then!” said Inger in an offended tone.

“There’s Sivert—­what does he get by way of pocket-money?”

Inger answered:  “You’ve never been in a town, and so you don’t know these things.  Sivert’s no need of pocket-money.  And talking of money, Sivert ought to be none so badly off when his Uncle Sivert dies.”

“You don’t know.”

“Ay, but I do know.”

And this was right enough in a way; Uncle Sivert had said something about making little Sivert his heir.  Uncle Sivert had heard of Eleseus and his grand doings in town, and the story did not please him; he nodded and bit his lips, and muttered that a nephew called up as his namesake—­named after Uncle Sivert—­should not come to want.  But what was this fortune Uncle Sivert was supposed to possess?  Had he really, besides his neglected farm and his fishery, the heap of money and means folk generally thought?  No one could say for certain.  And apart from that, Uncle Sivert himself was an obstinate man; he insisted that little Sivert should come to stay with him.  It was a point of honour with him, this last; he should take little Sivert and look after him, as the engineer had done with Eleseus.

But how could it be done?  Send little Sivert away from home?—­it was out of the question.  He was all the help left to Isak now.  Moreover, the lad himself had no great wish to go and stay with his famous uncle; he had tried it once, but had come home again.  He was confirmed, shot up in stature, and grew; the down showed on his cheek, his hands were big, a pair of willing slaves.  And he worked like a man.

Isak could hardly have managed to get the new barn built at all without Sivert’s help—­but there it stood now, with bridge-way and air-holes and all, as big as they had at the parsonage itself.  True, it was only a half-timbered building covered with boarding, but extra stout built, with iron clinches at the corners, and covered with one-inch plank from Isak’s own sawmill.  And Sivert had hammered in more than one nail at the work, and lifted the heavy beams for the framework till he was near fainting.  Sivert got on well with his father, and worked steadily at his side; he was made of the same stuff.  And yet he was not above such simple ways as going up the hillside for tansy to rub with so as to smell nice in church.  ’Twas Leopoldine was the one for getting fancies in her head, which was natural enough, she being a girl, and the only daughter.  That summer, if you please, she had discovered that she could not eat her porridge at supper without treacle—­simply couldn’t.  And she was no great use at any kind of work either.