It was the waterwork business that had enticed him up today; he had looked it over from one end to the other, and was highly interested.  There was no big river on his land, but he had a bit of a stream; he had no planks, either, to make culverts with, but he would dig his channels in the earth; it could be done.  Up to now, things were not absolutely at their worst on his land, which lay lower down the slopes; but if the drought continued, he, too, would have to irrigate.  When he had seen what he wanted, he took his leave and went back at once.  No, he would not come in, hadn’t the time; he was going to start ditching that same evening.  And off he went.

This was something different from Brede’s way.

Oh, Brede, he could run about the moorland farms now telling news:  miraculous waterworks at Sellanraa!  “It doesn’t pay to work your soil overmuch,” he had said.  “Look at Isak up there; he’s dug and dug about so long that at last he’s had to water the whole ground.”

Isak was patient, but he wished many a time that he could get rid of the fellow, hanging about Sellanraa with his boastful ways.  Brede put it all down to the telegraph; as long as he was a public official, it was his duty to keep the line in order.  But the telegraph company had already had occasion several times to reprimand him for neglect, and had again offered the post to Isak.  No, it was not the telegraph that was in Brede’s mind all the time, but the ore up in the hills; it was his one idea now, a mania.

He took to dropping in often now at Sellanraa, confident that he had found the treasure; he would nod his head and say:  “I can’t tell you all about it yet, but I don’t mind saying I’ve struck something remarkable this time.”  Wasting hours and energy all for nothing.  And when he came back in the evening to his little house, he would fling down a little sack of samples on the floor, and puff and blow after his day’s work, as if no man could have toiled harder for his daily bread.  He grew a few potatoes on sour, peaty soil, and cut the tufts of grass that grew by themselves on the ground about the house—­that was Brede’s farming.  He was never made for a farmer, and there could be but one end to it all.  His turf roof was falling to pieces already, and the steps to the kitchen were rotten with damp; a grindstone lay on the ground, and the cart was still left uncovered in the open.

Brede was fortunate perhaps in that such little matters never troubled him.  When the children rolled his grindstone about for play, he was kind and indulgent, and would even help them to roll it himself.  An easy-going, idle nature, never serious, but also never down-hearted, a weak, irresponsible character; but he managed to find food, such as it was, and kept himself and his alive from day to day; managed to keep them somehow.  But it was not to be expected that the storekeeper could go on feeding Brede and his family for ever; he had said so more than once to Brede himself, and he said it now in earnest.  Brede admitted he was right, and promised to turn over a new leaf—­he would sell his place, and very likely make a good thing out of it—­and pay what he owed at the store!