The elder son looked at his mother in astonishment—­why should she tell them what they had known all along?

But Olof looked up suddenly, as if he had heard something new and significant.  The quiver in his mother’s voice told him what she meant, the look in her eyes seemed to shed a light on what had been dark before.

Questioningly he looked at her, as if silently asking confirmation of his thought.

She nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I have often thought of that, these last sad years....”

Olof felt as if a mighty storm had suddenly torn away a dark, overshadowing growth, laying bare the heart of a fearsome place—­deep clefts and stagnant pools and treacherous bogs.

“Ay, there’s much that’s hard to understand,” she whispered in his ear.  “But go to your work, now, sons.  I’m tired now, leave me to rest....”

The young men rose and left the room.  In the doorway they turned and cast a last glance at their mother, but she seemed no longer to heed them.  She lay with her hands folded on her breast, gazing calmly at the old cupboard where it stood by the wall, like a monument above the grave of many generations.

THE HOUSE BUILDING

The funeral was over.

The two brothers sat by the window, in thoughtful mood, and speaking little.

“...  And you’ll take over the place now, of course,” said Olof to his elder brother, “and work the farm as it’s always been done since it’s been in the family.  ’Twon’t be long, I doubt, before you bring home a wife to be mistress here....  Anyhow, I take it you’ll go on as before?”

“What’s in your mind now?” asked Heikki, with a little sharp cough.

“Only what I’ve said—­that you’ll take over Koskela now,” said Olof cheerfully.

“H’m.  You know well enough ’twas always meant that you were to take over the place—­I’m not the sort to be master myself.  Look after the men at their work—­yes.  But run the place by myself....”

“You’ll soon get into the way of it,” said Olof encouragingly.  “And as to the men—­I’ve an idea a farm’s the better for a master that works with his men as you’ve always done, instead of going about talking big and doing nothing.”

The elder brother cleared his throat again, and sat staring before him, drumming with his fingers on the edge of the chair.

“And what about you?” he asked, after a while.

“Oh, I’ll look after myself all right.  Build a bit of a house, and maybe turn up a patch of ground or so.”

“Build a house...?” repeated the other in surprise.

“Yes.  You see, brother, each goes his own way,” went on Olof heavily.  “And I’ve a sort of feeling now that I can’t live on anything out of the past.  I must try and build up a life for myself, all anew.  If I can do that, perhaps I may be able to go on living.”

The elder brother stared with wide eyes, as if listening to words in a strange tongue.  Then he began drumming with his fingers again.