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On the 3rd of September Barbro was not to be found. 'Twas not that she was altogether lost, but she was not up at the house. Axel was doing carpenter's work the best he could; he was trying hard to get a glass window and a door set in the new house, and it was taking all his time to do it. But being long past noon, and no word said about coming in to dinner, he went in himself into the hut.
He's gone down to sale. Doubt he'll be seeing his chance to pick up something for nothing, like the rest." Heavy to look at was Barbro now ay, and sharp and bitter-tongued! The auction has begun; Isak hears the Lensmand calling out, and sees a crowd of people.
"Ay," says Barbro. Axel thought for a while, then asked straight out: "Well, what about it now, would you want to come for the summer and no more?" "Nay," says Barbro, "let it be as you please." "You mean that, and truly?" "Ay, just as you please, and I'll be pleased with the same. You've no call to doubt about me any more." "H'm." "No, 'tis true. And I've ordered about the banns." H'm.
Not much of a priest, as far as I know anything about it; no sort of manner, he had." Time went. "What d'you think Axel'd say if he found you here this evening again?" said Barbro suddenly. There was a thing to say! It was as if she had struck him. Had she forgotten all about last time? Hadn't they agreed that he was to come this evening?
And, coming down as far as to Maaneland, there's Barbro at the glass window with a child in her arms, and sees him, and says: "'Tis Isak himself!" He comes to Storborg and pulls up. "Ptro! Is Eleseus at home?" Eleseus comes out. Ay, he's at home; not gone yet, but just going off on his spring tour of the towns down south. "Here's some things your mother sent down," says his father.
Unfortunately, his daughter Barbro had fallen out with the Lensmand's wife last autumn, about a trifling matter, a mere nothing indeed, to tell the truth, a flea; and Brede himself is somewhat in disfavour there since.
He gets down as far as Maaneland and sees Barbro, and would pass by with only a greeting, but Barbro calls to him and asks if he is going down. "Ay," said Isak, making to go on again. It is her home that is being sold, and that is why he answers shortly. "You going to the sale?" she asks. "To the sale? Well, I was only going down a bit. What you've done with Axel?" "Axel? Nay, I don't know.
For the case was going well as far as Barbro herself was concerned, and if she were acquitted, then there could be no question of any complicity at all. It would depend on the testimony of the witnesses.
When the few witnesses had been heard Oline had not been summoned, but only the Lensmand, Axel himself, the experts, a couple of girls from the village when they had been heard, it was time to adjourn for the midday break, and Geissler went up to the advocate for the Crown once more. The advocate was of opinion that all was going well for the girl Barbro, and so much the better.
But there were signs enough, great or small, that things were different now at Maaneland. Barbro felt herself no more at home there now than any other serving-maid; no more bound to the place. Axel could see that his hold on her had loosened with the death of the child. He had thought to himself so confidently: wait till the child comes! But the child had come and gone.
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