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Homeward he steered with a racing breeze behind him, and he had not sailed far before he met a galeas which gave him the Bergen price for his eider-down. But Bardun was not content with only going thither once. He went just the same as before, and he returned from the Dyrevig rock with a pile of sacks of eider-down on his boat right up to the mast.
It was a pretty long leap to take, but he went back a sufficient distance, and then out he sprang. Bardun was not the man to fall short of anything. He caught the rope and held it tight. And, oddly enough, it seemed now to run up the cliff-side of its own accord, just as if some one were hoisting it.
While the officer, in the course of the summer, was out on circuit, Bardun set a hundred men to work to build a house for them. It was to shine like a castle, and be bright with high halls and large reception-rooms, and windows in long rooms; and furs and cloth of gold and bright tiles were fetched from the far South.
Next time the court met, Bardun was taxed to a full tenth of the value of all his property, according to the king's law and justice. Then only did he begin to foresee that it might fare with the magistrates now as it had done formerly. But all women like pomp and show, thought he, and Boel was in this respect no different to other people.
But Bardun passed by the rock, and peeped up at the cleft, and saw all the hosts of the fowls of the air lighting upon it so many times that he felt he needs must try his hand at it. He lost no time about it, and the sun was shining brightly as he set out.
Then Bardun was made chief magistrate, till such time as the king should send up another. But the new man who came had not been very long in office there before it seemed to him as if it was not he but Bardun who held sway. So the same thing happened over again. Bardun was summoned in vain before the courts, and the magistrates came forth to seize him and perished at sea.
And in the autumn there was such a wedding that the whole land heard and talked about it. But it was not long before Bardun began to find that to be a fact which was already a rumour, to wit, that the man who had got his daughter would fain have his own way also. He laid down the law, and gave judgment like Bardun himself; and he over-ruled Bardun, not once nor twice.
Then Bardun went to Boel, and bade her take her husband to task, and look sharp about it. He had never yet seen the man, said he, who couldn't be set right by his bride in the days when they did nothing but eat honey together.
Then Bardun took the rudder he had got from the Wind-Gnome, and stuck it into the stern of the largest yacht he had. He was God himself now, said he, and could always get a fair wind to steer by, and could rule where he would in the wide world. And southwards he sailed with a rattling breeze, and the billows rolled after him like mounds and hillocks.
But Boel said that she had wedded a man who, to her mind, was no less a man than her own father; and it was his office, besides, to uphold the law and jurisdiction of the king. Young folks are easy to talk over, thought Bardun. One can do anything with them when one only makes them fancy they are having their own way.