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"Ah, I dare say there's a somebody there you're fond of." "No, there isn't. Between you and me, I'm not engaged at all," said he. "Oh yes, you are; I know." "No, solemn fact, I'm not." They carried on like this quite a while; Eleseus was plainly in love. "I'll write to you," said he. "May I?" "Yes," said she. "For I wouldn't be mean enough if you didn't care about it, you know."
And I'll have a better sort of trunk that journey." As they say good-bye, Sivert thrusts something into his brother's hand, a bit of something wrapped in paper. "What is it?" asks Eleseus. "Don't forget to write often," says Sivert. And so he goes. Eleseus opens the paper and looks; 'tis the gold piece, twenty-five Kroner in gold. "Here, don't!" he calls out. "You mustn't do that!"
After that it was easier all round; Eleseus brightened up, and got on finely. They flirted and joked and laughed, and were excellent friends. "When you took my hand just now it was like a bit of swan's down yours, I mean." "Oh, you'll be going back to town again, and never come back here, I'll be bound," said Barbro. "Do you think I'm that sort?" said Eleseus.
And maybe Geissler would have dissuaded him there; have thought it a risky thing to buy up land for cultivation and give it to Eleseus; to a clerk. Uncle Sivert died after all. Eleseus spent three weeks looking after him, and then the old man died.
True, this Eleseus was not like the really fine young men in offices, that wore glasses and gold watches and so on, but he could pass for a gentleman here in the wilds, there was no denying that. And she took out her photograph now and showed him that's what she looked like then "all different now, of course." And Barbro sighed. "Why, what's the matter with you now?" he asked.
But Eleseus was a man-about-town now, and had no sort of longing for a peasant's life; he answered something about what was he to do anyway if he did come home? Work on a farm and throw away all the knowledge and learning he had gained? "In point of fact," that was how he put it, "I've no desire to come back now.
Let tiny Leopoldine go on quickly with her crochet work, and the boys with writing and schooling; they would not be altogether behindhand when the time came for them to go to school in the village. Eleseus in particular was grown a clever one, but little Sivert was nothing much, if the truth must be told a madcap, a jackanapes.
A wonder to look at on earth, flaming all sides and corners with metal and clasps and binding, and three flaps to hold it down, not to speak of a lock. "Burglar-proof," says Brede, as if he had tried it himself. They went back into the room, but Eleseus was grown thoughtful. This American from up in the village had outdone him; he was nothing beside such a man.
Couldn't Sivert have gone?" says Eleseus. Ay, Eleseus knew no better, nothing better than to think Sivert would go down to the smith's to fetch Jensine, after she had thought so much of herself as to leave Sellanraa! No, 'twas all awry with the haymaking the year before. Inger had put in all she could, as she had promised.
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.
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