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Little Andresen is no bad worker on the land in Eleseus' service; true, he has had Sivert from Sellanraa with horses, but he has done a deal of work on his own account, draining bogs, and hiring a man himself to set the ditches with stone. No need of buying fodder at Storborg that year, and next, like as not, Eleseus would be keeping a horse of his own.
Eleseus slipped round the corner of the house, like a pale ghost, found his mother, and begged her to tell Sivert to come. There was no help for it now. Sivert took the matter less to heart but then, he was not the chief culprit. The two brothers went a little way off and sat down, and Eleseus said: "If you'd say it was you, now!" "Me?" said Sivert.
"Bring them down, then, the pair of them, to help with the cartage here. We'll pay you well." "Why," says Sivert, "that's none so bad, dare say. But we're pressed just now, and can't spare the time." "What? Can't spare the time to make money!" says the foreman. But they had not always time at Sellanraa, there was much to do on the place.
Sivert sleeps resting on a boulder that he calls an arm-chair. Oh, Sivert knows what he is about; here's the sun been warming that boulder all day, till it's a good place to sit and sleep. His companions are not so wise, and will not take advice; they lie down in the heather, and wake up feeling cold, and sneezing. Then they have breakfast and start off again.
"You have it? How much is it?" asked Sivert. "Ha ha ha, you want to know how much it is first, you old miser!" "Well, you can have it, anyway," said Sivert. "It's between five and ten thousand." "Daler?" cried Sivert; he couldn't help it. Now Eleseus never reckoned in Daler, but he didn't like to say no at the time, so he just nodded, and left it at that till next day.
Oh, but he could have managed this ever so differently, snapped at the chance, if it hadn't been for Sivert sitting there! As it was, he could only say: "Don't talk such nonsense!" "Ho," said she and indeed she was shamefully ill-humoured today "nonsense, indeed! Well, what can you expect of folk at Maaneland? we're not so great and fine as you no."
Good to be Sivert those days, a man from a big place to begin with, son of a wealthy landowner and then beside, to be known as a clever fellow, a good worker; he ranked before others, and was looked up to for himself. Sivert had always been well liked among folk. If only Jensine did not learn too much before they got home that day!
'Twas all he could find by way of excuse, and his father muttered:" Well, what you want to go for ...?" But if Sivert was going to church, why, he might harness up and take little Rebecca with him. Little Rebecca, ay, surely she might have that bit of a treat for once in her life, after being so clever guarding turnips and being all ways the pearl and blessing of them all, ay, that she was.
He walks home in silence, says no word of it, makes no boast of it, 'twas not for worldly speech. And it was but Sivert from Sellanraa, went out one evening, young and ordinary as he was, and met with this. It was not the only thing he met with there were more adventures beside. Another thing which happened was that Jensine left Sellanraa. And that made Sivert not a little perturbed in his mind.
When Isak came driving down over the moors, 'twas no little event, for he came but rarely, Sivert going most ways in his stead. At the two farms nearest down, folk stand at the door of the huts and tell one another: "'Tis Isak himself; and what'll he be going down after today?"
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