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First he gave up Fredrik Ström, who was quickest at saying unpleasant things; then Sivert, because he never said a word, but went on selling; at last he stuck to following his former clerk, and trying to set folk against him wherever he went in. Oh, but Andresen knew his master that was knew him of old, and how little he knew of business and unlawful trading.
'Twas not like being in a town. That autumn, when a lot of people from his parts had been up for cross-examination in a certain place, he had taken care not to show himself; he had no desire to meet any that knew him from that quarter; they belonged to another world. And was he now to go back to that same world himself? His mother was all for buying the place; Sivert, too, said it would be best.
The day must come, of course, when Sivert would need all there was of the place for himself the old folks would be wanting a house apart. Ay, there was never an end of building at Sellanraa; that fodder loft above the cowshed was not done yet, though the beams and planks for it were there all ready. Well, then, here was this stone.
Come along with me, Sivert." He rose from the table suddenly, thinking no more of food, turned in the doorway to say "Thank you" to Inger for the meal, and disappeared, Sivert following. They went across to the river, Geissler peering keenly about all the time. "Here!" he cried, and stopped.
When he had finished, he said: "There now, Eleseus, and you, Sivert, 'tis your mother herself has written that letter and learned all these things. Even that little tiny sister of yours, she knows more than all the rest of us here. Remember that!" The boys sat still, wondering in silence. "Ay, 'tis a grand thing," said Oline. And what did she mean by that?
Now and again he would come across a bird's nest in the woods; once he talked about a mouse-hole he had found, and made a lot of that; another time it was a great fish as big as a man, he had seen in the river. But it was all evidently his own invention; he was somewhat inclined to make black into white, was Sivert, but a good sort for all that.
And this was right enough in a way; Uncle Sivert had said something about making little Sivert his heir. Uncle Sivert had heard of Eleseus and his grand doings in town, and the story did not please him; he nodded and bit his lips, and muttered that a nephew called up as his namesake named after Uncle Sivert should not come to want. But what was this fortune Uncle Sivert was supposed to possess?
"I'll come on after," calls Sivert, and sets down his load. The two men sit down and talk. Geissler is in the right mood today; the spirit moves him, and he talks all the time, only pausing when Sivert puts in a word or so in answer, and then going on again. "A mighty lucky thing can't help saying it.
After dinner, he turned to Isak, and said: "I'm going for a long walk over my land up there; and I'd have liked to have Sivert with me, same as last time." "Ay, so you shall," said Isak at once. "No; he's other things to do, just now." "He shall go with you at once," said Isak, and called to Sivert to leave his work. But Geissler held up his hand, and said shortly: "No."
Sivert, on the other hand, was rather a disappointment. Not that he was any way slack, and failed to sell his goods 'twas he, indeed, sold most but he did not get enough for them. "You don't put in enough patter with it," said Andresen. No, Sivert was no hand at reeling off a lot of talk; he was a fieldworker, sure of what he said, and speaking calmly when he spoke at all.
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