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The two make friends at once; the child sees something curious in the sack, something soft and fluffy, and wants to pat it. The dog stands alert, barking and whining. Inger comes out with a parcel of food; she gives a cry, and drops down on the door-slab. "What's that you've got there? What is it?" "Tis nothing. Only a hare." "I saw it." "'Twas the boy wanted to look.
They walk home together, Isak enjoying new admiration on false pretences; 'twas something he had not deserved, but it tasted but little different from the real thing. He lets it be understood that he has been looking out for a suitable door-slab for a long time, and had found it at last. And when Sivert came home, he could get him to help.
The two eyes in the air had gone. He lost no time in getting home, and took no steps to challenge the spectre further. But when he found himself once more safely on his own door-slab, he cleared his throat with a sense of power and security; he walked into the house with lofty mien, like a man ay, a man of the world. Inger started at the sight of him, and asked what made him so pale.
But if it had come to this, that he could no longer go out alone and heave up a stone, why, things were sorely changed; ay, 'twas a bad look-out, and the more need to get that site cleared quick as might be. Age was upon him, he was ripening for the chimney-corner. The triumph he had stolen in the matter of the door-slab faded away in a few days; 'twas a false thing, and not made to last.
Occasionally the chamber, and even the passage, is built of masonry and roofed with stone slabs or a corbel vault, and the simple door-slab gives place to a stone door, hinged, or sliding in a grooved frame.
And then his mother must needs come out on the door-slab and hiccup again and say, "God bless you!" and give him something. "Take this and you're not to thank him, he says you're not to. And don't forget to write; write often." Two hundred Kroner.
"You might ask him what he says." The father made an end of the matter thus: "Well, there's another day, and we haven't found that door-slab yet, either." Next day was Saturday, and they had to be off early to get across the hills with the child. Jensine, the servant-girl, was to go with them; that was one godmother, the rest they would have to find from among Inger's folk on the other side.
Inger sat down on the door-slab. She was in pain; her face was aflame. She had kept her feet till Isak was gone; now he and the bull were out of sight, and she could give way to a groan without fear. Little Eleseus can talk a little already; he asks: "Mama hurt? " "Yes, hurt." He mimics her, pressing his hands to his sides and groaning. Little Sivert is asleep.
"What you might think," said his father. "We've been digging round here now to find that other door-slab piece; might almost do to build here. I don't know...." "Ay, 'tis no bad place to build," said Sivert, looking round. "Think so? 'Twas none so bad, maybe, to have a bit of a place to house folk if any should come along." "Ay." "A couple of rooms'd be as well.
Isak stayed a while sitting on the door-slab, then he went out into the woods to look for the ewe. And he found Inger. Inger and one other. They sat in the heather, she twirling his peaked cap on one finger, both talking together they were after her again, it seemed. Isak trundled slowly over towards them.