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Grindhusen had come back, and was set to tunnelling under the kitchen where the pipes were to go; but the stable and cowshed was more important, and I did the underground work for these myself. Nils and Lars ran the last bit of trech up meanwhile, the last bit of way to the reservoir. Today, at last, I questioned Grindhusen about Fruen.
It was done now, but I wished it undone. And I told Grindhusen himself as much, and that pretty plainly. "Fruen here's the mistress of the place, and good and kind as could be to every one, and the Captain as well, remember that. But you'll find yourself whipped out of here, and at once, if you go gossiping and telling tales. Take my advice and be careful.
But there'll be a message for him one of these days: I gathered as much from the Inspector himself. I'll say no more than that. And as for me telling things, here's Inspector's been like a father to me, and I'd be a stock and a stone to say otherwise. 'I'm all upset and worried these days, Grindhusen, says he to me.
Old Gunhild comes out from the house, and seeing us standing there by the chopping-block wasting time in idle talk, she tells Grindhusen he'd better start on the painting. "So you've turned painter now?" said I. Grindhusen made no answer, and I saw I had said a thing that should not have been said in others' hearing.
I get out Gunhild's boat and go off fishing, so as not to be there when he leaves. I catch no fish, and it is cold sitting in the boat; I look at my watch again and again. At last, about seven o'clock: he must be gone by now, I say to myself, and I row home. Grindhusen has got over to the mainland, and calls across to me from there: "Farvel!"
Grindhusen, that I had worked with as a young man at Skreia my partner in the digging of a certain well six years before. And now to meet him here. We gave each other greeting, and sat down on the logs to talk, asking and answering questions for an hour or more. Then it was too late to get any more done that day.
Eh, but she's a rare openhanded one, she is. 'Here's something for food and drink for yourself and the horses, she says. 'And here's a little extra, she says again. Eh, but there's never her like!" But to the maids, with whom he felt less fear, Grindhusen had said it didn't look as if they'd be seeing Fruen back again at all.
He'd no big family to look after now, and the morrow, no doubt, would look after itself just as today. "If I could only manage it," said Grindhusen, "I know what I'd do. I'd get myself some bricklayer's tools." "So you're a bricklayer, too?" "Well, not much of a one, and that's the truth. But when that well's dug, why, it'll need to be lined, that's clear...."
Many, many years it is now since we were roadmenders together, Grindhusen and I; we were youngsters then, and danced along the roads in the sorriest of shoes, and ate what we could get as long as we had money enough for that.
Her eyes were too earnest for such playing; it did not suit her. I thought to myself, either she was trying to make up for her foolishness towards Nils by favouring us in turn, or starting a new game altogether which would it be? I could not make it out, and as for Grindhusen, he saw nothing in it at all, but only said, when Fruen had gone: "Eh, she's a strange, kind-hearted soul, is Fruen.
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