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He had reckoned on staying in town all the summer, as general handyman to the Inspector himself; but all hope of that was gone now. The Inspector was no longer as good as a father to him. And Grindhusen bore the disappointment badly. When they came to settle up, the Inspector had been going to deduct the two-Kroner pieces he had given him, saying they had only been meant as payment in advance.
After an hour's walking, we sighted the fields and buildings of a hill farm up among the trees. And suddenly I recollect the sheep Grindhusen had found. "Was it up this way you found that sheep?" I ask. Grindhusen looks at me. "Here? No, that was ever so far away right over toward Trovatn." "But Trovatn's only in the next parish, isn't it?" "Yes, that's what I say.
Not like the Inspector, that weighed and counted every miserable Skilling, and then, as true as God's in heaven, go and take off two Kroner that he'd given as clear as could be ... ugh! He, Grindhusen, was not the man to make a fuss about a wretched two Kroner, as long as it was a matter of any sense or reason, but to go and take it off like that fy Fan!
The Captain has done as he said about the timber; there's a cracking and crashing in the woods already. And a mild autumn, too, with no frost in the ground as yet to stop the ploughing; Nils grasps at the time like a miser, to save as much as possible next spring. Now comes the question whether Grindhusen and I are to work on the timber.
"So you didn't bring Fruen back with you again this last time?" "No. She went off by train." "Off to her husband, I suppose?" But Grindhusen has turned cautious with me; these two days past he has said never a word, and now he only answers vaguely: "Ay, that would be it, no doubt. Ay, surely, yes. Why, you might reckon that out yourself, she would. Her own husband and all...."
And then he went on about somebody Elisabet, and said he never gave her a thought, and never had, I think he said. And she cried like anything at that, and was all upset. But she didn't say a word about being abroad, as the Captain said. No, I'll stake my life she'd come from the Inspector." I began to fear I had made a grave mistake in bringing Grindhusen to Ovrebo.
Now what was coming to that barn of ours? Were spirits about? Who had been in there one day suddenly and cleaned the place and made all comfortable and neat? Grindhusen and I had each our own bedplace; I had bought a couple of rugs, but he turned in every night fully dressed, with all he stood up in, and curled himself up in the hay all anyhow.
Bad weather has set in, and all the work ought to be done at once. When we've finished threshing, there's the fresh straw to be cut up and salted down in bins to keep it from rotting. That all? Not by a long way: irons enough still glowing hot. Grindhusen and the maids are pulling potatoes.
She wanted to drive back again last night as soon as we got to the station, but I told her that it was too much for either of us to drive back then. So she slept at the hotel. But this morning it was home again, if you please. And now she wants to go to the station again, she says. I don't know, I'm sure...." Grindhusen goes on harnessing up. "Fruen said you were to make haste," I said.
And now the haymaking began in earnest: the maids were out, spreading in the wake of the machine, and Grindhusen was set to work with a scythe in the corners and awkward parts where the machine could not go. And I got out my stone-grey paint and set about the house. The Captain came up. "What colour's that you've got here?" he asked. What could I say to that?
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