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Updated: May 2, 2025
And the owners of horse-flesh in the village, they were right; 'twas a mighty carting and hauling of wares up to Storborg; more than once they had to cut off corners of the old road and make new short cuts a fine new road it was at last, very different from Isak's first narrow path up through the wilds. Aron was a blessing and a benefactor, nothing less, with his store and his new road.
They were both equally astonished. Not that Inger was past the age, of course; to Isak's mind, she was not too old in any way. But still, another child ... well, well.... And little Leopoldine going to school several times a year down at Breidablik that left them with no little ones about the place now besides which, Leopoldine herself was grown up now.
It was a serious business; there was first of all a contract for forty thousand Kroner for the sale of the mine, then a document whereby Geissler made over the whole of the money to his wife and children. Isak and Sivert were called in to witness the signatures to these. When it was done, the gentlemen wanted to buy over Isak's percentage for a ridiculous sum five hundred Kroner.
But there they come four womenfolk, big and small hurrying with straining eyes down towards the miracle, flocking down to see. Oh, but now is Isak's hour. Now he is truly proud, a mighty man, sitting high aloft dressed in holiday clothes, in all his finery; in jacket and hat, though the sweat is pouring off him.
Then an event, a happening of note in the ordinary round: a sheep, roaming with her lamb, gets caught in a cleft among the rocks. The others come home in the evening. Inger at once sees there are two missing, and out goes Isak in search. Isak's first thought is to be thankful it is Sunday, so he is not called away from his work and losing time.
The Lensmand's assistant had said: "I don't care about paying for a horse's keep myself; I've no more hay than my womenfolk can get it in by themselves while I'm away on duty." The new horse was an old idea of Isak's, he had been thinking of it for years; it was not Geissler who had put him up to it.
Good and simple teaching, well fitted for settlers in the wilds; the schoolmaster in the village would have laughed at it all, but Isak's boys found good use for it in their inner life. They were trained and taught for their own little world, and what could be better?
And he worked like a man. Isak could hardly have managed to get the new barn built at all without Sivert's help but there it stood now, with bridge-way and air-holes and all, as big as they had at the parsonage itself. True, it was only a half-timbered building covered with boarding, but extra stout built, with iron clinches at the corners, and covered with one-inch plank from Isak's own sawmill.
Whether Isak had had some suspicion beforehand, or had found it out by accident anyhow, it was found out. And suddenly Inger found herself gripped by both arms, felt herself lifted from the floor, and thumped down on to the floor again. It was something strange and terrible a sort of avalanche. Isak's hands were not weak, not worn out now.
It was Isak's old idea to drain the bogs at Storborg and till the land there properly; the bit of a store was only to be an extra, a convenience, to save folk going all the way down to the village for a reel of thread. So Sivert and Andresen stood there digging, and talking now and again when they stopped for a rest.
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