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Couldn't Sivert have gone?" says Eleseus. Ay, Eleseus knew no better, nothing better than to think Sivert would go down to the smith's to fetch Jensine, after she had thought so much of herself as to leave Sellanraa! No, 'twas all awry with the haymaking the year before. Inger had put in all she could, as she had promised.
They drive up homeward, and little Rebecca is the only one with a word to say; she is full of the wonder of going to church, the priest in his dress with a silver cross, and the lights and the organ music. After a long while Jensine says: "'Tis a shameful thing about Barbro and all." "What did your mother mean about you coming home soon?" asked Sivert. "What she meant?" "Ay.
He walks home in silence, says no word of it, makes no boast of it, 'twas not for worldly speech. And it was but Sivert from Sellanraa, went out one evening, young and ordinary as he was, and met with this. It was not the only thing he met with there were more adventures beside. Another thing which happened was that Jensine left Sellanraa. And that made Sivert not a little perturbed in his mind.
Kling ... eling ... say the cow bells far up on the hillside, coming nearer and nearer; the cattle are coming home for the night. Fifteen head of them, and five-and-forty sheep and goats besides; threescore in all. There go the women out with their milk-pails, carried on yokes from the shoulder: Leopoldine, Jensine, and little Rebecca. All three barefooted.
"Want to leave, do you? Why, then, well and good," said Inger. It was a blessing, the fulfilment of nightly prayers. Two grown women they were already, what did they want with this Jensine, fresh as could be and marriageable and all? Inger thought with a certain displeasure of that same marriageableness, thinking, maybe, how she had once been the same herself.
Some days passed, and Isak resolutely threw away a whole week-end from Saturday evening till Monday morning on a trip down to the village. He would not say what he was going for when he set out, but on his return, he brought with him a girl. "This is Jensine," he said. "Come to help." "'Tis all your nonsense," said Inger, "I've no need of help at all."
His father comes back from the smith's after settling his business there; Jensine was to go back with him next morning. And Jensine, look you, had been nowise contrary and hard to persuade, but saw at once they wanted help at Sellanraa for the summer, and was ready to come. A proper way to do, again. While his father is talking, Eleseus sits thinking of his own affairs.
Here at Sellanraa there was nothing of that sort; Jensine, the servant-maid, was a mere nothing, a worker and no more, rather suited to Sivert. "I've a fancy to see how that girl Barbro from Breidablik turned out now she's grown up," said Eleseus one day. "Well, go down to Axel Ström's place and see," said Sivert. Eleseus went down one Sunday.
Ay, it came to that: Jensine would leave, if you please; she wished it so. Oh, Jensine was not one of your common sort, none could say that. Sivert had once offered to drive her back home at once, and on that occasion she had cried, which was a pity; but afterwards she repented of that, and made it clear that she repented, and gave notice and would leave. Ay, a proper way to do.
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