Growth of the Soil Part 35

They drank, and that was done. And then they took leave of Geissler.

Just at that moment came Brede Olsen walking up. Now what did he want?

Brede had doubtless heard the reports of the blasting charges the day before, and understood that there was something on foot in the way of mines. And now he came up ready to sell something too. He walked straight past Geissler, and addressed himself to the gentlemen; he had found some remarkable specimens of rock hereabouts, quite extraordinary, some blood-like, others like silver; he knew every cranny and corner in the hills around and could go straight to every spot; he knew of long veins of some heavy metal--whatever it might be.

"Have you any samples?" asked the mining expert.

Yes, Brede had samples. But couldn't they just as well go up and look at the places at once? It wasn't far. Samples--oh, sacks of them, whole packing-cases full. No, he had not brought them with him, they were at home--he could run down and fetch them. But it would be quicker just to run up into the hills and fetch some more, if they would only wait.

The men shook their heads and went on their way.

Brede looked after them with an injured air. If he had felt a glimmer of hope for the moment, it was gone now; fate was against him, nothing ever went right. Well for Brede that he was not easily cast down; he looked after the men as they rode away, and said at last: "Wish you a pleasant journey!" And that was all.

But now he was humble again in his manner towards Geissler, his former chief, and no longer treated him as an equal, but used forms of respect. Geissler had taken out his pocket-book on some pretext or other, and any one could see that it was stuffed full of notes.

"If only Lensmand could help me a bit," said Brede.

"Go back home and work your land properly," said Geissler, and helped him not a bit.

"I might easily have brought up a whole barrow-load of samples, but wouldn't it have been easier to go up and look at the place itself while they were here?"

Geissler took no notice of him, and turned to Isak: "Did you see what I did with that doc.u.ment? It was a most important thing--a matter of several thousand _Kroner_. Oh, here it is, in among a bundle of notes."

"Who were those people?" asked Brede. "Just out for a ride, or what?"

Geissler had been having an anxious time, no doubt, and now he cooled down. But he had still something of life and eagerness in him, enough to do a little more; he went up into the hills with Sivert, and took a big sheet of paper with him, and drew a map of the ground south of the lake--Heaven knows what he had in mind. When he came down to the farm some hours later, Brede was still there, but Geissler took no notice of his questions; Geissler was tired, and waved him aside.

He slept like a stone till next morning early, then he rose with the sun, and was himself again. "Sellanraa," said he, standing outside and looking all round.

"All that money," said Isak; "does it mean I'm to have it all?"

"All?" said Geissler. "Heavens, man, can't you see it ought to have been ever so much more? And it was my business really to pay you, according to our contract; but you saw how things were--it was the only way to manage it. What did you get? Only a thousand _Daler_, according to the old reckoning. I've been thinking, you'll need another horse on the place now."

"Ay."

"Well, I know of one. That fellow Heyerdahl's a.s.sistant, he's letting his place go to rack and ruin; takes more interest in running about selling folk up. He's sold a deal of his stock already, and he'll be willing to sell the horse."

"I'll see him about it," said Isak.

Geissler waved his hand broadly around, and said: "Margrave, landowner--that's you! House and stock and cultivated land--they can't starve you out if they try!"

"No," said Isak. "We've all we could wish for that the Lord ever made."

Geissler went fussing about the place, and suddenly slipped in to Inger. "Could you manage a bit of food for me to take along again?" he asked. "Just a few wafers--no b.u.t.ter and cheese; there's good things enough in them already. No, do as I say; I can't carry more."

Out again. Geissler was restless, he went into the new building and sat down to write. He had thought it all out beforehand, and it did not take long now to get it down. Sending in an application to the State, he explained loftily to Isak--"to the Ministry of the Interior, you understand. Yes, I've no end of things to look after all at once."

When he had got his parcel of food and had taken leave, he seemed to remember something all of a sudden: "Oh, by the way, I'm afraid I owe you something from last time--I took out a note from my pocket-book on purpose, and then stuck it in my waistcoat pocket--I found it there afterwards. Too many things to think about all at once...." He put something into Inger's hand and off he went.

Ay, off went Geissler, bravely enough to all seeming. Nothing downcast nor anyway nearing his end; he came to Sellanraa again after, and it was long years before he died. Each time he went away the Sellanraa folk missed him as a friend. Isak had been thinking of asking him about Breidablik, getting his advice, but nothing came of it. And maybe Geissler would have dissuaded him there; have thought it a risky thing to buy up land for cultivation and give it to Eleseus; to a clerk.

Chapter XVIII

Uncle Sivert died after all. Eleseus spent three weeks looking after him, and then the old man died. Eleseus arranged the funeral, and managed things very well; got hold of a fuchsia or so from the cottages round, and borrowed a flag to hoist at half-mast, and bought some black stuff from the store for lowered blinds. Isak and Inger were sent for, and came to the burial. Eleseus acted as host, and served out refreshments to the guests; ay, and when the body was carried out, and they had sung a hymn, Eleseus actually said a few suitable words over the coffin, and his mother was so proud and touched that she had to use her handkerchief. Everything went off splendidly.

Then on the way home with his father, Eleseus had to carry that spring coat of his openly, though he managed to hide the stick in one of the sleeves. All went well till they had to cross the water in a boat; then his father sat down unexpectedly on the coat, and there was a crack. "What was that?" asked Isak.

"Oh, nothing," said Eleseus.

But he did not throw the broken stick away; as soon as they got home, he set about looking for a bit of tube or something to mend it with.

"We'll fix it all right," said Sivert, the incorrigible. "Look here, get a good stout splint of wood on either side, and lash all fast with waxed thread...."

"I'll lash you with waxed thread," said Eleseus.

"Ha ha ha! Well, perhaps you'd rather tie it up neatly with a red garter?"

"Ha ha ha," said Eleseus himself at that; but he went in to his mother, and got her to give him an old thimble, filed off the end, and made quite a fine ferrule. Oh, Eleseus was not so helpless after all, with his long, white hands.

The brothers teased each other as much as ever. "Am I to have what Uncle Sivert's left?" asked Eleseus.

"You have it? How much is it?" asked Sivert.

"Ha ha ha, you want to know how much it is first, you old miser!"

"Well, you can have it, anyway," said Sivert.

"It's between five and ten thousand."

"_Daler_?" cried Sivert; he couldn't help it.

Now Eleseus never reckoned in _Daler_, but he didn't like to say no at the time, so he just nodded, and left it at that till next day.

Then he took up the matter again. "Aren't you sorry you gave me all that yesterday?" he said.

"Woodenhead! Of course not," said Sivert. That was what he said, but--well, five thousand _Daler_ was five thousand _Daler_, and no little sum; if his brother were anything but a lousy Indian savage, he ought to give back half.

"Well, to tell the truth," explained Eleseus, "I don't reckon to get fat on that legacy, after all."

Sivert looked at him in astonishment. "Ho, don't you?"

"No, nothing special, that is to say. Not what you might call _par excellence_."

Eleseus had some notions of accounts, of course, and Uncle Sivert's money-chest, the famous bottle-case, had been opened and examined while he was there; he had had to go through all the accounts and make up a balance sheet. Uncle Sivert had not set this nephew to work on the fields or mending of herring nets; he had initiated him into a complex muddle of figures, the weirdest book-keeping ever seen. If a man had paid his taxes some years back in kind, with a goat, say, or a load of dried cod, there was neither flesh nor fish to show for it now; but old Sivert searched his memory and said, "He's paid!"

"Right, then we'll cross him out," said Sivert.