Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📗

me before I go, I want to see that mill of yours,” said he. Then he caught sight of some blue and red marks on the frame of the loom, and asked. “Who drew that?” Now that was Eleseus, had drawn a horse and a goat; he used his coloured pencil on the loom and woodwork anywhere, having no paper. “Not at all bad,” said Geissler, and gave Eleseus a coin.

Geissler went on writing for a bit, and then looked up. “You’ll be having other people taking up land hereabouts before long.”

At this the man with him spoke: “There’s some started already.”

“Ho! And who might that be?”

“Well, first, there’s the folk at Breidablik, as they call it⁠—man Brede, at Breidablik.”

“Him⁠—puh!” sniffed Geissler contemptuously.

“Then there’s one or two others besides, have bought.”

“Doubt if they’re any good, any of them,” said Geissler. And noticing at the same moment that there were two boys in the room, he caught hold of little Sivert and gave him a coin. A remarkable man was Geissler. His eyes, by the way, had begun to look soreish; there was a kind of redness at the edges. Might have been sleeplessness; the same thing comes at times from drinking of strong waters. But he did not look dejected at all; and for all his talking of this and that between times, he was thinking no doubt of his document all the while, for suddenly he picked up the pen and wrote a piece more.

At last he seemed to have finished.

He turned to Isak: “Well, as I said, it won’t make you a rich man all at once, this deal. But there may be more to come. We’ll fix it up so that you get more later on. Anyhow, I can give you two hundred now.”

Isak understood but little of the whole thing, but two hundred Daler was at any rate another miracle, and an unreasonable sum. He would get it on paper, of course, not paid in cash, but let that be. Isak had other things in his head just now.

“And you think she’ll be pardoned?” he asked.

“Eh? Oh, your wife! Well, if there’d been a telegraph office in the village, I’d have wired to Trondhjem and asked if she hadn’t been set free already.”

Isak had heard men speak of the telegraph; a wonderful thing, a string hung up on big poles, something altogether above the common earth. The mention of it now seemed to shake his faith in Geissler’s big words, and he put in anxiously: “But suppose the King says no?”

Said Geissler: “In that case, I send in my supplementary material, a full account of the whole affair. And then they must set her free. There’s not a shadow of doubt.”

Then he read over what he had written; the contract for purchase of the land. Two hundred Daler cash down, and later, a nice high percentage of receipts from working, or ultimate disposal by further sale, of the copper tract. “Sign your name here,” said Geissler.

Isak would have signed readily enough, but he was no scholar; in all his life he had got no farther than cutting initials in wood. But there was that hateful creature Oline looking on; he took up the pen⁠—a beastly thing, too light to handle anyway⁠—turned it right end down, and wrote⁠—wrote his name. Whereupon Geissler added something, presumably an explanation, and the man he had brought with him signed as a witness.

Settled.

But Oline was still there, standing immovable⁠—it was indeed but now she had turned so stiff. What was to happen?

“Dinner on the table, Oline,” said Isak, possibly with a tough of dignity, after having signed his name in writing on a paper. “Such as we can offer,” he added to Geissler.

“Smells good enough,” said Geissler. “Sound meat and drink. Here, Isak, here’s your money!” Geissler took out his pocketbook⁠—thick and fat it was, too⁠—drew from it two bundles of notes and laid them down. “Count it over yourself.”

Not a movement, not a sound.

“Isak,” said Geissler again.

“Ay. Yes,” answered Isak, and murmured, overwhelmed, “ ’Tis not that I’ve asked for it, nor would⁠—after all you’ve done.”

“Ten tens in that⁠—should be, and twenty fives here,” said Geissler shortly. “And I hope there’ll be more than that by a long way for your share soon.”

And then it was that Oline recovered from her trance. The wonder had happened after all. She set the food on the table.

Next morning Geissler went out to the river to look at the mill. It was small enough, and roughly built; ay, a mill for dwarfs, for trollfolk, but strong and useful for a man’s work. Isak led his guest a little farther up the river, and showed him another fall he had been working on a bit; it was to turn a saw, if so be God gave him health. “The only thing,” he said, “it’s a heavy long way from school: I’ll have to get the lads to stay down in the village.” But Geissler, always so quick to find a way, saw nothing to worry about here. “There are more people buying and settling here now,” said he. “It won’t be long before there’s enough to start a school.”

“Ay, maybe, but not before my boys are grown.”

“Well, why not let them live on a farm down in the village? You could drive in with the boys and some food, and bring them up again three weeks⁠—six weeks after; it would be easy enough for you, surely?”

“Ay, maybe,” said Isak.

Ay, all things would be easy enough, if Inger came home. House and land and food and grand things enough, and a big sum of money too he had, and his strength; he was hard as nails. Health and strength⁠—ay, full and unspoiled, unworn, in every way, the health and strength of a man.

When Geissler had gone, Isak began thinking of many presumptuous things. Ay, for had not Geissler, that blessing to them all, said at parting that he would send a message very soon⁠—would send a