"It's a lucky thing for you the Department didn't get to hear about your wife," said the Lensmand. "Or they might have sold to some one else."
"Ay," said Isak. He asked about Inger. "Is it true that she's gone away for eight years?"
"That is so. And can't be altered—the law must take its course. As a matter of fact, the sentence is extraordinarily light. There's one thing you must do now—that is, to set up clear boundaries between your land and the State's. A straight, direct line, following the marks I set up on the spot, and entered in my register at the time. The timber cleared from the boundary line becomes your property. I will come up some time and have a look at what you have done."
Isak trudged back to his home.
Chapter VIII
Time flies? Ay, when a man is growing old. Isak was not old, he had not lost his vigour; the years seemed long to him. He worked on his land, and let his iron beard grow as it would.
Now and again the monotony of the wilderness was broken by the sight of a passing Lapp, or by something happening to one of the animals on the place, then all would be as before. Once there came a number of men at once; they rested at Sellanraa, and had some food and a dish of milk; they asked Isak and Oline about the path across the hills; they were marking out the telegraph line, they said. And once came Geissler—Geissler himself, and no other. There he came, free and easy as ever, walking up from the village, two men with him, carrying mining tools, pick and spade.
Oh, that Geissler! Unchanged, the same as ever; meeting and greeting as if nothing had happened, talked to the children, went into the house and came out again, looked over the ground, opened the doors of cowshed and hayloft and looked in. "Excellent!" said he. "Isak, have you still got those bits of stone?"
"Bits of stone?" said Isak, wondering.
"Little heavy lumps of stone I saw the boy playing with when I was here once before."
The stones were out in the larder, serving as weights for so many mouse-traps; Isak brought them in. Geissler and the two men examined them, talking together, tapped them here and there, weighed them in the hand. "Copper," they said.
"Could you go up with us and show where you found them?" asked Geissler.
They all went up together; it was not far to the place where Isak had found the stones, but they stayed up in the hills for a couple of days, looking for veins of metal, and firing charges here and there. They came down to Sellanraa with two bags filled with heavy lumps of stone.
Isak had meanwhile had a talk with Geissler, and told him everything as to his own position: about the purchase of the land, which had come to a hundred Daler instead of fifty.
"That's a trifle," said Geissler easily. "You've thousands, like as not, on your part of the hills."
"Ho!" said Isak.
"But you'd better get those title-deeds entered in the register as soon as ever you can."
"Ay."
"Then the State can't come any nonsense about it after, you understand."
Isak understood. "'Tis worst about Inger," he said.
"Ay," said Geissler, and remained thoughtful longer than was usual with him. "Might get the case brought up again. Set out the whole thing properly; very likely get the sentence reduced a bit. Or we could put in an application for a pardon, and that would probably come to the same thing in the end."
"Why, if as that could be done…."
"But it wouldn't do to try for a pardon at once. Have to wait a bit. What was I going to say … you've been taking things down to my wife—meat and cheese and things—what?"
"Why, as to that, Lensmand paid for all that before."
"Did I, though?"
"And helped us kindly in many a way."
"Not a bit of it," said Geissler shortly. "Here—take this." And he took out some Daler notes.
Geissler was not the man to take things for nothing, that was plain. And he seemed to have plenty of money about him, from the way his pocket bulged. Heaven only knew if he really had money or not.
"But she writes all's well and getting on," said Isak, coming back to his one thought.
"What?—Oh, your wife!"
"Ay. And since the girl was born—she's had a girl child, born while she was there. A fine little one."
"Excellent!"
"Ay, and now they're all as kind as can be, and help her every way, she says."
"Look here," said Geissler, "I'm going to send these bits of stone in to some mining experts, and find out what's in them. If there's a decent percentage of copper, you'll be a rich man."
"H'm," said Isak. "And how long do you think before we could apply for a pardon?"
"Well, not so very long, perhaps, I'll write the thing for you. I'll be back here again soon. What was it you said—your wife has had a child since she left here?"
"Yes."
"Then they took her away while she was expecting it. That's a thing they've no right to do."
"Ho!"
"Anyhow, it's one more reason for letting her out earlier."
"Ay, if that could be …" said Isak gratefully.
Isak knew nothing of the many lengthy writings backward and forward between the different authorities concerning the woman who was expecting a child. The local authorities had let her go free while the matter was pending, for two reasons: in the first place, they had no lock-up in the village where they could keep her, and, in the second place, they wished to be as lenient as possible. The consequence was something they could not have foreseen. Later, when they had sent to fetch her away, no one had inquired about her condition, and she herself had said nothing of it. Possibly she had concealed the matter on purpose, in order to have a child with her during the years of imprisonment; if she behaved well, she would no doubt be allowed to see it now and again. Or perhaps she had been merely indifferent, and had gone off carelessly, despite her state….
Isak worked and toiled, dug ditches and broke new ground, set up his boundary lines between his land and the State's, and gained another season's stock of timber. But now that Inger was no longer there to wonder at his doings, he worked more from habit than for any joy in what he did. And he had let two sessions pass without having his title-deeds registered, caring little about it; at last, that autumn, he had pulled himself together and got it done. Things were not as they should be with Isak now. Quiet and patient as ever—yes, but now it was because he did not care. He got out hides because it had to be done—goatskins and calfskins—steeped them in the river, laid them in bark, and tanned them after a fashion ready for shoes. In the winter—at the very first threshing—he set aside his seed corn for the
