Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun [best self help books to read txt] 📗

though it was midsummer; and when he hung it up on a nail, he might just as well have turned it so as to show the silver plate inside with his initials, but he didn’t. And the same with his stick⁠—his walking-stick. True, it was only an umbrella stick really, that he had dismantled and taken the framework off; but here he had not used it as he did in town, swinging it about⁠—only carried it hidden against his thigh.

No, it was not surprising that Eleseus went across the hills. He was no good at building houses; he was good at writing with letters, a thing not everyone could do, but here at home there was no one in all the place that set any store by the art of it save perhaps his mother. He set off gaily through the woods, far ahead of Oline; he could wait for her farther up. He ran like a calf; he hurried. Eleseus had in a way stolen off from the farm; he was afraid of being seen. For, to tell the truth, he had taken with him both spring coat and walking-stick for the journey. Over on the other side there might be a chance of seeing people, and being seen himself; he might even be able to go to church. And so he sweated happily under the weight of an unnecessary spring coat in the heat of the sun.

They did not miss him at the building, far from it. Isak had Sivert back again, and Sivert was worth a host of his brother at that work; he could keep at it from morning to night. It did not take them long to get the framework up; it was only three walls, as they were building out from the other. And they had less trouble with the timber; they could cut their planks at the sawmill, which gave them the outside pieces for roofing at the same time. And one fine day there was the house all finished, before their eyes, roofed, floored, and with the windows in. They had no time for more than this between the seasons; the boarding and painting would have to wait.

And now came Geissler with a great following across the hills from Sweden. And the men with him rode on horseback with glossy-coated horses and yellow saddles; rich travellers they must be no doubt; stout, heavy men; the horses bowed under their weight. And among all these great personages came Geissler on foot. Four gentlemen and Geissler made up the party, and then there were a couple of servants each leading a packhorse.

The riders dismounted outside the farm, and Geissler said: “Here’s Isak⁠—here’s the Margrave of the place himself. Goddag, Isak! I’ve come back again, you see, as I said I would.”

Geissler was the same as ever. For all that he came on foot, his manner showed no consciousness of inferiority to the rest; ay, his threadbare coat hung long and wretched-looking down over his shrunken back, but he put on a grand enough air for all that. He even said: “We’re going up into the hills a bit, these gentlemen and myself⁠—it’ll do them good to get their weight down a bit.”

The gentlemen themselves were nice and pleasant enough; they smiled at Geissler’s words, and hoped Isak would excuse their coming rioting over his land like this. They had brought their own provisions, and did not propose to eat him out of house and home, but they would be glad of a roof over their heads for the night. Perhaps he could put them up in the new building there?

When they had rested a while, and Geissler had been inside with Inger and the children, the whole party went up into the hills and stayed out till evening. Now and again in the course of the afternoon, the folks at Sellanraa could hear an unusually heavy report from the distance, and the train of them came down with new bags of samples. “Blue copper,” they said, nodding at the ore. They talked long and learnedly, and consulting a sort of map they had drawn; there was an engineer among them, and a mining expert; one appeared to be a big landowner or manager of works. They talked of aerial railways and cable traction. Geissler threw in a word here and there, and each time as if advising them; they paid great attention to what he said.

“Who owns the land south of the lake?” one of them asked Isak.

“The State,” answered Geissler quickly. He was wide awake and sharp, and held in his hand the document Isak had once signed with his mark. “I told you before⁠—the State,” he said. “No need to ask again. If you don’t believe me, you can find out for yourself if you please.”

Later in the evening, Geissler took Isak aside and said: “Look here, shall we sell that copper mine?”

Said Isak: “Why, as to that, ’twas so that Lensmand bought it of me once, and paid for it.”

“True,” said Geissler. “I bought the ground. But then there was a provision that you were to have a percentage of receipts from working or sale; are you willing to dispose of your share?”

This was more than Isak could understand, and Geissler had to explain. Isak could not work a mine, being a farmer and a clearer of forest land; Geissler himself couldn’t run a mine either. Money, capital? Ho, as much as he wanted, never fear! But he hadn’t the time, too many things to do, always running about the country, attending to his property in the south, his property in the north. And now Geissler was thinking of selling out to these Swedish gentlemen here; they were relatives of his wife, all of them, and rich men. “Do you see what I mean?”

“I’ll do it what way you please,” said Isak.

A strange thing⁠—this complete confidence seemed to comfort Geissler wonderfully in his threadbareness. “Well, I’m not sure it’s