ere
none the worse for that, maybe. No, 'twasn't every one was so quick
and handy at getting rid of the young they bore--strangling them in a
twinkling....

"Mind what you're saying," shouted Isak. And to make his meaning
perfectly clear, he added: "You cursed old hag!"

But Oline was not going to mind what she was saying; not in the least,
he he! She turned up her eyes to heaven and hinted that a hare-lip
might be this or that, but some folk seemed to carry it too far, he
he!

Isak may well have been glad to get safely out of the house at last.
And what could he do but get Oline the shoes? A tiller of earth in the
wilds; no longer even something of a god, that he could say to his
servant, "Go!" He was helpless without Oline; whatever she did or
said, she had nothing to fear, and she knew it.

The nights are colder now, with a full moon; the marshlands harden
till they can almost bear, but thawing again when the sun comes out,
to an impassable swamp once more. Isak goes down to the village one
cold night, to order shoes for Oline. He takes a couple of cheeses
with him, for Fru Geissler.

Half-way down to the village a new settler has appeared. A well-to-do
man, no doubt, since he had called in folk from the village to build
his house, and hired men to plough up a patch of sandy moorland for
potatoes; he himself did little or nothing. The new man was Brede
Olsen, Lensmand's assistant, a man to go to when the doctor had to be
fetched, or a pig to be killed. He was not yet thirty, but had four
children to look after, not to speak of his wife, who was as good as
a child herself. Oh, Brede was not so well off, perhaps, after all;
'twas no great money he could earn running hither and thither on all
odd businesses, and collecting taxes from people that would not pay.
So now he was trying a new venture on the soil. He had raised a loan
at the bank to start house in the wilds. Breidablik, he called the
place; and it was Lensmand Heyerdahl's lady that had found that
splendid name.

Isak hurries past the house, not wasting time on looking in, but he
can see through the window that all the children are up already, early
as it is. Isak has no time to lose, if he is to be back as far as this
on the homeward journey next night, while the roads are hard. A man
living in the wilds has much to think of, to reckon out and fit in as
best can be. It is not the busiest time for him just now, but he is
anxious about the children, lef