d
finished; of fencing in all his cultivated ground; of building a boat
on the lake up in the hills. Many things he had thought of doing. But
hard as he worked, unreasonably hard--what did it help against time?
Time--it was the time that was too short. It was Sunday before he
knew, and then directly after, lo it was Sunday again!

Paint he would, in any case; that was decided and emphatic. The
buildings stood there grey and bare--stood there like houses in their
shirt sleeves. There was time yet before the busy season; the spring
was hardly begun yet; the young things were out, but there was frost
in the ground still.

Isak goes down to the village, taking with him a few score of eggs for
sale, and brings back paint. There was enough for one building, for
the barn, and it was painted red. He fetches up more paint, yellow
ochre this time, for the house itself. "Ay, 'tis as I said, here's
going to be fine and grand," grumbles Oline every day. Ay, Oline could
guess, no doubt, that her time at Sellanraa would soon be up; she was
tough and strong enough to bear it, though not without bitterness.
Isak, on his part, no longer sought to settle up old scores with her
now, though she pilfered and put away things lavishly enough towards
the end. He made her a present of a young wether; after all, she had
been with him a long time, and worked for little pay. And Oline had
not been so bad with the children; she was not stern and strictly
righteous and that sort of thing, but had a knack of dealing with
children: listened to what they said, and let them do more or less
as they pleased. If they came round while she was making cheese, she
would give them a bit to taste; if they begged to be let off washing
their faces one Sunday, she would let them off.

When Isak had given his walls a first coat, he went down to the
village again and brought up all the paint he could carry. Three coats
he put on in all, and white on the window-frames and corners. To come
back now and look at his home there on the hillside, it was like
looking at a fairy palace. The wilderness was inhabited and
unrecognizable, a blessing had come upon it, life had arisen there
from a long dream, human creatures lived there, children played about
the houses. And the forest stretched away, big and kindly, right up to
the blue heights.

But the last time Isak went down for paint, the storekeeper gave him
a blue envelope with a crest on, and 5 _skilling_ to pay. It wa