g, and with his young body firmly set, quick to see his
way, to mark out the stones that would suit; the other ageing--tough,
with long arms, and a mighty weight to bear down on a crowbar. When
they had managed some specially difficult feat, they would hold a
breathing-space, and talk together in a curious, reserved fashion of
their own.

"Brede, he talks of selling out," said the father.

"Ay," said the son. "Wonder what he'll be asking for the place?"

"Ay, I wonder."

"You've not heard anything?"

"No."

"I've heard two hundred."

The father thought for a while, and said: "What d'you think, 'll this
be a good stone?"

"All depends if we can get this shell off him," said Sivert, and was
on his feet in a moment, giving the setting-hammer to his father, and
taking the sledge himself. He grew red and hot, stood up to his full
height and let the sledge-hammer fall; rose again and let it fall;
twenty strokes alike--twenty thunder-strokes. He spared neither tool
nor strength; it was heavy work; his shirt rucked up from his trousers
at the waist, leaving him bare in front; he lifted on his toes each
time to give the sledge a better swing. Twenty strokes.

"Now! Let's look!" cried his father.

The son stops, and asks: "Marked him any?"

And they lay down together to look at the stone; look at the beast,
the devil of a thing; no, not marked any as yet.

"I've a mind to try with the sledge alone," said the father, and stood
up. Still harder work this, sheer force alone, the hammer grew hot,
the steel crushed, the pen grew blunt.

"She'll be slipping the head," he said, and stopped. "And I'm no hand
at this any more," he said.

Oh, but he never meant it; it was not his thought, that he was no hand
at the work any more!

This father, this barge of a man, simple, full of patience and
goodness, he would let his son strike the last few blows and cleave
the stone. And there it lay, split in two.

"Ay, you've the trick of it," said the father. "H'm, yes ...
Breidablik ... might make something but of that place."

"Ay, should think so," said the son.

"Only the land was fairly ditched and turned."

"The house'd have to be done up."

"Ay, that of course. Place all done up--'twould mean a lot of work at
first, but ... What I was going to say, d'you know if your mother was
going to church come Sunday?"

"Ay, she said something like it."

"Ho!... H'm. Keep your eyes open now and look out for a good big
door-s