ours. The sun had gone down.
Again he harnesses himself and tries it; ay, the thing cuts grass. And
so indeed it ought!

When the dew began to fall close after the heat of the day, and the
boys came out, each with his scythe to mow in readiness for next day,
Isak came in sight close to the house and said:

"Put away scythes for tonight. Get out the new horse, you can, and
bring him down to the edge of the wood."

And on that, instead of going indoors to his supper as the others had
done already, he turned where he stood and went back the way he had
come.

"D'you want the cart, then?" Sivert called after him.

"No," said his father, and walked on.

Swelling with mystery, full of pride; with a little lift and throw
from the knee at every step, so emphatically did he walk. So a brave
man might walk to death and destruction, carrying no weapon in his
hand.

The boys came up with the horse, saw the machine, and stopped dead.
It was the first mowing-machine in the wilds, the first in the
village--red and blue, a thing of splendour to man's eyes. And the
father, head of them all, called out, oh, in a careless tone, as if it
were nothing uncommon: "Harness up to this machine here."

And they drove it; the father drove. Brrr! said the thing, and felled
the grass in swathes. The boys walked behind, nothing in their hands,
doing no work, smiling. The father stopped and looked back. H'm, not
as clear as it might be. He screws up a nut here and there to bring
the knives closer to the ground, and tries again. No, not right yet,
all uneven; the frame with the cutters seems to be hopping a little.
Father and sons discuss what it can be. Eleseus has found the
instructions and is reading them. "Here, it says to sit up on the seat
when you drive--then it runs steadier," he says.

"Ho!" says his father. "Ay, 'tis so, I know," he answers. "I've
studied it all through." He gets up into the seat and starts off
again; it goes steadily now. Suddenly the machine stops working--the
knives are not cutting at all. "_Ptro_! What's wrong now?" Father down
from his seat, no longer swelling with pride, but bending an anxious,
questioning face down over the machine. Father and sons all stare at
it; something must be wrong. Eleseus stands holding the instructions.

"Here's a bolt or something," says Sivert, picking up a thing from the
grass.

"Ho, that's all right, then," says his father, as if that was all that
was needed to set everythin