when a few days later
another man came down from the mine, he was taken on too; now there
were two spells, and the work went apace. Ay, they would have it ready
by the autumn, never fear.

But now one after another of the miners came down, dismissed, and took
the road to Sweden; the trial working was stopped for the present.
There was something like a sigh from the folk in the village at the
news; foolish folk, they did not understand what a trial working was,
that it was only working on trial, but so it was. There were dark
forebodings and discouragement among the village folk; money was
scarcer, wages were reduced, things were very quiet at the trading
station at Storborg. What did it all mean? Just when everything was
going on finely, and Aronsen had got a flagstaff and a flag, and had
bought a fine white bearskin for a rug to have in the sledge for the
winter, and fine clothes for all the family ... Little matters these,
but there were greater things happening as well. Here were two new
men had bought up land for clearing in the wilds; high up between
Maaneland and Sellanraa, and that was no small event for the whole of
that little outlying community. The two new settlers had built
their turf huts and started clearing ground and digging. They were
hard-working folk, and had done much in a little time. All that summer
they had bought their provisions at Storborg, but when they came
down now, last time, there was hardly anything to be had. Nothing in
stock--and what did Aron want with heavy stocks of this and that now
the work at the mine had stopped? He had hardly anything of any sort
on the place now--only money. Of all the folk in the neighbourhood,
Aronsen was perhaps the most dejected; his reckoning was all upset.
When some one urged him to cultivate his land and live on that till
better times, he answered: "Cultivate the land? 'Twas not that I came
and set up house here for."

At last Aronsen could stand it no longer; he must go up to the mine
and see for himself how things were. It was a Sunday. When he got to
Sellanraa, he wanted Isak to go with him, but Isak had never yet set
foot on the mine since they had started; he was more at home on the
hillside below. Inger had to put in a word. "You might as well go with
Aronsen, when he asks you," she said. And maybe Inger was not sorry to
have him go; 'twas Sunday, and like as not she wanted to be rid of him
for an hour or so. And so Isak went along.

There were