f I could only get within reach of him!"

"Him? Who, then?"

"Why, him that's ruining me and all the rest of us hereabout. Him that
won't sell his bit of fjeld and let things get to work again, and
trade and money passing same as before."

"D'you mean him Geissler, then?"

"Ay, 'tis him I mean. Ought to be shot!"

Axel laughs at this, and says: "Geissler he was in town but a few days
back; you should have talked to him there. But if I might be so bold
as to say, I doubt you'd better leave him alone, after all."

"And why?" asks Aron angrily.

"Why? I've a mind he'd be overwise and mysterious for you in the end."

They argued over this for a while, and Aronsen grew more excited than
ever. At last Axel asked jestingly: "Well, anyway, you'll not be so
hard on us all to run away and leave us to ourselves in the wilds?"

"Huh! Think I'm going to stay fooling about here in your bogs and
never so much as making the price of a pipe?" cried Aron indignantly.
"Find me a buyer and I'll sell out."

"Sell out?" says Axel. "The land's good ordinary land if she's handled
as should be--and what you've got's enough to keep a man."

"Haven't I just said I'll not touch it?" cried Aronsen again in the
gale. "I can do better than that!"

Axel thought if that was so, 'twould be easy to find a buyer; but
Aronsen laughed scornfully at the idea--there was nobody there in the
wilds had money to buy him out.

"Not here in the wilds, maybe, but elsewhere."

"Here's naught but filth and poverty," said Aron bitterly.

"Why, that's as it may be," said Axel in some offence. "But Isak up at
Sellanraa he could buy you out any day."

"Don't believe it," said Aronsen.

"'Tis all one to me what you believe," said Axel, and turned to go.

Aronsen called after him: "Hi, wait a bit! What's that you say--Isak
might take the place, was that what you said?"

"Ay," said Axel, "if 'twas only the money. He's means enough to buy up
five of your Storborg and all!"

Aronsen had gone round keeping wide of Sellanraa on his way up, taking
care not to be seen; but, going back, he called in and had a talk with
Isak. But Isak only shook his head and said nay, 'twas a matter he'd
never thought of, and didn't care to.

But when Eleseus came back home that Christmas, Isak was easier to
deal with. True, he maintained that it was a mad idea to think of
buying Storborg, 'twas nothing had ever been in his mind; still, if
Eleseus thought he could do anythi