ive him the seat to
himself; but Eleseus will have none of that, and 'sits up by his side.
They come to Breidablik, and suddenly Eleseus has forgotten something.
"_Ptro_!--What is it?" asks his father.

Oh, his umbrella! Eleseus has forgotten his umbrella; but he can't
explain all about it, and only says: "Never mind, drive on."

"Don't you want to turn back?"

"No; drive on."

But a nuisance it was; how on earth had he come to leave it? 'Twas all
in a hurry, through his father being there waiting. Well, now he had
better buy a new umbrella at Trondhjem when he got there. 'Twas no
importance either way if he had one umbrella or two. But for all that,
Eleseus is out of humour with himself; so much so that he jumps down
and walks behind.

They could hardly talk much on the way down after that, seeing Isak
had to turn round every time and speak over his shoulder. Says Isak:
"How long you're going to be away?"

And Eleseus answers: "Oh, say three weeks, perhaps, or a month at the
outside."

His father marvels how folk don't get lost in the big towns, and never
find their way back. But Eleseus answers, as to that, he's used to
living in towns, and never got lost, never had done in his life.

Isak thinks it a shame to be sitting up there all alone, and calls
out: "Here, you come and drive a bit; I'm getting tired."

Eleseus won't hear of his father getting down, and gets up beside
him again. But first they must have something to eat--out of Isak's
well-filled pack. Then they drive on again.

They come to the two holdings farthest down; easy to see they are
nearing the village now; both the houses have white curtains in the
little window facing toward the road, and a flag-pole stuck up on top
of the hayloft for Constitution Day. "'Tis Isak himself," said folk on
the two new farms as the cart went by.

At last Eleseus gives over thinking of his own affairs and his own
precious self enough to ask: "What you driving down for today?"

"H'm," says his father. "'Twas nothing much today." But then, after
all, Eleseus was going away; no harm, perhaps, in telling him. "'Tis
blacksmith's girl, Jensine, I'm going down for," says his father; ay,
he admits so much.

"And you're going down yourself for that? Couldn't Sivert have gone?"
says Eleseus. Ay, Eleseus knew no better, nothing better than to think
Sivert would go down to the smith's to fetch Jensine, after she had
thought so much of herself as to leave Sellanraa!