a pity about Eleseus, so changed he is and all.

Is he doing no business at Storborg? Such as it is; nothing to make a
fortune out of there, and Eleseus is overmuch out and abroad, making
pleasant journeys on business to open up connections, and it costs
too much; he does not travel cheaply. "Doesn't do to be mean," says
Eleseus, and gives twenty _Ore_ over where he might save ten. The
business cannot support a man of his tastes, he must get subsidies
from home. There's the farm at Storborg, with potatoes and corn and
hay enough for the place itself, but all provisions else must come
from Sellanraa. Is that all? Sivert must cart up his brother's goods
from the steamer all for nothing. And is that all? His mother must get
money out of his father to pay for his journeys. But is that all?

The worst is to come.

Eleseus manages his business like a fool. It flatters him to have folk
coming up from the village to buy at Storborg, so that he gives them
credit as soon as asked; and when this is noised abroad, there come
still more of them to buy the same way. The whole thing is going to
rack and ruin. Eleseus is an easy man, and lets it go; the store is
emptied and the store is filled again. All costs money. And who pays
it? His father.

At first, his mother had been a faithful spokesman for him every way.
Eleseus was the clever head of the family; they must help him on and
give him a start; then think how cheaply he had got Storborg, and
saying straight out what he would give for it! When his father thought
it was going wrong somehow with the business, and naught but foolery,
she took him up. "How can you stand there and say such things!"
Ay, she reproved him for using such words about his son; Isak was
forgetting his place, it seemed, to speak so of Eleseus.

For look you, his mother had been out in the world herself; she
understood how hard it was for Eleseus to live in the wilds, being
used to better things, and accustomed to move in society, and with
none of his equals near. He risked too much in his dealings with folk
that were none of the soundest; but even so, 'twas not done with any
evil intent on his part of ruining his parents, but sheer goodness of
heart and noble nature; 'twas his way to help those that were not so
fine and grand as himself. Why, wasn't he the only man in those parts
to use white handkerchiefs that were always having to be washed? When
folk came trustingly to him and asked for credit, if he