were to say
"No," they might take it amiss, it might seem as if he were not the
noble fellow they had thought, after all. Also, he had a certain duty
towards his fellows, as the town-bred man, the genius among them all.

Ay, his mother bore all these things in mind.

But his father, never understanding it all in the least, opened her
eyes and ears one day and said:

"Look you here. Here's all that is left of the money from that mine."

"That's all?" said she. "And what's come of the rest?"

"Eleseus, he's had the rest."

And she clasped her hands at that and declared it was time Eleseus
began to use his wits.

Poor Eleseus, all set on end and frittered away. Better, maybe, if
he'd worked on the land all the time, but now he's a man that has
learned to write and use letters; no grip in him, no depth. For all
that, no pitch-black devil of a man, not in love, not ambitious,
hardly nothing at all is Eleseus, not even a bad thing of any great
dimensions.

Something unfortunate, ill-fated about this young man, as if something
were rotting him from within. That engineer from the town, good
man--better perhaps, if he had not discovered the lad in his youth
and taken him up to make something out of him; the child had lost his
roothold, and suffered thereby. All that he turns to now leads back to
something wanting in him, something dark against the light....

Eleseus goes on and on. The two in the cart ahead pass by Storborg.
Eleseus goes a long way round, and he too passes by; what was he to do
there, at home, at his trading station and store? The two in the cart
get to Sellanraa at nightfall; Eleseus is close at their heels. Sees
Sivert come out in the yard, all surprised to see Jensine, and the two
shake hands and laugh a little; then Sivert takes the horse out and
leads it to stable.

Eleseus ventures forward; the pride of the family, he ventures up a
little. Not walking up, but stealing up; he comes on Sivert in the
stable. "'Tis only me," he says.

"What--you too?" says Sivert, all astonished again.

The two brothers begin talking quietly; about Sivert getting his
mother to find some money; a last resource, the money for a journey.
Things can't go on this way; Eleseus is weary of it; has been thinking
of it a long time now, and he must go tonight; a long journey, to
America, and start tonight.

"America?" says Sivert out loud.

"Sh! I've been thinking of it a long time, and you must get her to do
as I say