He passed the two new clearings that had been started below Sellanraa, and talked to the men there; went right down to Maaneland to see what Axel Stroem had got done that year.  Nothing very great, it seemed; not as much as he might have wished, but he had put in some good work on the land.  Geissler took an interest in this place, too, and asked him:  “Got a horse?”

“Ay.”

“Well, I’ve a mowing-machine and a harrow down south, both new; I’ll send them up, if you like.”

“How?” asked Axel, unable to conceive such magnificence, and thinking vaguely of payment by instalments.

“I mean I’ll make you a present of them,” said Geissler.

“’Tis hard to believe,” said Axel.

“But you’ll have to help those two neighbours of yours up above, breaking new land.”

“Ay, never fear for that,” said Axel; he could still hardly make out what Geissler meant by it all.  “So you’ve machines and things down south?”

“I’ve a deal of things to look after,” said Geissler.  Now, as a matter of fact, Geissler had no great deal of things to look after, but he liked to make it appear so.  As for a mowing-machine and a harrow, he could buy them in any of the towns, and send up from there.

He stayed talking a long while with Axel Stroem about the other settlers near; of Storborg, the trading station; of Axel’s brother, newly married, who had come to Breidablik, and had started draining the moors and getting the water out.  Axel complained that it was impossible to get a woman anywhere to help; he had none but an old creature, by name Oline; not much good at the best of times, but he might be thankful to have her as long as she stayed.  Axel had been working day and night part of that summer.  He might, perhaps, have got a woman from his own parts, from Helgeland, but that would have meant paying for her journey, besides wages.  A costly business all round.  Axel further told how he had taken over the inspection of the telegraph line, but rather wished he had left it alone.

“That sort of thing’s only fit for Brede and his like,” said Geissler.

“Ay, that’s a true word,” Axel admitted.  “But there was the money to think of.”

“How many cows have you got?”

“Four.  And a young bull.  ’Twas too far to go up to Sellanraa to theirs.”

But there was a far weightier matter Axel badly wanted to talk over with Geissler; Barbro’s affair had come to light, somehow, and an investigation was in progress.  Come to light?  Of course it had.  Barbro had been going about, evidently with child and plain to see, and she had left the place by herself all unencumbered and no child at all.  How had it come about?

When Geissler understood what the matter was, he said quite shortly:  “Come along with me.”  And he led Axel with him away from the house.  Geissler put on an important air, as one in authority.  They sat down at the edge of the wood, and Geissler said:  “Now, then, tell me all about it.”