Isak hurries past the house, not wasting time on looking in, but he can see through the window that all the children are up already, early as it is.  Isak has no time to lose, if he is to be back as far as this on the homeward journey next night, while the roads are hard.  A man living in the wilds has much to think of, to reckon out and fit in as best can be.  It is not the busiest time for him just now, but he is anxious about the children, left all alone with Oline.

He thinks, as he walks, of the first time he had come that way.  Time has passed, the two last years had been long; there had been much that was good at Sellanraa, and a deal that was not—­eyah, Herregud!  And now here was another man clearing ground in the wilds.  Isak knew the place well; it was one of the kindlier spots he had noted himself on his way up, but he had gone on farther.  It was nearer the village, certainly, but the timber was not so good; the ground was less hilly, but a poorer soil; easy to work on the surface, but hard to deal with farther down.  That fellow Brede would find it took more than a mere turning over of the soil to made a field that would bear.  And why hadn’t he built out a shed from the end of the hayloft for carts and implements?  Isak noticed that a cart had been left standing out in the yard, uncovered, in the open.

He got through his business with the shoemaker, and, Fru Geissler having left the place, he sold his cheeses to the man at the store.  In the evening, he starts out for home.  The frost is getting harder now, and it is good, firm going, but Isak trudges heavily for all that.  Who could say when Geissler would be back, now that his wife had gone; maybe he would not be coming at all?  Inger was far away, and time was getting on....

He does not look in at Brede’s on the way back; on the contrary, he goes a long way round, keeping away from the place.  He does not care to stop and talk to folk, only trudge on.  Brede’s cart is still out in the open—­does he mean to leave it there?  Well, ’tis his own affair.  Isak himself had a cart of his own now, and a shed to house it, but none the happier for that.  His home is but half a thing; it had been a home once, but now only half a thing.

It is full day by the time he gets within sight of his own place up on the hillside, and it cheers him somewhat, weary and exhausted as he is after forty-eight hours on the road.  The house and buildings, there they stand, smoke curling up from the chimney; both the little ones are out, and come down to meet him as he appears.  He goes into the house, and finds a couple of Lapps sitting down.  Oline starts up in surprise:  “What, you back already!” She is making coffee on the stove.  Coffee? Coffee!