After the wedding Knut took over the farm, and the old people retired on their allowance.  It was such a liberal one that people could not understand how Knut and Astrid were able to afford it; for though the farm was the largest in the district, it was not well-cultivated.  But this was not all.  Three times the number of workpeople were taken on, and everything was started in a new way, with an outlay unheard of in these parts.  Certain ruin was foretold.  But “the tramp”—­for his nickname had stuck to him—­was as merry as ever, and seemed to have infected Astrid with his humour.  The quiet, gentle girl became the lively, buxom wife.  Her parents were satisfied.  At last people began to understand that Knut had brought to Tingvold what no one had had there before, working capital!  And along with it he had brought the experience gained in trading, and a gift of handling commodities and money, and of keeping servants willing and happy.

In twelve years one would hardly have known Tingvold again.  House and outbuildings were different; there were three times as many workpeople, they were three times as well off, and Knut himself, in his broadcloth coat, sat in the evenings and smoked his meerschaum pipe and drank his glass of toddy with the Captain and the Pastor and the Bailiff.  To Astrid he was the cleverest and best man in the world, and she was fond of telling how in his young days he had fought and drunk just to get himself talked about, and to frighten her; “for he was so cunning!”

She followed him in everything except in leaving off peasant dress and customs; to these she always kept.  Knut did not interfere with other people’s ways, so this caused no trouble between them.  He lived with his “set,” and his wife saw to their entertainment, which was, however, modest enough, for he was too prudent a man to make unnecessary show or outlay of any kind.  Some said that he gained more by the card-playing, and by the popularity this mode of life won for him, than all he laid out upon it, but this was probably pure malevolence.

They had several children, but the only one whose history concerns us is the eldest son, Endrid, who was to inherit the farm and carry on the honour of the house.  He had all the good looks of his race, but not much in the way of brains, as is often the case with children of specially active-minded parents.  His father soon observed this, and tried to make up for it by giving him a very good education.  A tutor was brought into the house for the children, and when Endrid grew up he was sent to one of the agricultural training schools that were now beginning to flourish in Norway, and after that to finish off in town.  He came home again a quiet young fellow, with a rather over-burdened brain and fewer town ways than his father had hoped for.  But Endrid was a slow-witted youth.