It turned out otherwise than I had thought. Captain Falkenberg came out, heard what I had to say, and answered no on the spot. He had all the hands he wanted, and the field work was all but done.

Good! Might I go over to the men’s room and sit down and rest a while?

Certainly.

No invitation to stay over Sunday. The Captain turned on his heel and went indoors again. He looked as if he had only just got out of bed, for he was wearing a night-shirt tucked into his trousers, and had no waistcoat on; only a jacket flung on loosely and left unbuttoned. He was going grey about the ears, and his beard as well.

I sat down in the men’s quarters and waited till the farmhands came in for their afternoon meal. There were only two of them — the foreman and another. I got into talk with them, and it appeared the Captain had made a mistake in saying the field work was all but done. Well, ’twas his own affair. I made no secret of the fact that I was looking for a place, and, as for being used to the work, I showed them the fine recommendation I had got from the Lensmand at Hers?t years ago. When the men went out again, I took my sack and walked out with them, ready to go on my way. I peeped in at the stables and saw a surprising number of horses, looked at the cowshed, at the fowls, and the pigs. I noticed that there was dung in the pit from the year before that had not been carted out yet.

I asked how that could be.

“Well, what are we to do?” answered the foreman. “I looked to it from the end of the winter up till now, and nobody but myself on the place. Now there’s two of us at least, in a sort of way, but now there’s all the ploughing and harrowing to be done.”

’Twas his affair.

I bade him farewell, and went on my way. I was going to my good friend, Lars Falkenberg, but I did not tell them so. There are some new little buildings far up in the wood I can see, and that I take to be the clearing.

But the man I had just left must have been inwardly stirred by the thought of getting an extra hand to help with the work. I saw him tramp across the courtyard and up to the house as I went off.

I had gone but a couple of hundred yards when he comes hurrying after me to say I am taken on after all. He had spoken to the Captain, and got leave to take me on himself. “There’ll be nothing to do now till Monday, but come in and have something to eat.”

He is a good fellow, this; goes with me up to the kitchen and tells them there: “Here’s a new man come to work on the place; see he gets something to eat.”

A strange cook and strange maids. I get my food and go out again. No sign of master or mistress anywhere.

But I cannot sit idle in the men’s room all the evening; I walk up to the field and talk to my two fellow-workers. Nils, the foreman, is from a farm a little north of here, but, not being the eldest son, and having no farm of his own to run, he has been sensible enough to take service here at ?vreb? for the time being. And, indeed, he might have done worse. The Captain himself was not paying more and more attention to his land, rather, perhaps, less and less, and he was away so much that the man had to use his own judgment many a time. This last autumn, for instance, he has turned up a big stretch of waste land that he is going to sow. He points out over the ground, showing where he’s ploughed and what’s to lie over: “See that bit there how well it’s coming on.”

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