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like to know, that I was on my deathbed? I can send three men, carriage and cart to fetch a doctor if I want one. Donā€™t try your games with me, young man! Canā€™t even wait till Iā€™m gone, it seems. Iā€™ve shown you the document and youā€™ve seen it, and itā€™s there in the chestā ā€”thatā€™s all Iā€™ve got to say. But if you go running off and leave me now, you can just carry word to Eleseus and tell him to come. Heā€™s not named after me and called by my earthly nameā ā€”let him come.ā€

But for all the threatening tone, Sivert only thought a moment, and said: ā€œAy, Iā€™ll tell Eleseus to come.ā€

Oline was still at Sellanraa when Sivert got back. She had found time to pay a visit lower down, to Axel Strƶm and Barbro on their place, and came back full of mysteries and whisperings. ā€œThat girl Barbroā€™s filling out a deal of lateā ā€”Lord knows what it may mean. But not a word that Iā€™ve said so! And hereā€™s Sivert back again? No need to ask what news, I suppose? Your Uncle Sivertā€™s passed away? Ay, well, an old man he was and an aged one, on the brink of the grave. Whatā ā€”not dead? Well, well, weā€™ve much to be thankful for, and thatā€™s a solemn word! Me talking nonsense, you say? Oh, if Iā€™d never more to answer for! How was I to know your uncle he was lying there a sham and a false pretender before the Lord? Not long to live, thatā€™s what I said. And Iā€™ll hold by it, when the time comes, before the Throne. Whatā€™s that you say? Well, and wasnā€™t he lying there his very self in his bed, and folding his hands on his breast and saying ā€™twould soon be over?ā€

There was no arguing with Oline, she bewildered her adversaries with talk and cast them down. When she learned that Uncle Sivert had sent for Eleseus, she grasped at that too, and made her own advantage of it: ā€œThere you are, and see if I was talking nonsense. Hereā€™s old Sivert calling up his kinsfolk and longing for a sight of his own flesh and blood; ay, heā€™s nearing his end! You canā€™t refuse him, Eleseus; off with you at once this minute and see your uncle while thereā€™s life in him. Iā€™m going that way too, weā€™ll go together.ā€

Oline did not leave Sellanraa without taking Inger aside for more whisperings of Barbro. ā€œNot a word Iā€™ve saidā ā€”but I could see the signs of it! And now I suppose sheā€™ll be wife and all on the farm there. Ay, thereā€™s some folk are born to great things, for all they may be small as the sands of the sea in their beginnings. And whoā€™d have ever thought it of that girl Barbro! Axel, yes, never doubt but heā€™s a toiling sort and getting on, and great fine lands and means and all like youā€™ve got hereā ā€”ā€™tis more than we know of over on our side the hills, as you knowā€™s a true word, Inger, being born and come of the place yourself. Barbro, sheā€™d a trifle of wool in a chest; ā€™twas naught but winter wool, and I wasnā€™t asking and she never offered me. We said but Goddag and Farvel, for all that Iā€™d known her from she was a toddling child all that time I was here at Sellanraa by reason of you being away and learning knowledge at the Institute.ā ā€Šā ā€¦ā€

ā€œThereā€™s Rebecca crying,ā€ said Inger, breaking in on Oline. But she gave her a handful of wool.

Then a great thanksgiving speech from Oline: ay, wasnā€™t it just as she had said to Barbro herself of Inger, and how there was not her like to be found for giving to folk; ay, sheā€™d give till she was bare, and give her fingers to the bone, and never complain. Ay, go in and see to the sweet angel, and never was there a child in the world so like her mother as Rebeccaā ā€”no. Did Inger remember how sheā€™d said one day as sheā€™d never have children again? Ah, now she could see! No, better give ear to them as were grown old and had borne children of their own, for who should fathom the Lord His ways, said Oline.

And with that she padded off after Eleseus up through the forest, shrunken with age, grey and abject, and forever nosing after things, imperishable. Going to old Sivert now, to let him know how she, Oline, had managed to persuade Eleseus to come.

But Eleseus had needed no persuading, there was no difficulty there. For, look you, Eleseus had turned out better, after all, than heā€™d begun; a decent lad in his way, kindly and easygoing from a child, only nothing great in the way of bodily strength. It was not without reason he had been unwilling to come home this time; he knew well enough that his mother had been in prison for child-murder; he had never heard a word about it there in the town, but at home in the village everyone would remember. And it was not for nothing he had been living with companions of another sort. He had grown to be more sensitive and finer feeling than ever before. He knew that a fork was really just as necessary as a knife. As a man of business, he used the terms of the new coinage, whereas, out in the wilds, men still counted money by the ancient Daler. Ay, he was not unwilling to walk across the hills to other parts; here, at home, he was constantly forced to keep down his own superiority. He tried his best to adapt himself to the others, and he managed well; but it was always having to be on his guard. As, for instance, when he had first come back to Sellanraa a couple of weeks ago, he had brought with him his light spring overcoat,

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