Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun Page A

straightforwardly.
    He gave Inger an Ort , and that was overmuch. "You can take a bit of meat down to my people in the village next time you're killing," said he. "My wife'll pay you. Take a cheese or so, too, any time you can. The children like it."
    Isak went with him up over the hills; it was firm, good going on the higher ground, easier than below. Isak received a whole Daler .
    In that manner was it Lensmand Geissler left the place, and he did not come back. No great loss, folk said, he being looked on as a doubtful personage, an adventurer. Not that he hadn't the knowledge; he was a learned man, and had studied this and that, but he lived too freely, and spent other people's money. It came out later that he had left the place after a sharp reprimand from his superior, Amtmand Pleym; but nothing was done about his family officially, and they went on living there, a good while after--his wife and three children. And it was not long before the money unaccounted for was sent from Sweden, so that Geissler's wife and children could not be said to be held as hostages, but stayed on simply because it pleased them.
    Isak and Inger had no cause to complain of Geissler's dealings with them, not by a long way. And there was no saying what sort of man his successor would be--perhaps they would have to go over the whole business again!
    The Amtmand [Footnote: Governor of a country] sent one of his clerks up to the village, to be the new Lensmand. He was a man about forty, son of a local magistrate, by name Heyerdahl. He had lacked the means to go to the university and enter the service that way; instead, he had been constrained to sit in an office, writing at a desk, for fifteen years. He was unmarried, having never been able to afford a wife. His chief, Amtmand Pleym, had inherited him from his predecessor, and paid him the same miserable wage that had been given before; Heyerdahl took it, and went on writing at his desk as before.
    Isak plucked up his courage, and went to see him.
    "Documents in the Sellanraa case ...? Here they are, just returned from the Department. They want to know all sorts of things--the whole business is in a dreadful muddle, as Geissler left it," said the official. "The Department wishes to be informed as to whether any considerable crop of marketable berries is to be reckoned with on the estate. Whether there is any heavy timber. Whether possibly there may be ores or metals of value an the hills adjoining. Mention is made of water, but nothing stated as to any fishery in the same. This Geissler appears to have furnished certain information, but he's not to be trusted, and here have I to go through the whole affair again after him. I shall have to come up to Sellanraa and make a thorough inspection and valuation. How many miles is it up there? The Department, of course, requires that adequate boundaries be drawn: yes, we shall have to beat the bounds in due order."
    "'Tis no light business setting up boundaries this time of year," said Isak. "Not till later on in the summer."
    "Anyhow, it'll have to be done. The Department can't wait all through the summer for an answer. I'll come up myself as soon as I can get away. I shall have to be out that way in any case, there's another plot of land a man's inquiring about."
    "Will that be him that's going to buy up between me and the village?"
    "Can't say, I'm sure. Very likely. As a matter of fact, it's a man from the office here, my assistant in the office. He was here in Geissler's time. Asked Geissler about it, I understand, but Geissler put him off; said he couldn't cultivate a hundred yards of land. So he sent in an application to the Amtmand, and I'm instructed to see the matter through. More of Geissler's muddling!"
    Lensmand Heyerdahl came up to the farm, and brought with him his assistant, Brede. They had got thoroughly wet crossing the moors, and wetter still they were before they'd finished tramping the boundary lines through melting snow and slush up and