m 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.

The Pastor and the Captain, both with large families of daughters, had
their eye on him. But if this was the reason of the increased
attention they paid to Knut, they made a great mistake; the idea of a
marriage between his son and a poor pastor's or captain's daughter,
with no training to fit her for a rich farmer's wife, was so
ridiculous to him that he did not even think it necessary to warn
Endrid. And indeed no warning was needed, for the lad saw as well as
his father that, though there was no need for his bringing more wealth
into the family through his marriage, it would be of advantage if he
could again connect it with one of equal birth and position. But, as
ill-luck would have it, he was but an awkward wooer. The worst of it
was that he began to get the name of being a fortune-hunter; and when
once a young man gets this reputation, the peasants fight shy of him.
Endrid soon noticed this himself; for though he was not particularly
quick, to make up for it he was very sensitive. He saw that it did not
improve his position that he was dressed like a townsman, and "had
learning," as the country people said. The boy was sound at heart, and
the result of the slights he met with was that by degrees he left off
his town dress and town speech, and began to work on his father's
great farm as a simple labourer. His father understood--he had begun
to understand before the lad did--and he told his wife to take no
notice. So they said nothing about marriage, nor about the change in
Endrid's ways; only his father was more and more friendly to him, and
consulted him in everything connected with the farm and with his
other trade, and at last gave the management of the farm altogether
into his hands. And of this they never needed to repent.

So the time passed till Endrid was thirty-one. He had been steadily
adding to his father's wealth and to his own experience and
independence; but had never made the smallest attempt at courtship;
had not looked at a girl, either in their own district or elsewhere.
And now his parents were b