ished.

He turned to Isak: "Well, as I said, it won't make you a rich man all
at once, this deal. But there may be more to come. We'll fix it up so
that you get more later on. Anyhow, I can give you two hundred now."

Isak understood but little of the whole thing, but two hundred _Daler_
was at any rate another miracle, and an unreasonable sum. He would get
it on paper, of course, not paid in cash, but let that be. Isak had
other things in his head just now.

"And you think she'll be pardoned?" he asked.

"Eh? Oh, your wife! Well, if there'd been a telegraph office in the
village, I'd have wired to Trondhjem and asked if she hadn't been set
free already."

Isak had heard men speak of the telegraph; a wonderful thing, a string
hung up on big poles, something altogether above the common earth. The
mention of it now seemed to shake his faith in Geissler's big words,
and he put in anxiously: "But suppose the King says no?"

Said Geissler: "In that case, I send in my supplementary material, a
full account of the whole affair. And then they _must_ set her free.
There's not a shadow of doubt."

Then he read over what he had written; the contract for purchase
of the land. Two hundred _Daler_ cash down, and later, a nice high
percentage of receipts from working, or ultimate disposal by further
sale, of the copper tract. "Sign your name here," said Geissler.

Isak would have signed readily enough, but he was no scholar; in all
his life he had got no farther than cutting initials in wood. But
there was that hateful creature Oline looking on; he took up the
pen--a beastly thing, too light to handle anyway--turned it right
end down, and _wrote_--wrote his name. Whereupon Geissler added
something, presumably an explanation, and the man he had brought with
him signed as a witness.

Settled.

But Oline was still there, standing immovable--it was indeed but now
she had turned so stiff. What was to happen?

"Dinner on the table, Oline," said Isak, possibly with a tough of
dignity, after having signed his name in writing on a paper. "Such as
we can offer," he added to Geissler.

"Smells good enough," said Geissler. "Sound meat and drink. Here,
Isak, here's your money!" Geissler took out his pocket-book--thick and
fat it was, too--drew from it two bundles of notes and laid them down.
"Count it over yourself."

Not a movement, not a sound.

"Isak," said Geissler again.

"Ay. Yes," answered Isak, and murmured, overwhelmed