t on his land, which lay lower down the
slopes; but if the drought continued, he, too, would have to irrigate.
When he had seen what he wanted, he took his leave and went back at
once. No, he would not come in, hadn't the time; he was going to start
ditching that same evening. And off he went.

This was something different from Brede's way.

Oh, Brede, he could run about the moorland farms now telling news:
miraculous waterworks at Sellanraa! "It doesn't pay to work your soil
overmuch," he had said. "Look at Isak up there; he's dug and dug about
so long that at last he's had to water the whole ground."

Isak was patient, but he wished many a time that he could get rid of
the fellow, hanging about Sellanraa with his boastful ways. Brede put
it all down to the telegraph; as long as he was a public official, it
was his duty to keep the line in order. But the telegraph company had
already had occasion several times to reprimand him for neglect, and
had again offered the post to Isak. No, it was not the telegraph that
was in Brede's mind all the time, but the ore up in the hills; it was
his one idea now, a mania.

He took to dropping in often now at Sellanraa, confident that he had
found the treasure; he would nod his head and say: "I can't tell
you all about it yet, but I don't mind saying I've struck something
remarkable this time." Wasting hours and energy all for nothing. And
when he came back in the evening to his little house, he would fling
down a little sack of samples on the floor, and puff and blow after
his day's work, as if no man could have toiled harder for his daily
bread. He grew a few potatoes on sour, peaty soil, and cut the tufts
of grass that grew by themselves on the ground about the house--that
was Brede's farming. He was never made for a farmer, and there could
be but one end to it all. His turf roof was falling to pieces already,
and the steps to the kitchen were rotten with damp; a grindstone lay
on the ground, and the cart was still left uncovered in the open.

Brede was fortunate perhaps in that such little matters never troubled
him. When the children rolled his grindstone about for play, he was
kind and indulgent, and would even help them to roll it himself. An
easy-going, idle nature, never serious, but also never down-hearted, a
weak, irresponsible character; but he managed to find food, such as it
was, and kept himself and his alive from day to day; managed to keep
them somehow. But it wa