ess, for it is nothing but good! Isak is a man at work on
a clearing in the forest, and he looks out over the ground, reckoning
what is to be cleared next turn; heaving aside great stones in his
mind--Isak had a real talent for that work. There, he knows now, is a
deep, bare patch on his ground; it is full of ore; there is always a
metallic film over every puddle of water there--and now he will dig
it out. He marks out squares with his eye, making his plans for all,
speculating over all; they are to be made green and fruitful. Oh, but
a piece of tilled soil was a great and good thing; it was like right
and order to his mind, and a delight beyond....

He got up, and felt suddenly confused. H'm. What had happened now?
Nothing, only that he had been sitting down a bit. Now there is
something standing there before him, a Being, a spirit; grey silk--no,
it was nothing. He felt strange--took one short, uncertain step
forward, and walked straight into a look, a great look, a pair of
eyes. At the same moment the aspens close by began rustling. Now any
one knows that an aspen can have a horrible eerie way of rustling at
times; anyhow, Isak had never before heard such an utterly horrible
rustling as this, and he shuddered. Also he put out one hand in front
of him, and it was perhaps the most helpless movement that hand had
ever made.

But what was this thing before him? Was it ghost-work or reality? Isak
would all his days have been ready to swear that this was a higher
power, and once indeed he had seen it, but the thing he saw now
did not look like God. Possibly the Holy Ghost? If so, what was it
standing there for anyway, in the midst of nowhere; two eyes, a look,
and nothing more? If it had come to him, to fetch away his soul, why,
so it would have to be; it would happen one day, after all, and then
he would go to heaven and be among the blest.

Isak was eager to see what would come next; he was shivering still; a
coldness seemed to radiate from the figure before him--it must be the
Evil One! And here Isak was no longer sure of his ground, so to speak.
It might be the Evil One--but what did he want here? What had he,
Isak, been doing? Nothing but sitting still and tilling the ground, as
it were, in his thoughts--there could surely be no harm in that? There
was no other guilt he could call to mind just then; he was only coming
back from his work in the forest, a tired and hungry woodman, going
home to Sellanraa--he means no