e matter. He answered that he had done all he
could; everything now depended on the State. "I'm going across
to Vesterbotten now, and I shan't be coming back," he told them
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