Part 35 (2/2)

Ay, off went Geissler, bravely enough to all seeming. Nothing downcast nor anyway nearing his end; he came to Sellanraa again after, and it was long years before he died. Each time he went away the Sellanraa folk missed him as a friend. Isak had been thinking of asking him about Breidablik, getting his advice, but nothing came of it. And maybe Geissler would have dissuaded him there; have thought it a risky thing to buy up land for cultivation and give it to Eleseus; to a clerk.

Chapter XVIII

Uncle Sivert died after all. Eleseus spent three weeks looking after him, and then the old man died. Eleseus arranged the funeral, and managed things very well; got hold of a fuchsia or so from the cottages round, and borrowed a flag to hoist at half-mast, and bought some black stuff from the store for lowered blinds. Isak and Inger were sent for, and came to the burial. Eleseus acted as host, and served out refreshments to the guests; ay, and when the body was carried out, and they had sung a hymn, Eleseus actually said a few suitable words over the coffin, and his mother was so proud and touched that she had to use her handkerchief. Everything went off splendidly.

Then on the way home with his father, Eleseus had to carry that spring coat of his openly, though he managed to hide the stick in one of the sleeves. All went well till they had to cross the water in a boat; then his father sat down unexpectedly on the coat, and there was a crack. ”What was that?” asked Isak.

”Oh, nothing,” said Eleseus.

But he did not throw the broken stick away; as soon as they got home, he set about looking for a bit of tube or something to mend it with.

”We'll fix it all right,” said Sivert, the incorrigible. ”Look here, get a good stout splint of wood on either side, and lash all fast with waxed thread....”

”I'll lash you with waxed thread,” said Eleseus.

”Ha ha ha! Well, perhaps you'd rather tie it up neatly with a red garter?”

”Ha ha ha,” said Eleseus himself at that; but he went in to his mother, and got her to give him an old thimble, filed off the end, and made quite a fine ferrule. Oh, Eleseus was not so helpless after all, with his long, white hands.

The brothers teased each other as much as ever. ”Am I to have what Uncle Sivert's left?” asked Eleseus.

”You have it? How much is it?” asked Sivert.

”Ha ha ha, you want to know how much it is first, you old miser!”

”Well, you can have it, anyway,” said Sivert.

”It's between five and ten thousand.”

”_Daler_?” cried Sivert; he couldn't help it.

Now Eleseus never reckoned in _Daler_, but he didn't like to say no at the time, so he just nodded, and left it at that till next day.

Then he took up the matter again. ”Aren't you sorry you gave me all that yesterday?” he said.

”Woodenhead! Of course not,” said Sivert. That was what he said, but--well, five thousand _Daler_ was five thousand _Daler_, and no little sum; if his brother were anything but a lousy Indian savage, he ought to give back half.

”Well, to tell the truth,” explained Eleseus, ”I don't reckon to get fat on that legacy, after all.”

Sivert looked at him in astonishment. ”Ho, don't you?”

”No, nothing special, that is to say. Not what you might call _par excellence_.”

Eleseus had some notions of accounts, of course, and Uncle Sivert's money-chest, the famous bottle-case, had been opened and examined while he was there; he had had to go through all the accounts and make up a balance sheet. Uncle Sivert had not set this nephew to work on the fields or mending of herring nets; he had initiated him into a complex muddle of figures, the weirdest book-keeping ever seen. If a man had paid his taxes some years back in kind, with a goat, say, or a load of dried cod, there was neither flesh nor fish to show for it now; but old Sivert searched his memory and said, ”He's paid!”

”Right, then we'll cross him out,” said Sivert.

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