Half-way down to the village a new settler has appeared. A well-to-do
man, no doubt, since he had called in folk from the village to build
his house, and hired men to plough up a patch of sandy moorland for
potatoes; he himself did little or nothing. The new man was Brede
Olsen, Lensmand's assistant, a man to go to when the doctor had to be
fetched, or a pig to be killed. He was not yet thirty, but had four
children to look after, not to speak of his wife, who was as good as
a child herself. Oh, Brede was not so well off, perhaps, after all;
'twas no great money he could earn running hither and thither on all
odd businesses, and collecting taxes from people that would not pay.
So now he was trying a new venture on the soil. He had raised a loan
at the bank to start house in the wilds. Breidablik, he called the
place; and it was Lensmand Heyerdahl's lady that had found that
splendid name.
Isak hurries past the house, not wasting time on looking in, but he
can see through the window that all the children are up already, early
as it is.
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