Nevertheless, Eleseus was not exactly delighted with things as they had turned out--his future was settled now, he was to bury himself in the wilds. He must give up his great plans; he was no longer a young gentleman in an office, he would never be a Lensmand, not even live in a town at all. To his father and those at home he made it appear that he was proud at having secured Storborg at the very price he had fixed--it would show them he knew what he was about. But that small triumph did not go very far. He had also the satisfaction of taking over Andresen, the chief clerk, who was thus, as it were, included in the bargain. Aronsen had no longer any use for him, until he had a new place going. It was a pleasant sensation to be Eleseus, when Andresen came up begging to be allowed to stay; here it was Eleseus who was master and head of the business--for the first time in his life. "You can stay, yes," he said. "I shall be wanting an assistant to look after the place when I'm away on business--opening up connections in Bergen and Trondhjem," said he. And Andresen was no bad man to have, as it soon proved; he was a good worker, and looked after things well when Eleseus was away. 'Twas only at first he had been somewhat inclined to show and play the fine gentleman, and that was the fault of his master Aronsen. It was different now. In the spring, when the bogs were thawed some depth, Sivert came down from Sellanraa to Storborg, to start a bit of ditching for his brother, and lo, Andresen himself went out on the land digging too. Heaven knows what possessed him to do it, for 'twas no work of his, but that was the sort of man he was. It was not thawed deep enough yet, and they could not get as far as they wanted by a long way, but it was something done, at any rate. It was Isak's old idea to drain the bogs at Storborg and till the land there properly; the bit of a store was only to be an extra, a convenience, to save folk going all the way down to the village for a reel of thread. So Sivert and Andresen stood there digging, and talking now and again when they stopped for a rest. Andresen had also somehow or other managed to get hold of a gold piece, a twenty-_Krone_ piece, and Sivert would gladly have had the bright thing himself; but Andresen would not part with it--kept it wrapped up in tissue paper in his chest. Sivert proposed a wrestling match for the money--see who could throw the other; but Andresen would not risk it. Sivert offered to stake twenty _Kroner_ in notes against the gold piece, and do all the digging himself into the bargain if he won; but Andresen took offence at that. "Ho," said he, "and you'd like to go back home, no doubt, and say I'm no good at working on the land!" At last they agreed to set twenty-five _Kroner_ in notes against the gold twenty-_Krone_ piece, and Sivert slipped home to Sellanraa that night to ask his father for the money.