There were other things not so easily put out of mind. What was it a certain Lapp had said to Inger that summer--something about not having bought? Buy, what should he buy for? The ground was there, the forest was there; he had cleared and tilled, built up a homestead in the midst of a natural wilderness, winning bread for himself and his, asking nothing of any man, but working, and working alone. He had often thought himself of asking the Lensmand [Footnote: Sheriff's officer, in charge of a small district.] about the matter when he went down to the village, but had always put it off; the Lensmand was not a pleasant man to deal with, so people said, and Isak was not one to talk much. What could he say if he went--what had he come for? One day that winter the Lensmand himself came driving up to the place. There was a man with him, and a lot of papers in a bag. Geissler himself, the Lensmand, no less. He looked at the broad open hillside, cleared of timber, smooth and unbroken under the snow; he thought perhaps that it was all tilled land already, for he said: "Why, this is a whole big farm you've got. You don't expect to get all this for nothing?" There it was! Isak was terror-stricken and said not a word. "You ought to have come to me at first, and bought the land," said Geissler. "Ay." The Lensmand talked of valuations, of boundaries, taxes, taxes to the State, and, when he had explained the matter a little, Isak began to see that there was something reasonable in it after all. The Lensmand turned to his companion teasingly. "Now then, you call yourself a surveyor, what's the extent of cultivated ground here?" He did not wait for the other to reply, but noted down himself, at a guess. Then he asked Isak about the crops, how much hay, how many bushels of potatoes. And then about boundaries. They could not go round the place marking out waist-deep in snow; and in summer no one could get up there at all. What did Isak think himself about the extent of woodland and pasturage?--Isak had no idea at all; he had always thought of the place as being his own as far as he could see. The Lensmand said that the State required definite boundaries. "And the greater the extent, the more you will have to pay." "Ay." "And they won't give you all you think you can swallow; they'll let you have what's reasonable for your needs." "Ay." Inger brought in some milk for the visitors; they drank it, and she brought in some more. The Lensmand a surly fellow? He stroked Eleseus' hair, and looked at something the child was playing with. "Playing with stones, what? Let me see. H'm, heavy. Looks like some kind of ore." "There's plenty such up in the hills," said Isak. The Lensmand came back to business. "South and west from here's what you want most, I suppose? Shall we say a couple of furlongs to the southward?" "Two furlongs!" exclaimed his assistant. "_You_ couldn't till two hundred yards," said his chief shortly. "What will that cost?" asked Isak.