“You'd better get to work on that water-supply,” he said. “The ground's workable still, and may stay so for a long time yet. What help will you want?” “Grindhusen can help,” I said. “But....” “Yes, and Lars. What were you going to say?” “The frost may set in any day now.” “Well, and then it may snow and soften the ground again. We're not frost-bound here every year,” said the Captain. “You'd better take a few extra hands, and set some of them to digging, the rest to the masonry work. You've done all this before, I think you said?” “Yes.” “And I've spoken to Nils myself,” he said, with a smile. “So you'll have no trouble in that way. You can put the horses in now.” So bravely cheerful he was, I could not help feeling the same, and wanted to begin at once; I hurried back with the horses, almost at a run. The Captain seemed quite eager about this water-supply, now that the place looked so nice with its new paint, and after the fine harvest we'd had. And now he was cutting a thousand dozen battens in the woods, to pay off his debts and leave something over! So I went off up the rising ground, and found the old place I had marked down long before for the reservoir, took the depth down to the house, pacing and measuring this way and that. There was a streamlet came down from the hillside far above, with such a depth and fall that it never froze in winter; the thing would be to build a small stone reservoir here, with openings at the sides for the overflow in autumn and spring. Oh, but they should have their water-supply at Øvrebø! As for the masonry work, we could break out our stone on the site itself; there was layer on layer of granite there. By noon next day we were hard at work, Lars Falkenberg digging the trench for the pipe-line, Grindhusen and I getting stone. We were both well used to this work from the days when we had been road-making together at Skreia. Well and good. We worked four days; then it was Sunday. I remember that Sunday, the sky clear and far, the leaves all fallen in the woods, and the hillside showing only its calm winter green; smoke rose from the chimney up in the clearing. Lars had borrowed a horse and cart that afternoon to drive in to the station; he had killed a pig and was sending it in to town. He was to fetch letters for the Captain on the way back. It occurred to me that this evening would be a good time to send the lad up to the clearing for my washing: Lars was away, and no one could take offence at that washing business now. Oh yes, I said to myself, you're very careful to do what's right and proper, sending the lad up to fetch that washing. But you'll find it isn't that at all. Right and proper, indeed; you're getting old, that's what it is. I bore with this reproach for an hour. Then--well, it was all nonsense, like as not, and here was a lovely evening, and Sunday into the bargain, nothing to do, no one to talk to down here.... Getting old, was I? Afraid of the walk uphill?