“And did you speak?”
“No—that would have been unlucky. They are not such bad people, folks say, if you only become well acquainted with them.”
In the forest we passed some splendid trees near Snarum. “Valuable timber about here,” I observed.
“Yes, very. It’s not long ago that some sold for a hundred dollars apiece (twenty pound sterling); they were seventy feet long, and more than four in diameter. Vassenrud (the fat station-master, no wonder, with all this property, he is fat) has a deal of forest. He sold some lately. He got sixteen thousand dollars for giving leave to fell the timber on a square mile (seven English), none to be cut smaller than nine inches in diameter, eighteen feet from the ground. These trees just here belong to a stingy old fellow, who lives down there by the side of the river, Ole Ulen. A man came from the By (town) to see them, and make a purchase.
“‘I have come to look at the trees,’ said he.
“‘Oh, yes,’ said Ole Ulen; ‘we’ll go and see them.’
“Arrived in the forest, the stranger measured the big trees with his eye, and thought they would suit exactly.
“‘Fine trees, aren’t they?’ said Ole Ulen, adjusting his spectacles, and almost breaking his neck to look up at the trees. ‘So tall and so thick,’ he continued, like a miser gloating over his treasure.