“Where?”
“With Jonas à Myri.”
“Good. You can tell him from me that if he should be in need of hay again, as he was last winter, he can come to me as he did then. And now—you may go to the devil!”
Ørlygur turned on his heel and went indoors. In the passage he met one of the girls, dressed in her best.
“Are you going too?”
“You did not ask me to stay.”
A plot, thought the old man, and turned from her without a word.
All the farm hands were dressed and ready to leave, gathered together in a group. A silence fell on them as he approached.
One by one he asked them: “Are you leaving?” And always the same answer: “You did not ask me to stay.”
Ørlygur found difficulty in restraining his feelings. He was deeply attached to his people, most of whom had been in his service for many years. They had always got on well together; the hands at Borg had better wages than they could have obtained elsewhere. Some of them he had engaged when no one else would take them, and they would have been without support had it not been for his help. And now they were deserting him. Not one of them had been man enough to declare his intention beforehand, and give time for finding help elsewhere.