"It depends on overcoming the first emotion of the fancy. Now she is coming home in the autumn, and it could be wished that she had gotten over her feelings. My brother Birger is so headstrong; but maybe it was for the best that, as my sister-in-law writes, as soon as he got a hint of the state of affairs, he gave Aas his dismissal and sent him packing that very day. The last two or three letters show that Thinka is quieter."
"Thinka is horribly meek," exclaimed Inger-Johanna with flashing eyes. "I believe they could pickle her and put her down and tie up the jar; she would not grumble. If Uncle Birger had done so to me, I would not have stayed there a day longer."
"Inger-Johanna! Inger-Johanna!" Ma shook her head. "You have a dangerous, spoiled temper. It is only the very, very smallest number of us women who are able to do what they would like to."
The captain did not disdain the slightest occasion to bring forward his daughter just come home from the city.
He had turned the time to account, for in the beginning of the next week he would be obliged to go on various surveys up on the common land and then to the drills.
They had made a trip down to the central part of the district, to Pastor Horn's, and on the way stopped and called on Sexton Semmelinge and Bardon Kleven, the bailiff. They had been to Dr. Bauman, the doctor of the district; and now on Sunday they were invited to Sheriff Gülcke's—a journey of thirty-five miles down the valley.
It was an old house of a calêche, repaired a hundred times, which was drawn out of its hiding-place, and within whose chained together arms Svarten and the dun horse—the blind bay had long since been sent away—were to continue their three-months-long attempt to agree in the stall.
If the beasts had any conception, it must most likely have been that it was an enormously heavy plough they were drawing, in a lather, up and down hill, with continual stoppings to get breath and let those who were sitting in it get in and out.
If there was anything the captain adhered to, it was military punctuality, and at half-past four in the morning the whole family in full dress, the captain and Jörgen with their pantaloons turned up, the ladies with their dresses tucked up, were wandering on foot down the Gilje hills—they were some of the worst on the whole road—while Great-Ola drove the empty carriage down to the highway.
The dun horse was better fitted for pulling than holding back, so that it was Svarten that must be depended on in the hills, and Great-Ola, the captain, and Jörgen must help.