"Ay well, then. It's no great matter about the basket."
"What did you want with a basket? What's it for?"
"What's it for?… Oh, haven't you eyes in your head!"
Isak went off deep in thought. Two days later he came back, with a window and a door for the parlour, and a door for the bedroom; also he had hung round his neck in front a good-sized packing-case, and full of provisions to boot.
"You'll carry yourself to death one day," said Inger.
"Ho, indeed!" Isak was very far indeed from being dead; he took out a bottle of medicine from his pocket—naphtha it was—and gave it to Inger with orders to take it regularly and get well again. And there were the windows and the painted doors that he could fairly boast of; he set to work at once fitting them in. Oh, such little doors, and secondhand at that, but painted up all neat and fine again in red and white; 'twas almost as good as having pictures on the walls.
And now they moved into the new building, and the animals had the turf hut to themselves, only a lambing ewe was left with Cow, lest she should feel lonely.
They had done well, these builders in the waste: ay, 'twas a wonder and a marvel to themselves.
Chapter II
Isak worked on the land until the frost act in; there were stones and roots to be dug up and cleared away, and the meadow to be levelled ready for next year. When the ground hardened, he left his field work and became a woodman, felling and cutting up great quantities of logs.