"And you think she'll be pardoned?" he asked.
"Eh? Oh, your wife! Well, if there'd been a telegraph office in the village, I'd have wired to Trondhjem and asked if she hadn't been set free already."
Isak had heard men speak of the telegraph; a wonderful thing, a string hung up on big poles, something altogether above the common earth. The mention of it now seemed to shake his faith in Geissler's big words, and he put in anxiously: "But suppose the King says no?"
Said Geissler: "In that case, I send in my supplementary material, a full account of the whole affair. And then they must set her free. There's not a shadow of doubt."
Then he read over what he had written; the contract for purchase of the land. Two hundred Daler cash down, and later, a nice high percentage of receipts from working, or ultimate disposal by further sale, of the copper tract. "Sign your name here," said Geissler.
Isak would have signed readily enough, but he was no scholar; in all his life he had got no farther than cutting initials in wood. But there was that hateful creature Oline looking on; he took up the pen—a beastly thing, too light to handle anyway—turned it right end down, and wrote—wrote his name. Whereupon Geissler added something, presumably an explanation, and the man he had brought with him signed as a witness.
Settled.
But Oline was still there, standing immovable—it was indeed but now she had turned so stiff. What was to happen?
"Dinner on the table, Oline," said Isak, possibly with a tough of dignity, after having signed his name in writing on a paper. "Such as we can offer," he added to Geissler.
"Smells good enough," said Geissler. "Sound meat and drink. Here,
Isak, here's your money!" Geissler took out his pocket-book—thick and
fat it was, too—drew from it two bundles of notes and laid them down.
"Count it over yourself."