“He sends up for me now and again, and when I get there, it's not for anything particular—only wants to have a bit of a chat with me, that's all. Ay, a fine fellow is the engineer!”
It is getting late. Grindhusen yawns again, creeps into the hut and lies down.
Next morning we cleared the jam. “Come up with me my way a bit,” says Grindhusen. And I went. After an hour's walking, we sighted the fields and buildings of a hill farm up among the trees. And suddenly I recollect the sheep Grindhusen had found.
“Was it up this way you found that sheep?” I ask.
Grindhusen looks at me.
“Here? No, that was ever so far away—right over toward Trovatn.”
“But Trovatn's only in the next parish, isn't it?”
“Yes, that's what I say. It's ever so far away from here.”
But now Grindhusen does not care to have my company farther; he stops, and thanks me for coming up so far. I might just as well go up to the farm with him, and I say so; but Grindhusen, it seems, is not going up to the farm at all—he never did. And I'd just have an easy day back into town, starting now.