It might have been pleasant enough to work side by side with my old mate Lars Falkenberg once more, but he and Nils could not get on together, and instead of cheerful comradeship, a gloomy silence hung over the fields. Lars seemed to have got over his late ill-will towards me in some degree, but he was short and sullen with us all on account of Nils.
At last Nils decided that Lars should take the pair of chestnuts and get to work on the autumn ploughing. Lars was offended, and said crossly: No. He'd never heard of doing things that way before, he said, starting to plough your land before you'd got the harvest off it. “That may be,” said Nils, “but I'll find you land that has been reaped enough to keep you going.”
There were more words over that. Lars found everything all wrong somehow at Øvrebø. In the old days he used to do his work and sing songs after for the company at the house; now, it was all a mess and a muddle, and no sense in any way of doing things. Ploughing, indeed! Not if he knew it.
“You don't know what you're talking about,” said Nils. “Nowadays you'll see folk ploughing between the corn-poles and the hay-frames.”
“I've not seen it yet,” said Lars. “But it seems you've seen a lot. Of all the silly goats....”
But the end of it was that Lars gave way, Nils being head man there, and went on ploughing till the Captain came home.
It crossed my mind that I had left some washing behind with Emma when I went away, before. But I judged it best not to go up to the clearing after it now, while Lars was in his present mood.