"The pen thing, that you write with?"

"Ay, there's the pen. But you have to learn to steer it, you'll see."

But little Sivert he was of another mind, and said nothing about pens;
he wanted to ride in the cart; just to sit up on the seat before the
horse was put in, and drive like that, driving ever so fast in a cart
without a horse. And it was all his doing that father let them both
sit up and ride with him a long way down the road.




Chapter XI


Isak drives on till he comes to a tarn, a bit of a pool on the moor,
and there he pulls up. A pool on the moors, black, deep down, and the
little surface of the water perfectly still; Isak knew what that was
good for; he had hardly used any other mirror in his life than such a
bit of water on the moors. Look how nice and neat he is today, with a
red shirt; he takes out a pair of scissors now, and trims his beard.
Vain barge of a man; is he going to make himself handsome all at once,
and cut away five years' growth of iron beard? He cuts and cuts away,
looking at himself in his glass. He might have done all this at home,
of course, but was shy of doing it before Oline; it was quite enough
to stand there right in front of her nose and put on a red shirt. He
cuts and cuts away, a certain amount of beard falls into his patent
mirror. The horse grows impatient at last and is moving on; Isak is
fain to be content with himself as he is, and gets up again. And