"How much is under cultivation here?" asked Pelle.

"With meadow and garden, almost fourteen acres; but it will be more
before the year is out."

"And two families have been ruined already by those fourteen acres,"
said Karna, who had come out to call them in to dinner.

"Yes, yes; God be merciful to them--and now we get the fruit of
their labors! The parish won't take the farm away again--not from
us," he said. Lasse spoke in a tone full of self-reliance. Pelle
had never seen him stand so upright.

"I can never feel quite easy about it," said Karna; "it's as though
one were ploughing up churchyard soil. The first who was turned out
by the parish hanged himself, so they say."

"Yes, he had a hut on the heath there--where you see the elder-trees
--but it's fallen to pieces since then. I'm so glad it didn't happen
in the house." Lasse shuddered uncomfortably. "People say he haunts
the place when any misfortune is in store for those that come after
him."

"Then the house was built later?" asked Pelle, astonished, for it
had such a tumble-down appearance.

"Yes, my predecessor built that. He got the land from the parish
free for twenty years, provided he built a house and tilled a tonde
of land a year. Those were not such bad conditions. Only he took