Part 30 (1/2)

”Don't you think you'd better go up and wake him, Gustav?” said Anders with a wink. ”You might see something funny.” The others laughed a little.

”If I wake him, it'll be with this rabbit-skinner,” answered Gustav, exhibiting a large knife. ”For then I think I should put him out of harm's way.”

At this point the farmer himself came down. He held a piece of paper in his hand, and appeared to be in high good humor. ”Have you heard the latest news, good people? At dead of night Hans Peter has eloped with Bodil!”

”My word! Are the babes and sucklings beginning now?” exclaimed La.s.se with self-a.s.surance. ”I shall have to look after Pelle there, and see that he doesn't run away with Karna. She's fond of young people.” La.s.se felt himself to be the man of the company, and was not afraid of giving a hit at any one.

”Hans Peter is fifteen,” said Kongstrup reprovingly, ”and pa.s.sion rages in his heart.” He said this with such comical gravity that they all burst into laughter, except Gustav, who sat blinking his eyes and nodding his head like a drunken man.

”You shall hear what he says. This lay upon his bed.” Kongstrup held the paper out in a theatrical att.i.tude and read:

”When you read this, I shall have gone forever. Bodil and I have agreed to run away to-night. My stern father will never give his consent to our union, and therefore we will enjoy the happiness of our love in a secret place where no one can find us. It will be doing a great wrong to look for us, for we have determined to die together rather than fall into the wicked hands of our enemies. I wet this paper with Bodil's and my own tears. But you must not condemn me for my last desperate step, as I can do nothing else for the sake of my great love.

”HANS PETER.”

”That fellow reads story-books,” said Karl Johan. ”He'll do great things some day.”

”Yes, he knows exactly what's required for an elopement,” answered Kongstrup merrily. ”Even to a ladder, which he's dragged up to the girl's window, although it's on a level with the ground. I wish he were only half as thorough in his agriculture.”

”What's to be done now? I suppose they must be searched for?” asked the head man.

”Well, I don't know. It's almost a shame to disturb their young happiness. They'll come of their own accord when they get hungry. What do you think, Gustav? Shall we organize a battue?”

Gustav made no answer, but rose abruptly and went across to the men's rooms. When the others followed him, they found him in bed.

All day he lay there and never uttered a syllable when any one came in to him. Meanwhile the work suffered, and the bailiff was angry. He did not at all like the new way Kongstrup was introducing--with liberty for every one to say and do exactly as they liked.

”Go in and pull Gustav out of bed!” he said, in the afternoon, when they were in the thres.h.i.+ng-barn, winnowing grain. ”And if he won't put his own clothes on, dress him by force.”

But Kongstrup, who was there himself, entering the weight, interfered.

”No, if he's ill he must be allowed to keep his bed,” he said. ”But it's our duty to do something to cure him.”

”How about a mustard-plaster?” suggested Mons, with a defiant glance at the bailiff.

Kongstrup rubbed his hands with delight. ”Yes, that'll be splendid!” he said. ”Go you across, Mons, and get the girls to make a mustard-plaster that we can stick on the pit of his stomach; that's where the pain is.”

When Mons came back with the plaster, they went up in a procession to put it on, the farmer himself leading. Kongstrup was well aware of the bailiff's angry looks, which plainly said, ”Another waste of work for the sake of a foolish prank!” But he was inclined for a little fun, and the work would get done somehow.

Gustav had smelt a rat, for when they arrived he was dressed. For the rest of the day he did his work, but nothing could draw a smile out of him. He was like a man moonstruck.

A few days later a cart drove up to Stone Farm. In the driving-seat sat a broad-shouldered farmer in a fur coat, and beside him, wrapped up from head to foot, sat Hans Peter, while at the back, on the floor of the cart, lay the pretty Bodil on a little hay, s.h.i.+vering with cold. It was the pupil's father who had brought back the two fugitives, whom he had found in lodgings in the town.

Up in the office Hans Peter received a thras.h.i.+ng that could be heard, and was then let out into the yard, where he wandered about crying and ashamed, until he began to play with Pelle behind the cow-stable.

Bodil was treated more severely. It must have been the strange farmer who required that she should be instantly dismissed, for Kongstrup was not usually a hard man. She had to pack her things, and after dinner was driven away. She looked good and gentle as she always did; one would have thought she was a perfect angel--if one had not known better.

Next morning Gustav's bed was empty. He had vanished completely, with chest, wooden shoes and everything.

La.s.se looked on at all this with a man's indulgent smile--children's tricks! All that was wanting now was that Karna should squeeze her fat body through the bas.e.m.e.nt window one night, and she too disappear like smoke--on the hunt for Gustav.