"It is wicked for a priest's son to tell lies, and still more wicked to teach the poor peasant children to do such things."
And so the boy escaped for that time.
But the next day at school (the teacher had been called up to the priest's and the children were left to themselves) Marit was the first one to ask Thorvald to tell her something about the bear again.
"But you get so frightened," said he.
"Oh, I think I will have to stand it," said she, and moved closer to her brother.
"Ah, now you had better believe it will be shot!" said Thorvald, and nodded his head. "There has come a fellow to the parish who is able to shoot it. No sooner had Lars, the hunter, heard about the bear's den up in the parsonage wood, than he came running through seven whole parishes with a rifle as heavy as the upper mill-stone, and as long as from here to Hans Volden, who sits yonder."
"Mercy!" cried all the children.
"As long?" repeated Thorvald; "yes, it is certainly as long as from here to yonder bench."
"Have you seen it?" asked Ole Böen.
"Have I seen it, do you say? Why, I have been helping to clean it, and that is what Lars will not allow everybody to do, let me tell you. Of course I could not lift it, but that made no difference; I only cleaned the lock, and that is not the easiest work, I can tell you."