Edward was not prepared for this; he had intended to tell as much as would justify his getting the reward, but not a word more. He got up from his seat again. If Anders wouldn't believe him, he might leave it alone, but he meant to have the reward.
Now it was not Anders Hegge's way to quarrel with anyone, and Edward knew that well. Of course he would give Edward the book, but first he must just listen to such a funny story about the sick people down in the fishing village. The parish doctor and his wife had been to see his mother yesterday, and someone had asked after Martha from the docks, who had not been seen for so long, whether she was still laid up from her fall in the winter? Yes, she was still laid up, but she was not in any want, for, strange to say, people sent her all she needed, and Lars brought in brandy to her every evening, and they had many a merry carouse together. She would probably not be up again for some time to come.
Edward got very red, and Anders noticed it directly; he suggested that perhaps Martha was one of those whom Ole visited.
Yes she was.
His prominent eyes widened at this piece of news. Edward saw with what eagerness he gulped it down and it made him feel as if he had been devoured and swallowed up himself. But if there is a thing that schoolboys cannot stand it is to be thought too confiding and innocent; he hastened to free himself from the most insulting insinuation that he was not able to see through Ole Tuft and his stupid ways; only fancy, he actually read the Bible to Martha!
He read the Bible to her? Again those prominent eyes opened and greedily drank it in, but he closed them at once, and was seized with laughter; he regularly shouted with laughter--and Edward with him.
Yes, he read the Bible to Martha, he read to her about the Prodigal Son, and then Edward repeated all that Martha had said. They laughed in chorus and drank up the rest of the beer. All that was pleasant and amusing in Anders showed itself when he laughed, although his laugh had a grating sound down in the throat; still it incited one to more fun, more mischief. So Edward had to tell all, and a little more than all.
As he ran home later with the grand book under his arm, he had a kind of disgusted feeling. The effects of the beer were over, he was no longer tempted to laugh, and his wounded pride was satisfied; but Ole's trusting eyes seemed to meet him everywhere, as soon as he got out in the air. He tried to put it from him, he was so dreadfully tired; he would think no more about it this evening; but to-morrow--to-morrow he would ask Anders not to speak about it.
But the next morning he overslept himself. He hurried on his clothes and rushed off, eating his bread-and-butter as he went along, and giving a rapid thought to "Les trois Mousquetaires," now his precious property; he longed for the afternoon to be able to read it. In school he stumbled through his lessons one by one, for he had learned nothing, and on Saturdays there was always so much. He worked on until two hours before the school closed; there was still to be French and Natural History, but to neither of these classes did he belong--so away he flew downstairs before any of the others.
Just as he stood outside the school gates he saw Anders coming from the opposite side; he was going now to take his lesson in the upper class. Edward thought at once of the preceding day, and he felt anxious as to what Anders might take it into his head to tell; but at that very moment he caught sight of a monster steamer, a wreck, coming slowly in between the two piers, and all the people running by said there had never been so large a ship in the harbour before. She dragged along, hardly able to move, her masts gone, bulwarks all damaged, and the propped-up funnel all white with salt water up to the very top; was that another steamer towing her? Edward could not make out for the pier. Everyone was running that way; he ran too!