Well! In the evening Hedvig, the milkmaid, came to the house frightened almost out of her wits. She couldn’t find Brownie anywhere, and I could see that she was ready to believe that the goblins had been at work. Excitement ran high, especially with Great-Aunt.
“Didn’t I know it? You shall soon both hear and see that something dreadful has happened to Brownie,” Great-Aunt said solemnly.
Then I had to tell where Brownie was, and that it was I who had taken her and put her in the smithy.
“There now! Did any one ever see such a girl?” said Great-Aunt. “You ought to be whipped, big as you are, to put a cow in such a place and give it neither food nor water.”
O dear! O dear! I had never thought to give the cow water the whole day!
Well, Hedvig went to the smithy and let Brownie out; so there was an end to that amusement. And when I went to get my pint measure of milk the next day, it had such a thick layer of soot and dust on it that I gave it to Dan, the dog, and I had hard work to get even him to drink it.
When we had been at the Parsonage about a fortnight, Peter, the dean’s son, came to make a visit, too. He had grown shyer and more freckled than ever since I saw him last, I thought. He spoke never a word when he was in the living-room, but it was rather jolly to have him with us, even though I now had two boys to look after instead of one. There is always something to see to with such boys,—that they cut the cheese nicely at the table, change their shirts often enough, comb their hair properly, and all such matters.
Great-Aunt was cross about many things, but one thing made her very angry, and that was if we ate any of her yellow raspberries. The red ones we might take a few of, but the yellow ones we mustn’t even think of touching.
One morning when I lay out on the grass under the avenue trees reading “Waldemar the Conqueror,” I heard all at once a mysterious rustling behind the raspberry-bushes in the garden. I peeped between the bushes and—wasn’t it just as I had thought?—there sat Karsten and Peter picking yellow raspberries and putting them into their straw hats.
When they heard me, they took to their heels, over the garden fence and off towards the churchyard. As I caught up with them, Peter said: