“Come, let us run into Tobiesen’s,” I exclaimed, panting. In a twinkling we were through the court and in the hall; we rushed to a door and found ourselves in a fine, well-furnished room with white shades pulled down over the windows. The key was on the inside of the parlor door and I turned it hastily. There we stood. But at that instant Lars and Guro came tramping into the hall; Guro shrieked and scolded and vowed that she would find us, sure as fate. I was horribly afraid, more so than I can describe; Mina sat herself flat on the floor with her eyes bulging with terror.
There were hasty steps in the room above us, and then from the top of the stairs came the thin, high voice that was surely Tobiesen’s, calling, “Now, in heaven’s name, what is all this rumpus?”
“We want to get hold of the girls who came home just now,” shrieked Guro with the voice she uses when she is in her most furious rages on the rag-boat.
“Came home? No one comes home here.” Tobiesen trudged down the stairs in his slippers.
“I don’t know what kind of man you are,” said Guro, “for I’ve never seen your face before; but it’s that young one of yours I want to get hold of—the one who came home here just now with that long-legged girl of the Judge’s.”
“Are you crazy, folk? I have no young one—I am not married.”
“When we find them, we’ll break every bone in their bodies,” Lars’ thick voice growled from under his fur cap and out of his muffled throat.
Mina and I looked at each other. What a frightful position we were in—only a little thin door between us and that furious Guro and Lars and with no one to protect us but Tobiesen, who might be angry with us, too!
Guro screamed louder and louder.
“If you think I am afraid of you, you make a big mistake,” she shouted. “I’m going to find them, be sure of that.” She rushed farther into the hall, and shook one of the doors. Tobiesen spoke again, his voice sounding perfectly desperate.