Now I hadn't said a word to Mother about the way Carolus had been behaving lately. I had a dark misgiving that it would work against my gallant Carolus in some way. Mother was very much annoyed, and said that I was to be so good as to keep Carolus shut up hereafter. For two days I kept him in the salt stall. He hopped up on the window-sill and pecked at the small green panes. But the third day I was so terribly sorry for him that I let him out.
"You'll see he has forgotten all about it," said Karsten. Forgotten!—no, thank you! Carolus was already off. He screeched for joy and flew straight into Madam Land's yard.
"Well, then, we'll tie him," said Karsten suddenly. That was an excellent idea, I thought. First we found a long string, and then we went down after the sinner. Naturally he didn't want to come home again; Madam Land's whole yard was just one uproar of frightened hens, we ran about so, driving them here and there, before we got hold of Carolus. We tied the string around his leg and tethered him beside the barn steps.
After we had done this, I went in to study my lessons, but I hadn't been studying five minutes before I had a queer feeling of uneasiness, and had to go out to see how Carolus was getting on. There he lay on the ground; he had twisted and wound the string around himself countless times,—he just lay on his side and gasped. I freed him in no time; for a moment he lay still, then he got up suddenly, flapped his wings hard and—away he went, with outspread wings that fairly swept the ground, and disappeared in Madam Land's yard. That night I didn't go to get him. The fact is I didn't dare to, because of Madam Land.
As I came home from school the next day I went round by Madam Land's. Carolus stood in the yard eating Madam Land's chicken-feed and sour milk with excellent appetite. His big red comb hung down over one eye. The other eye, that was free, he turned towards me as if he would say, "I know you well enough, Mistress Inger Johanne, but go your way—I intend to stay here for good and all."
"Well," I thought, "let them scold as they please about you, Carolus; you are surely the most beautiful cock in all the world—but you are mine, you must remember."
When evening came I had studied out a plan for catching Carolus without Madam Land's seeing me. She kept her hens in a part of the wood-shed that was boarded off. Behind this was an open field, and high up in the back wall, right under the roof, there was a little window that always stood open. Through that window I meant to go to get Carolus. There was an old ladder in our barn; I got Peter and Karsten to carry it down the hill and set it up under the window. Both Peter and Karsten wanted to climb up, but I said no; such a difficult undertaking no one but myself could manage.
It was about nine o'clock in the evening and growing dark. I climbed the ladder and got to the top round all right. But whether it was that the ladder was rotten or that Peter and Karsten let go of it,—I had no sooner got hold of the window-sill and dragged myself in than down fell the ladder, breaking all to pieces as it fell.
So there I was in a pretty fix! And how Karsten and Peter laughed down below! I was furiously angry with them, especially at the way Peter laughed. When Peter laughs it is just as if some one had suddenly tickled him in the stomach; he doubles himself together, twists like a worm, and laughs without making a sound. But Karsten roared at the top of his voice.
"Will you stop your laughing, Karsten? You will betray me making such a noise."