"It's no good struggling against fate," she murmured. "We shall be found by the children, I suppose. You'd better keep your arms down straight, father; and freeze as narrow as possible. Then they will be able to get you out of the opening without much difficulty. It seems hard to think they will never know the true facts of the case," she continued mournfully. "Our epitaph will probably be 'Sat down carelessly in an Ice-house!'"
"Don't despair, Mother," cried Herr Bjornson, who had one eye anxiously applied to the crack in the trap-door. "I see the back gate opening. In another minute we shall know the worst—Hi! What! Well, I never! Who do you think it is, Mother? Why, the Schoolmaster!"
Herr Badger indeed it was, who had come off in a great hurry to complain of the disgraceful behaviour of his pupils, and being very excited had inadvertently trodden on the wire of the alarm bell as he entered the private grounds of the Bear-family.
He seemed a little surprised as the strange procession suddenly rose up out of the ground in front of him, but without making any enquiries as to what they had been doing there, he plunged at once into the history of his wrongs.
CHAPTER III.
All day the Badger's scholars enjoyed themselves in the forest. They played leap-frog, ran races, bathed in the river, had lunch in a shady hollow, and picked more cranberries than they knew what to do with; but as evening came on, they began to wonder a little anxiously whether the Schoolmaster would already have been round to their parents to complain of their behaviour; and when Knut and Otto entered their own door in the bushes, their knees were shaking under them, and it occurred to them that perhaps the fireworks hadn't been quite so amusing as they expected, after all!
They were met by Herr Bjornson with a gloomy frown. There was no doubt that Herr Badger had told him everything, and the little Bears waited tremblingly for what was to happen next.
"What is this that I hear?" commenced the Father-bear angrily. "Your respected Master ill-treated in his own School-house. Thrown violently upon the ground, with crackers exploding round him for several hours! What have you to say for yourselves?"
"Please, father, we didn't mean to hurt him," began Knut in a piping voice; "It was only to get rid of the books. We won't do it again!"