He fetched a whip, which was hanging on the stable door, and climbed over the farthest part of the garden fence to waylay the intruders.
Then suddenly he stopped short as if turned to stone, his eyes starting out of his head, and the whip trembling in his hand. He had distinguished his sisters’ voices.
He leaned against the trunk of a tree and listened.
“Does he leave you in peace now?” one of the lovers asked, in a whisper.
“He has too much to do with his machine just now,” Greta’s voice replied; “even his unpalatable sermons he spares us.”
“You have never heeded them, anyhow!”
Greta giggled. “In spite of all his dignity he is only a stupid boy, and he understands nothing about love; as long as I can remember he has hung about Elsbeth Douglas; but do you suppose he has ever once dared raise his eyes to her? She, of course, would not dream of taking such a languishing idiot. There is her cousin Leo—he is quite another fellow.”
His heart threatened to stop beating, but he went on listening.
“I can’t understand why you obey him at all,” said the voice of her lover; “we have always given him a thrashing first, and then let him go, and in return he would beg our pardon. One has only to oppose him firmly, he is such a coward!”
“Just wait a bit, you rogue!” thought Paul, who now knew whom he had before him.