"Perhaps the storm oppresses him. Let him go to bed," said the farmer.
"Yes, yes; you'd better go to bed," said the wife in friendly tones. "I will look after the shoes myself. Go and have one more good sleep in your comfortable bed."
Renti crept upstairs to his dear little room. He felt as though a heavy weight were upon him; he could hardly breathe. But after he was in bed and everything about him seemed just the same as it had always been, and always must be, he thought, he breathed more easily. Something would surely happen overnight to straighten the matter out. When things had gone on so long and so smoothly without change, they could not all be upset in one night. And with this thought Renti finally fell asleep.
Next morning, as the farmer and his wife returned from church, Renti came out of the barn to meet them as usual. On Sunday mornings, when he had plenty of time to scramble about all the corners of the barn, he always made new discoveries in the way of hidden nests.
"Now go and put on your Sunday clothes, Renti," said the wife. "After dinner you may run over to The Alders and tell them 'God keep you,' for you probably won't see them again for some time. It is a long way to Broadwood. Then you must come home for a timely start, so that you will reach your new quarters before nightfall. It would not look well for you to get there late."
Renti felt as though a thunderbolt had struck him. The morning having passed in its usual quiet way, just the same as all other Sunday mornings, he thought that the danger must be over and that things were to remain as of old. But now he was to be sent away, after all! He put on his Sunday clothes; dinner came and went, he knew not how; he was as if stunned. After dinner he went to the barn and sat down on the lowest round of the hay ladder. There he stayed for hours without stirring. He could not go to The Alders and tell them "God keep you." No, no, no! he could not go away! he could not!
