But—ugh! it hurt! He tried in vain to wrest her hands away; then he struck at her head. But she ducked down between his arms and butted him over against the stove.
“Run—run quick! I’ve got him!”
“Let go, you little devil!—oh, help! she’s strangling me!”
“Hedvig, what are you doing?—Hedvig, dearest child! Let go, do; it’s your father!” Fru Egholm tried to pull her off.
Then Hedvig realised that the day was lost. She loosened her hold, and let Mother and Father wrest an arm to either side, till she stood as if crucified up against the wall, her head drooping, and yellow wisps of hair falling over her flushed face. And she fell to crying, with a horrible penetrating wail.
Egholm had still by no means recovered from his astonishment. He coughed, and began rubbing his neck, speculating the while on some appropriate punishment for the presumptuous girl.
“Well, you’re a nice little beast, you are,” he said. But he could hardly find more to say. There were not actually words in the language for criminals of that sex.
“You overgrown hobbledehoy, falling upon your own father, your own flesh and blood. I never heard of such a thing. If you had your deserts, you’d be bundled off to gaol this minute, you disgraceful young scoundrel.”
Suddenly he began tearing down the planks and cardboard from the window, without a word of explanation, but with emphatic jerks and crashes that fell in time to his words and gave them added weight.
“You wait—I shan’t—forget, you—squat-nosed—little—guttersnipe.”