"Thanks, Halvor. Give me the reins. There you—"
He gave young Svarten, who began with some capers, a taste of the whip, and off he went with tight reins at full trot, so that the fence-posts flew like drumsticks past his eyes.
In the quiet, hazy autumn day the cattle here and there were out on the highway.
A pig provoked him by obstinately running before the cariole.
"There, take care to get your stumps out of the way!"
It ended with a little cut on its back.
"See there! there is a beast of a cow lying in the middle of the road," he broke out, with his lips firmly pressed together.
"Well, if you won't get up, then you are welcome to stay! If you please—I am stupid also—I'll drive on."
His bitterness took full possession of him, and he would have firmly allowed the wheel to go over the animal's back if the latter had not risen up quickly at the last moment, so near that the captain's cariole was half raised up, while it grazed and was within an ace of being upset.