"Is this a time of day to come to people?" he blurted out. "Ah well—go up to the office."
At this he strode over the yard, peeped into the well, and turned towards the window of the sitting-room.
"Girls! Inger-Johanna—Thinka," he called in a loud tone. "Ask Ma if that piece of meat is going to lie there by the well and rot."
"Marit has taken it up, we are going to have it for supper," Thinka tried to whisper.
"Oh! Is it necessary on that account to keep it where Pasop can get it?—Show the student down into the garden, so that he can get some currants," he called out of the door, as he went up by the stables to his office.
Arent Grip's head, covered with thick brown hair, with the scanty flat cap upon it, could now be seen for a good long time among the currant bushes by the side of Thinka's little tall, blond one. At first he talked a great deal, and the sprightly, bright, brown eyes were not in the least wicked, Thinka thought. She began to feel rather a warm interest in him.
He found his boots in the morning standing mended before his bed, and a tray with coffee and breakfast came up to him. He had said he must be off early.
Now it all depended on making his decisive leap with closed eyes in the dark.
When he came down, the captain stood on the stairs with his pipe. Over his fat neck, where the buckle of his military stock shone, grayish locks of hair stuck out under his reddish wig. He was looking out a little discontentedly into the morning fog, speculating on whether it would settle or rise so that he would dare order the mowing to go on.