“It’s meant to be a serenade, I suppose,” she said, with a laugh.
“He’s no business to be serenading you,” said her husband. “I don’t know what you think of it yourself?”
Oh, but of course he must be nasty about it! “There’s no harm in it, surely,” said his wife. “It’s only his fun.” But at the same time she resolved never again to make beautiful eyes at Rolandsen and lead him on to escapades of this sort.
“He’s beginning again, as sure as I’m here,” cried the priest. And he stepped forward to the window then and there, and rapped on the pane.
Rolandsen looked up. It was the priest himself standing there in the flesh. The song died away. Rolandsen collapsed, stood a moment hesitating, and walked away.
“Ah!” said the priest. “I soon got rid of him.” He was by no means displeased to have accomplished so much by merely showing himself. “And he shall have a letter from me to-morrow,” he went on. “I’ve had my eye on him for some time past, for his scandalous goings-on.”
“Don’t you think if I spoke to him myself,” said his wife, “and told him not to come up here singing songs in the middle of the night?”
But the priest went on without heeding. “Write him a letter, yes.... And then I’ll go and talk to him after.” As if his going and talking to Rolandsen after meant something very serious indeed.
He went back to his own room, and lay thinking it all over. No, he would endure it no longer; the fellow’s conceit, and his extravagant ways, were becoming a nuisance to the place. The priest was no respecter of persons; he wrote his epistles to one as to another, and made himself feared. If the congregation stumbled in their darkness, it was his business to bring light. He had not forgotten that business with Levion’s sister. She had not mended her ways, and the priest had been unable to retain her brother as lay-helper. Ill-fortune had come upon Levion; his wife had died. But the priest lost no time; he spoke to Levion at the funeral. It was an abominable business. Levion, simple soul, setting out to bury his helpmeet, recollected that he had promised to bring up a newly slaughtered calf to Frederik Mack at the factory. It was all on the way, and with the hot weather it would not do to leave the meat over-long. What more natural than that he should take the carcase with him? The priest learned the story from Enok, the humble person with the permanent earache. And he sent for Levion at once.
“I cannot retain you as lay-helper,” he said. “Your sister is living a sinful life within your gates; your house is a house of ill-fame; you lie there fast asleep at night and let men come in.”