“'Twas none so hard to guess,” he said. “Anyhow, you won't see me running after any of them now.”
“Going to have Emma, then?”
“Why, it looks that way. It's a pity you can't get taken on here, too. Then you might get one of the others, perhaps.”
And he went on talking of how I might perhaps have got my pick of the other girls, but the Captain had no use for me. I wasn't even to go out tomorrow to the wood.... The words sound far away, reaching me across a sea of sleep that is rolling towards me.
Next morning the fever is gone; I am still a little weak, but make ready to go out to the wood all the same.
“You won't need to put on your woodcutting things again,” says Falkenberg. “I told you that before.”
True! Nevertheless, I put on those things, seeing the others are wet. Falkenberg is a little awkward with me now, because of breaking our plan; by way of excuse, he says he thought I was taking work at the vicarage.
“So you're not coming up to the hills, then?” I asked.
“H'm! No, I don't think so—no. And you know yourself, I'm sick of tramping around. I'll not get a better chance than this.”
I make as if it was no great matter to me, and take up a sudden interest in Petter; worst of all for him, poor fellow, to be turned out and nowhere to go.