“No, of course not. You don't know anything that's any sense. But you know all about ploughing in standing crops, don't you? There's not many can beat you at that.”
But here Nils grew angry for once, and his cheeks paled.
“What an utter fool you are, Lars! Can't you keep your mouth shut with that nonsense?”
“Fool, eh? Hark at the silly goat!” said Lars, turning to me. “Thinks himself mighty fine, doesn't he? 'Utter'” he says—and goes white about it. “I've been more years than you at Øvrebø, and asked in to sing up at the house of an evening more than once, let me tell you. But things have changed since then, and what have we got instead? You remember,” he said, turning to me, “what it was like in the old days. It was Lars here and Lars there, and I never heard but the work got done all right. And after me it was Albert, that was here for eighteen months. But then you, Nils, came along, and now it's toil and moil and ploughing and carting manure day and night, till a man's worn to a thread with it all.”
Nils and I could not help laughing at this. And Lars was in no way offended; he seemed quite pleased at having said something funny, and, forgetting his ill-will, joined in the laugh himself.
“Yes, I say it straight out,” said he. “And if it wasn't for you being a friendly sort between whiles—no, friendly I won't say, but someways decent and to get on with after a fashion ... if it wasn't for that....”
“Well, what then?”
Lars was getting more and more good humoured. “Oh,” he said, with a laugh, “I could just pick you up and stuff you down in your own long boots.”
“Like to feel my arm?” said Nils.
“What's going on here?” asked the Captain, coming up. It was only six o'clock, but he was out and about already.