"Ay, the child's got rheumatic fever, and the doctor won't let her go outside," the woman explained excusingly.
"I'll do that for you. How big d'you want it?"
"Well, as we must have it, it might as well be a big one. Here's sixpence, it can't be more than that." She gave him the money wrapped in a piece of paper, and the nag set off again.
When they had got halfway, Lars Peter turned off to an inn. The horse needed food, and something enlivening for himself would not come amiss. He felt downhearted. He drove into the yard, partly unharnessed, and put on its nosebag.
The fat inn-keeper came to the door, peering out with his small pig's eyes, which were deeply embedded in a huge expanse of flesh, like two raisins in rising dough. "Why, here comes the rag and bone man from Sand!" he shouted, shaking with laughter. "What brings such fine company today, I wonder?"
Lars Peter had heard this greeting before, and laughed at it, but today it affected him differently. He had come to the end of his patience. His blood began to rise. The long-suffering, thoughtful, slothful Lars Peter turned his head with a jerk—showing a gleam of teeth. But he checked himself, took off his cape, and spread it over the horse.
"'Tis he for sure," began the inn-keeper again. "His lordship of the Crow's Nest, doing us the honor."
But this time Lars Peter blazed out.
"Hold your mouth, you beer-swilling pig!" he thundered, stepping towards him with his heavy boots, "or I'll soon close it for you!"
The inn-keeper's open mouth closed with a snap. His small pig's eyes, which almost disappeared when he laughed, opened widely in terror. He turned round and rushed in. When Lars Peter, with a frown on his face, came tramping into the tap-room, he was bustling about, whistling softly with his fat tongue between his teeth and looking rather small.