A man dressed in his best clothes, and with a bundle under his arm, slipped out of the door from the men’s rooms, and crept along by the building in the lower yard. It was Erik.
“Hi, there! Where the devil are you going?” thundered a voice from the bailiff’s window. The man ducked his head a little and pretended not to hear. “Do you hear, you confounded Kabyle! Erik!” This time Erik turned and darted in at a barn-door.
Directly after the bailiff came down and went across the yard. In the chaff-cutting barn the men were standing laughing at Erik’s bad luck. “He’s a devil for keeping watch!” said Gustav. “You must be up early to get the better of him.”
“Oh, I’ll manage to dish him!” said Erik. “I wasn’t born yesterday. And if he doesn’t mind his own business, we shall come to blows.”
There was a sudden silence as the bailiff’s well-known step was heard upon the stone paving. Erik stole away.
The form of the bailiff filled the doorway. “Who sent Lasse for gin?” he asked sternly.
They looked at one another as if not understanding. “Is Lasse out?” asked Mons then, with the most innocent look in the world. “Ay, the old man’s fond of spirits,” said Anders, in explanation.
“Oh, yes; you’re good comrades!” said the bailiff. “First you make the old man go, and then you leave him in the lurch. You deserve a thrashing, all of you.”
“No, we don’t deserve a thrashing, and don’t mean to submit to one either,” said the head man, going a step forward. “Let me tell you—”
“Hold your tongue, man!” cried the bailiff, going close up to him, and Karl Johan drew back.