In the upper yard a flock of white pigeons were pecking corn off the clean stone paving. Outside the open coach-house door, a groom was examining the dog-cart, while inside stood another groom, polishing the best harness.
The man at the dog-cart was in shirt-sleeves and newly-polished top-boots; he had a youthful, elastic frame, which assumed graceful attitudes as he worked. He wore his cap on the back of his head, and whistled softly while he cleaned the wheels outside and in, and sent stolen glances down to the wash-house, where, below the window, one of the maids was going through her Sunday ablutions, with shoulders and arms bare, and her chemise pushed down below her bosom.
The big dairymaid, Karna, went past him to the pump with two large buckets. As she returned, she splashed some water on to one of his boots, and he looked up with an oath. She took this as an invitation to stop, and put down her pails with a cautious glance up at the windows of the big house.
“You’ve not had all the sleep you ought to have had, Gustav,” she said teasingly, and laughed.
“Then it isn’t your fault, at any rate,” he answered roughly. “Can you patch my everyday trousers for me to-day?”
“No, thank you! I don’t mend for another to get all the pleasant words!”
“Then you can leave it alone! There are plenty who’ll mend for me without you!” And he bent again to his work.
“I’ll see if I can get time,” said the big woman meekly. “But I’ve got all the work in the place to do by myself this afternoon; the others are all going out.”
“Yes, I see Bodil’s washing herself,” said Gustav, sending a squirt of tobacco-juice out of his mouth in the direction of the wash-house window. “I suppose she’s going to meeting, as she’s doing it so thoroughly.”
Karna looked cunning. “She asked to be free because she wanted to go to church. She go to church! I should just like to see her! No, she’s going down to the tailor’s in the village, and there I suppose she’ll meet Malmberg, a townsman of hers. I wonder she isn’t above having anything to do with a married man.”