“Then you’ve heard nothing?”
“Do you suppose I’ll go to school to be jeered at by them all?” Pelle was almost crying again.
“Then you’ve been wandering about and let your father believe that you’d gone to school? That wasn’t right of you, but I won’t find fault with you, considering all the disgrace I’ve brought upon you. But suppose you get into trouble for playing truant, even if you don’t deserve it? Misfortunes go hand in hand, and evils multiply like lice in a fur coat. We must think what we’re about, we two; we mustn’t let things go all to pieces!”
Lasse walked quickly into their room and returned with the bottle, took out the cork, and let the gin run slowly out into the gutter. Pelle looked wonderingly at him. “God forgive me for abusing his gifts!” said Lasse; “but it’s a bad tempter to have at hand when you’ve a sore heart. And now if I give you my word that you shall never again see me as I was yesterday, won’t you have a try at school again to-morrow, and try and get over it gradually? We might get into trouble with the magistrate himself if you keep on staying away; for there’s a heavy punishment for that sort of thing in this country.”
Pelle promised and kept his word; but he was prepared for the worst, and secretly slipped a knuckle-duster into his pocket that Erik had used in his palmy days when he went to open-air fetes and other places where one had to strike a blow for one’s girl. It was not required, however, for the boys were entirely taken up with a ship that had had to be run aground to prevent her sinking, and now lay discharging her cargo of wheat into the boats of the village. The wheat already lay in the harbor in great piles, wet and swollen with the salt water.
And a few days later, when this had become stale, something happened which put a stop forever to Pelle’s school attendance. The children were busy at arithmetic, chattering and clattering with their slates, and Fris was sitting as usual in his place, with his head against the wall and his hands resting on the desk. His dim eyes were somewhere out in space, and not a movement betrayed that he was alive. It was his usual position, and he had sat thus ever since playtime.
The children grew restless; it was nearly time for them to go home. A farmer’s son who had a watch, held it up so that Pelle could see it, and said “Two” aloud. They noisily put away their slates and began to fight; but Fris, who generally awoke at this noise of departure, did not stir. Then they tramped out, and in passing, one of the girls out of mischief stroked the master’s hand. She started back in fear. “He’s quite cold!” she said, shuddering and drawing back behind the others.
They stood in a semicircle round the desk, and tried to see into Fris’s half-closed eyes; and then Pelle went up the two steps and laid his hand upon his master’s shoulder. “We’re going home,” he said, in an unnatural voice. Fris’s arm dropped stiffly down from the desk, and Pelle had to support his body. “He’s dead!” the words passed like a shiver over the children’s lips.
Fris was dead—dead at his post, as the honest folks of the parish expressed it. Pelle had finished his schooling for good, and could breathe freely.
He helped his father at home, and they were happy together and drew together again now that there was no third person to stand between them. The gibes from the others on the farm were not worth taking notice of; Lasse had been a long time on the farm, and knew too much about each of them, so that he could talk back. He sunned himself in Pelle’s gently childlike nature, and kept up a continual chatter. One thing he was always coming back to. “I ought to be glad I had you, for if you hadn’t held back that time when I was bent upon moving down to Madam Olsen’s, we should have been in the wrong box. I should think he’d have killed us in his anger. You were my good angel as you always have been.”