One day he met three grammar-school students, who fell upon him then and there, beating him with their books; there was repayment in every blow. Pelle got his back against the wall, and defended himself with his belt, but could not manage the three of them; so he gave the biggest of them a terrific kick in the lower part of the body and took to his heels. The boy rolled on the ground and lay there shrieking; Pelle could see, from the other end of the street, how the other two were toiling to set him on his legs again. He himself had got off with a black eye.
“Have you been fighting again, you devil’s imp?” said the young master.
No! Pelle had fallen and bruised himself.
In the evening he went round the harbor to see the steamer go out and to say good-bye to Peter. He was in a bad temper; he was oppressed by a foreboding of evil.
The steamer was swarming with people. Over the rail hung a swarm of freshly-made journeymen of that year’s batch—the most courageous of them; the others had already gone into other trades, had become postmen or farm servants. “There is no employment for us in the shoe trade,” they said dejectedly as they sank. As soon as their journeyman’s test-work was done they took to their heels, and new apprentices were taken all along the line. But these fellows here were crossing to the capital; they wanted to go on working at their own trade. The hundreds of apprentices of the little town were there, shouting “Hurrah!” every other moment, for those departing were the heroes who were going forth to conquer the land of promise for them all. “We are coming after you!” they cried. “Find me a place, you! Find me a place!”
Emil stood by the harbor shed, with some waterside workers, looking on. His time was long ago over. The eldest apprentice had not had the pluck to leave the island; he was now a postman in Sudland and cobbled shoes at night in order to live. Now Peter stood on the deck above, while Jens and Pelle stood below and looked up at him admiringly. “Good-bye, Pelle!” he cried. “Give Jeppe my best respects and tell him he can kiss my bootsoles!”
Some of the masters were strolling to and fro on the quay, in order to note that none of their apprentices were absconding from the town.
Jens foresaw the time when he himself would stand there penniless. “Send me your address,” he said, “and find me something over there.”
“And me too,” said Pelle.
Peter spat. “There’s a bit of sour cabbage soup—take it home and give it to Jeppe with my love and I wish him good appetite! But give my very best respects to Master Andres. And when I write, then come over—there’s nothing to be done in this hole.”