“Yes,” said Master Andres solemnly. “They’ve let out that the key’s hidden under the mat—the devils!” Here Baker Jörgen burst into a shout of laughter; his laughter filled the whole workshop when he once began.
They guessed what sort of a fellow the new journeyman might be. No one had seen him yet. “He certainly has red hair and a red beard,” said Baker Jörgen. “That’s the good God’s way of marking those who have signed themselves to the Evil One.”
“God knows what the pastrycook wants with him,” said Jeppe. “People of that sort can’t do anything—they only ask. I’ve heard the whole lot of them are free-thinkers.”
“What a lark!” The young master shook himself contentedly. “He won’t grow old here in the town!”
“Old?” The baker drew up his heavy body. “To-morrow I shall go to the pastrycook and demand that he be sent away. I am commander of the militia, and I know all the townsfolk think as I do.”
Drejer thought it might be well to pray from the pulpit—as in time of plague, and in the bad year when the field-mice infested the country.
Next morning Jörgen Kofod looked in on his way to the pastrycook’s. He was wearing his old militia coat, and at his belt hung the leather wallet in which flints for the old flint-locks had been carried many years before. He filled his uniform well; but he came back without success. The pastrycook praised his new journeyman beyond all measure, and wouldn’t hear a word of sending him away. He was quite besotted. “But we shall buy there no more—we must all stick to that—and no respectable family can deal with the traitor in future.”
“Did you see the journeyman, Uncle Jörgen?” asked Master Andres eagerly.
“Yes, I saw him—that is, from a distance! He had a pair of terrible, piercing eyes; but he shan’t bewitch me with his serpent’s glance!”
In the evening Pelle and the others were strolling about the market in order to catch a glimpse of the new journeyman—there were a number of people there, and they were all strolling to and fro with the same object in view. But he evidently kept the house.