Pelle laughed. “A lucky thing that I knew you a little while ago, or you would have made mincemeat of me, after all!”
“Not me, mate, that was only a little joke. A fellow is in such high spirits when he comes ashore again. But out at sea it’s—thrash the others, or they’ll thrash you! Well, that’s all right, but one ought to be good to the women. That’s what I’ve told the old man on board; he’s a fellow-countryman, but a swine in his dealings with women. There isn’t a single port where he hasn’t a love-affair. In the South, and on the American coast. It’s madman’s work often, and I have to go along with him and look out that he doesn’t get a knife between his ribs. ‘Per,’ he says, ‘this evening we’ll go on the bust together.’ ‘All right, cap’n,’ I say. ‘But it’s a pity about all the women.’ ‘Shut your mouth, Per,’ he says; ‘they’re most of them married safe enough.’ He’s one of us from home, too—from a little cottage up on the heath.”
“What’s his name, then?” said Pelle, interested.
“Albert Karlsen.”
“Why, then he’s Uncle Kalle’s eldest, and in a way my cousin—Kalle, that is to say, isn’t really his father. His wife had him before she was married—he’s the son of the owner of Stone Farm.”
“So he’s a Kongstrup, then!” cried Per Kofod, and he laughed loudly. “Well, that’s as it should be!”
Pelle paid, and they got up to go. The two girls were still standing by the tree. Per Kofod went up to one of them as though she had been a bird that might escape him. Suddenly he seized her round the waist; she withdrew herself slowly from his grip and laughed in his big fair face. He embraced her once again, and now she stood still; it was still in her mind to escape, for she laughingly half-turned away. He looked deep into her eyes, then released her and followed Pelle.
“What’s the use, Pelle—why, I can hear her complaining already! A fellow ought to be well warned,” he said, with a despairing accent. “But, damn it all, why should a man have so much compassion when he himself has been so cruelly treated? And the others; they’ve no compassion. Did you see how gentle her eyes were? If I’d money I’d marry her right away.”
“Perhaps she wouldn’t have you,” replied Pelle. “It doesn’t do to take the girls for granted.”
In the avenue a few men were going to and fro and calling; they were looking for their young women, who had given them the slip. One of them came up to Per and Pelle—he was wearing a student’s cap. “Have the gentlemen seen anything of our ladies?” he asked. “We’ve been sitting with them and treating them all the evening, and then they said they’d just got to go to a certain place, and they’ve gone off.”