[20] Lunch.
XIV
HANS
"Donder and Blixin!" cried Carl angrily, before the party had skated twenty yards from the city gates, "if here isn't that wooden-skate ragamuffin in the patched leather breeches. That fellow is everywhere, confound him! We'll be lucky," he added, in as sneering a tone as he dared to assume, "if our captain doesn't order us to halt and shake hands with him."
"Your captain is a terrible fellow," said Peter, pleasantly, "but this is a false alarm, Carl—I cannot spy your bugbear anywhere among the skaters—ah! there he is! why, what is the matter with the lad?"
Poor Hans! His face was pale, his lips compressed. He skated like one under the effects of a fearful dream. Just as he was passing, Peter hailed him:
"Good day, Hans Brinker!"
Hans' countenance brightened at once.—"Ah! Mynheer, is that you? It is well we meet!"