The terrible weeping instantly ceased. After a short time of hurry the boy was ready. He kissed both the women on the hand, humbly, like a whipped dog. And then off he ran.
They stood in the door and looked after him. When he was gone, they drew a sigh of relief.
“What will Halfvorson say?” said Edith.
“He will be glad,” answered the housekeeper.
“He put the money there for the boy, I think. I guess that he wanted to be rid of him.”
“But why? The boy was the best one we have had in the shop for many years.”
“He probably did not want him to give testimony in the affair with the brandy.”
Edith stood silent and breathed quickly. “It is so base, so base,” she murmured. She clenched her fist towards the office and towards the little pane in the door, through which Halfvorson could see into the shop. She would have liked, she too, to have fled out into the world, away from all this meanness. She heard a sound far in, in the shop. She listened, went nearer, followed the noise, and at last found behind a keg of herring the cage of Petter Nord’s white mice.
She took it up, put it on the counter, and opened the cage door. Mouse after mouse scampered out and disappeared behind boxes and barrels.
“May you flourish and increase,” said Edith. “May you do injury and revenge your master!”