“If you want a drink, Sintram, you must make a bid first.”
Sintram came close up to him.
“You are in luck to-day as always,” he said. “A fellow has come to the house with a sledge full of money. He is going to buy Björne and everything both inside and out. He has told a lot of people to bid for him. He does not want to show himself yet for a while.”
“You might say who he is; then I suppose I must give you a drink for your pains.”
Sintram took the dram and moved a couple of steps backwards, before he answered,—
“They say it is the Broby clergyman, Melchior.”
Melchior Sinclair had many better friends than the Broby clergyman. It had been a life-long feud between them. There were legends of how he had lain in wait on dark nights on the roads where the minister should pass, and how he had given him many an honest drubbing, the old fawning oppressor of the peasants.
It was well for Sintram that he had drawn back a step or two, but he did not entirely escape the big man’s anger. He got a brandy glass between his eyes and the whole brandy keg on his feet. But then followed a scene which for a long time rejoiced his heart.
“Does the Broby clergyman want my house?” roared Melchior Sinclair. “Do you stand there and bid on my things for the Broby clergyman? Oh, you ought to be ashamed! You ought to know better!”
He seized a candlestick, and an inkstand, and slung them into the crowd of people.