He hated them so bitterly that last autumn he had put on a woman’s trailing dress, and had fastened a cloth on his head and made himself a laughing-stock for all men, only to get in range when they ate the grain in the fields.
He sought them out at their caucuses on the bare fields in the spring and killed them. He looked for their nests in the summer, and threw out the screaming, featherless young ones, or smashed the half-hatched eggs.
Now he seizes the dish of grouse.
“Do you think I don’t know them?” he cries to the servant. “Do I need to hear them caw to recognize them? Shame on you, to offer Christian Bergh crows! Shame on you!”
Thereupon he takes the grouse, one by one, and throws them against the wall.
“Shame, shame!” he reiterates, so that the whole room rings,—“to offer Christian Bergh crows! Shame!”
And just as he used to hurl the helpless young crows against the cliffs, so now he sends grouse after grouse whizzing against the wall.
Sauce and grease spatter about him, the crushed birds rebound to the floor.
And the bachelors’ wing rejoices.