'Then let us go there, Jörgen. After we have had something to eat we shall set to work again. It will be long before it is daylight; we have time enough.'
Jörgen made no opposition to this arrangement; he was accustomed to give way to Ebbe's wishes, and he went back to where they had left their provender.
Ebbe cast a longing look back at the hole; then took the spade under his arm and followed Jörgen.
At a little distance from the walls of the churchyard the path lay near the edge of a pit, from which the peasants dug up gravel for the repairs that were annually made in the high road. The pit was tolerably deep, and sloped from the brink, along which the two fishermen directed their steps until they came to a kind of gap, or narrow defile, from whence the gravel was carted away.
When Ebbe reached this place, he took up the flask, drank off its contents, and let it drop quietly into the grass. Jörgen, in the meantime, had sat down, and began to eat. Ebbe remained standing, and leaned upon the spade.
'Why don't you sit down?' asked Jörgen.
'Because the grass is wet.'
'Where is the flask? I don't see it.'
'You will find it on the grass.'
Jörgen stooped down to look for it, and at that moment Ebbe lifted the spade, and, exerting all his strength, struck Jörgen with it on his head!