The stout, somewhat apoplectic, master of the house sat in an armchair on a bright-colored woolen cushion at the end of a table that had been scoured until it shone. His hands were folded over his stomach and his round eyes were contentedly fixed on the skeleton of a fat duck; knife and fork lay on a plate in front of him.
"Good day, Dikegrave," said Haien and the dikegrave slowly turned his head and eyes towards him. "Is it you, Tede?" he replied, and the fat duck he had just eaten had had its effect on his voice. "Sit down, it's a long way over here from your house to mine!"
"I've come," said Tede Haien, sitting down at right angles to the dikegrave on a bench that ran along the wall. "You've had trouble with your servant-boy and have agreed to take my boy in his place!"
The dikegrave nodded: "Yes, yes, Tede; but—what do you mean by trouble? We people from the marsh have something to take for that, thank God!" And he picked up the knife that lay before him and tapped the skeleton of the poor duck caressingly. "That was my favorite bird," he added with a comfortable laugh; "it would eat out of my hand!"
"I thought," said old Haien not hearing the last words, "that the fellow did a lot of mischief in the stable."
"Mischief? Yes, Tede; mischief enough, to be sure! The lazy mutton-head had not watered the calves, but he lay dead drunk in the hayloft and the creatures mooed with thirst the whole night, so that I had to lie in bed till noon to make up my sleep. No farm can go on that way!"
"No, Dikegrave, but there is no danger of that where my son is concerned."
Hauke stood against the door-post with his hands in his side pockets; he had thrown his head back and was studying the window casing opposite him.
The dikegrave raised his eyes and nodded to him: "No, no, Tede," and now he nodded to the old man too, "your Hauke will not disturb my night's rest; the schoolmaster has already told me that he would rather sit before a slate and reckon than over a glass of spirits."