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"Your son hasn't had any punishment, Ole, and neither has he deserved any," said Fris, putting his arm about the old man's shoulder. "But he's given a great gift as he lies there and cannot say anything. He gave five men their lives and gave up his own in return for the one offense that he committed in thoughtlessness! It was a generous son you had, Ole!" Fris looked at him with a bright smile.
"I wonder if it would be so terrible dear," said Lasse. "I've been thinking that when we have something of our own I suppose it'll come to something some day you might go to Fris and learn the trade of him fairly cheap, and have your meals at home. We ought to be able to manage it that way." Pelle did not answer; he felt no desire to be apprenticed to the clerk.
But it was always another matter with the confounded brood that sat upon the school benches for the time being; it resisted learning with might and main, and Fris prophesied it no good in the future. Fris hated the children. But he loved these squarely built hymns, which seemed to wear out the whole class, while he himself could give them without relaxing a muscle.
He was afraid of the dark, and he could not stand a thrashing, while Nilen could take his with his hands in his pockets. It was Pelle's first attempt at obtaining a general survey of himself. Fris had gone inland, probably to the church, so it would be a playtime of some hours. The boys began to look about for some more lasting ways of passing the time.
Yes! What?" they cried in chorus; and one boy said: "That the sun's fallen into the sea and set it on fire!" The master quietly took up his hymn-book. "Shall we sing 'How blessed are they'?" he said; and they knew that something must have happened, and sang the hymn seriously with him. But at the fifth verse Fris stopped; he could not go on any longer.
The children took their playtime early, and rushed out before Pelle had given the signal; and Fris trotted off as usual into the village, where he would be absent the customary two hours. The girls gathered in a flock to eat their dinners, and the boys dashed about the playground like birds let loose from a cage.
It was his mediocrity as a teacher of arithmetic that the imps were always aiming at, but he would not be drawn into a discussion with them. Nilen repeated his question, while the others tittered; but Fris did not hear he was too deep in his paper. So the whole thing dropped. Fris looked at his watch; he could soon give them a quarter of an hour's play, a good long quarter of an hour.
The instruction was given as before, by the cleverer scholars teaching what they knew to the others; there was rather more arithmetic and reading than in Fris's time, but on the other hand the hymns suffered. It still sometimes happened that Fris woke up and interfered in the instruction.
Up at his desk stood Nilen, busily picking its lock to get at a pipe that Fris had confiscated during lessons. "Here's your knife!" he cried, throwing a sheath-knife to Pelle, who quickly pocketed it. Some peasant boys were pouring coal into the stove, which was already red-hot; by the windows sat a crowd of girls, hearing one another in hymns.
The hymn-book was the business of Fris's life, and his forty years as parish-clerk had led to his knowing the whole of it by heart. In addition to this he had a natural gift. As a child Fris had been intended for the ministry, and his studies as a young man were in accordance with that intention.
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