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Sophie laughed aloud at it, but Sidsel directed her extraordinary glance maliciously and piercingly toward her. Otto saw it, and the girl was doubly revolting and frightful in his eyes. With the increasing darkness the assembly became more animated; the two parties of dancers were resolved into one.
He looked into a small, low room, upon the floor of which some dirty coverlets were thrown. Sidsel slept deeply and soundly with open mouth. A thick mass of hair escaped from beneath her cap, upon her brow; the moonlight fell, through the window-pane in the roof, upon her face. Otto bowed himself over her and examined the coarse, unpleasing features.
"I was so sorry for her!" said Louise; "and by chance it happened that I had a great many things to arrange after you were all in bed. Everything was so still in the house, it seemed to me as if I could hear Sidsel sigh; certainly it was only my own imagination, but I could do no other than pity her! she was so unfortunate! Thus I let her escape!"
"Sidsel!" replied she; "and, what is oddest in the whole affair is, that Louise has loosed her wings. Louise is quite up to the romantic. Think only! she went up in the night to the topmost story, unlocked the prison-tower, gave a moral lecture to Sidsel, and after that let her go! Then in the morning comes Louise to mamma, relates the whole affair, and says a many affecting things!"
Confess, or it will go worse with thee!" Sidsel, uttered a horrible cry and fell down upon her knees. "O God, help me!" said she, and confessed that she was the thief. A chamber high up in the roof was prepared as a prison; here the delinquent was secured until the affair, on the following day, should be announced to the magistrate.
Several men and maids sat within at the long wooden table at the end of this stood Sidsel in a bent attitude, her countenance was of a deep crimson; she spoke a loud oath and laughed no one imagined that they were observed. All eyes were riveted upon a great fellow who, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, and a pewter tankard in his hand, was standing there.
"Thou shalt be sent to Odense, and work upon the treadmill!" said Wilhelm: "to that thou belongest!" The family assembled at the tea-table. Sophie joked about the day's adventure. "Poor Sidsel!" said Eva. "In England she would be hanged," said Wilhelm; "that would be a fine thing to see!" "Horrible!" replied Louise; "they must die of terror in going to the gallows."
In the afternoon Otto went into the garden; he fell into discourse with the gardener, and they spoke of the theft which had occurred. "It vexes every one of us," said he, "because we think much of the lady, and of the whole family. And some one must, nevertheless, be suspected. We believe that it was Sidsel, for she was a good-for-nothing person!
Peter Cripple handed his violin to one of the young men and asked him to play, for he himself wished to stretch his legs a little. The girls drew back and talked with each other; but Peter Cripple stepped quietly forward toward Sidsel, flung his arms around her, and they danced a whirling dance.
The old man was German Heinrich, who was about to come with this vessel from Copenhagen to Jutland: Sidsel was his daughter, and therefore he wished now to save her life a second time. The water rushed more and more into the ship.
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