always when lads are screaming, and screamed with them. Pedro and the policeman, getting frightened themselves, tried to silence the women; but in the meantime the boys ran off, the dog, of whom they were most afraid, after them over the hedge,--for this was something for him--and now they flew like wild ducks, boys, girls, the dog and screams all over the town.

All this time the Fisher Girl sat quite still in the tree, thinking that no one had observed her. Crouched up in the topmost branch, through the leaves she followed the course of the fray. But when the policeman had gone out in a rage to the women, and Pedro Ohlsen was left alone in the garden, he went straight under the tree, looked up and cried: "Come down with you this minute, you rascal!"--Not a sound from the tree.--"Will you come down with you, I say! I know you are there!"--The most perfect stillness.--"I must go in for my gun, and shoot up, must I?" He made pretence to go.--"Hu-hu-hu-hu!" it answered in owlish tones, "I am so frightened!"--"Oh to be sure you are! You are the worst young scamp in the whole lot, but now I have you!"--"Oh dear! good kind sir, I won't do it any more," at the same time she flung a rotten apple right on to his nose, and a rich peal of laughter followed after. The apple caked all over, and while he was wiping it off, she scrambled down; she was already hanging on the plank fence before he could come after her, and she could have got over if she had not been so terrified that he was behind, that she let go instead. But when he caught her she began to shriek; the shrill and piercing yell she gave frightened him so that he let go his hold. At her signal of alarm, the people came flocking outside, and hearing them she gained courage. "Let me go, or I'll tell mother!" she threatened, her whole face flashing fire. Then he recognised the face, and cried: "Your mother? Who is your mother?"--"Gunlaug on the Bank, Fisher Gunlaug," replied the youngster triumphantly; she saw he was afraid. Being near sighted, Pedro had never seen the girl before now; he was the only one in the place who did not know who she was, and he was not even aware that Gunlaug was in the town. As though possessed, he cried: "What do they call you?"--"Petra," cried the other still louder.--"Petra!" howled Pedro, turned and ran into the house as if he had been talking to the devil. But as the palest fear and the palest wrath resemble each other, she thought he was rushing in for his gun. She was terror-stricken, and already she felt the shot in her back, but as, just at this moment, they had broken the door open from outside, she made her escape; her dark hair flew behind her like a terror, her eyes shot fire, the dog which she just met, followed howling, and thus she fell on her mother, who was coming from the kitchen with a tureen of soup, the girl into the soup, the soup on the floor, and a "Go to the dogs!" after them both. But as she laid there in the soup, she cried: "He'll shoot me, mother, shoot me!"--"Who'll shoot you, you rascal?"--"He, Pedro Ohlsen?"--"Who?" roared the mother.--"Pedro Ohlsen, we took apples from him," she never dare say anything but the truth.--"Who are you talking about, child?"--"About Pedro Ohlsen, he is after me with a great gun, and he'll shoot me!"--"Pedro Ohlsen!" fumed the mother, and with an enraged laugh she drew herself up.--The child began to cry and tried to escape, but the mother sprang over her, her white teeth glistening, and catching her by the shoulder, she pulled her up.--"Did you tell him who you were?"--"Yes!" cried the child, but the mother heard not, saw not, she only asked again twice, three times:--"Did you tell him who you were?"--"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" and the child held up her hands entreatingly. Then the mother rose up to her full height:--"So he got to know!--What did he say?"--"He ran in after a gun to shoot me."--"He shoot you!" she laughed in the utmost scorn. The child, scared and bespattered with soup had crept into the chimney corner, she was drying herself and crying, when the mother came to her again:--"If you go to him," she said, and took and shook her, "or speak to him, or listen to him. Heaven have mercy upon both him and you! Tell him so from me! Tell him so from me!" she repeated threateningly, as the child did not answer directly, "Yes, yes, yes, yes!" "Tell him so from me!" she repeated yet once more, but slowly, and nodding at every word as she went.

The child washed herself, changed her dress, and sat out on the steps in her Sunday clothes. But at the thought of the terror she had been in, she began to sob again.--"What are you crying for, child?" asked a voice more kindly than any she had heard before. She looked up; before her stood a fine looking man, with high forehead and spectacles. She stood up quickly, for it was Hans Odegaard, a young man whom the whole town revered. "What are you crying for, my child?" She looked at him and said that she had been going to take some apples from Pedro Ohlsen's garden, together with "several other boys;" but then Pedro and the policeman had come, and then--; she remembered that the mother had made her uncertain about the shooting, so she durst not tell it; but she gave a deep sigh instead.

"Is it possible," said he, "that a child of your age could think of committing so great a sin?" Petra looked at him; she had known well enough that it was sin, but she had always heard it denounced thus: "You child of the devil, you black haired wretch!" Now, she felt ashamed. "That you do not go to school and learn God's commandment to us of what is good and evil!" She stood stroking her frock and answered, that mother did not wish her to go to school.--"Perhaps you cannot even read?" Yes, she could read. He took up a little book and gave her. She looked in it, then turned it round to look at the outside: "I cannot read such small print," she said. But she was obliged to try, and she felt herself utterly stupid; her eyes and mouth hung, all her limbs collapsed: "G-o-d, God the L-o-r-d, God the Lord s-a-i-d, God the Lord said to M-M-M--"--"Dear me! Why you cannot even read this! And a child of ten or twelve years? Would you not like to learn to read?" By degrees she drawled out, that she would like it. "Then come with me, we must begin at once." She rose, but only to look in the house. "Yes, tell your mother," he said. The mother was just passing, and seeing the child talking to a stranger, she came out upon the doorstep. "He will teach me to read," said the child doubtfully, with eyes fixed on the mother, who did not answer, but stood with her arms on her side looking at Odegaard.--"Your child is an ignorant one," he said, "you cannot answer to God or man, to let her go as she does."--"Who are you?" asked Gunlaug sharply.--"Hans Odegaard, your pastor's son." Her brow lightened a little, she had heard him highly spoken of. He began again: "During the time I have been at home, I have noticed this child, and to-day I have been again reminded of her. She must not any longer be brought up only to that which is useless."--What's that to you? the mother's face distinctly expressed. Then he asked her quietly: "But you mean her to learn something?"--"No."--He blushed slightly. "Why not?"--"People who have learning are perhaps the better for it?" She had had but one experience and this she held fast.--"I am astonished that any one can ask such a thing!"--"Ah, but, I know they are not;" she went down the steps to put an end to this nonsense. But he stepped in front of her: "Here is a duty which you SHALL NOT pass by. You are a thoughtless mother."--Gunlaug measured him from top to toe: "Who told you what I am?" she said as she passed by him.--"You have just now done it yourself, for otherwise you must have seen that the child is on the way to be ruined."--Gunlaug turned, and her eye met his; she saw he meant what he had said and she grew afraid. She had only had to do with seamen and tradespeople; such language she had never heard before. "What will you do with my child?" she asked.--"Teach her the things belonging to her soul's