“I’ll show you whether I dare!” he cried.
And then he began to climb. It really was a difficult tree. His fingers were already bleeding and, ritsch! he tore one of his shirt sleeves. For a moment he was on the point of falling down. The perspiration stood out on his forehead and his heart beat fast. But he set his teeth and struggled on. She was standing down there admiring him.
Now he had reached the very top swaying in the wind. Breathless he pushed away a branch in order to be seen and to enjoy his triumph.
But the stone was empty. Nobody was visible.
“Laura,” he called, “Laura, do you see that I was not afraid?”
No answer. Down below everything was green, silent and empty. Above, abandoned, covered with dirt from the wet bark, Herman was sitting up among the whispering, swaying masses of leaves. His hands were aching, and he had an unpleasant sensation in his stomach. Most of all he would like to throw himself down and break his neck in order to punish a hard and unfeeling world.
He resisted this temptation, however, and climbed down with moderate care; he put on his coat and walked home in order to grind at the subjects in which he had failed in his examination last spring. You could see even by his back that he was deeply hurt and had nothing left but duty to live for.
But Laura stepped out from behind one of the trees in the avenue where she had been hiding with Stellan. She smiled and danced and her voice rang out clear and mocking in the mellow summer air:
“Were you hoarse yesterday, Herman? Were you hoarse yesterday?”
Herman did not answer. Only his back stiffened still more and he took still longer steps. And then he disappeared behind the willows by the wash house.
The next day Laura again sat astride the gun catching maple blossoms in her hat and looking down the avenue now and then, ready to begin the jolly game over again.
But that was not to be. Herman did not come. It was almost dinner time and still Herman did not come. “I see, he is sulking,” thought Laura. “Well, let him!” And with her nose in the air she hopped away to the lean Miss Isaksson and borrowed a big novel.
But Stellan was lying in the hammock like a fish in a net and yawned and became more and more sleepy and bad-tempered. At last he climbed out, however, opened the gate with a kick, without taking his hands out of his pockets, and slipped down to the jetty where the washing and rinsing was done, and where Selambshof’s rotten old rowing boat lay hopelessly waterlogged and simply could not be made water tight.
“What an establishment this Selambshof! What a dilapidated, dull, impossible, old place!”
And just at this moment the special steamer with the usual Stonehill party for the summer arrived. He could see little Percy in white sailor trousers walking along the pier.
Stonehill lay on the other shore opposite Selambshof. It was an awfully fine place with a big globe mirror and white plaster statues and coloured glass windows round the verandahs, as was the fashion in the villas of the well-to-do at that time. And there were temples and hothouses with peaches and grapes, for Percy’s mother was awfully rich. His father had got his money by smuggling during the war in America. But now he was dead.
Stellan kicked angrily at what was left above water of the old rowing boat. How could he get across to Stonehill now?
It was only last summer that he had made the acquaintance of the “china doll.” He called Percy Hill “china doll” because he looked so brittle and so fine. That summer he had also had plenty of fun on the lake with Manne von Strelert at Kolsnäs, for Manne never wanted to be at home because his tutor was there. Stellan thought this was a pity, because there was nothing he admired so much as the horses at Kolsnäs. But Manne was so obstinate! And there was added spice in their excursions on the lake since they had noticed the boy in white stealing behind the rose hedge and the fine, high fence at Stonehill, and gazing enviously at them. In order to tease him they used to hover about the Stonehill landing stage. One day Manne called out:
“Won’t you come out on the lake with us?”
“I’m not allowed.”
“Come out on the landing stage, then.”
“Mother is afraid I might tumble in.”
“What have you got a sailor’s suit on for, then?”
The boy could not answer. He was a prisoner of the roses. He was a poor little land sailor, and the two sunburnt sailors jeered at him mercilessly.
“You’re a beastly coward,” called Manne. “I have ridden the legs off a horse and I have thrashed my tutor. You are a beastly coward.”
Then the boy in white stepped out on to the stage.
“My name is Percy,” he said with a wan, little smile, “and I am not a coward.”
Then he climbed into Stellan’s boat.
“Now, let us see who can splash the other most!” cried Manne, and Percy was wet through at once.
“Now you will be spanked when you get home.”
Percy’s face looked troubled.
“No, but I shall have to go to bed. And then the doctor will come, of course.”
At this stage in their acquaintance Stellan suddenly checked Manne’s arrogance and changed his tactics. He had suddenly come to think of all the fine things visible through the railings round Stonehill.
“Take off your coat and spread it out on the seat and it will soon dry,” he said.
Percy obeyed. After a moment’s reflection Stellan continued, “So you never get a thrashing?”
“No,” said Percy with something of a sigh.
“Must you go without your dinner, then?”
“Without dinner?” asked Percy astonished, “they stuff me with food.”
This somehow appealed to Stellan.
“Perhaps you are allowed to eat as much as you like
