"Come!" he said. "You must drain a cup of wine with me before you leave.
Your unguided footsteps led you by the wrong path,--I saw your boat
moored to my pier, and wondered who had been venturesome enough to
trample through my woodland. I might have guessed that only a couple of
idle boys like yourselves, knowing no better, would have pushed their
way to a spot that all worthy dwellers in Bosekop, and all true
followers of the Lutheran devilry, avoid as though the plague were
settled in it."
And the old man laughed, a splendid, mellow laugh, with the ring of true
jollity in it,--a laugh that was infectious, for Errington and Lorimer
joined in it heartily without precisely knowing why. Lorimer, however,
thought it seemly to protest against the appellation "idle boys."
"What do you take us for, sir?" he said with lazy good-nature. "I carry
upon my shoulders the sorrowful burden of twenty-six years,--Philip,
there, is painfully conscious of being thirty,--may we not therefore
dispute the word 'boys' as being derogatory to our dignity? You called
us 'men' a while ago,--remember that!"
Olaf Gueldmar laughed again.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120