During this scene little Tord had also clambered out on to the roof. But he took no notice of the cries and noise of the others. He sat apart and leant over an old green box where nasturtiums had once grown, but which was now half-filled with rain water. Something moved in the depths. Strange little creatures with only heads and tails teemed in it. And they rose to the surface with little jerks and then disappeared again in the black, brown depths. Oh! how wonderfully mysterious it all was! He drew himself up silently. He cast anxious side-glances at the fight which was going on. Soon they would probably come and kick over the whole of his wonderful find. He hated his big brothers and sisters, who never let him enjoy anything in peace.
A voice was heard from the stairs and he crept behind the chimney.
It was Kristin. She emerged from the trap door like an old witch ready for a ride on her broom. She shook her fist, which was covered with gouty lumps, but nevertheless still had an iron grip.
“Were there ever such heathen children. You will break your necks and be good for nothing—that’s what will happen to you. Come down at once from the roof.”
The children slouched back to the trap door. Each one of them felt Kristin’s fingers in his hair. Peter approached cautiously and hunched up, holding his wounded hand like a shield in front of him. Kristin caught sight of it.
“What have you been doing, you naughty boy?”
Peter did not tell any tales himself but he looked beseechingly at Hedvig. He knew that she could not resist.
“It was Herman,” she panted. “He bit Peter until the blood ran. I only went out on the roof to see who was crying.”
In this way both Peter and Hedvig escaped a hair pulling and that was exactly what they had hoped for.
But Herman got a double dose and went home with bitterness in his heart.
Not until the other children were in their beds was Tord missed. It was not at all unusual for him to be lost like that. They looked for him in the usual places: the empty dog kennel, the wood shed, the hollow oak by the stable. But without success. At last Hedvig remembered that he had been with them on the roof and there they found him huddled up on the cold tiles, leaning against the box with the wonderful mosquito larvæ, and wet with dew. He was sleeping with his dirty little thumb in his mouth.