ut
Carolus.

Now I hadn't said a word to Mother about the way Carolus had been
behaving lately. I had a dark misgiving that it would work against my
gallant Carolus in some way. Mother was very much annoyed, and said that
I was to be so good as to keep Carolus shut up hereafter. For two days I
kept him in the salt stall. He hopped up on the window-sill and pecked
at the small green panes. But the third day I was so terribly sorry for
him that I let him out.

"You'll see he has forgotten all about it," said Karsten.
Forgotten!--no, thank you! Carolus was already off. He screeched for joy
and flew straight into Madam Land's yard.

"Well, then, we'll tie him," said Karsten suddenly. That was an
excellent idea, I thought. First we found a long string, and then we
went down after the sinner. Naturally he didn't want to come home again;
Madam Land's whole yard was just one uproar of frightened hens, we ran
about so, driving them here and there, before we got hold of Carolus. We
tied the string around his leg and tethered him beside the barn steps.

After we had done this, I went in to study my lessons, but I hadn't been
studying five minutes before I had a queer feeling of uneasiness, and
had to go out to see how Carolus was getting on. There he lay on the
ground; he had twisted and wound the string around himself countless
times,--he just lay on his side and gasped. I freed him in no time; for
a moment he lay still, then he got up suddenly, flapped his wings hard
and--away he went, with outspread wings that fairly swept the ground,
and disappeared in Madam Land's yard. That night I didn't go to get him.
The fact is I didn't dare to, because of Madam Land.

As I came home from school the next day I went round by Madam Land's.
Carolus stood in the yard eating Madam Land's chicken-feed and sour milk
with excellent appetite. His big red comb hung down over one eye. The
other eye, that was free, he turned towards me as if he would say, "I
know you well enough, Mistress Inger Johanne, but go your way--I intend
to stay here for good and all."

"Well," I thought, "let them scold as they please about you, Carolus;
you are surely the most beautiful cock in all the world--but you are
mine, you must remember."

When evening came I had studied out a plan for catching Carolus without
Madam Land's seeing me. She kept her hens in a part of the wood-shed
that was boarded off. Behind this was an open field, and high up in the
back wa