at full speed, evidently
in a very bad humour at his failure.

Later in the evening the pony came home, riderless, and sorrow settled
on the household at Ekero.

"It is only some foolish trick that Frans is playing upon us!" Alma had
said at first, but as the hours wore away she too had become really
anxious.

The colonel, who went himself at once to the village, came home late,
discouraged and distressed. Telegraphing and sending off messengers in
every direction had been in vain. The morning brought terrible news.
A theft had been committed in a shop near the schoolhouse the evening
before, and an older pupil of bad repute had disappeared. It was
generally whispered that he and Frans had gone off together.

Alma's feelings can easily be imagined. Shame, anger, righteous
indignation, and real distress were strangely mingled together. Her
father left home as soon as these horrible rumours were told him. Alma
was alone all day, save when she was called on to hear the moans of the
housekeeper over her "dear boy who had gone wrong; such a sweet boy as
he had always been towards her."

At such a mention of himself Frans would have been much astonished, as
this faithful friend of the family had not failed to set his
shortcomings fully before him. She now reproached Alma for not making
home more pleasant for her brother, for "worrying and worrying at him
until he had no peace of his life. Such a knowing boy as he was, too,
with the ways and doings of beasts and birds at his tongue's end. As
for the Swedish kings, he could tell stories about them all a long
midsummer day, if a body had patience to listen. And _he_ not do well
at an examination!" and the housekeeper snapped her fingers in contempt
of the whole pedagogical corps.

To these various forms of lamenting Alma listened in convicted silence.
She was glad of any company in the dismal loneliness of the house, and
felt she deserved much blame, if not all the burden of responsibility
that was cast upon her, for Frans's misdoings.

The colonel had been unwearied in his efforts to find his son; but when
he was at last convinced that he had gone off in company with a boy
suspected of actual theft, he would not seek for his son to be brought
home to public trial and possible conviction. The authorities might
find the boys if they could, he would take no further steps in the
matter.

The colonel locked himself into his room, and not even Alma's gentle
knoc