“Ay. So it was. Standing all a-tremble in its box. I couldn't have taken it out anyway.” The Captain looked me coldly up and down. “What are you standing here for?” he asked sharply. “Captain said I was to drive to the station.” “Well, then, be off and get ready.” But Nils took him up on the instant. “That can't be done.” “Bravo, Nils!” said I to myself. The lad was thoroughly in the right, and he looked it, sturdily holding his own. And as for the horses, our own had been sorely overdone with the long season's work, and the strange cattle stood there eating their heads off and spoiling for want of exercise. “Can't be done?” said the Captain, astounded. “What do you mean?” “If Captain takes away the help I've got, then I've finished here, that's all,” says Nils. The Captain walked to the stable door and looked out, biting his moustache and thinking hard. Then he asked over his shoulder: “And you can't spare the lad, either?” “No,” said Nils; “he's the harrowing to do.” This was our first real encounter with the Captain, and we had our way. There were some little troubles again later on, but he soon gave in. “I want a case fetched from the station,” he said one day. “Can the boy go in for it?” “The boy's as ill to spare as a man for us now,” said Nils. “If he's to drive in to the station now, he won't be back till late tomorrow; that's a day and a half lost.” “Bravo!” I said to myself again. Nils had spoken to me before about that case at the station; it was a new consignment of liquor; the maids had heard about it. There was some more talk this way and that. The Captain frowned; he had never known a busy season last so long before. Nils lost his temper, and said at last: “If you take the boy off his field work, then I go.” And then he did as he and I had agreed beforehand, and asked me straight out: “Will you go, too?” “Yes,” said I. At that the Captain gave way, and said with a smile: “Conspiracy, I see. But I don't mind saying you're right in a way. And you're good fellows to work.” But the Captain saw but little of our work, and little pleasure it gave him. He looked out now and again, no doubt, over his fields, and saw how much was ploughed and sown, but that was all. But we farm-hands worked our hardest, and all for the good of our master; that was our way. Ay, that was our way, no doubt. But maybe now and again we might have just a thought of question as to that zeal of ours, whether it was so noble after all. Nils was a man from the village who was anxious to get his field work done at least as quickly as any of his neighbours; his honour was at stake. And I followed him. Ay, even when he put on that temperance badge, it was, perhaps, as much as anything to get the Captain sober enough to see the fine work we had done. And here again I was with him. Moreover, I had perhaps a hope that Fruen, that Fru Falkenberg at least, might understand what good souls we were. I doubt I was no better than to reckon so.