Well, then, I will say at once a firm _yes_ and _Amen_." With these words he too shook his guest's hand firmly and there remained only to take leave from Ritz and Edi, both of whom he heartily invited to Denmark, wherein Erick strongly supported him, adding: "And you know, Edi, when you are in Denmark, then you can go on ships, and study there all about them.

That will be a good thing for your calling." For Erick had not forgotten that Edi intended to sail around the whole world, and that Ritz too wanted to be something on the sea.
The grandfather was already entering the travelling coach, when Erick was held back by 'Lizebeth; he had pressed into her hand a valuable paper, but she had put her apron to her eyes and had begun to sob aloud behind it, and now she was holding Erick and said: "I think the Sir Grandfather, he means it well as far as he sees things; but that he takes the dear boy away from us,--to take one's little boy simply away--" "I will come back again, 'Lizebeth, every year when the storks return.
Therefore, good-bye, 'Lizebeth, until I come again." Saying this, Erick quickly jumped into the carriage, and he wore the same velvet suit in which he had come.

For a long, long time he saw the white handkerchiefs wave, and he waved his in answer, until the carriage, down below at the foot of the hill, turned around the corner and disappeared into the woods.

But when the fleet horses, soon after, reached the first houses of the Middle Lot, there was another halt.
From the moment that Erick had disappeared, Churi had looked like a picture of horror.

He had grown white and grayish looking, and at every sound that he heard, he trembled, for he thought: "Now they are coming to fetch you, to put you into prison." Churi had heard that someone who had thrown another boy into the water had been fetched by two gendarmes and had been put into prison, where he had been kept for twenty years in chains.