Ditte: Girl Alive! Part 21

Klavs could not understand it, but left it at that: Lars Peter could no longer be bothered to get off the cart to pick up an old horseshoe.

He began whistling and looked out over the landscape to keep his thoughts at bay. Down in the marsh they were cutting ice for the dairies--it was high time too! And the farmer from Gadby was driving off in his best sledge, with his wife by his side. Others could enjoy themselves! If only he had his wife in the cart--driving in to the Capital. There now--he was beginning all over again! Lars Peter looked in the opposite direction, but what good was that. He could not get rid of his thoughts.

A woman came rushing up the highroad, from a little farm. "Lars Peter!" she cried. "Lars Peter!" The nag stopped.

"Are you going to town?" she asked breathlessly, leaning on the cart.

"Ay, that I am," Lars Peter answered quietly, as if afraid of her guessing his errand.

"Oh! would you mind buying us a chamber?"

"What! you're getting very grand!" Lars Peter's mouth twisted in some semblance of a smile.

"Ay, the child's got rheumatic fever, and the doctor won't let her go outside," the woman explained excusingly.

"I'll do that for you. How big d'you want it?"

"Well, as we must have it, it might as well be a big one. Here's sixpence, it can't be more than that." She gave him the money wrapped in a piece of paper, and the nag set off again.

When they had got halfway, Lars Peter turned off to an inn. The horse needed food, and something enlivening for himself would not come amiss. He felt downhearted. He drove into the yard, partly unharnessed, and put on its nosebag.

The fat inn-keeper came to the door, peering out with his small pig's eyes, which were deeply embedded in a huge expanse of flesh, like two raisins in rising dough. "Why, here comes the rag and bone man from Sand!" he shouted, shaking with laughter. "What brings such fine company today, I wonder?"

Lars Peter had heard this greeting before, and laughed at it, but today it affected him differently. He had come to the end of his patience. His blood began to rise. The long-suffering, thoughtful, slothful Lars Peter turned his head with a jerk--showing a gleam of teeth. But he checked himself, took off his cape, and spread it over the horse.

"'Tis he for sure," began the inn-keeper again. "His lordship of the Crow's Nest, doing us the honor."

But this time Lars Peter blazed out.

"Hold your mouth, you beer-swilling pig!" he thundered, stepping towards him with his heavy boots, "or I'll soon close it for you!"

The inn-keeper's open mouth closed with a snap. His small pig's eyes, which almost disappeared when he laughed, opened widely in terror. He turned round and rushed in. When Lars Peter, with a frown on his face, came tramping into the tap-room, he was bustling about, whistling softly with his fat tongue between his teeth and looking rather small.

"A dram and a beer," growled the rag and bone man, seating himself by the table and beginning to unpack his food.

The inn-keeper came towards him with a bottle and two gla.s.ses. He glanced uncertainly at Lars Peter, and poured out two br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.sfuls. "Your health, old friend," said he ingratiatingly. The rag and bone man drank without answering his challenge; he had given the fat lump a fright, and now he was making up to him. It was odd to be able to make people shiver--quite a new feeling. But he rather liked it. And it did him good to give vent to his anger; he had a feeling of well-being after having let off steam. Here sat this insolent landlord trying to curry favor, just because one would not put up with everything. Lars Peter felt a sudden inclination to put his foot upon his neck, and give him a thorough shock. Or bend him over so that head and heels met. Why should he not use his superior strength once in a while? Then perhaps people would treat him with something like respect.

The inn-keeper sank down on a chair in front of him. "Well, Lars Peter Hansen, so you've become a socialist?" he began, blinking his eyes.

Lars Peter dropped his heavy fist on the table so that everything jumped--the inn-keeper included. "I'm done with being treated like dirt--do you understand! I'm just as good as you and all the rest of them. And if I hear any more nonsense, then to h.e.l.l with you all."

"Of course, of course! 'twas only fun, Lars Peter Hansen. And how's every one at home? Wife and children well?" He still blinked whenever Lars Peter moved.

Lars Peter did not answer him, but helped himself to another dram.

The rascal knew quite well all about Sorine.

"D'you know--you should have brought the wife with you. Womenfolk love a trip to town," the inn-keeper tried again. Lars Peter looked suspiciously at him.

"What d'you mean by this tomfoolery?" he said darkly. "You know quite well that she's in there."

"What--is she? Has she run away from you then?"

Lars Peter took another gla.s.s. "She's locked up, and you know it--curse you!" He put the gla.s.s down heavily on the table.

The landlord saw it was no good pretending ignorance. "I think I do remember hearing something about it," said he. "How was it--got into trouble with the law somehow?"

The rag and bone man gave a hollow laugh. "I should think so! She killed her own mother, 'tis said." The spirit was beginning to affect him.

"Dear, dear! was it so bad as that?" sighed the inn-keeper, turning and twisting as if he had a pain inside. "And now you're going to the King, I suppose?"

Lars Peter lifted his head. "To the King?" he asked. The thought struck him, perhaps this was the miracle he had been hoping for.

"Ay, the King decides whether it's to be life or death, you know. If there's any one he can't stand looking at, he only says: 'Take that fellow and chop off his head!' And he can let folk loose again too, if he likes."

"And how's the likes of me to get near the King?" The rag and bone man laughed hopelessly.

"Oh, that's easily done," said the inn-keeper airily. "Every one in the country has the right to see the King. When you get in there, just ask where he lives, any one can tell you."

"Hm, I know that myself," said Lars Peter with a.s.surance. "I was once nearly taken for the guards myself--for the palace. If it hadn't been for having flat feet, then----"

"Well, it isn't quite as easy as you think; he's got so many mansions. The King's got no-one to a.s.sociate with, you see, as there's only one King in every land, and talk to his wife always, no man could stand--the King as little as we others. That's why he gets bored, and moves from one castle to another, and plays at making a visitor of himself. So you'd better make inquiries. 'Twouldn't come amiss to get some one to speak for you either. You've got money, I suppose?"

"I've got goods on the cart for over a hundred crowns," said Lars Peter with pride.

"That's all right, because in the Capital nearly all the doors need oiling before they are opened. Maybe the castle gate will creak a little, but then----" The inn-keeper rubbed one palm against the other.

"Then we'll oil it," said Lars Peter, with a wave of his arm as he got up.

He had plenty of courage now, and hummed as he harnessed the horse and got into the cart. Now he knew what to do, and he was anxious to act. Day and night he had been faced with the question of getting Sorine out of prison, but how? It was no good trying to climb the prison wall at night, and fetch her out, as one read of in books.

But he could go to the King! Had he not himself nearly been taken into the King's service as a guardsman? "He's got the height and the build," they had said. Then they had noticed his flat feet and rejected him; but still he had said he almost----

CHAPTER III

LARS PETER SEEKS THE KING

Lars Peter Hansen knew nothing of the Capital. As a boy he had been there with his father, but since then no opportunity had arisen for a trip to Copenhagen. He and Sorine had frequently spoken of taking their goods there and selling direct to the big firms, instead of going the round of the small provincial dealers, but nothing had ever come of it beyond talk. But today the thing was to be done. He had seen posters everywhere advertising: "The largest house in Scandinavia for rags and bones and old metals," and "highest prices given." It was the last statement which had attracted him.

Lars Peter sat reckoning up, as he drove along the Lyngby road towards the eastern end of the city. Going by prices at home he had a good hundred crowns' worth of goods on the cart; and here it ought to fetch at least twenty-five crowns more. That would perhaps pay for Sorine's release. This was killing two birds with one stone, getting Sorine out--and making money on the top of it! All that was necessary was to keep wide awake. He lifted his big battered hat and ran his hand through his tousled mop of hair--he was in a happy mood.

At Trianglen he stopped and inquired his way. Then driving through Blegdamsvej he turned into a side street. Over a high wooden paling could be seen mountains of old rusty iron: springs and empty tins, bent iron beds, dented coal-boxes red with rust, and pails. This must be the place. On the signboard stood: _Levinsohn & Sons, Export_.

The rag and bone man turned in through the gateway and stopped bewildered as he came into the yard. Before him were endless erections of storing-places and sheds, one behind the other, and inclosures with ma.s.ses of rags, dirty cotton-wool and rusty iron and tin-ware. From every side other yards opened out, and beyond these more again. If he and Klavs went gathering rags until Doomsday, they would never be able to fill one yard. He sat and gazed, overwhelmed.

Involuntarily he had taken his hat off, but then, gathering himself together, he drove into one of the sheds and jumped down from the cart. Hearing voices, he opened the door. In the darkness sat some young girls sorting some filth or other, which looked like blood-stained rags.

"Well, well, what a dove-cote to land in," broke out Lars Peter in high spirits. "What's that you're doing, sorting angels' feathers?"