Pelle the Conqueror Part 136

"You should try and get some honest employment again. You've shown that you can succeed."

Ferdinand whistled. "In such a paltry way as that! Many thanks for the good advice! You'd like me to look after a bloated aristocrat's geese and then sit on the steps and eat dry bread to the smell of the roast bird, would you? No, thank you! And even if I did--what then? You may be quite sure they'd keep a good watch on a fellow, if he tried an honest job, and it wouldn't be two days before the shadow was there. 'What's this about Ferdinand? I hear things are not all square with him. I'm sorry, for he's really worked well; but he'd better look out for another place.' That's what the decent ones would do; the others would simply wait until his wages were due and take something off--because he'd been in once. They could never be sure that he hadn't stolen something from them, could they? and it's best to be careful! If you make a fuss, you're called a thief to your face. I've tried it, let me tell you!

And now you can try it yourself. You'll be in again as soon as ever the spring comes! The worst of it is that it gets more every time; a fellow like me may get five years for stealing five krones (five shillings).

Isn't that a shame? So it's just as well to do something to make it worth while. It wouldn't matter if you could only get a good hit at it all. It's all one to me now that mother's dead. There's a child crying, but it's not for me. There isn't a soul that would shed a tear if I had to lay my head on the block. They'd come and stare, that's what they'd do--and I should get properly into the papers!

"Wicked? Of course I'm wicked! Sometimes I feel like one great sore, and would like to let them hear all about it. There's no such thing as gentle hands. That's only a lie, so I owe nothing to anybody. Several times while I've been in there I've made up my mind to kill the warder, just so as to have a hit at something; for he hadn't done me any harm.

But then I thought after all it was stupid. I'd no objection to kick the bucket; it would be a pleasant change anyhow to sitting in prison all one's life. But then you'd want to do something first that would make a stir. That's what I feel!"

They walked on at a good pace, their faces turned in the direction of the smoky mist of the town far ahead, Ferdinand chewing his quid and spitting incessantly. His hardened, bulldog face with its bloodshot eyes was entirely without expression now that he was silent.

A peasant lad came toward them, singing at the top of his voice. He must have been about twelve or fourteen years of age.

"What are you so happy about, boy?" asked Ferdinand, stopping him.

"I took a heifer into the town, and I got two krones (two shillings) for the job," answered the boy, smiling all over his face.

"You must have been up early then," said Pelle.

"Yes, I left home at three last night. But now I've earned a day's wages, and can take it easy the rest of the day!" answered the boy, throwing the two-krone piece into the air and catching it again.

"Take care you don't lose it," said Ferdinand, following the coin with covetous eyes.

The boy laughed merrily.

"Let's see whether it's a good one. They're a fearful lot of thieves on the market in there."

The boy handed him the coin. "Ah, yes, it's one of those that you can break in half and make two of," said Ferdinand, doing a few juggling tricks with it. "I suppose I may keep one?" His expression had become lively and he winked maliciously at Pelle as he stood playing with the coin so that it appeared to be two. "There you are; that's yours," he said, pressing the piece of money firmly into the boy's hand. "Take good care of it, so that you don't get a scolding from your mother."

The boy opened his empty hand in wonderment. "Give me my two-krone!" he said, smiling uncertainly.

"What the devil--I've given it you once!" said Ferdinand, pushing the boy aside roughly and beginning to walk on.

The boy followed him and begged persistently for his money. Then he began to cry.

"Give him his money!" said Pelle crossly. "It's not amusing now."

"Amusing?" exclaimed Ferdinand, stopping abruptly and gazing at him in amazement. "Do you think I play for small sums? What do I care about the boy! He may take himself off; I'm not his father."

Pelle looked at him a moment without comprehending; then he took a paper containing a few silver coins out of his waistcoat pocket, and handed the boy two krones. The boy stood motionless with amazement for a moment, but then, seizing the money, he darted away as quickly as he could go.

Ferdinand went on, growling to himself and blinking his eyes. Suddenly he stopped and exclaimed: "I'll just tell you as a warning that if it wasn't you, and because I don't want to have this day spoiled, I'd have cracked your skull for you; for no one else would have played me that trick. Do you understand?" And he stood still again and pushed his heavy brow close to Pelle's face.

Quick as thought, Pelle seized him by his collar and trousers, and threw him forcibly onto a heap of stones. "That's the second time to-day that you've threatened to crack my skull," he said in fury, pounding Ferdinand's head against the stones. For a few moments he held him down firmly, but then released him and helped him to rise. Ferdinand was crimson in the face, and stood swaying, ready to throw himself upon Pelle, while his gaze wandered round in search of a weapon. Then he hesitatingly drew the two-krone piece out of his pocket, and handed it to Pelle in sign of subjection.

"You may keep it," said Pelle condescendingly.

Ferdinand quickly pocketed it again, and began to brush the mud off his clothes. "The skilly in there doesn't seem to have weakened you much,"

he said, shaking himself good-naturedly as they went on. "You've still got a confounded hard hand. But what I can't understand is why you should be so sorry for a hobbledehoy like that. He can take care of himself without us."

"Weren't you once sorry too for a little fellow when some one wanted to take his money away from him?"

"Oh, that little fellow in the 'Ark' who was going to fetch the medicine for his mother? That's such a long time ago!"

"You got into difficulties with the police for his sake! It was the first time you were at odds with the authorities, I think."

"Well, the boy hadn't done anything; I saw that myself. So I hobbled the copper that was going to run him in. His mother was ill--and my old 'un was alive; and so I was a big idiot! You'll see you won't get far with your weak pity. Do we owe any one anything, I should like to know?"

"Yes, _I_ do," said Pelle, suddenly raising his face toward the light.

"But I can't say you've much to thank any one for."

"What confounded nonsense!" exclaimed Ferdinand, staring at him. "Have they been good to you, did you say? When they shut you up in prison too, perhaps? You're pretending to be good, eh? You stop that! You'll have to go farther into the country with it. So you think you deserved your house-of-correction turn, while another was only suffering the blackest injustice? Nonsense! They know well enough what they're doing when they get hold of me, but they might very well have let you off. You got together fifty thousand men, but what did you all do, I should like to know? You didn't make as much disturbance as a mouse in a pair of lady's unmentionables. Well-to-do people are far more afraid of me than of you and all your fellows together. Injustice! Oh, shut up and don't s...o...b..r!

You give no quarter, and you don't ask any either: that's all. And by the way, you might do me the favor to take back your two-krone. _I_ don't owe any one anything."

"Well, borrow it, then," said Pelle. "You can't go to town quite without money."

"Do take it, won't you?" begged Ferdinand. "It isn't so easy for you to get hold of any as for any one else, and it was a little too mean the way I got it out of you. You've been saving it up in there, a halfpenny a day, and perhaps gone without your quid, and I come and cheat you out of it! No, confound it! And you gave mother a little into the bargain; I'd almost forgotten it! Well, never mind the tin then! I know a place where there's a good stroke of business to be done."

A little above Damhus Lake they turned into a side road that led northward, in order to reach the town from the Norrebro side. Far down to the right a great cloud of smoke hung in the air. It was the atmosphere of the city. As the east wind tore off fragments of it and carried them out, Ferdinand lifted his bull-dog nose and sniffed the air. "Wouldn't I like to be sitting in the 'Cupping-Gla.s.s' before a horse-steak with onions!" he said.

By this time the afternoon was well advanced. They broke sticks out of a hedge and went on steadily, following ditches and dikes as best they could. The plough was being driven over the fields, backward and forward, turning up the black earth, while crows and sea-birds fought in the fresh furrows. The ploughmen put the reins round their waist each time they came to the end of their line, threw the plough over and brought it into position for a new furrow, and while they let their horses take breath, gazed afar at the two strange spring wayfarers.

There was such a foreign air about their clothes that they must be two of that kind of people that go on foot from land to land, they thought; and they called after them sc.r.a.ps of foreign sentences to show they knew something about them. Ah, yes! They were men who could look about them!

Perhaps by to-morrow those two would be in a foreign country again, while other folk never left the place they were once in!

They pa.s.sed a white house standing in stately seclusion among old trees, a high hawthorn hedge screening the garden from the road. Ferdinand threw a hasty glance over the gate. The blinds were all down! He began to be restless, and a little farther on he suddenly slipped in behind a hedge and refused to go any farther. "I don't care to show myself in town empty-handed," he said. "And besides evening's the best time to go in at full speed. Let's wait here until it's dark. I can smell silver in that house we pa.s.sed."

"Come on now and let those fancies alone," said Pelle earnestly. "A new life begins from to-day. I'll manage to help you to get honest work!"

Ferdinand broke into laughter. "Good gracious me! You help others! You haven't tried yet what it is to come home from prison! You'll find it hard enough to get anywhere yourself, my good fellow. New life, ha, ha!

No; just you stay here and we'll do a little business together when it gets dark. The house doesn't look quite squint-eyed. Then this evening we can go to the 'Cupping-Gla.s.s' and have a jolly good spree, and act the home-coming American. Besides it's not right to go home without taking something for your family. Just you wait! You should see 'Laura with the Arm' dance! She's my cupboard-love, you know. She can dance blindfold upon a table full of beer-mugs without spilling a drop. There might be a little kiss for you too.--Hang it!--you don't surely imagine you'll be made welcome anywhere else, do you? I can tell you there's no one who'll stand beckoning you home.--Very well, then go to the devil, you fool, and remember me to your monthly nurse! When you're tired of family life, you can ask for me at my address, the 'Cupping-Gla.s.s'." His hoa.r.s.e, hollow voice cut through the clear spring air as he shouted the last words with his hand to his mouth.

Pelle went on quickly, as though anxious to leave something behind him.

He had had an insane hope of being received in some kind way or other when he came out--comrades singing, perhaps, or a woman and two children standing on the white highroad, waiting for him! And there had only been Ferdinand to meet him! Well, it had been a damper, and now he shook off the disappointment and set out at a good pace. The active movement set his pulses beating. The sky had never before been so bright as it was to-day; the sun shone right into his heart. There was a smiling greeting in it all--in the wind that threw itself into his very arms, in the fresh earth and in the running water in the ditches. Welcome back again, Pelle!

How wide and fair the world looks when you've spent years within four bare walls! Down in the south the clouds were like the breast of a great bright bird, one of those that come a long way every year with summer in the beat of their strong wings; and on all sides lay the open, white roads, pointing onward with bright a.s.surances.

For the fourth time he was setting out to conquer the world, and this time it was in bitter earnest. There had always before proved to be something more behind, but now he felt that what he should now set out upon would be decisive; if he was victorious now, he would conquer eternity. This time it must be either for weal or woe, and all that he possessed he was now bringing into the field. He had never before been so heavily equipped. Far off he could still make out the dome of the prison, which stood there like a huge mill over the descent to the nether world, and ground misery into crime in the name of humanity.

It sucked down every one who was exposed to life's uncertainty; he had himself hung in the funnel and felt how its whirling drew him down.

But Pelle had been too well equipped. Hitherto he had successfully converted everything into means of rising, and he took this in the same way. His hair was no longer fair, but, on the other hand, his mind was magically filled with a secret knowledge of the inner nature of things, for he had sat at the root of all things, and by listening had drawn it out of the solitude. He had been sitting moping in the dark mountain like Prince Fortune, while Eternity sang to him of the great wonder. The spirits of evil had carried him away into the mountains; that was all.

And now they had set him free again, believing that he had become a troll like all his predecessors. But Pelle was not bewitched. He had already consumed many things in his growth, and this was added to the rest. What did a little confinement signify as compared with the slow drip, drip, of centuries? Had he not been born with a caul, upon which neither steel nor poison made any impression?

He sat down on an elevation, pulled off his cap, and let the cool breeze play upon his forehead. It was full of rich promises; in its vernal wandering over the earth it had gathered up all that could improve and strengthen, and loaded him with it. Look around you, Pelle!

On all sides the soil was being prepared, the plough-teams nodded up the gentle inclines and disappeared down the other side. A thin vapor rose from the soil; it was the last of the cold evaporating in the declining spring day. Some way down a few red cottages smilingly faced the sunset, and still farther on lay the town with its eternal cloud of smoke hanging over it.

What would his future be like down there? And how did matters stand? Had the new made its way to the front, or would he once more have to submit to an extortioner, get only the bare necessaries of life out of his work, and see the rest disappear into some one else's pocket? A number of new factories had grown up, and now formed quite a belt about the city, with their hundreds of giant chimneys stretching up into the sky.

But something must be going on, since they were not smoking. Was it a wages conflict?