Pelle the Conqueror Part 15

"Can you manage to feed the cow on it then?"

"Last year it was pretty bad. We had to pull the roof off the outhouse, and use it for fodder last winter; and it's thrown us back a little.

But dear me, it made the loft all the higher." Kalle laughed. "And now there'll always be more and more of the children getting able to keep themselves."

"Don't those who are grown up give a hand too?" asked La.s.se.

"How can they? When you're young, you can use what you've got yourself.

They must take their pleasures while there's time; they hadn't many while they were children, and once they're married and settled they'll have something else to think about. Albert is good enough when he's at home on a visit; last time he gave us ten krones and a krone to each of the children. But when they're out, you know how the money goes if they don't want to look mean beside their companions. Anna's one of those who can spend all they get on clothes. She's willing enough to do without, but she never has a farthing, and hardly a rag to her body, for all that she's for ever buying."

"No, she's the strangest creature," said her mother. "She never can make anything do."

The turn-up bedstead was shut to give room to sit round the table, and an old pack of cards was produced. Every one was to play except the two smallest, who were really too little to grasp a card; Kalle wanted, indeed, to have them too, but it could not be managed. They played beggar-my-neighbor and Black Peter. Grandmother's cards had to be read out to her.

The conversation still went on among the elder people.

"How do you like working for the farmer at Stone Farm?" asked Kalle.

"We don't see much of the farmer himself; he's pretty nearly always out, or sleeping after a night on the loose. But he's nice enough in other ways; and it's a house where they feed you properly."

"Well, there are places where the food's worse," said Kalle, "but there can't be many. Most of them, certainly, are better."

"Are they really?" asked La.s.se, in surprise. "Well, I don't complain as far as the food's concerned; but there's a little too much for us two to do, and then it's so miserable to hear that woman crying nearly the whole time. I wonder if he ill-treats her; they say not."

"I'm sure he doesn't," said Kalle. "Even if he wanted to--as you can very well understand he might--he dursn't. He's afraid of her, for she's possessed by a devil, you know."

"They say she's a were-wolf at night," said La.s.se, looking as if he expected to see a ghost in one of the corners.

"She's a poor body, who has her own troubles," said Maria, "and every woman knows a little what that means. And the farmer's not all kindness either, even if he doesn't beat her. She feels his unfaithfulness more than she'd feel anything else."

"Oh, you wives always take one another's part," said Kalle, "but other people have eyes too. What do _you_ say, grandmother? You know that better than any one else."

"Well, I know something about it at any rate," said the old woman. "I remember the time when Kongstrup came to the island as well as if it had been yesterday. He owned nothing more than the clothes he wore, but he was a fine gentleman for all that, and lived in Copenhagen."

"What did he want over here?" asked La.s.se.

"What did he want? To look for a young girl with money, I suppose. He wandered about on the heath here with his gun, but it wasn't foxes he was after. She was fooling about on the heath too, admiring the wild scenery, and nonsense like that, and behaving half like a man, instead of being kept at home and taught to spin and make porridge; but she was the only daughter, and was allowed to go on just as she liked. And then she meets this spark from the town, and they become friends. He was a curate or a pope, or something of the sort, so you can't wonder that the silly girl didn't know what she was doing."

"No, indeed!" said La.s.se.

"There's always been something all wrong with the women of that family,"

the old woman continued. "They say one of them once gave herself to Satan, and since then he's had a claim upon them and ill-treats them whenever the moon's waning, whether they like it or not. He has no power over the pure, of course; but when these two had got to know one another, things went wrong with her too. He must have noticed it, and tried to get off, for they said that the old farmer of Stone Farm compelled him with his gun to take her for his wife; and he was a hard old dog, who'd have shot a man down as soon as look at him. But he was a peasant through and through, who wore home-woven clothes, and wasn't afraid of working from sunrise to sunset. It wasn't like what it is now, with debts and drinking and card-playing, so people had something then."

"Well, now they'd like to thresh the corn while it's still standing, and they sell the calves before they're born," said Kalle. "But I say, grandmother, you're Black Peter!"

"That comes of letting one's tongue run on and forgetting to look after one's self!" said the old lady.

"Grandmother's got to have her face blacked!" cried the children. She begged to be let off, as she was just washed for the night; but the children blacked a cork in the stove and surrounded her, and she was given a black streak down her nose. Every one laughed, both old and young, and grandmother laughed with them, saying it was a good thing she could not see it herself. "It's an ill wind," she said, "that blows n.o.body any good. But I should like to have my sight again," she went on, "if it's only for five minutes, before I die. It would be nice to see it all once more, now that the trees and everything have grown so, as Kalle says they have. The whole country must have changed. And I've never seen the youngest children at all."

"They say that they can take blindness away over in Copenhagen," said Kalle to his brother.

"It would cost a lot of money, wouldn't it?" asked La.s.se.

"It would cost a hundred krones at the very least," the grandmother remarked.

Kalle looked thoughtful. "If we were to sell the whole blooming thing, it would be funny if there wasn't a hundred krones over. And then grandmother could have her sight again."

"Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed the old woman. "Sell your house and home! You must be out of your mind! Throw away a large capital upon an old, worn-out thing like me, that has one foot in the grave! I couldn't wish for anything better than what I have!" She had tears in her eyes.

"Pray G.o.d I mayn't bring about such a misfortune in my old age!"

"Oh, rubbish! We're still young," said Kalle. "We could very well begin something new, Maria and me."

"Have none of you heard how Jacob Kristian's widow is?" asked the old lady by way of changing the subject. "I've got it into my head that she'll go first, and then me. I heard the crow calling over there last night."

"That's our nearest neighbor on the heath," explained Kalle. "Is she failing now? There's been nothing the matter with her this winter that I know of."

"Well, you may be sure there's something," said the old woman positively. "Let one of the children run over there in the morning."

"Yes, if you've had warning. Jacob Kristian gave good enough warning himself when he went and died. But we were good friends for many years, he and me."

"Did he show himself?" asked La.s.se solemnly.

"No; but one night--nasty October weather it was--I was woke by a knocking at the outside door. That's a good three years ago. Maria heard it too, and we lay and talked about whether I should get up. We got no further than talking, and we were just dropping off again, when the knocking began again. I jumped up, put on a pair of trousers, and opened the door a crack, but there was no one there. 'That's strange!' I said to Maria, and got into bed again; but I'd scarcely got the clothes over me, when there was a knocking for the third time.

"I was cross then, and lighted the lantern and went round the house; but there was nothing either to be seen or heard. But in the morning there came word to say that Jacob Kristian had died in the night just at that time."

Pelle, who had sat and listened to the conversation, pressed close up to his father in fear; but La.s.se himself did not look particularly valiant.

"It's not always nice to have anything to do with the dead," he said.

"Oh, nonsense! If you've done no harm to any one, and given everybody their due, what can they do to you?" said Kalle. The grandmother said nothing, but sat shaking her head very significantly.

Maria now placed upon the table a jar of dripping and a large loaf of rye-bread.

"That's the goose," said Kalle, merrily sticking his sheath-knife into the loaf. "We haven't begun it yet. There are prunes inside. And that's goose-fat. Help yourselves!"

After that La.s.se and Pelle had to think about getting home, and began to tie handkerchiefs round their necks; but the others did not want to let them go yet. They went on talking, and Kalle made jokes to keep them a little longer. But suddenly he turned as grave as a judge; there was a low sound of crying out in the little pa.s.sage, and some one took hold of the handle of the door and let go of it again. "Upon my word, it's ghosts!" he exclaimed, looking fearfully from one to another.

The sound of crying was heard again, and Maria, clasping her hands together, exclaimed: "Why, it's Anna!" and quickly opened the door.

Anna entered in tears, and was attacked on all sides with surprised inquiries, to which her sobs were her only answer.

"And you've been given a holiday to come and see us at Christmas time, and you come home crying! You are a nice one!" said Kalle, laughing.

"You must give her something to suck, mother!"

"I've lost my place," the girl at last got out between her sobs.

"No, surely not!" exclaimed Kalle, in changed tones. "But what for? Have you been stealing? Or been impudent?"

"No, but the master accused me of being too thick with his son."