Pelle the Conqueror Part 26

Thus the summer pa.s.sed, in continued war and friction with the bailiff, to whom, however, they dared do nothing when it came to the point. Then the disease struck inward, and they set upon one another. "It must come out somewhere," said La.s.se, who did not like this state of things, and vowed he would leave as soon as anything else offered, even if they had to run away from wages and clothes and everything.

"They're discontented with their wages, their working-hours are too long, and the food isn't good enough; they pitch it about and waste it until it makes one ill to see them, for anyhow it's G.o.d's gift, even if it might be better. And Erik's at the bottom of it all! He's forever boasting and bragging and stirring up the others the whole day long. But as soon as the bailiff is over him, he daren't do anything any more than the others; so they all creep into their holes. Father La.s.se is not such a cowardly wind-bag as any of them, old though he is.

"I suppose a good conscience is the best support. If you have it and have done your duty, you can look both the bailiff and the farmer--and G.o.d the Father, too--in the face. For you must always remember, laddie, not to set yourself up against those that are placed over you. Some of us have to be servants and others masters; how would everything go on if we who work didn't do our duty? You can't expect the gentlefolk to sc.r.a.pe up the dung in the cow-stable."

All this La.s.se expounded after they had gone to bed, but Pelle had something better to do than to listen to it. He was sound asleep and dreaming that he was Erik himself, and was thrashing the bailiff with a big stick.

XIV

In Pelle's time, pickled herring was the Bronholmer's most important article of food. It was the regular breakfast dish in all cla.s.ses of society, and in the lower cla.s.ses it predominated at the supper-table too--and sometimes appeared at dinner in a slightly altered form. "It's a bad place for food," people would say derisively of such-and-such a farm. "You only get herring there twenty-one times a week."

When the elder was in flower, well-regulated people brought out their salt-boxes, according to old custom, and began to look out to sea; the herring is fattest then. From the sloping land, which nearly everywhere has a glimpse of the sea, people gazed out in the early summer mornings for the homeward-coming boats. The weather and the way the boats lay in the water were omens regarding the winter food. Then the report would come wandering up over the island, of large hauls and good bargains.

The farmers drove to the town or the fishing-village with their largest wagons, and the herring-man worked his way up through the country from cottage to cottage with his horse, which was such a wretched animal that any one would have been legally justified in putting a bullet through its head.

In the morning, when Pelle opened the stable doors to the field, the mist lay in every hollow like a pale gray lake, and on the high land, where the smoke rose briskly from houses and farms, he saw men and women coming round the gable-ends, half-dressed, or in shirt or chemise only, gazing out to sea. He himself ran round the out-houses and peered out toward the sea which lay as white as silver and took its colors from the day. The red sails were hanging motionless, and looked like splashes of blood in the brightness of day; the boats lay deep in the water, and were slowly making their way homeward in response to the beat of the oars, dragging themselves along like cows that are near their time for bearing.

But all this had nothing to do with him and his. Stone Farm, like the poor of the parish, did not buy its herring until after the autumn, when it was as dry as sticks and cost almost nothing. At that time of year, herring was generally plentiful, and was sold for from twopence to twopence-halfpenny the fourscore as long as the demand continued. After that it was sold by the cartload as food for the pigs, or went on to the dungheap.

One Sunday morning late in the autumn, a messenger came running from the town to Stone Farm to say that now herring was to be had. The bailiff came down into the servants' room while they were at breakfast, and gave orders that all the working teams were to be harnessed. "Then you'll have to come too!" said Karl Johan to the two quarry drivers, who were married and lived up near the quarry, but came down for meals.

"No, our horses shan't come out of the stable for that!" said the drivers. "They and we drive only stone and nothing else." They sat for a little while and indulged in sarcasms at the expense of certain people who had not even Sunday at their own disposal, and one of them, as he stretched himself in a particularly irritating way, said: "Well, I think I'll go home and have a nap. It's nice to be one's own master once a week, at any rate." So they went home to wife and children, and kept Sunday holiday.

For a little while the men went about complaining; that was the regular thing. In itself they had no objection to make to the expedition, for it would naturally be something of a festivity. There were taverns enough in the town, and they would take care to arrange about that herring so that they did not get home much before evening. If the worst came to the worst, Erik could damage his cart in driving, and then they would be obliged to stay in town while it was being mended.

They stood out in the stable, and turned their purses inside out--big, solid, leather purses with steel locks that could only be opened by pressure on a secret mechanism; but they were empty.

"The deuce!" said Mons, peering disappointedly into his purse. "Not so much as the smell of a one-ore! There must be a leak!" He examined the seams, held it close up to his eyes, and at last put his ear to it.

"Upon my word, I seem to hear a two-krone talking to itself. It must be witchcraft!" He sighed and put his purse into his pocket.

"You, you poor devil!" said Anders. "Have you ever spoken to a two-krone? No, I'm the man for you!" He hauled out a large purse. "I've still got the ten-krone that the bailiff cheated me out of on May Day, but I haven't the heart to use it; I'm going to keep it until I grow old." He put his hand into the empty purse and pretended to take something out and show it. The others laughed and joked, and all were in good spirits with the thought of the trip to town.

"But Erik's sure to have some money at the bottom of his chest!" said one. "He works for good wages and has a rich aunt down below."

"No, indeed!" whined Erik. "Why, I have to pay for half a score of young brats who can't father themselves upon any one else. But Karl Johan must get it, or what's the good of being head man?"

"That's no use," said Karl Johan doubtfully. "If I ask the bailiff for an advance now when we're going to town, he'll say 'no' straight out. I wonder whether the girls haven't wages lying by."

They were just coming up from the cow-stable with their milk-pails.

"I say, girls," Erik called out to them. "Can't one of you lend us ten krones? She shall have twins for it next Easter; the sow farrows then anyhow."

"You're a nice one to make promises!" said Bengta, standing still, and they all set down their milk-pails and talked it over. "I wonder whether Bodil hasn't?" said Karna. "No," answered Maria, "for she sent the ten krones she had by her to her mother the other day."

Mons dashed his cap to the floor and gave a leap. "I'll go up to the Old Gentleman himself," he said.

"Then you'll come head first down the stairs, you may be sure!"

"The deuce I will, with my old mother lying seriously ill in the town, without a copper to pay for doctor or medicine! I'm as good a child as Bodil, I hope." He turned and went toward the stone steps, and the others stood and watched him from the stable-door, until the bailiff came and they had to busy themselves with the carts. Gustav walked about in his Sunday clothes with a bundle under his arm, and looked on.

"Why don't you get to work?" asked the bailiff. "Get your horses put in."

"You said yourself I might be free to-day," said Gustav, making a grimace. He was going out with Bodil.

"Ah, so I did! But that'll be one cart less. You must have a holiday another day instead."

"I can't do that."

"What the dee--And why not, may I ask?"

"Well, because you gave me a holiday to-day."

"Yes; but, confound it, man, when I now tell you you can take another day instead!"

"No, I can't do that."

"But why not, man? Is there anything pressing you want to do?"

"No, but I have been given a holiday to-day." It looked as if Gustav were grinning slyly, but it was only that he was turning the quid in his mouth. The bailiff stamped with anger.

"But I can go altogether if you don't care to see me," said Gustav gently.

The bailiff did not hear, but turned quickly. Experience had taught him to be deaf to that kind of offer in the busy season. He looked up at his window as if he had suddenly thought of something, and sprang up the stairs. They could manage him when they touched upon that theme, but his turn came in the winter, and then they had to keep silence and put up with things, so as to keep a roof over their heads during the slack time.

Gustav went on strutting about with his bundle, without putting his hand to anything. The others laughed at him encouragingly.

The bailiff came down again and went up to him. "Then put in the horses before you go," he said shortly, "and I'll drive yours."

An angry growl pa.s.sed from man to man. "We're to have the dog with us!"

they said in undertones to one another, and then, so that the bailiff should hear: "Where's the dog? We're to have the dog with us."

Matters were not improved by Mons coming down the steps with a beautifully pious expression, and holding a ten-krone note over his chest. "It's all one now," said Erik; "for we've got to have the dog with us!" Mons' face underwent a sudden change, and he began to swear.

They pulled the carts about without getting anything done, and their eyes gleamed with anger.

The bailiff came out upon the steps with his overcoat on. "Look sharp about getting the horses in!" he thundered.

The men of Stone Farm were just as strict about their order of precedence as the real inhabitants of the island, and it was just as complicated. The head man sat at the top of the table and helped himself first, he went first in mowing and reaping, and had the first girl to lay the load when the hay was taken in; he was the first man up, and went first when they set out for the fields, and no one might throw down his tools until he had done so. After him came the second man, the third, and so on, and lastly the day-laborers. When no great personal preference interfered, the head man was as a matter of course the sweetheart of the head girl, and so on downwards; and if one of them left, his successor took over the relation: it was a question of equilibrium. In this, however, the order of precedence was often broken, but never in the matter of the horses. Gustav's horses were the poorest, and no power in the world would have induced the head man or Erik to drive them, let alone the farmer himself.

The bailiff knew it, and saw how the men were enjoying themselves when Gustav's nags were put in. He concealed his irritation, but when they exultantly placed Gustav's cart hindmost in the row, it was too much for him, and he ordered it to be driven in front of the others.

"My horses aren't accustomed to go behind the tail-pullers!" said Karl Johan, throwing down his reins. It was the nickname for the last in the row. The others stood trying not to smile, and the bailiff was almost boiling over.

"If you're so bent upon being first, be it by all means," he said quietly. "I can very well drive behind you."

"No, my horses come after the head man's, not after the tail-puller's,"