Pelle the Conqueror, Martin Andersen Nexø [best fantasy books to read .TXT] 📗

the high windows and put a little more energy into his work; but weariness had the upper hand. He would have liked to take a little afternoon nap, but did not dare. All was quiet on the farm. Pelle had been sent on an errand to the village shop for the kitchen-folk, and all the men were in the fields covering up the last spring corn. Stone Farm was late with this.

The agricultural pupil now came out of the stable, which he had entered from the other side, so as to come upon Lasse unexpectedly. The bailiff had sent him. “Is that you, you nasty spy!” muttered Lasse when he saw him. “Some day I’ll kill you!” But he took off his cap with the deepest respect. The tall pupil went up the yard without looking at him, and began to talk nonsense with the maids down in the washhouse. He wouldn’t do that if the men were at home, the scarecrow!

Kongstrup came out on to the steps, and stood for a little while looking at the weather; then he went down to the cow-stable. How big he was! He quite filled the stable doorway. Lasse put down his fork and hastened in in case he was wanted.

“Well, how are you getting on, old man?” asked the farmer kindly. “Can you manage the work?”

“Oh, yes, I get through it,” answered Lasse; “but that’s about all. It’s a lot of animals for one man.”

Kongstrup stood feeling the hind quarters of a cow. “You’ve got the boy to help you, Lasse. Where is he, by the by? I don’t see him.”

“He’s gone to the village shop for the womenfolk.”

“Indeed? Who told him to go?”

“I think it was the mistress herself.”

“H’m. Is it long since he went?”

“Yes, some time. He ought soon to be back now.”

“Get hold of him when he comes, and send him up to me with the things, will you?”

Pelle was rather frightened at having to go up to the office, and besides the mistress had told him to keep the bottle well hidden under his smock. The room was very high, and on the walls hung splendid guns; and up upon a shelf stood cigar-boxes, one upon another, right up to the ceiling, just as if it were a tobacco-shop. But the strangest thing of all was that there was a fire in the stove, now, in the middle of May, and with the window open! It must be that they didn’t know how to get rid of all their money. But wherever were the money-chests?

All this and much more Pelle observed while he stood just inside the door upon his bare feet, not daring from sheer nervousness to raise his eyes. Then the farmer turned round in his chair, and drew him toward him by the collar. “Now let’s see what you’ve got there under your smock, my little man!” he said kindly.

“It’s brandy,” said Pelle, drawing forth the bottle. “The mistress said I wasn’t to let anyone see it.”

“You’re a clever boy,” said Kongstrup, patting him on the cheek. “You’ll get on in the world one of these days. Now give me the bottle and I’ll take it out to your mistress without letting anyone see.” He laughed heartily.

Pelle handed him the bottle⁠—there stood money in piles on the writing-table, thick round two-krone pieces one upon another! Then why didn’t Father Lasse get the money in advance that he had begged for?

The mistress now came in, and the farmer at once went and shut the window. Pelle wanted to go, but she stopped him. “You’ve got some things for me, haven’t you?” she said.

“I’ve received the things,” said Kongstrup. “You shall have them⁠—when the boy’s gone.”

But she remained at the door. She would keep the boy there to be a witness that her husband withheld from her things that were to be used in the kitchen; everyone should know it.

Kongstrup walked up and down and said nothing. Pelle expected he would strike her, for she called him bad names⁠—much worse than Mother Bengta when Lasse came home merry from Tommelilla. But he only laughed. “Now that’ll do,” he said, leading her away from the door, and letting the boy out.

Lasse did not like it. He had thought the farmer was interfering to prevent them all from making use of the boy, when he so much needed his help with the cattle; and now it had taken this unfortunate turn!

“And so it was brandy!” he repeated. “Then I can understand it. But I wonder how she dares set upon him like that when it’s with her the fault lies. He must be a good sort of fellow.”

“He’s fond of drink himself,” said Pelle, who had heard a little about the farmer’s doings.

“Yes, but a woman! That’s quite another thing. Remember they’re fine folk. Well, well, it doesn’t become us to find fault with our betters; we have enough to do in looking after ourselves. But I only hope she won’t send you on any more of her errands, or we may fall between two stools.”

Lasse went to his work. He sighed and shook his head while he dragged the fodder out. He was not at all happy.

III

There was something exhilarating in the wealth of sunshine that filled all space without the accompaniment of corresponding heat. The spring moisture was gone from the air, and the warm haze of summer had not yet come. There was only light⁠—light over the green fields and the sea beyond, light that drew the landscape in clear lines against the blue atmosphere, and breathed a gentle, pleasant warmth.

It was a day in the beginning of June⁠—the first real summer day; and it was Sunday.

Stone Farm lay bathed in sunshine. The clear golden light penetrated everywhere; and where it could not reach, dark colors trembled like a hot, secret breath out into the light. Open windows and doors looked like veiled eyes in the midst of the light, and where