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

they sat upon the men’s knees in the long summer evenings, and a lovesick fellow from inland had made up a ballad about it, which Gustav sang to his concertina. Then all the girls on the farm wept, and even Lively Sara’s eyes filled with tears, and she began to talk to Mons about engagement rings.

One day when Pelle was lying on his face in the grass, singing and clapping his naked feet together in the clear air, he saw a young man standing by the cairn and putting on it stones which he took out of his pocket; after which he knelt down. Pelle went up to him.

“What are you doing?” he asked boldly, feeling that he was in his own domain. “Are you saying your prayers?”

The man did not answer, but remained in a kneeling posture. At last he rose, and spat out tobacco-juice.

“I’m praying to Him Who is to judge us all,” he said, looking steadily at Pelle.

Pelle recognized that look. It was the same in expression as that of the man the other day⁠—the one that had been sent by God. Only there was no reproach in it.

“Haven’t you any bed to sleep in then?” asked Pelle. “I always say my prayers under the clothes. He hears them just as well! God knows everything.”

The young man nodded, and began moving about the stones on the cairn.

“You mustn’t hurt that,” said Pelle firmly, “for there’s a little baby buried there.”

The young man turned upon him a strange look.

“That’s not true!” he said thickly; “for the child lies up in the churchyard in consecrated earth.”

“O-oh, inde-ed?” said Pelle, imitating his father’s slow tones. “But I know it was the parents that drowned it⁠—and buried it here.” He was too proud of his knowledge to relinquish it without a word.

The man looked as if he were about to strike him, and Pelle retreated a little, and then, having confidence in his legs, he laughed openly. But the other seemed no longer aware of his presence, and stood looking dully past the cairn. Pelle drew nearer again.

The man started at Pelle’s shadow, and heaved a deep sigh. “Is that you?” he said apathetically, without looking at Pelle. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“It’s my field,” said Pelle, “because I herd here; but you may stay here if you won’t hit me. And you mustn’t touch the cairn, because there’s a little baby buried there.”

The young man looked gravely at Pelle. “It’s not true what you say! How dare you tell such a lie? God hates a lie. But you’re a simple-hearted child, and I’ll tell you all about it without hiding anything, as truly as I only want to walk wholly in God’s sight.”

Pelle looked at him uncomprehendingly. “I should think I ought to know all about it,” he said, “considering I know the whole song by heart. I can sing it to you, if you like. It goes like this.” Pelle began to sing in a voice that was a little tremulous with shyness⁠—

“So happy are we in our childhood’s first years,
Neither sorrow nor sin is our mead;
We play, and there’s nought in our path to raise fears
That it straight into prison doth lead.

Right many there are that with voice sorrowful
Must oft for lost happiness long.
To make the time pass in this prison so dull,
I now will write down all my song.

I played with my father, with mother I played,
And childhood’s days came to an end;
And when I had grown up into a young maid,
I played still, but now with my friend.

I gave him my day and I gave him my night,
And never once thought of deceit;
But when I him told of my sorrowful plight,
My trust I had cause to regret.

‘I never have loved you,’ he quickly did say;
‘Begone! I’ll ne’er see you again!’
He turned on his heel and went angry away.
’Twas then I a murd’ress became.”

Here Pelle paused in astonishment, for the grown-up man had sunk forward as he sat, and he was sobbing. “Yes, it was wicked,” he said. “For then she killed her child and had to go to prison.” He spoke with a certain amount of contempt; he did not like men that cried. “But it’s nothing that you need cry about,” he added carelessly, after a little.

“Yes, it is; for she’d done nothing. It was the child’s father that killed it; it was me that did the dreadful thing; yes, I confess that I’m a murderer! Haven’t I openly enough acknowledged by wrongdoing?” He turned his face upward, as though he were speaking to God.

“Oh, was it you?” said Pelle, moving a little away from him. “Did you kill your own child? Father Lasse could never have done that! But then why aren’t you in prison? Did you tell a lie, and say she’d done it?”

These words had a peculiar effect upon the fisherman. Pelle stood watching him for a little, and then exclaimed: “You do talk so queerly⁠—‘blop-blop-blop,’ just as if you were from another country. And what do you scrabble in the air with your fingers for, and cry? Will you get a thrashing when you get home?”

At the word “cry,” the man burst into a flood of tears. Pelle had never seen anyone cry so unrestrainedly. His face seemed all blurred.

“Will you have a piece of my bread-and-butter?” he asked, by way of offering comfort. “I’ve got some with sausage on.”

The fisherman shook his head.

Pelle looked at the cairn. He was obstinate, and determined not to give in.

“It is buried there,” he said. “I’ve seen its soul myself, burning up on the top of the heap at night. That’s because it can’t get into heaven.”

A horrible sound came from the fisherman’s lips, a hollow groan that brought Pelle’s little heart into his mouth. He began to jump up and down in fear, and when he recovered his senses and stopped, he saw the fisherman running with head bent low across