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

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. Everyone 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 nobody 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 Lasse.

“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 God 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 Lasse 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 Lasse 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 anyone, 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 Lasse 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 passage, and someone 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