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

it about you, especially when you go up there! And then⁠—yes, then we must leave the rest in God’s hand. He’s the only one who perhaps looks after poor little boys.”

Lasse was up for a short while that day. He was getting on quickly, thank God, and in two days they might be back in their old ways again. And next winter they must try to get away from it all!

On the last day that Pelle stayed at home, he went up to the mistress as usual, and ran her errand for her. And that day he saw something unpleasant that made him glad that this was over. She took her teeth, palate, and everything out of her mouth, and laid them on the table in front of her!

So she was a witch!

XIII

Pelle was coming home with his young cattle. As he came near the farm he issued his commands in a loud voice, so that his father might hear. “Hi! Spasianna! where are you going to? Dannebrog, you confounded old ram, will you turn round!” But Lasse did not come to open the gate of the enclosure.

When he had got the animals in, he ran into the cow-stable. His father was neither there nor in their room, and his Sunday wooden shoes and his woollen cap were gone. Then Pelle remembered that it was Saturday, and that probably the old man had gone to the shop to fetch spirits for the men.

Pelle went down into the servants’ room to get his supper. The men had come home late, and were still sitting at the table, which was covered with spilt milk and potato-skins. They were engrossed in a wager; Erik undertook to eat twenty salt herrings with potatoes after he had finished his meal. The stakes were a bottle of spirits, and the others were to peel the potatoes for him.

Pelle got out his pocketknife and peeled himself a pile of potatoes. He left the skin on the herring, but scraped it carefully and cut off the head and tail; then he cut it in pieces and ate it without taking out the bones, with the potatoes and the sauce. While he did so, he looked at Erik⁠—the giant Erik, who was so strong and was not afraid of anything between heaven and earth. Erik had children all over the place! Erik could put his finger into the barrel of a gun, and hold the gun straight out at arm’s length! Erik could drink as much as three others!

And now Erik was sitting and eating twenty salt herrings after his hunger was satisfied. He took the herring by the head, drew it once between his legs, and then ate it as it was; and he ate potatoes to them, quite as quickly as the others could peel them. In between whiles he swore because the bailiff had refused him permission to go out that evening; there was going to be the devil to pay about that: he’d teach them to keep Erik at home when he wanted to go out!

Pelle quickly swallowed his herring and porridge, and set off again to run to meet his father; he was longing immensely to see him. Out at the pump the girls were busy scouring the milk-pails and kitchen pans; and Gustav was standing in the lower yard with his arms on the fence, talking to them. He was really watching Bodil, whose eyes were always following the new pupil, who was strutting up and down and showing off his long boots with patent-leather tops.

Pelle was stopped as he ran past, and set to pump water. The men now came up and went across to the barn, perhaps to try their strength. Since Erik had come, they always tried their strength in their free time. There was nothing Pelle found so exciting as trials of strength, and he worked hard so as to get done and go over there.

Gustav, who was generally the most eager, continued to stand and vent his ill-nature upon the pupil.

“There must be money there!” said Bodil, thoughtfully.

“Yes, you should try him; perhaps you might become a farmer’s wife. The bailiff won’t anyhow; and the farmer⁠—well, you saw the Sow the other day; it must be nice to have that in prospect.”

“Who told you that the bailiff won’t?” answered Bodil sharply. “Don’t imagine that we need you to hold the candle for us! Little children aren’t allowed to see everything.”

Gustav turned red. “Oh, hold your jaw, you hussy!” he muttered, and sauntered down to the barn.

“Oh, goodness gracious, my poor old mother,
Who’s up on deck and can’t stand!”

sang Mons over at the stable door, where he was standing hammering at a cracked wooden shoe. Pelle and the girls were quarreling, and up in the attic the bailiff could be heard going about; he was busy putting pipes in order. Now and then a long-drawn sound came from the high house, like the distant howling of some animal, making the people shudder with dreariness.

A man dressed in his best clothes, and with a bundle under his arm, slipped out of the door from the men’s rooms, and crept along by the building in the lower yard. It was Erik.

“Hi, there! Where the devil are you going?” thundered a voice from the bailiff’s window. The man ducked his head a little and pretended not to hear. “Do you hear, you confounded Kabyle! Erik!” This time Erik turned and darted in at a barn-door.

Directly after the bailiff came down and went across the yard. In the chaff-cutting barn the men were standing laughing at Erik’s bad luck. “He’s a devil for keeping watch!” said Gustav. “You must be up early to get the better of him.”

“Oh, I’ll manage to dish him!” said Erik. “I wasn’t born yesterday. And if he doesn’t mind his own business, we shall come to blows.”

There was a sudden silence as the bailiff’s well-known step was heard upon the stone paving.