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

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 today,” 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 de⁠⸺ And why not, may I ask?”

“Well, because you gave me a holiday today.”

“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 today.” 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 passed 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,” said Erik.

This was really a term of abuse in the way in which they used it, one after the other, with covert glances. If he was going to put up with this from the whole row, his position on the farm would be untenable.

“Yes, and mine go behind Erik’s,” began Anders now, “not after⁠—after Gustav’s,” he corrected himself quickly, for the bailiff had fixed his eyes upon him, and taken a step forward to knock him down.

The bailiff stood silent for a moment as if listening, the muscles of his arms quivering. Then he sprang into the cart.

“You’re all out of your senses today,” he said. “But now I’m going to drive first, and the man who dares to say a word against it shall have one between the eyes that will send him five days into next week!” So saying he swung out of the row, and Erik’s horses, which wanted to turn, received a cut from his whip that made them rear. Erik stormed at them.

The men went about crestfallen, and gave the bailiff time to get well ahead. “Well, I suppose we’d better see about starting now,” said Karl Johan at length, as he got into his wagon. The bailiff was already some way ahead; Gustav’s nags were doing their very best today, and seemed to like being in front. But Karl Johan’s horses were displeased, and hurried on; they did not approve of the new arrangement.

At the village shop they made a halt, and consoled themselves a little. When they started again, Karl Johan’s horses were refractory, and had to be quieted.

The report of the catch had spread through the country, and carts from other