Norse Tales and Sketches Part 9

Thyra and Waldemar had also several times peeped out into the little kitchen, to see if their mother had come and had put the coffee-pot on the fire. But it was black under the kettle, and the air was so dark and the room so cold that they jumped into bed again.

When they opened the great gates of merchant Hansen's coalstore at Kristianshavn, Trofast sat there and shamefacedly looked askance; it was really a loathsome piece of work that they had set him to do.

In a corner, between two empty baskets, they found a bundle of rags, from which there came a faint moaning. There were a few drops of blood upon the snow, and close by there lay, untouched, a piece of sugared Vienna bread.

When the foreman understood the situation, he turned to Trofast to praise him. But Trofast had already gone home; the position was quite too uncomfortable for _him_.

They gathered her up, such as she was, wet and loathsome, and the foreman decided that she should be placed upon the first coal-cart going into town, and that they could stop at the hospital, so that the professor himself might see whether she was worth repairing.

About ten o'clock the merchant's family began to a.s.semble at the breakfast-table. Thyra came first. She hurried up to Trofast, patted and kissed him, and overwhelmed him with words of endearment.

But Trofast did not move his tail, and scarcely raised his eyes. He kept on licking his fore-paws, which were a little black after the coal.

'Good gracious, my dear mother!' cried Miss Thyra; 'Trofast is undoubtedly ill. Of course he has caught cold in the night; it was really horrid of father.'

But when Waldemar came in, he declared, with a knowing air, that Trofast was affronted.

All three now fell upon him with entreaties and excuses and kind words, but Trofast coldly looked from one to the other. It was clear that Waldemar was right.

Thyra then ran out for her father, and the merchant came in serious--somewhat solemn. They had just told him by telephone from the office how well Trofast had acquitted himself of his task, and, kneeling down on the hearthrug before Trofast, he thanked him warmly for the great service.

This mollified Trofast a good deal.

Still kneeling, with Trofast's paw in his hand, the merchant now told his family what had occurred during the night. That the thief was a hardened old woman, one of the very worst kind, who had even--just imagine it!--driven a pretty considerable trade in the stolen coal. She had been cunning enough to bribe the young watch-dog with a dainty piece of bread; but, of course, that was no use with Trofast.

'And that brings me to think how often a certain person, whom I do not wish to name, would rant about it being a shame that a beast should refuse bread, for which many a human being would be thankful. Do we not now see the good of that? Through that--ahem!--that peculiarity, Trofast was enabled to reveal an abominable crime; to contribute to the just punishment of evildoers, and thus benefit both us and society.'

'But, father,' exclaimed Miss Thyra, 'will you not promise me one thing?'

'What is that, my child?'

'That you will never again require such a service of Trofast. Rather let them steal a little.'

'That I promise you, Thyra; and you, too, my brave Trofast,' said the merchant, rising with dignity.

'Trofast is hungry,' said Waldemar, with his knowing air.

'Goodness, Thyra! fetch his cutlets!'

Thyra was about to rush down into the kitchen, but at that moment Stine came puffing upstairs with them.

Presumably, the professor did not find Mam Hansen worth repairing. At any rate, she was never seen again, and the children 'flowed quite over.' I do not know what became of them.

KAREN. [Footnote: The scene of this tale is laid in Denmark.]

There was once in Krarup Kro [Footnote: Kro, a country inn.] a girl named Karen. She had to wait upon all the guests, for the innkeeper's wife almost always went about looking for her keys. And there came many to Krarup Kro--folk from the surrounding district, who gathered in the autumn gloamings, and sat in the inn parlour drinking coffee-punches, usually without any definite object; and also travellers and wayfarers, who tramped in, blue and weather-beaten, to get something hot to carry them on to the next inn.

But Karen could manage everything all the same, although she walked about so quietly, and never seemed in a hurry.

She was small and slim, quite young, grave and silent, so that with her there was no amus.e.m.e.nt for the commercial travellers. But decent folks who went into the tavern in earnest, and who set store on their coffee being served promptly and scalding hot, thought a great deal of Karen.

And when she slipped quietly forward among the guests with her tray, the unwieldy frieze-clad figures fell back with unaccustomed celerity to make way for her, and the conversation stopped for a moment. All had to look after her, she was so charming.

Karen's eyes were of that large gray sort which seem at once to look at one and to look far, far beyond, and her eyebrows were loftily arched, as if in wonder.

Therefore strangers thought she did not rightly understand what they asked for. But she understood very well, and made no mistakes. There was only something strange about her, as if she were looking for something far away, or listening, or waiting, or dreaming.

The wind came from the west over the low plains. It had rolled long, heavy billows across the Western Sea; [Footnote: German Ocean.] salt and wet with spray and foam, it had dashed in upon the coast. But on the high downs with the tall wrack-gra.s.s it had become dry and full of sand and somewhat tired, so that when it came to Krarup Kro it had quite enough to do to open the stable-doors.

But open they flew, and the wind filled the s.p.a.cious building, and forced its way in at the kitchen-door, which stood ajar. And at last there was such a pressure of air that the doors in the other end of the stable also burst open; and now the west wind rushed triumphantly right through the building, swinging the lantern that hung from the roof, whisking the ostler's cap out into the darkness, blowing the rugs over the horses' heads, and sweeping a white hen off the roost into the watering-trough. And the c.o.c.k raised a frightful screech, and the ostler swore, and the hens cackled, and in the kitchen they were nearly smothered with smoke, and the horses grew restless, and struck sparks from the stones. Even the ducks, which had huddled themselves together near the mangers, so as to be first at the spilt corn, began quacking; and the wind howled through the stable with a h.e.l.lish din, until a couple of men came out from the inn parlour, set their broad backs against the doors and pressed them to again, while the sparks from their great tobacco-pipes flew about their beards.

After these achievements the wind plunged down into the heather, ran along the deep ditches, and took a substantial grip of the mail-coach, which it met half a mile from the town.

'He is always in a devil of a hurry to get to Krarup Kro!' growled Anders, the postboy, cracking his whip over the perspiring horses.

For this was certainly the twentieth time that the guard had lowered the window to shout something or other up to Anders. First it was a friendly invitation to a coffee-punch in the inn; but each time the friendliness became scantier, until at last the window was let down with a bang, and out sped some brief but expressive remarks about both driver and horses, which Anders, at all events, could not have cared to hear.

Meanwhile the wind swept low along the ground, and sighed long and strangely in the dry cl.u.s.ters of heather. The moon was full, but so densely beclouded that only a pale hazy s.h.i.+mmer hovered over the night.

Behind Krarup Kro lay a peat moss, dark with black turf-stacks and dangerous deep pits. And among the heathery mounds there wound a strip of gra.s.s that looked like a path; but it was no path, for it stopped on the very brink of a turf-pit that was larger than the others, and deeper also.

In this gra.s.sy strip the fox lay and lurked, quite flat, and the hare bounded lightly over the heather.

It was easy for the fox to calculate that the hare would not describe a wide circle so late in the evening. It cautiously raised its pointed nose and made an estimate; and as it sneaked back before the wind, to find a good place from which it could see where the hare would finish its circuit and lie down, it self-complacently thought that the foxes were always getting wiser and wiser, and the hares more foolish than ever.

In the inn they were unusually busy, for a couple of commercial travellers had ordered roast hare; besides, the landlord was at an auction in Thisted, and Madame had never been in the habit of seeing to anything but the kitchen. But now it unfortunately chanced that the lawyer wanted to get hold of the landlord, and, as he was not at home, Madame had to receive a lengthy message and an extremely important letter, which utterly bewildered her.

By the stove stood a strange man in oilskins, waiting for a bottle of soda-water; two fish-buyers had three times demanded cognac for their coffee; the stableman stood with an empty lantern waiting for a light, and a tall, hard-featured countryman followed Karen anxiously with his eyes; he had to get sixty-three ore change out of a krone. [Footnote: A krone contains 100 ore, and is equal to 1 S. 1- d.]

But Karen went to and fro without hurrying herself, and without getting confused. One could scarcely understand how she kept account of all this. The large eyes and the wondering eyebrows were strained as if in expectation. She held her fine little head erect and steady, as if not to be distracted from all she had to think of. Her simple dress of blue serge had become too tight for her, so that the collar cut slightly into her neck, forming a little fold in the skin below the hair.

'These country girls are very white-skinned,' said one of the fish-buyers to the other. They were young men, and talked about Karen as connoisseurs.

At the window was a man who looked at the clock and said: 'The post comes early to-night.'

There was a rumbling of wheels on the paving-stones without, the stable-door was flung open, and the wind again rattled all the doors and drove smoke out of the stove.