Pelle the Conqueror Part 38

Pelle went through them slowly, and La.s.se repeated them one by one.

"What confounded names they did think of in those days!" he exclaimed, quite out of breath. "You can hardly get your tongue round them! But I shall manage them in time."

"What do you want to know them for, father?" asked Pelle suddenly.

"What do I want to know them for?" La.s.se scratched one ear. "Why, of course I--er--what a terrible stupid question! What do _you_ want to know them for? Learning's as good for the one to have as for the other, and in my youth they wouldn't let me get at anything fine like that. Do you want to keep it all to yourself?"

"No, for I wouldn't care a hang about all this prophet business if I didn't _have_ to."

La.s.se almost fainted with horror.

"Then you're the most wicked little cub I ever knew, and deserve never to have been born into the world! Is that all the respect you have for learning? You ought to be glad you were born in an age when the poor man's child shares in it all as well as the rich. It wasn't so in my time, or else--who knows--perhaps I shouldn't be going about here cleaning stables if I'd learned something when I was young. Take care you don't take pride in your own shame!"

Pelle half regretted his words now, and said, to clear himself: "I'm in the top form now!"

"Yes, I know that well enough, but that's no reason for your putting your hands in your trouser-pockets; while you're taking breath, the others eat the porridge. I hope you've not forgotten anything in the long Christmas holidays?"

"Oh, no, I'm sure I haven't!" said Pelle, with a.s.surance.

La.s.se did not doubt it either, but only made believe he did to take the boy in. He knew nothing more splendid than to listen to a rus.h.i.+ng torrent of learning, but it was becoming more and more difficult to get the laddie to contribute it. "How can you be sure?" he went on. "Hadn't you better see? It would be such a comfort to know that you hadn't forgotten anything--so much as you must have in your head."

Pelle felt flattered and yielded. He stretched out his legs, closed his eyes, and began to rock backward and forward. And the Ten Commandments, the Patriarchs, the Judges, Joseph and his brethren, the four major and the twelve minor prophets--the whole learning of the world poured from his lips in one long breath. To La.s.se it seemed as if the universe itself were whizzing round the white-bearded countenance of the Almighty. He had to bend his head and cross himself in awe at the amount that the boy's little head could contain.

"I wonder what it costs to be a student?" said La.s.se, when he once more felt earth beneath his feet.

"It must be expensive--a thousand krones, I suppose, at least," Pelle thought. Neither of them connected any definite idea with the number; it merely meant the insurmountably great.

"I wonder if it would be so terrible dear," said La.s.se. "I've been thinking that when we have something of our own--I suppose it'll come to something some day--you might go to Fris and learn the trade of him fairly cheap, and have your meals at home. We ought to be able to manage it that way."

Pelle did not answer; he felt no desire to be apprenticed to the clerk.

He had taken out his knife, and was cutting something on a post of one of the stalls. It represented the big bull with his head down to the ground, and its tongue hanging out of one corner of its mouth. One hoof right forward at its mouth indicated that the animal was pawing up the ground in anger. La.s.se could not help stopping, for now it was beginning to be like something. "That's meant to be a cow, isn't it?" he said. He had been wondering every day, as it gradually grew.

"It's Volmer that time he took you on his horns," said Pelle.

La.s.se could see at once that it was that, now that he had been told.

"It's really very like," he said; "but he wasn't so angry as you've made him! Well, well, you'd better get to work again; that there fooling can't make a living for a man."

La.s.se did not like this defect in the boy--making drawings with chalk or his penknife all over; there would soon not be a beam or a wall in the place that did not bear marks of one or the other. It was useless nonsense, and the farmer would probably be angry if he came into the stable and happened to see them. La.s.se had every now and then to throw cow-dung over the most conspicuous drawings, so that they should not catch the eye of people for whom they were not intended.

Up at the house, Kongstrup was just going in, leaning on his wife's arm. He looked pale but by no means thin. "He's still rather lame," said La.s.se, peeping out; "but it won't be long before we have him down here, so you'd better not quite destroy the post."

Pelle went on cutting.

"If you don't leave off that silly nonsense, I'll throw dirt over it!"

said La.s.se angrily.

"Then I'll draw you and Madam Olsen on the big gate!" answered Pelle roguishly.

"You--you'd better! I should curse you before my face, and get the parson to send you away--if not something worse!" La.s.se was quite upset, and went off down to the other end of the cow-stable and began the afternoon's cleaning, knocking and pulling his implements about. In his anger he loaded the wheelbarrow too full, and then could neither go one way nor the other, as his feet slipped.

Pelle came down with the gentlest of faces. "Mayn't I wheel the barrow out?" he said. "Your wooden shoes aren't so firm on the stones."

La.s.se growled some reply, and let him take it. For a very short time he was cross, but it was no good; the boy could be irresistible when he liked.

XXI

Pelle had been to confirmation-cla.s.s, and was now sitting in the servants' room eating his dinner--boiled herring and porridge. It was Sat.u.r.day, and the bailiff had driven into the town, so Erik was sitting over the stove. He never said anything of his own accord, but always sat and stared; and his eyes followed Pelle's movements backward and forward between his mouth and his plate. He always kept his eyebrows raised, as if everything were new to him; they had almost grown into that position.

In front of him stood a mug of beer in a large pool, for he drank constantly and spilt some every time.

Fair Maria was was.h.i.+ng up, and looked in every now and then to see if Pelle were finished. When he licked his horn spoon clean and threw it into the drawer, she came in with something on a plate: they had had roast loin of pork for dinner upstairs.

"Here's a little taste for you," she said. "I expect you're still hungry. What'll you give me for it?" She kept the plate in her hand, and looked at him with a coaxing smile.

Pelle was still very hungry--ravenous; and he looked at the t.i.tbit until his mouth watered. Then he dutifully put up his lips and Maria kissed him. She glanced involuntarily at Erik, and a gleam of something pa.s.sed over his foolish face, like a faint reminiscence.

"There sits that great gaby making a mess!" she said, scolding as she seized the beer-mug from him, held it under the edge of the table, and with her hand swept the spilt beer into it.

Pelle set to work upon the pork without troubling about anything else; but when she had gone out, he carefully spat down between his legs, and went through a small cleansing operation with the sleeve of his blouse.

When he was finished he went into the stable and cleaned out the mangers, while La.s.se curried the cows; it was all to look nice for Sunday. While they worked, Pelle gave a full account of the day's happenings, and repeated all that the parson had said. La.s.se listened attentively, with occasional little exclamations. "Think of that!"

"Well, I never!" "So David was a buck like that, and yet he walked in the sight of G.o.d all the same! Well, G.o.d's long-suffering is great--there's no mistake about that!"

There was a knock at the outer door. It was one of Kalle's children with the message that grandmother would like to bid them good-bye before she pa.s.sed away.

"Then she can't have long to live," exclaimed La.s.se. "It'll be a great loss to them all, so happy as they've been together. But there'll be a little more food for the others, of course."

They agreed to wait until they were quite finished, and then steal away; for if they asked to be let off early, they would not be likely to get leave for the funeral. "And that'll be a day's feasting, with plenty of food and drink, if I know anything of Brother Kalle!" said La.s.se.

When they had finished their work and had their supper, they stole out through the outside door into the field. La.s.se had heaped up the quilt, and put an old woolly cap just sticking out at the pillow-end; in a hurry it could easily be mistaken for the hair of a sleeper, if any one came to see. When they had got a little way, La.s.se had to go back once more to take precautions against fire.

It was snowing gently and silently, and the ground was frozen so that they could go straight on over everything. Now that they knew the way, it seemed no distance at all; and before they knew where they were, the fields came to an end and the rock began.

There was a light in the cottage. Kalle was sitting up waiting for them.

"Grandmother hasn't long to live," he said, more seriously than La.s.se ever remembered to have heard him speak before.

Kalle opened the door to grandmother's room, and whispered something, to which his wife answered softly out of the darkness.

"Oh, I'm awake," said the old woman, in a slow, monotonous voice. "You can speak out, for I am awake."

La.s.se and Pelle took off their leather shoes and went in in their stockings. "Good evening, grandmother!" they both said solemnly, "and the peace of G.o.d!" La.s.se added.

"Well, here I am," said the old woman, feebly patting the quilt. She had big woollen gloves on. "I took the liberty of sending for you for I haven't long to live now. How are things going on in the parish? Have there been any deaths?"

"No, not that I know of," answered La.s.se. "But you look so well, grandmother, so fat and rosy! We shall see you going about again in two or three days."

"Oh, I dare say!" said the old woman, smiling indulgently. "I suppose I look like a young bride after her first baby, eh? But thank you for coming; it's as if you belonged to me. Well, now I've been sent for, and I shall depart in peace. I've had a good time in this world, and haven't anything to complain of. I had a good husband and a good daughter, not forgetting Kalle there. And I got my sight back, so that I saw the world once more."