Pelle the Conqueror by Martin Andersen Nexø (great novels to read .TXT) 📕

came rushing up from the basement and forced her way through the crowd, crimson with rage and scolding as she went. On her freckled neck and arms were brown marks left by the cows’ tails at the last milking, looking like a sort of clumsy tattooing. She flung her slipper in the pupil’s face, and going up to Pelle, wrapped him in her coarse apron and carried him down to the basement.

When Lasse heard what had happened to the boy, he took a hammer and went round to kill the farm pupil; and the look in the old man’s eyes was such that no one desired to get in his way. The pupil had thought his wisest course was to disappear; and when Lasse found no vent for his wrath, he fell into a fit of trembling and weeping, and became so really ill that the men had to administer a good mouthful of spirits to revive him. This took instant effect, and Lasse was himself again and able to nod consolingly to the frightened, sobbing Pelle.

“Never mind, laddie!” he said comfortingly. “Never mind! No one has ever yet got off without being punished, and Lasse’ll break that long limb of Satan’s head and make his brains spurt out of his nose; you take my word for it!”

Pelle’s face brightened at the prospect of this forcible redress, and he crept up into the loft to throw down the hay for the cattle’s midday meal. Lasse, who was not so fond of climbing, went down the long passage between the stalls distributing the hay. He was cogitating over something, and Pelle could hear him talking to himself all the time. When they had finished, Lasse went to the green chest and brought out a black silk handkerchief that had been Bengta’s Sunday best. His expression was solemn as he called Pelle.

“Run over to Karna with this and ask her to accept it. We’re not so poor that we should let kindness itself go from us empty-handed. But you mustn’t let anyone see it, in case they didn’t like it. Mother Bengta in her grave won’t be offended; she’d have proposed it herself, if she could have spoken; but her mouth’s full of earth, poor thing!” Lasse sighed deeply.

Even then he stood for a little while with the handkerchief in his hand before giving it to Pelle to run with. He was by no means as sure of Bengta as his words made out; but the old man liked to beautify her memory, both in his own and in the boy’s mind. It could not be denied that she had generally been a little difficult in a case of this kind, having been particularly jealous; and she might take it into her head to haunt them because of that handkerchief. Still she had had a heart for both him and the boy, and it was generally in the right place⁠—they must say that of her! And for the rest, the Lord must judge her as kindly as He could.

During the afternoon it was quiet on the farm. Most of the men were out somewhere, either at the inn or with the quarrymen at the stone-quarry. The master and mistress were out too; the farmer had ordered the carriage directly after dinner and had driven to the town, and half an hour later his wife set off in the pony-carriage⁠—to keep an eye on him, people said.

Old Lasse was sitting in an empty cow-stall, mending Pelle’s clothes, while the boy played up and down the foddering passage. He had found in the herdsman’s room an old bootjack, which he placed under his knee, pretending it was a wooden leg, and all the time he was chattering happily, but not quite so loudly as usual, to his father. The morning’s experience was still fresh in his mind, and had a subduing effect; it was as if he had performed some great deed, and was now nervous about it. There was another circumstance, too, that helped to make him serious. The bailiff had been over to say that the animals were to go out the next day. Pelle was to mind the young cattle, so this would be his last free day, perhaps for the whole summer.

He paused outside the stall where his father sat. “What are you going to kill him with, father?”

“With the hammer, I suppose.”

“Will you kill him quite dead, as dead as a dog?”

Lasse’s nod boded ill to the pupil. “Yes, indeed I shall!”

“But who’ll read the names for us then?”

The old man shook his head pensively. “That’s true enough!” he exclaimed, scratching himself first in one place and then in another. The name of each cow was written in chalk above its stall, but neither Lasse nor Pelle could read. The bailiff had, indeed, gone through the names with them once, but it was impossible to remember half a hundred names after hearing them once⁠—even for the boy, who had such an uncommon good memory. If Lasse now killed the pupil, then who would help them to make out the names? The bailiff would never stand their going to him and asking him a second time.

“I suppose we shall have to content ourselves with thrashing him,” said Lasse meditatively.

The boy went on playing for a little while, and then once more came up to Lasse.

“Don’t you think the Swedes can thrash all the people in the world, father?”

The old man looked thoughtful. “Ye-es⁠—yes, I should think so.”

“Yes, because Sweden’s much bigger than the whole world, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s big,” said Lasse, trying to imagine its extent. There were twenty-four provinces, of which Malmohus was only one, and Ystad district a small part of that again; and then in one corner of Ystad district lay Tommelilla, and his holding that he had once thought so big with its five acres of land, was a tiny little piece of Tommelilla! Ah, yes, Sweden was big⁠—not bigger than the whole world, of course,