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

made a disdainful gesture. “That’ll help a lot! If they merely throw a handful of dynamite among the soldiers there won’t be a trouser-button left whole! No, they’ll conquer the capital now!” His cheeks glowed: he saw the event already in his mind’s eye. “Yes, and then? Then they’ll plunder the royal Mint!”

“Yes⁠—no. Then they’ll come over here⁠—the whole party!”

“Come over here? No, by God! We’d call out all the militia and shoot them down from the shore. I’ve put my gun in order already!”

One day Marker came running in. “The pastrycook’s got a new journeyman from over yonder⁠—and he’s a Social Democrat!” he cried breathlessly. “He came yesterday evening by the steamer.” Baker Jörgen had also heard the news.

“Yes, now they’re on you!” said Jeppe, as one announcing disaster. “You’ve all been trifling with the new spirit of the times. This would have been something for Bjerregrav to see⁠—him with his compassion for the poor!”

“Let the tailor rest in peace in his grave,” said Wooden-leg Larsen, in a conciliatory tone. “You mustn’t blame him for the angry masses that exist today. He wanted nothing but people’s good⁠—and perhaps these people want to do good, too!”

“Good!” Jeppe was loud with scorn. “They want to overturn law and order, and sell the fatherland to the Germans! They say the sum is settled already, and all!”

“They say they’ll be let into the capital during the night, when our own people are asleep,” said Marker.

“Yes,” said Master Andres solemnly. “They’ve let out that the key’s hidden under the mat⁠—the devils!” Here Baker Jörgen burst into a shout of laughter; his laughter filled the whole workshop when he once began.

They guessed what sort of a fellow the new journeyman might be. No one had seen him yet. “He certainly has red hair and a red beard,” said Baker Jörgen. “That’s the good God’s way of marking those who have signed themselves to the Evil One.”

“God knows what the pastrycook wants with him,” said Jeppe. “People of that sort can’t do anything⁠—they only ask. I’ve heard the whole lot of them are freethinkers.”

“What a lark!” The young master shook himself contentedly. “He won’t grow old here in the town!”

“Old?” The baker drew up his heavy body. “Tomorrow I shall go to the pastrycook and demand that he be sent away. I am commander of the militia, and I know all the townsfolk think as I do.”

Drejer thought it might be well to pray from the pulpit⁠—as in time of plague, and in the bad year when the field-mice infested the country.

Next morning Jörgen Kofod looked in on his way to the pastrycook’s. He was wearing his old militia coat, and at his belt hung the leather wallet in which flints for the old flintlocks had been carried many years before. He filled his uniform well; but he came back without success. The pastrycook praised his new journeyman beyond all measure, and wouldn’t hear a word of sending him away. He was quite besotted. “But we shall buy there no more⁠—we must all stick to that⁠—and no respectable family can deal with the traitor in future.”

“Did you see the journeyman, Uncle Jörgen?” asked Master Andres eagerly.

“Yes, I saw him⁠—that is, from a distance! He had a pair of terrible, piercing eyes; but he shan’t bewitch me with his serpent’s glance!”

In the evening Pelle and the others were strolling about the market in order to catch a glimpse of the new journeyman⁠—there were a number of people there, and they were all strolling to and fro with the same object in view. But he evidently kept the house.

And then one day, toward evening, the master came tumbling into the workshop. “Hurry up, damn it all!” he cried, quite out of breath; “he’s passing now!” They threw down their work and stumbled along the passage into the best room, which at ordinary times they were not allowed to enter. He was a tall, powerful man, with full cheeks and a big, dashing moustache, quite as big as the master’s. His nostrils were distended, and he held his chest well forward. His jacket and wasitcoat were open, as though he wanted more air. Behind him slunk a few street urchins, in the hope of seeing something; they had quite lost their accustomed insolence, and followed him in silence.

“He walks as though the whole town belonged to him!” said Jeppe scornfully. “But we’ll soon finish with him here!”

XX

Out in the street someone went by, and then another, and then another; there was quite a trampling of feet. The young master knocked on the wall. “What in the world is it, Pelle?” He did not mean to get up that day.

Pelle ran out to seek information. “Jen’s father has got delirium⁠—he’s cleared the whole harbor and is threatening to kill them all!”

The master raised his head a little. “By God, I believe I shall get up!” His eyes were glistening; presently he had got into his clothes, and limped out of doors; they heard him coughing terribly in the cold.

Old Jeppe put his official cap in his pocket before he ran out; perhaps the authorities would be needed. For a time the apprentices sat staring at the door like sick birds; then they, too, ran out of the house.

Outside everything was in confusion. The wildest rumors were flying about as to what Stonemason Jörgensen had done. The excitement could not have been greater had a hostile squadron come to anchor and commenced to bombard the town. Everybody dropped what he was holding and rushed down to the harbor. The smaller side-streets were one unbroken procession of children and old women and small employers in their aprons. Old gouty seamen awoke from their decrepit slumber and hobbled away, their hands dropped to the back of their loins and their faces twisted with pain.

“Toot aroot aroot aroot.
All the pitchy snouts!”

A few street-urchins allowed themselves this little diversion, as Pelle came running by with the other apprentices; otherwise all