Part 60 (1/2)

And they stand there and stare--and wait; but let them wait; nothing happens, for now the 'Great Power' has got control of himself! And then all at once it's there behind! Hit away! Eight in the thick of the heap!

Send them all to h.e.l.l, the scoundrels! 'Cause a man must drink, in order to keep his energies in check.... Well, and there she sits! Can one of you lend me a krone?”

”Not I!” said Jens.

”No, not you--he'd be a pretty duffer who'd expect anything from you!

Haven't I always said 'he takes after the wrong side'? He's like his mother. He's got a heart, but he's incapable. What can you really do, Jens? Do you get fine clothes from your master, and does he treat you like a son, and will you finish up by taking over the business as his son-in-law? And why not? if I may ask the question. Your father is as much respected as Morten's.”

”Morten won't be a son-in-law, either, if his master has no daughter,”

Jens muttered.

”No. But he might have had a daughter, hey? But there we've got an answer. You don't reflect. Morten, he's got something there!” He touched his forehead.

”Then you shouldn't have hit me on the head,” retorted Jens sulkily.

”On the head--well! But the understanding has its seat in the head.

That's where one ought to hammer it in. For what use would it be, I ask you, supposing you commit some stupidity with your head and I smack you on the behind? You don't need any understanding there? But it has helped--you've grown much smarter. That was no fool's answer you gave me just now: 'Then you shouldn't have hit me on the head!'” He nodded in acknowledgment. ”No, but here is a head that can give them some trouble--there are knots of sense in this wood, hey?” And the three boys had to feel the top of his head.

He stood there like a swaying tree, and listened with a changing expression to the less frequent sobs of his wife; she was now sitting by the fire, just facing the door. ”She does nothing but cry,” he said compa.s.sionately; ”that's a way the women have of amusing themselves nowadays. Life has been hard on us, and she couldn't stand hards.h.i.+ps, poor thing! For example, if I were to say now that I'd like to smash the stove”--and here he seized a heavy chair and waved it about in the air--”then she begins to cry. She cries about everything. But if I get on I shall take another wife--one who can make a bit of a show. Because this is nonsense. Can she receive her guests and make fine conversation?

Pah! What the devil is the use of my working and pulling us all out of the mud? But now I'm going out again--G.o.d knows, it ain't amusing here!”

His wife hurried across to him. ”Ah, don't go out, Peter--stay here, do!” she begged.

”Am I to hang about here listening to you maundering on?” he asked sulkily, shrugging his shoulders. He was like a great, good-natured boy who gives himself airs.

”I won't maunder--I'm ever so jolly--if only you'll stay!” she cried, and she smiled through her tears. ”Look at me--don't you see how glad I am? Stay with me, do, 'Great Power!'” She breathed warmly into his ear; she had shaken off her cares and pulled herself together, and was now really pretty with her glowing face.

The ”Great Power” looked at her affectionately; he laughed stupidly, as though he was tickled, and allowed himself to be pulled about; he imitated her whisper to the empty air, and was overflowing with good humor. Then he slyly approached his mouth to her ear, and as she listened he trumpeted loudly, so that she started back with a little cry. ”Do stay, you great baby!” she said, laughing. ”I won't let you go; I can hold you!” But he shook her off, laughing, and ran out bareheaded.

For a moment it looked as though she would run after him, but then her hands fell, and she drooped her head. ”Let him run off,” she said wearily; ”now things must go as they will. There's nothing to be done; I've never seen him so drunk. Yes, you look at me, but you must remember that he carries his drink differently to every one else--he is quite by himself in everything!” She said this with a certain air of pride. ”And he has punished the s.h.i.+powner--and even the judge daren't touch him. The good G.o.d Himself can't be more upright than he is.”

X

Now the dark evenings had come when the lamp had to be lit early for the workers. The journeyman left while it was still twilight; there was little for him to do. In November the eldest apprentice had served his time. He was made to sit all alone in the master's room, and there he stayed for a whole week, working on his journeyman's task--a pair of sea-boots. No one was allowed to go in to him, and the whole affair was extremely exciting. When the boots were ready and had been inspected by some of the master-shoemakers, they were filled to the top with water and suspended in the garret; there they hung for a few days, in order to show that they were water-tight. Then Emil was solemnly appointed a journeyman, and had to treat the whole workshop. He drank brotherhood with little Nikas, and in the evening he went out and treated the other journeymen--and came home drunk as a lord. Everything pa.s.sed off just as it should.

On the following day Jeppe came into the workshop. ”Well, Emil, now you're a journeyman. What do you think of it? Do you mean to travel? It does a freshly baked journeyman good to go out into the world and move about and learn something.”

Emil did not reply, but began to bundle his things together. ”No, no; it's not a matter of life and death to turn you out. You can come to the workshop here and share the light and the warmth until you've got something better--those are good conditions, it seems to me. Now, when I was learning, things were very different--a kick behind, and out you went! And that's for young men--it's good for them!”

He could sit in the workshop and enumerate all the masters in the whole island who had a journeyman. But that was really only a joke--it never happened that a new journeyman was engaged. On the other hand, he and the others knew well enough how many freshly-baked journeymen had been thrown on to the streets that autumn.

Emil was by no means dejected. Two evenings later they saw him off on the Copenhagen steamer. ”There is work enough,” he said, beaming with delight. ”You must promise me that you'll write to me in a year,” said Peter, who had finished his apprentices.h.i.+p at the same time. ”That I will!” said Emil.

But before a month had pa.s.sed they heard that Emil was home again. He was ashamed to let himself be seen. And then one morning he came, much embarra.s.sed, slinking into the workshop. Yes, he had got work--in several places, but had soon been sent away again. ”I have learned nothing,” he said dejectedly. He loitered about for a time, to enjoy the light and warmth of the workshop, and would sit there doing some jobs of cobbling which he had got hold of. He kept himself above water until nearly Christmas-time, but then he gave in, and disgraced his handicraft by working at the harbor as an ordinary stevedore.

”I have wasted five years of my life,” he used to say when they met him; ”Run away while there's time! Or it'll be the same with you as it was with me.” He did not come to the workshop any longer out of fear of Jeppe, who was extremely wroth with him for dishonoring his trade.

It was cozy in the workshop when the fire crackled in the stove and the darkness looked in at the black, uncovered window-panes. The table was moved away from the window so that all four could find place about it, the master with his book and the three apprentices each with his repairing job. The lamp hung over the table, and smoked; it managed to lessen the darkness a little. The little light it gave was gathered up by the great gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s which focussed it and cast it upon the work.

The lamp swayed slightly, and the specks of light wriggled hither and thither like tadpoles, so that the work was continually left in darkness. Then the master would curse and stare miserably at the lamp.