Part 9 (1/2)

=Jeppe=--So that I'm not a ghost?

=Judge=--Certainly not!

=Jeppe=--Nor a spirit?

=Judge=--No.

=Jeppe=--Am I then the same Jeppe on the Hill that I was before?

=Judge=--To be sure!

=Jeppe=--And not a spectre?

=Judge=--No, of course not.

=Jeppe=--Will you swear that it is true?

=Judge=--I swear that you are alive.

=Jeppe=--Will you cross your heart and hope to die if it isn't true?

=Judge=--You should believe what we say without question, and thank us that we have been so merciful as to sentence you to life again.

=Jeppe=--If you had not hanged me yourselves, I should have been glad to thank you for taking me down again.

=Judge=--Be content, Jeppe, and let us know when your wife beats you again, and we shall look into the matter. See, here are four Rixdollars, which you can have a good time with for awhile, and don't forget to drink our health.

(Jeppe kisses his hand and thanks him. The judge goes away.)

Scene 3.

=Jeppe= (alone)--Here I have lived for fifty years, and in all that time I have not gone through as much as in these two days. This is certainly a queer story, when I stop to think of it; one hour a drunken peasant, another hour baron, a third hour peasant again; now dead, now alive on a gallows,--which is the funniest of it all; maybe when live people get hanged they die, and when dead people get hanged they come to life again. I guess that a drink of whiskey would taste fine on this. Hey!

Jakob Skomager, come out!

Scene 4.

Jakob Skomager. Jeppe.

=Jakob=--Welcome back from town! Did you get the soap for your wife?

=Jeppe=--Ay, you rascal, you must know what kind of people you are talking to! Off with your cap! for you are but an idiot compared to a fellow like me.

=Jakob=--I'd not stand such words from anyone else, Jeppe. But since you give my house a daily penny, I won't be too particular.

=Jeppe=--Off with your cap, you rascal!

=Jakob=--What has happened to you on the way, that you've got the big head?