Part 17 (1/2)

What a long time the child took--Lars Peter got up and peeped out.

He caught sight of her far down the moonlit road. Hastily throwing on some clothes, he rushed after her. He could see her ahead, tearing off for all she was worth. He ran and shouted, ran and shouted, his heavy wooden shoes echoing on the road. But the distance between them only increased; at last she disappeared altogether from view. He stood a little longer shouting; his voice resounded in the stillness of the night; and then turned round and went home.

Ditte tore on through the moonlit country. The road was as hard as stone, and the ice cut through her cloth shoes; from bog and ditch came the sound, crack, crack, crack; and the sea boomed on the sh.o.r.e. But Ditte did not feel the cold, her heart was beating wildly. Granny's dying, Granny's dying! went continuously through her mind.

By midnight she had reached the end of her journey, she was almost dropping with fatigue. She stopped at the corner of the house to gain breath; from inside could be heard Granny's hacking cough. ”I'm coming, Granny!” she cried, tapping on the window, sobbing with joy.

”How cold you are, child!” said the old woman, when they were both under the eiderdown. ”Your feet are like lumps of ice--warm them on me.” Ditte nestled in to her, and lay there quietly.

”Granny! mother knows you've hidden the money in the eiderdown,” she said suddenly.

”I guessed that, my child. Feel!” The old woman guided Ditte's hand to her breast, where a little packet was hidden. ”Here 'tis, Maren can take care of what's trusted to her. Ay, ay, 'tis sad to be like us two, no-one to care for us, and always in the way--to our own folks most of all. They can't make much use of you yet, and they're finished with me--I'm worn out. That's how it is.”

Ditte listened to the old woman's talk. It hummed in her ears and gave her a feeling of security. She was now comfortable and warm, and soon fell asleep.

But old Maren for some time continued pouring out her grievances against existence.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE RAVEN FLIES BY NIGHT

It was a hard winter. All through December the snow swept the fields, drifting into the willows in front of the Crow's Nest, the only place in the neighborhood where a little shelter was to be found.

The lake was entirely frozen; one could walk across it from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. When there was a moon, the rag and bone man would go down and with his wooden shoe break the ice round the seagulls and wild ducks, which were frozen in the lake, and then carry them home under his snow-covered cape. He would put them on the peat beside the fireplace, where for days they stood on one leg gazing sickly into the embers, until Sorine at last took them into the kitchen and wrung their necks.

In spite of there being a fire day and night, the cold was felt intensely in the Crow's Nest; it was impossible to heat the room.

Sorine, with the bread-knife, stuffed old rags into the cracks in the wall; but one day when doing this, a big piece of the wall collapsed. She filled up the hole with the eiderdown, and when Lars Peter came home at night, he patched it up and nailed planks across to keep it in place. The roof was not up too much either; the rats and house-martens had worked havoc in it, so that it was like a sieve, and the snow drifted into the loft. It was all bad.

Every day Sorine tried to rouse Lars Peter to do something.

But what could he do? ”I can't work harder than I do, and steal I won't,” said he.

”What do the others do, who live in a pretty and comfortable house?”

Yes, how did other people manage? Lars Peter could not imagine. He had never envied any one, nor drawn comparisons, so had never faced the question before.

”You toil and toil, but never get any further, that I can see,”

Sorine continued.

”Do you really mean that?” Lars Peter looked at her with surprise and sorrow.

”Yes, I do. What have you done? Aren't we just where we started?”

Lars Peter bent his head on hearing her hard words. But it was all quite true; except for strict necessities, they had never money to spare.

”There's so much wanted, and everything's so dear,” said he excusingly. ”There's no trade either! We must just have patience, till it comes round again.”

”You with your patience and patience--maybe we can live on your being patient and content? D'you know why folk call this the Crow's Nest? Because nothing thrives for us, they say.”

Lars Peter took his big hat from the nail behind the door and went out. He was depressed, and sought comfort with the animals; they and the children he understood, but grown-up people he could not. After all, there must be something lacking in him, since all thought him a peculiar fellow, just because he was happy and patient.