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THE HOMESTEAD WESTWARD IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS
HOMESTEAD WESTWARD IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.
THE HOMESTEAD WESTWARD IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS
There was once a farmer's son who was off to Moen for the annual manoeuvres. He was to be the drummer, and his way lay right across the mountains. There he could practise his drumming at his ease, and beat his tattoos again and again without making folks laugh, or having a parcel of small boys dangling about him like so many midges.
Every time he passed a mountain homestead he beat his rat-tat-tat to bring the girls out, and they stood and hung about and gaped after him at all the farmhouses.
It was in the midst of the hottest summer weather. He had been practising his drumming from early in the morning, till he had grown quite sick and tired of it. And now he was toiling up a steep cliff, and had slung his drum over his shoulder, and stuck his drumsticks in his bandoleer.
The sun baked and broiled upon the hills; but in the clefts there was a coolness as of a rushing roaring waterfall. The little knolls swarmed with bilberries the whole way along, and he felt he must stoop down and pluck whole handfuls at a time, so that it took a long time to get to the top.
Then he came to a hilly slope where the ferns stood high, and there were lots of birch bushes. It was so nice and shady there, he thought, and so he couldn't for the life of him help taking a rest.
His drum he took off, his jacket he put beneath his head, and his cap over his face, and off he went to sleep.
But as he lay dozing there, he dreamt that some one was tickling him under the nose with a straw so that he could get no peace; and the instant he awoke, he fancied he heard laughing and giggling.
The sun had by this time begun to cast oblique shadows, and far down below, towards the valleys, lay the warm steaming vapours, creeping upwards in long drawn-out gossamer bands and ribands of mist.
As he reached behind him for his jacket, he saw a snake, which lay and looked at him with such shrewd quick eyes. But when he threw a stone at it, it caught its tail in its mouth, and trundled away like a wheel.
Again there was a giggling and a sniggering among the bushes.
And now he heard it among some birch trees which stood in such a wonderful sunlight, for they were filled with the rain and fine drizzle of a waterfall. The water-drops glistened and sparkled so that he really couldn't see the trees properly.
But it was as though something were moving about in them, and he could have sworn that he had caught a glimpse of a fine bright slim damsel, who was laughing and making fun of him. She peeped at him from beneath her hand, because of the sun, and her sleeves were tucked up.
A little while afterwards a dark-blue blouse appeared above the brushwood.
He was after it in an instant.
He ran and ran till he had half a mind to give up, but then a frock and a bare shoulder gleamed betwixt an opening in the leaves.
And off again he pelted as hard as he could, till he began to think that it must have all been imagination.
Then he saw her right in a corner of the green bushes. Her hair had been torn out of its plaits from the speed with which she had flown through the bushes. She stood still, and looked back as if she were terribly frightened.
But the lad thought to himself that if she had run away with his drumsticks, she should pay for it.
And off they ran again, she in front, and he behind.
Now and again she turned round and laughed and gibed, and gave a toss and a twist, so that it looked as if her long wavy hair were writhing and wriggling and twisting like a serpent's tail.
At last she turned round on the top of the hill, laughed, and held out his drumsticks towards him.
But now he was determined to catch her. He was so near that he made grab after grab at her; but just as he was about to lay hold of her hard by a fence, she was over it, while he tumbled after her into the enclosure of a homestead.
Then she cried and shouted up to the house, "Randi, and Brandi, and Gyri, and Gunna!"
And four girls came rushing down over the sward.
But the last of them, who had a fine ruddy complexion and heavy golden-red hair, stood and greeted him so graciously with her downcast eyes, as if she was quite distressed that they should play such wanton pranks with a strange young man.
She stood there abashed and uncertain, poor thing! just like a child, who knows not whether it should say something or not; but all the while she sidled up nearer and nearer to him. Then, when she was so close to him that her hair almost touched him, she opened her blue eyes wide, and looked straight at him.
But she had a frightfully sharp look in those eyes of hers.
"Rather come with me, and thou shalt have dancing--or art thou tired, my lad?" cried a girl with blue-black hair, and a wild dark fire in her eyes. She tripped up and down, and clapped her hands. She had white teeth and hot breath, and would have dragged him off with her.
"Tie thyself up behind first, black Gyri!" giggled the others.
And immediately she let the lad go, and wobbled and twisted, and went backwards so oddly.
He couldn't help staring after the black lassie, who stood and writhed and twisted so uncomfortably, as if she were concealing something behind her, and had, all at once, become so meek.
But the fine bright girl with the slim slender waist, who had rushed on before him, and who seemed to him the loveliest of them all, began to laugh at him again and tease him.
Run as he might, he shouldn't catch her, she jibed and jeered; never should he find his drumsticks again, she said.
But then her mood shifted right round, and she flung herself down headlong, and began to cry. She had followed his drumming the whole day, she said, and never had she heard any fellow who could beat rat-tat-tat so well; nor had she ever seen a lad who was so handsome while he was asleep. "I kissed thee then," said she, and smiled up at him so sorrowfully.
"Beware of the serpent's tongue, lest it bite thee, swain! Tis worst of all when it licks thee first," whispered the bashful one with the golden-red hair. She would fain have stolen between them so softly.
And all at once the swain recollected the snake, which was as slender, and supple, and quick, and sparkling as the girl who lay there on the hill-side, and wept and made fun at the same time and looked oddly alert and wary.
But a stooping, somewhat clumsy little thing now stuck her head quickly in between, and smiled shamefacedly at him, as if she knew and could tell him so much. Her eyes sparkled a long way inwards, and across her face there passed a sort of pale golden gleam, as when the last sunbeam slowly draws away from the grassy mountain slope.
"At my place," said she, "thou shalt hear suchLangelejk1as none else has ever heard. I will play for thee, and thou shalt listen to things unknown to others. Thou shalt hear all that sings, and laughs, and cries in the roots of trees, and in the mountains, and in all things that grow, so that thou wilt never trouble thy head about anything else in the world."
Then there was a scornful laugh; and up on a rock he saw a tall strongly built girl, with a gold band in her hair and a huge wand in her hand.
She lifted a long wooden trumpet with such splendid powerful arms, threw back her neck with such a proud and resolute air, and stood firm and fast as a rock while she blew.
And it sounded far and wide through the summer evening, and rang back again across the hills.
But she, the prettiest and daintiest of them all, who had cast herself on the ground, stuck her fingers in her ears, and mimicked her and laughed and jeered.
Then she glanced up at him with her blue eyes peeping through her ashen-yellow hair, and whispered---
"If thou dost want me, swain, thou must pick me up."
"She has a strong firm grip for a gentle maiden," thought he to himself, as he raised her from the ground.
"But thou must catch me first," cried she.
And right towards the house they ran--she first, and he after her.
Suddenly she stopped short, and putting both arms akimbo, looked straight into his eyes: "Dost like me?" she asked.
The swain couldn't say no to that. He had now got hold of her, and would have put his arm round her.
"'Tis for thee to have a word in the matter, father," she shouted all at once in the direction of the house; "this swain here would fain wed me."
And she drew him hastily towards the hut door.
There sat a little grey-clad old fellow, with a cap like a milk-can on his head, staring at the livestock on the mountain-side. He had a large silver jug in front of him.
"'Tis the homestead westward in the Blue Mountains that he's after, I know," said the old man, nodding his head, with a sly look in his eyes.
"Haw, haw! That's what they're after, is it?" thought the swain. But aloud he said, "'Tis a great offer, I know; but methinks 'tis a little hasty too. Down our way 'tis the custom to send two go-betweens first of all to arrange matters properly."
"Thoudidstsend two before thee, and here they be," quoth she smartly, and produced his drumsticks.
"And 'tis usual with us, moreover, to have a look over the property first; though the lass herself have wit enough and to spare," added he.
Then she all at once grew so small, and there was a nasty green glitter in her eyes---
"Hast thou not run after me the livelong day, and wooed me right down in the enclosure there, so that my father both heard and saw it all?" cried she.
"Pretty lasses are wont to hold back a bit," said the swain, in a wheedling sort of way. He perceived that he must be a little subtle here; it was not all love in this wooing.
Then she seemed to bend her body backwards into a complete curve, and shot forward her head and neck, and her eyes sparkled.
But the old fellow lifted his stick from his knee, and she stood there again as blithe and sportive as ever.
She stretched herself out tall and stiff, with her hands in her silver girdle; and she looked right into his eyes and laughed, and asked him if he was one of those fellows who were afraid of the girls. If he wanted her he might perchance be run off his legs again, said she.
Then she began tripping up and down, and curtseying and making fun of him again.
But all at once he saw on the sward behind her what looked like the shadow of something that whisked and frisked and writhed round and round, and twisted in and out according as she practised her wheedling ways upon him.
"That is a very curious long sort of riband," thought the drummer to himself in his amazement. They were in a great hurry, too, to get him under the yoke, he thought; but they should find that a soldier on his way to the manoeuvres is not to be betrothed and married offhand.
So he told them bluntly that he had come hither for his drumsticks, and not to woo maidens, and he would thank them to let him have his property.
"But have a look about you a bit first, young man," said the old fellow, and he pointed with his stick.
And all at once the drummer saw large dun cows grazing all along the mountain pastures, and the cow-bells rang out their merry peals. Buckets and vats of the brightest copper shone all about, and never had he seen such shapely and nicely dressed milkmaids. There must needs be great wealth here.
"Perchance thou dost think 'tis but a beggarly inheritance I have here in the Blue Mountains," said she, and sitting down on a haycock, she began chatting with him. "But we've four suchsætar2as this, and what I inherit from my mother is twelve times as large."
But the drummer had seen what he had seen. They were rather too anxious to settle the property upon him, thought he. So he declared that in so serious a matter he must crave a little time for consideration.
Then the lass began to cry and take on, and asked him if he meant to befool a poor innocent, ignorant, young thing, and pursue her and drive her out of her very wits. She had put all her hope and trust in him, she said, and with that she fell a-howling.
She sat there quite inconsolable, and rocked herself to and fro with all her hair over her eyes, till at last the drummer began to feel quite sorry for her and almost angry with himself. She was certainly most simple-minded and confiding.
All at once she twisted round and threw herself petulantly down from the haycock. Her eyes spied all about, and seemed quite tiny and piercing as she looked up at him, and laughed and jested.
He started back. It was exactly as if he again saw the snake beneath the birch tree down there when it trundled away.
And now he wanted to be off as quickly as possible; he cared no longer about being civil.
Then she reared up with a hissing sound. She quite forgot herself, and a long tail hung down and whisked about from behind her kirtle.
He shouldn't escape her in that way, she shrieked. He should first of all have a taste of public penance and public opinion from parish to parish. And then she called her father.
Then the drummer felt a grip on his jacket, and he was lifted right off his legs.
He was chucked into an empty cow-house, and the door was shut behind him.
There he stood and had nothing to look at but an old billy-goat through a crack in the door, who had odd, yellow eyes, and was very much like the old fellow, and a sunbeam through a little hole, which sunbeam crept higher and higher up the blank stable wall till late in the evening, when it went out altogether.
But towards night a voice outside said softly, "Swain! swain!" and in the moonlight he saw a shadow cross the little hole.
"Hist! hist! the old man is sleeping at the other side of the wall," it sounded.
He knew by the voice that it was she, the golden-red one, who had behaved so prettily and been so bashful the moment he had come upon the scene.
"Thou need'st but say that thou dost know that serpent-eye has had a lover before, or they wouldn't be in such a hurry to get her off their hands with a dowry. Thou must know that the homestead westwards in the Blue Mountains is mine. And answer the old man that it was me, Brandi, that thou didst run after all the time. Hist! hist! here comes the old man," she whispered, and whisked away.
But a shadow again fell across the little hole in the moonlight, and the duck-necked one stuck her head in and peeped at him.
"Swain, swain, art thou awake?"
"That serpent-eye will make thee the laughingstock of the neighbourhood. She's spiteful, and she stings. But the homestead westward in the Blue Mountains is mine, and when I play there the gates beneath the high mountains fly open, and through them lies the road to the nameless powers of nature. Do but say that 'twas me, Randi, thou wert running after, because she plays so prettily on theLangelijk.--"Hist, hist! the old man is stirring about by the wall!"--she beckoned to him and was gone.
A little afterwards nearly every bit of the hole was darkened, and he recognised the Black one by her voice.
"Swain, swain!" she hissed.
"I had to bind up my kirtle to-day behind," said she, "so we couldn't go dancing theHalling-fling3together on the green sward. But the homestead in the Blue Mountains is my lawful property, and tell the old man that it was madcap Gyri thou wast running after to-day, because thou art so madly fond of dancing jigs andhallings."
Then she clapped her hands aloud, and straightway was full of fear lest she should have awakened the old man.
And she was gone.
But the lad sat inside there, and thought it all over, and looked up at the thin pale summer moon, and he thought that never in his whole life had he been in such evil case.
From time to time he heard something moving, scraping, and snorting against the wall outside. It was the old fellow who lay there and kept watch over him.
"Thou, swain, thou," said another voice at the peep-hole.
It was she who had planted herself so firmly on the rock with such sturdy hips and such a masterful voice.
"For these three hundred years have I been blowing thelangelur4here in the summer evenings far and wide, but never has it drawn any one westward hither into the Blue Mountains. And let me tell thee that we are all homeless and houseless, and all thou seest here is but glitter and glamour. Many a man has been befooled hither time out of mind. But I won't have the other lasses married before me. And rather than that any one of them should get thee, I'll free thee from the mountains. Mark me, now! When the sun is hot and high the old man will get frightened and crawl into his corner. Then look to thyself. Shove hard against the door of the hayloft, and hasten to get thee over the fence, and thou wilt be rid of us."
The drummer was not slow to follow this counsel. He crept out the moment the sun began to burn, and cleared the fence with one good bound.
In less than no time he was down in the valley again.
And far, far away towards sunrise in the mountains, he heard the sound of herlangelur.
He threw his drum across his shoulder, and hied him off to the manoeuvres at Moen.
But never would he play rat-tat-tat and beat the tattoo before the lasses again, lest he should find himself westwards in the Blue Mountains before he was well aware of it.
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[1] A long slow dance, and the music to it.
[2] ASæter(Swed.säter) is a remote pasturage with huts upon it, where the cows are tended and dairy produce prepared for market and home use during the summer.
[3] A country dance of a boisterous jig-like sort.
[4] A long wooden trumpet.
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"IT'S ME."
ITS ME.
"IT'S ME"
They had chatted so long about the lasses down in the valley; and what a fine time they had of it there, that Gygra's1daughter grew sick and tired of it all, and began to heave rocks against the mountain side. She was bent upon taking service in the valley below, said she.
"Then go down to the ground gnome first, and grind thy nose down, and tidy thyself up a bit, and stick a comb in thy hair instead of an iron rake," said the dwellers in the mountains.
So Gygra's daughter tramped along in the middle of the river, till the foss steamed and the storm whirled round about her. Down she went to the ground gnome, and was scoured and scrubbed and combed out finely.
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One evening a large-limbed coarse-grained wench stepped into the general-dealer's kitchen, and asked if she could be taken into service.
"You must be cook, then," said Madame2. It seemed to her that the wench was one who would stir the porridge finely, and would make no bones about a little extra wood-chopping and tub-washing. So they took her on.
She was a roughish colt, and her ways were roughish too. The first time she carried in a load of wood, she shoved so violently against the kitchen door that she burst its hinges. And however many times the carpenter might mend the door, it always remained hingeless, for she burst it open with her foot every time she brought in wood.
When she washed up, too, heaps and heaps of pots and pans were piled up higgledy-piggledy from meal to meal, so that the kitchen shelves and tables could hold no more, and bustle about as she might, they never seemed to grow less.
Nor had her mistress a much better opinion of her scouring.
When Toad, for so they called her, set to work with the sand-brush, and scrubbed with all her might, the wooden, tin, and pewter vessels would no doubt have looked downright bonny if they hadn't broken to bits beneath her hands. And when her mistress tried to show her how it ought to be done, she only gasped and gaped.
Such sets of cracked cups, and such rows of chipped and handleless jugs and dishes, had never before been seen in that kitchen.
And then, too, she ate as much as all the other servants put together.
So her mistress complained to her master, and said that the sooner they were well quit of her the better.
Out into the kitchen went the general dealer straightway. He was quite red in the face, and flung open the kitchen-door till it creaked again. He would let her know, he said, that she was not there to only stand with her back to the fire and warm her dirty self.
Now when he saw the lazy sluttish beast lounging over the kitchen bench and doing nothing but gape through the window-panes at his boats, which lay down by the bridge laden with train-oil, he was downright furious. "Pack yourself off this instant!" said he.
But Toad showed her teeth, and grinned and blinked up at him, and said that as master himself had come into the kitchen, he should see that she did not eat his bread for nothing.
Then she slouched down to the boats, and snorted back at him with her arm before her face. Before any one could guess what she was after, she had one of the heavy hogsheads of train-oil on her back.
And back she came through the kitchen door, all smirking and smiling, and begged father to be so good as to tell her where she was to put it.
He simply stood and gaped at her. Such a thing he had never seen before.
And hogshead after hogshead she carried from the boat right up into the shop.
The general dealer laughed till he quite gasped for breath, and slapped his thighs so far as his big belly would let him reach them.
Nor was he sparing of compliments.
And into the dwelling-room he rushed almost as quickly as he had rushed out of it.
"Mother has no idea what a capital wench she has got," said he.
But, ever after that, she put her hand to nothing, nay, not so much as to drive a wooden peg into the wall, and if some one else hadn't warmed up a thing or two now and then, there would have been very little to eat in the house. It was as much as they could do to get her away from the fireside at meal times.
When her mistress complained about it, her master said that she oughtn't to expect too much. The lass surely required a little rest now and again, after carrying such drayman's loads as she did.
But Toad always had an ogle and a grin ready at such times as the general dealer came through the door from the shop. Then she grew quick and lively enough, and went on all sorts of errands, whether it was with the bucket to the spring or to the storehouse for bread. And when she saw that her mistress was out of the way, she took it upon herself to do exactly as she liked, both in this and in that.
No sooner was the pot hung on the pot-hook, than she would slip away with a big saucer and fetch sirup from the shop. And she would flounce down before the porridge dish and gobble to her heart's content. If any of her fellow-servants claimed an equal share, she would simply answer, "It's me!"
They dared not rebel. Since the day she had taken up the hogsheads of train-oil, they knew that she had master on her side.
But her mistress was not slow to mark the diminishing both of the sirup-pot and the powdered sugar, and she perceived also in which direction the gingerbreads and all the butter and bacon went. For out the wench would come, munching rye cakes and licking the sirup from her fingers.
And she grew as round and thick and fat as if she would burst.
When her mistress took away and kept the key, Toad would poke her head into the parlour door, and ogle and writhe at the general dealer, and ask if there was anything to carry up to the store-room. And then he would go to the window and watch her as she lifted and carried kegs of fish and casks of sugar and sacks of meal.
He laughed till he coughed again, and, wiping the sweat from his forehead, would bellow all over the place--"Can any one of my labouring men carry loads like Toad can?"
And when her master came home, dripping wet and benumbed with cold, from his first autumn voyage, it was Toad who was first and foremost to meet him and unbutton his oil-skin jacket for him, and undo his sou'wester, and help him off with his long sea-boots.
He shivered and shook; but she was not slow to wring out his wet stockings for him, and fetch no end of birch bark and huge logs. Then she made up a regular bonfire in the fireplace, and placed him cosily in the chimney corner.
Madame came to give her husband some warm ale posset; but she was so annoyed to see the wench whisking and bustling about him, that she went up into the parlour and howled with rage.
Early in the morning, the general dealer bawled and shouted downstairs for his long worsted stockings. They could hear that he was peevish and cross because he had to put on his sea-jacket and cramped water-boots, and go out again into the foul weather.
He tore open the kitchen door, and asked them furiously how much longer they were going to keep him waiting.
But now his mouth grew as wide open as the door-way he stood in, and his face quite lit up with satisfaction.
Round about the walls, and in the warmth of the chimney corner, hung his sou'wester, and his oil-skin jacket, and his trousers, and every blessed bit of clothes he was to put on, as dry as tinder. And in the middle of the kitchen bench he saw his large sea-boots standing there, so snug, and so nicely greased, that the grease ran right down the shafts and over the straps.
Such a servant for looking after him and taking care of him he had not believed it possible to get for love or money, cried the general dealer.
But now his wife could contain herself no longer. She showed him that the clothes were both scorched and burned, and that the whole of one side of the oilskin jacket was crumpled up with heat, and cracked if one pulled it never so lightly.
And in she dragged the big butter-keg, that he might see for himself how the wench had stuck both his boots in it and used it to grease them with.
But the general dealer stood there quite dumfoundered, and glanced now at the boots and now at the butter-tub.
He snapped his fingers, and his face twitched, and then he began to wipe away his tears.
He hastened to go in that they might not see that he was weeping.
"Mother does not know how kindly the wench has meant it all," he sobbed. Good heavens! what if shehadused butter for his boots, if she had onlymeantwell. Never would he turn such a lass out of the house.
Then the wife gave it up altogether, and let the big kitchen wench rule as best she might. And it was not very long either before Toad let the key of the store-room remain in the door from morn till eve. When any one bawled out to her, "Who's inside there?" she would simply answer, "It's me!"
And she didn't budge from the gingerbread-box, as she sat there and ate, even for Madame herself. But she always had an eye upon her master the general dealer.
But he only jested with her, and asked her if she got food enough, and said that he was afraid he would, one day, find her starved to death.
Towards Christmas time, when folks were making ready to go a-fishing, Madame was busy betimes and bustled about as usual, and got the great caldron taken down into the working-room for washing and wool-stamping.
The cooks hired for the occasion rolled out thelefser,3and baked and frizzled on the flat oven-pans. And they brought in herring kegs from the shop, and meal and meat, both cured and fresh, and weighed and measured, and laid in stores of provisions.
But then it seemed to Toad as if she hadn't a moment's peace for prying into pots and pans. Her mistress was going backwards and forwards continually, between store-room and pantry, after meal, or sugar, or butter, or sirup for thelefser. The store-room door was ajar for her all day long.
So at last Toad grew downright wild. She was determined to put an end to all this racket. So she took it upon her to well smear the threshold of the store-room with green soap.
Next morning her mistress came bustling along first thing with butter and a wooden ladle in a bowl, and she slipped and fell in the opening between the stairs and the store-house door.
There she lay till Toad dragged her up.
She carried her in to her husband with such a crying and yelling that it was heard all over the depôt. Madame had been regularly worrying herself to death with all this bustle, said she, and now the poor soul had fallen and broken her leg.
But the one who cried the most, and didn't know what to do with himself when he heard such weeping and wailing over his wife, was the general dealer.
None knew the real worth of that kitchen wench, said he.
And so it was Toad who now superintended everything, and both dispensed the stores and made provision for the household.
She drove all the hired cooks and pancake rollers out of the house--they were only eating her master out of house and home, she said.
Thelefserwere laid together without any sirup between them, and she gave out fat instead of butter. She distributed it herself, and packed it up in theirNistebommers4.
Never had the general dealer known the heavy household business disposed of so quickly as it was that year. He was quite astonished.
And he was really dumfoundered when Toad took him up into the store-room, and showed him how little had been consumed, and how the cured shoulders of mutton and the hams hung down from the rafters in rows and rows.
"So long as things went on as they were going now," said he, "she should have the control of the household like mother herself," for his wife was now bedridden in her room upstairs.
And at Yule-tide Toad baked and roasted, and cut things down so finely that her fellow-servants were almost driven to chew their wooden spoons and gnaw bones.
But such fat calves, and such ribs of pork, and suchlefserfilled with both sirup and butter, and suchmölje5and splendid fare for the guests that came to his house at Christmas-time the general dealer had never seen before.
Then the general dealer took her by the arm, and right down into the shop they both went together.
She might take what she would, said he, both of kirtles and neckerchiefs and other finery, so that she might dress and go in and out as if she were mother herself; and she might provide herself with beads and silk as much as she liked. There was nothing that she might not have.
But when the bailiff and the sexton sat at cards, and Toad came in to lay the table-cloth, they were like to have rolled off their chairs. Such a sight they had never seen before. Toad had rigged herself up with all manner of parti-coloured 'kerchiefs, and trimmed her hairy poll with blue and yellow and green ribbons till it looked like a cart-horse's tail. But they said nothing, for the sake of the general dealer, who thought she looked so smart, and was calling her in continually.
And they were forced to confess that the wench spared neither meat nor ale nor brandy. And on the third evening, when they got so drunk that they lay there like logs, she carried them off to bed as if they were sucking babes.
And so it went on, with feasting and entertaining, right up to the twentieth day after Christmas Day, and beyond it.
And that wench Toad used to smirk and stare about the room; and whenever they didn't laugh or jest enough with her, she would plant herself right in the middle of the floor, and turn herself about in all her finery to attract notice, and say, "It's me!"
And when the guests left the house they must needs admit that the general dealer was right when he said that such serving-maids were not to be picked up every day.
But those folks who went a-fishing for the general dealer, and had their provisions put up for them beforehand, were not slow to mark that Toad had the control of the shop and stores likewise.
So it happened as might only have been expected. Their provisions ran short, and they had to return home just as the cod was biting best, while all the other fishermen sailed further out and made first-rate hauls.
The general dealer was like to have had apoplexy on the day that he saw his boats lying empty by the bridge in the height of the fishing season. His men came up in a body to the shop, headed by their eldest foreman, and laid a complaint before him.
The food that had been packed into their boxes and baskets, they said, couldn't be called human food at all. Thelefserwere so hard, they said, that it was munch munch all day; there was only rancid fat on them, with scarcely a glimpse of bacon; and as for the cured shoulders of mutton, one had scarcely shaved off a thin slice when one scraped against the bare bone.
Up into the store-room went the general dealer like a shot.
But as for Toad, she smote her hands above her head, and said that it was as much as he, the general dealer, could manage, to meet the heavy expenses for fish-hooks and fish-baskets, and nets and lines, without having to provide his fishermen with salt herring and bacon, and fresh butter andlefserand ground coffee into the bargain. They had no need to starve when they had all the fish of the sea right under their noses, said she.
And then she handed him, as a specimen, one of his ownlefser, which she had filled with butter and sirup herself, and let him taste it. And he tasted it, and ate and ate till the sirup ran down both corners of his mouth. Such good greasylefserhe had never tasted before.
Then the general dealer gave them a bit of his mind.
He was as red as a turkey-cock; and out of the shop-door they went head first--some three yards and some four, according as he got a good grip of them; and old Thore, who had steered the bigfemböring, both for him and his father, was discharged.
But Kjel, the herdsman, had hid himself out of the way up on the threshing-floor whilst the row was going on, and the general dealer was shrieking and bellowing his worst in the yard below. And he stood there and peeped through the little window. Then he saw his mistress, who hadn't been out of bed for nine weeks, hobble forward and stare out of her bedroom window.
She took on terribly, and cried and wrung her thin hands when she saw their old foreman told to go to the devil, and shamble off with his cap in his hand as if he were deranged.
But she dared not so much as shout a word of comfort after him, for there stood Toad, big and broad, in the store-house door, with a platter ofmöljein her hand, and shook her fist after him.
Then Kjel was like to have wept too.... That stout Toad should not grease herself shiny withmöljefat much longer intheirhouse, or he'd know the reason why, thought Kjel.
And from thenceforth Kjel kept a strict watch upon her. There were lots of things going on that he couldn't make out at all.
Towards spring-time, when they put the mast into the large new yacht which was to take the first trading voyage to Bergen, the general dealer was so glad that he was running up and down from the bridge to the house the whole day. He had never imagined that the yacht would have turned out so fine and stately.
And when they had the tackle and the shrouds all ready, and were hoisting away at the yards, he spun round on his heel and snapped his fingers--"That lass Toad should go with him to Bergen," said he.... "She had never seen the town, poor thing! while as for mother, she had been there three times already."
But it seemed to Kjel that he saw more in this than other people saw.
As for Toad, when she heard she was to go to Bergen, she regularly turned the house upside down. There was nothing good enough for her in the whole shop; there was not a shelf that she didn't ransack to find the finery and frippery that glittered most.
And in the evening, when the others had lain them down to rest, she strolled over to the storehouse with a light.
But Kjel, who was a very light sleeper, was up and after her in an instant, and peeped at her through the crack in the door.
There he saw her cutting up the victuals and putting one tit-bit aside after the other,lefserand sweet-cakes and bacon and collared-beef, into the large chest which she had hidden behind the herring barrels. And on this, the last evening before their departure for Bergen, she had filled her provision-chest so full that she had to sit upon it, with all her huge heavy weight, to press it down.
But the lock wouldn't catch; she had filled the chest too full, so she had to get up and stamp backwards on the lid till it regularly thundered; and sure enough she forced it down at last.
But the heel she stamped down upon it with was much more like the hoof of a horse than the foot of a human being, thought Kjel.
Then she carried the chest to the waggon that it might be smuggled on board without any one seeing it. After that she went into the stable and unloosed the horse. But then there was a pretty to do in the stable!
The horse knew that there was witchcraft afoot, and would not allow itself to be inspanned. Toad dragged and dragged, and the horse shied and kicked. At last the wench used her back-legs, just as a mare does.
Such sport as that no human eye should have ever seen.
And straight off to the general dealer rushed Kjel, and got him to come out with him.
There in the moonshine that wench, Toad, and the dun horse were flinging out at each other as if for a wager, so that their hoofs dashed against the framework of the stable-door. Their long legs flew in turn over the stable walls, and the sparks scattered about in showers.
Then the general dealer grew all of a shiver and staggered about. Blood flew from his nose, and Kjel had to help him into the kitchen and duck his head in the sink. That night the general dealer didn't go to bed at all; but he walked up and down and stamped till the floor regularly thundered. And it was scarcely light next morning when he sent off Kjel with a dollar in his fist to old Thore the foreman. And he sent in the same way to all the boat people down by the shore.
Thore was told to put on his holiday clothes and get out thefemböring, and row Madame herself to the yacht with the last lading. She should go with him to Bergen. There she should get both a silk dress and a shawl, and a gold watch and chain into the bargain, and engage a Bergen serving-wench.
It was still early in the day when the yacht lay in the bay with her flag flying, all ready to start.
When they had hoisted the sail, that wench Toad, heavy and stout, came, puffing and blowing, across the bridge, in full parade, with rings on all her sprawling fingers, and her body covered with all the yellow and green and red ribbons she could possibly find room for on her ample person.
There she stood waiting for them to come back in the statelyfemböringand take her on board.
And when they began to raise the anchor, and the general dealer appeared on deck with his large meerschaum pipe and his telescope, she smirked and minced and wriggled and twisted, and cried aloud, "It's me!"
She thought he wanted to peep at her splendour through his spyglass.
All at once she saw Madame standing by his side in full travelling costume, and understood that they were going away without her.
Then she kicked out so that the planks of the bridge groaned and creaked beneath her. Eight into the sea she plunged, and caught hold of the anchor, and tugged and held the ship back till the cable broke.
Then head over heels she went with both her hoofs in the air.
But the yacht glided away under full sail, and the general dealer stood there and laughed till he nearly fell overboard.