Pelle the Conqueror Part 32

They stood looking after him. Then a young sailor said slowly: "I suppose I'd better go with him and take the one oar. He can do nothing by himself." It was Nilen's brother.

"It wouldn't sound right if I stopped you from going, my son," said "the Mormon."

"But can two of you do more than one?"

"Niels and I were at school together and have always been friends,"

answered the young man, looking into his father's face. Then he moved away, and a little farther off began to run to catch up Niels.

The fishermen looked after them in silence. "Youth and madness!" one of them then said. "One blessing is that they'll never be able to get the boat out of the harbor."

"If I know anything of Karl, they will get the boat out!" said "the Mormon" gloomily.

Some time pa.s.sed, and then a boat appeared on the south side of the harbor, where there was a little shelter. They must have dragged it in over land with the women's help. The harbor projected a little, so that the boat escaped the worst of the surf before emerging from its protection. They were working their way out; it was all they could do to keep the boat up against the wind, and they scarcely moved. Every other moment the whole of the inside of the boat was visible, as if it would take nothing to upset it; but that had one advantage, in that the water they s.h.i.+pped ran out again.

It was evident that they meant to work their way out so far that they could make use of the high sea and scud down upon the wreck--a desperate idea! But the whole thing was such sheer madness, one would never have thought they had been born and bred by the water. After half an hour's rowing, it seemed they could do no more; and they were not more than a couple of good cable-lengths out from the harbor. They lay still, one of them holding the boat up to the waves with the oars, while the other struggled with something--a bit of sail as big as a sack. Yes, yes, of course! Now if they took in the oars and left themselves at the mercy of the weather--with wind and waves abaft and beam!--they would fill with water at once!

But they did not take in the oars. One of them sat and kept a frenzied watch while they ran before the wind. It looked very awkward, but it was evident that it gave greater command of the boat. Then they suddenly dropped the sail and rowed the boat hard up against the wind--when a sea was about to break. None of the fishermen could recollect ever having seen such navigation before; it was young blood, and they knew what they were about. Every instant one felt one must say Now! But the boat was like a living thing that understood how to meet everything; it always rose above every caprice. The sight made one warm, so that for a time one forgot it was a sail for life or death. Even if they managed to get down to the wreck, what then? Why, they would be dashed against the side of the vessel!

Old Ole Koller, Niels's father, came down over the sandbanks. "Who's that out there throwing themselves away?" he asked. The question sounded harsh as it broke in upon the silence and suspense. No one looked at him--Ole was rather garrulous. He glanced round the flock, as though he were looking for some particular person. "Niels--have any of you seen Niels?" he asked quietly. One man nodded toward the sea, and he was silent and overcome.

The waves must have broken their oars or carried them away, for they dropped the bit of sail, the boat burrowed aimlessly with its prow, and settled down lazily with its broadside to the wind. Then a great wave took them and carried them in one long sweep toward the wreck, and they disappeared in the breaking billow.

When the water sank to rest, the boat lay bottom upward, rolling in the lee of the vessel.

A man was working his way from the deck up into the rigging. "Isn't that Niels?" said Ole, gazing until his eyes watered. "I wonder if that isn't Niels?"

"No; it's my brother Karl," said Nilen.

"Then Niels is gone," said Ole plaintively. "Then Niels is gone."

The others had nothing to answer; it was a matter of course that Niels would be lost.

Ole stood for a little while shrinkingly, as if expecting that some one would say it was Niels. He dried his eyes, and tried to make it out for himself, but they only filled again. "Your eyes are young," he said to Pelle, his head trembling. "Can't you see that it's Niels?"

"No, it's Karl," said Pelle softly.

And Ole went with bowed head through the crowd, without looking at any one or turning aside for anything. He moved as though he were alone in the world, and walked slowly out along the south sh.o.r.e. He was going to meet the dead body.

There was no time to think. The line began to be alive, glided out into the sea, and drew the rope after it. Yard after yard it unrolled itself and glided slowly into the sea like an awakened sea-animal, and the thick hawser began to move.

Karl fastened it high up on the mast, and it took all the men--and boys, too--to haul it taut. Even then it hung in a heavy curve from its own weight, and the cradle dragged through the crests of the waves when it went out empty. It was more under than above the water as they pulled it back again with the first of the crew, a funny little dark man, dressed in mangy gray fur. He was almost choked in the crossing, but when once they had emptied the water out of him he quite recovered and chattered incessantly in a curious language that no one understood. Five little fur-clad beings, one by one, were brought over by the cradle, and last of all came Karl with a little squealing pig in his arms.

"They _were_ a poor lot of seamen!" said Karl, in the intervals of disgorging water. "Upon my word, they understood nothing. They'd made the rocket-line fast to the shrouds, and tied the loose end round the captain's waist! And you should just have seen the muddle on board!" He talked loudly, but his glance seemed to veil something.

The men now went home to the village with the s.h.i.+pwrecked sailors; the vessel looked as if it would still keep out the water for some time.

Just as the school-children were starting to go home, Ole came staggering along with his son's dead body on his back. He walked with loose knees bending low and moaning under his burden. Fris stopped him and helped him to lay the dead body in the schoolroom. There was a deep wound in the forehead. When Pelle saw the dead body with its gaping wound, he began to jump up and down, jumping quickly up, and letting himself drop like a dead bird. The girls drew away from him, screaming, and Fris bent over him and looked sorrowfully at him.

"It isn't from naughtiness," said the other boys. "He can't help it; he's taken that way sometimes. He got it once when he saw a man almost killed." And they carried him off to the pump to bring him to himself again.

Fris and Ole busied themselves over the dead body, placed something under the head, and washed away the sand that had got rubbed into the skin of the face. "He was my best boy," said Fris, stroking the dead man's head with a trembling hand. "Look well at him, children, and never forget him again; he was my best boy."

He stood silent, looking straight before him, with dimmed spectacles and hands hanging loosely. Ole was crying; he had suddenly grown pitiably old and decrepit. "I suppose I ought to get him home?" he said plaintively, trying to raise his son's shoulders; but he had not the strength.

"Just let him lie!" said Fris. "He's had a hard day, and he's resting now."

"Yes, he's had a hard day," said Ole, raising his son's hand to his mouth to breathe upon it. "And look how he's used the oar! The blood's burst out at his finger-tips!" Ole laughed through his tears. "He was a good lad. He was food to me, and light and heat too. There never came an unkind word out of his mouth to me that was a burden on him. And now I've got no son, Fris! I'm childless now! And I'm not able to do anything!"

"You shall have enough to live upon, Ole," said Fris.

"Without coming on the parish? I shouldn't like to come upon the parish."

"Yes, without coming on the parish, Ole."

"If only he can get peace now! He had so little peace in this world these last few years. There's been a song made about his misfortune, Fris, and every time he heard it he was like a new-born lamb in the cold. The children sing it, too." Ole looked round at them imploringly.

"It was only a piece of boyish heedlessness, and now he's taken his punishment."

"Your son hasn't had any punishment, Ole, and neither has he deserved any," said Fris, putting his arm about the old man's shoulder. "But he's given a great gift as he lies there and cannot say anything. He gave five men their lives and gave up his own in return for the one offense that he committed in thoughtlessness! It was a generous son you had, Ole!" Fris looked at him with a bright smile.

"Yes," said Ole, with animation. "He saved five people--of course he did--yes, he did!" He had not thought of that before; it would probably never have occurred to him. But now some one else had given it form, and he clung to it. "He saved five lives, even if they were only Finn-Lapps; so perhaps G.o.d will not disown him."

Fris shook his head until his gray hair fell over his eyes. "Never forget him, children!" he said; "and now go quietly home." The children silently took up their things and went; at that moment they would have done anything that Fris told them: he had complete power over them.

Ole stood staring absently, and then took Fris by the sleeve and drew him up to the dead body. "He's rowed well!" he said. "The blood's come out at his finger-ends, look!" And he raised his son's hands to the light. "And there's a wrist, Fris! He could take up an old man like me and carry me like a little child." Ole laughed feebly. "But I carried him; all the way from the south reef I carried him on my back. I'm too heavy for you, father! I could hear him say, for he was a good son; but I carried him, and now I can't do anything more. If only they see that!"--he was looking again at the blood-stained fingers. "He did do his best. If only G.o.d Himself would give him his discharge!"

"Yes," said Fris. "G.o.d will give him his discharge Himself, and he sees everything, you know, Ole."

Some fishermen entered the room. They took off their caps, and one by one went quietly up and shook hands with Ole, and then, each pa.s.sing his hand over his face, turned questioningly to the schoolmaster. Fris nodded, and they raised the dead body between them, and pa.s.sed with heavy, cautious steps out through the entry and on toward the village, Ole following them, bowed down and moaning to himself.

XVIII

It was Pelle who, one day in his first year at school, when he was being questioned in Religion, and Fris asked him whether he could give the names of the three greatest festivals in the year, amused every one by answering: "Midsummer Eve, Harvest-home and--and----" There was a third, too, but when it came to the point, he was shy of mentioning it--his birthday! In certain ways it was the greatest of them all, even though no one but Father La.s.se knew about it--and the people who wrote the almanac, of course; they knew about simply everything!

It came on the twenty-sixth of June and was called Pelagius in the calendar. In the morning his father kissed him and said: "Happiness and a blessing to you, laddie!" and then there was always something in his pocket when he came to pull on his trousers. His father was just as excited as he was himself, and waited by him while he dressed, to share in the surprise. But it was Pelle's way to spin things out when something nice was coming; it made the pleasure all the greater. He purposely pa.s.sed over the interesting pocket, while Father La.s.se stood by fidgeting and not knowing what to do.

"I say, what's the matter with that pocket? It looks to me so fat! You surely haven't been out stealing hens' eggs in the night?"

Then Pelle had to take it out--a large bundle of paper--and undo it, layer after layer. And La.s.se would be amazed.

"Pooh, it's nothing but paper! What rubbish to go and fill your pockets with!" But in the very inside of all there was a pocket-knife with two blades.

"Thank you!" whispered Pelle then, with tears in his eyes.

"Oh, nonsense! It's a poor present, that!" said La.s.se, blinking his red, lashless eyelids.