called out, and no one heard her; she looked down into the tier of
boxes below her, and it was empty, and low, and looked quite near, and
aunt in her terror felt quite young and light. She thought of
jumping down, and had got one leg over the partition, the other
resting on the bench. There she sat astride, as if on horseback,
well wrapped up in her flowered cloak with one leg hanging out- a
leg in a tremendous fur boot. That was a sight to behold; and when
it was beheld, our aunt was heard too, and was saved from burning, for
the theatre was not burned down.
That was the most memorable evening of her life, and she was
glad that she could not see herself, for she would have died with
confusion.
Her benefactor in the machinery department, Herr Sivertsen,
visited her every Sunday, but it was a long time from Sunday to
Sunday. In the latter time, therefore, she used to have in a little
child "for the scraps;" that is to say, to eat up the remains of the
dinner. It was a child employed in the ballet, one that certainly
wanted feeding. The little one used to appear, sometimes as an elf,
sometimes as a page; the most difficult part she had to play was the
lion's hind leg in the "Magic Flute;" but as she grew larger she could
represent the fore-feet of the lion. She certainly only got half a
guilder for that, whereas the hind legs were paid for with a whole
guilder; but then she had to walk bent, and to do without fresh air.
"That was all very interesting to hear," said our aunt.
She deserved to live as long as the theatre stood, but she could
not last so long; and she did not die in the theatre, but
respectably in her bed. Her last words were, moreover, not without
meaning. She asked,
"What will the play be to-morrow?"
At her death she left about five hundred dollars. We presume
this from the interest, which came to twenty dollars. This our aunt
had destined as a legacy for a worthy old spinster who had no friends;
it was to be devoted to a yearly subscription for a place in the
second tier, on the left side, for the Saturday evening, "for on
that evening two pieces were always given," it said in the will; and
the only condition laid upon the person who enjoyed the legacy was,
that she should think, every Saturday evening, of our aunt, who was
lying in her grave.
This was our aunt's religion.
THE END
.
1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
POULTRY MEG'S FAMILY
by Hans Christian Andersen
POULTRY MEG was the only person who lived in the new stately
dwelling that had been built for the fowls and ducks belonging to
the manor house. It stood there where once the old knightly building
had stood with its tower, its pointed gables, its moat, and its
drawbridge. Close by it was a wilderness of trees and thicket; here
the garden had been, and had stretched out to a great lake, which
was now moorland. Crows and choughs flew screaming over the old trees,
and there were crowds of birds; they did not seem to get fewer when
any one shot among them, but seemed rather to increase. One heard
the screaming into the poultry-house, where Poultry Meg sat with the
ducklings running to and fro over her wooden shoes. She knew every
fowl and every duck from the moment it crept out of the shell; and she
was fond of her fowls and her ducks, and proud of the stately house
that had been built for them. Her own little room in the house was
clean and neat, for that was the wish of the gracious lady to whom the
house belonged. She often came in the company of grand noble guests,
to whom she showed "the hens' and ducks' barracks," as she called
the little house.
Here were a clothes cupboard, and an, arm-chair, and even a
chest of drawers; and on these drawers a polished metal plate had been
placed, whereon was engraved the word "Grubbe," and this was the
name of the noble family that had lived in the house of old. The brass
plate had been found when they were digging the foundation; and the
clerk has said it had no value except in being an old relic. The clerk
knew all about the place, and about the old times, for he had his
knowledge from books, and many a memorandum had been written and put
in his table-drawer. But the oldest of the crows perhaps knew more
than he, and screamed it out in her own language; but that was the
crow's language, and the clerk did not understand that, clever as he
was.
After the hot summer days the mist sometimes hung over the
moorland as if a whole lake were behind the old trees, among which the
crows and the daws were fluttering; and thus it had looked when the
good Knight Grubbe had lived here- when the old manor house stood with
its thick red walls. The dog-chain used to reach in those days quite
over the gateway; through the tower one went into a paved passage
which led to the rooms; the windows were narrow, and the panes were
small, even in the great hall where the dancing used to be; but in the
time of the last Grubbe, there had been no dancing in the hall
within the memory of man, although an old drum still lay there that
had served as part of the music. Here stood a quaintly carved
cupboard, in which rare flower-roots were kept, for my Lady Grubbe was
fond of plants and cultivated trees and shrubs. Her husband
preferred riding out to shoot wolves and boars; and his little
daughter Marie always went with him part of the way. When she was only
five years old, she would sit proudly on her horse, and look saucily
round with her great black eyes. It was a great amusement to her to
hit out among the hunting-dogs with her whip; but her father would
rather have seen her hit among the peasant boys, who came running up
to stare at their lord.
The peasant in the clay hut close by the knightly house had a
son named Soren, of the same age as the gracious little lady. The
boy could climb well, and had always to bring her down the bird's
nests. The birds screamed as loud as they could, and one of the
greatest of them hacked him with its beak over the eye so that the
blood ran down, and it was at first thought the eye had been
destroyed; but it had not been injured after all. Marie Grubbe used to
call him her Soren, and that was a great favor, and was an advantage
to Soren's father- poor Jon, who had one day committed a fault, and
was to be punished by riding on the wooden horse. This same horse
stood in the courtyard, and had four poles for legs, and a single
narrow plant for a back; on this Jon had to ride astride, and some
heavy bricks were fastened to his feet into the bargain, that he might
not sit too comfortably. He made horrible grimaces, and Soren wept and
implored little Marie to interfere. She immediately ordered that
Soren's father should be taken down, and when they did not obey her,
she stamped on the floor, and pulled at her father's sleeve till it
was torn to pieces. She would have her way, and she got her way, and
Soren's father was taken down.
Lady Grubbe, who now came up, parted her little daughter's hair
from the child's brow, and looked at her affectionately; but Marie did
not understand why.
She wanted to go to the hounds, and not to her mother, who went
down into the garden, to the lake where the water-lily bloomed, and
the heads of bulrushes nodded amid the reeds; and she looked at all
this beauty and freshness. "How pleasant!" she said. In the garden
stood at that time a rare tree, which she herself had planted. It
was called the blood-beech- a kind of negro growing among the other
trees, so dark brown were the leaves. This tree required much
sunshine, for in continual shade it would become bright green like the
other trees, and thus lose its distinctive character. In the lofty
chestnut trees were many birds' nests, and also in the thickets and in
the grassy meadows. It seemed as though the birds knew that they
were protected here, and that no one must fire a gun at them.
Little Marie came here with Soren. He knew how to climb, as we
have already said, and eggs and fluffy-feathered young birds were
brought down. The birds, great and small, flew about in terror and
tribulation; the peewit from the fields, and the crows and daws from
the high trees, screamed and screamed; it was just such din as the
family will raise to the present day.
"What are you doing, you children?" cried the gentle lady; "that
is sinful!"
Soren stood abashed, and even the little gracious lady looked down
a little; but then he said, quite short and pretty,
"My father lets me do it!"
"Craw-craw! away-away from here!" cried the great black birds, and
they flew away; but on the following day they came back, for they were
at home here.
The quiet gentle lady did not remain long at home here on earth,
for the good God called her away; and, indeed, her home was rather
with Him than in the knightly house; and the church bells tolled
solemnly when her corpse was carried to the church, and the eyes of
the poor people were wet with tears, for she had been good to them.
When she was gone, no one attended to her plantations, and the
garden ran to waste. Grubbe the knight was a hard man, they said;
but his daughter, young as she was, knew how to manage him. He used to
laugh and let her have her way. She was now twelve years old, and
strongly built. She looked the people through and through with her
black eyes, rode her horse as bravely as a man, and could fire off her
gun like a practiced hunter.
One day there were great visitors in the neighborhood, the
grandest visitors who could come. The young King, and his half-brother
and comrade, the Lord Ulric Frederick Gyldenlowe. They wanted to
hunt the wild boar, and to pass a few days at the castle of Grubbe.
Gyldenlowe sat at table next to Marie Grubbe, and he took her by
the hand and gave her a kiss, as if she had been a relation; but she
gave him a box on the ear, and told him she could not bear him, at
which there was great laughter, as if that had been a very amusing
thing.
And perhaps it was very amusing, for, five years afterwards,
when Marie had fulfilled her seventeenth year, a messenger arrived
with a letter, in which Lord Gyldenlowe proposed for the hand of the
noble young lady. There was a thing for you!
"He is the grandest and most gallant gentleman in the whole
country," said Grubbe the knight; "that is not a thing to despise."
"I don't care so very much about him," said Marie Grubbe; but
she did not despise the grandest man of all the country, who sat by
the king's side.
Silver plate, and fine linen and woollen, went off to Copenhagen
in a ship, while the bride made the journey by land in ten days. But
the outfit met with contrary winds, or with no winds at all, for
four months passed before it arrived; and when it came, my Lady
Gyldenlowe was gone.
"I'd rather lie on coarse sacking than lie in his silken beds,"
she declared. "I'd rather walk barefoot than drive with him in a
coach!"
Late one evening in November two women came riding into the town
of Aarhuus. They were the gracious Lady Gyldenlowe (Marie Grubbe)
and her maid. They came from the town of Weile, whither they had
come in a ship from Copenhagen. They stopped at Lord Grubbe's stone
mansion in Aarhuus. Grubbe was not well pleased with this visit. Marie
was accosted in hard words; but she had a bedroom given her, and got
her beer soup of a morning; but the evil part of her father's nature
was aroused against her, and she was not used to that. She was not
of a gentle temper, and we often answer as we are addressed. She
answered openly, and spoke with bitterness and hatred of her
husband, with whom she declared she would not live; she was too
honorable for that.
A year went by, but it did not go by pleasantly. There were evil
words between the father and the daughter, and that ought never to be.
Bad words bear bad fruit. What could be the end of such a state of
things?
"We two cannot live under the same roof," said the father one day.
"Go away from here to our old manor house; but you had better bite
your tongue off than spread any lies among the people."
And so the two parted. She went with her maid to the old castle
where she had been born, and near which the gentle, pious lady, her
mother, was lying in the church vault. An old cowherd lived in the
courtyard, and was the only other inhabitant of the place. In the
rooms heavy black cobwebs hung down, covered with dust; in the
garden everything grew just as it would; hops and climbing plants
ran like a net between the trees and bushes, and the hemlock and
nettle grew larger and stronger. The blood-beech had been outgrown
by other trees, and now stood in the shade; and its leaves were
green like those of the common trees, and its glory had departed.
Crows and choughs, in great close masses, flew past over the tall
chestnut trees, and chattered and screamed as if they had something
very important to tell one another- as if they were saying, "Now she's
come back again, the little girl who had their eggs and their young
ones stolen from them; and as for the thief who had got them down,
he had to climb up a leafless tree, for he sat on a tall ship's
mast, and was beaten with a rope's end if he did not behave himself."
The clerk told all this in our own times; he had collected it
and looked it up in books and memoranda. It was to be found, with many
other writings, locked up in his table-drawer.
"Upward and downward is the course of the world," said he. "It
is strange to hear.
And we will hear how it went with Marie Grubbe. We need not for
