that forget Poultry Meg, who is sitting in her capital hen-house, in
our own time. Marie Grubbe sat down in her times, but not with the
same spirit that old Poultry Meg showed.
The winter passed away, and the spring and the summer passed away,
and the autumn came again, with the damp, cold sea-fog. It was a
lonely, desolate life in the old manor house. Marie Grubbe took her
gun in her hand and went out to the heath, and shot hares and foxes,
and whatever birds she could hit. More than once she met the noble Sir
Palle Dyre, of Norrebak, who was also wandering about with his gun and
his dogs. He was tall and strong, and boasted of this when they talked
together. He could have measured himself against the deceased Mr.
Brockenhuus, of Egeskov, of whom the people still talked. Palle Dyre
had, after the example of Brockenhuus, caused an iron chain with a
hunting-horn to be hung in his gateway; and when he came riding
home, he used to seize the chain, and lift himself and his horse
from the ground, and blow the horn.
"Come yourself, and see me do that, Dame Marie," he said. 'One can
breathe fresh and free at Norrebak.
When she went to his castle is not known, but on the altar
candlestick in the church of Norrebak it was inscribed that they
were the gift of Palle Dyre and Marie Grubbe, of Norrebak Castle.
A great stout man was Palle Dyre. He drank like a sponge. He was
like a tub that could never get full; he snored like a whole sty of
pigs, and he looked red and bloated.
"He is treacherous and malicious," said Dame Pally Dyre,
Grubbe's daughter. Soon she was weary of her life with him, but that
did not make it better.
One day the table was spread, and the dishes grew cold. Palle Dyre
was out hunting foxes, and the gracious lady was nowhere to be
found. Towards midnight Palle Dyre came home, but Dame Dyre came
neither at midnight, nor next morning. She had turned her back upon
Norrebak, and had ridden away without saying good-bye.
It was gray, wet weather; the wind grew cold, and a flight of
black screaming birds flew over her head. They were not so homeless as
she.
First she journeyed southward, quite down into the German land.
A couple of golden rings with costly stones were turned into money;
and then she turned to the east, and then she turned again and went
towards the west. She had no food before her eyes, and murmured
against everything, even against the good God himself, so wretched was
her soul. Soon her body became wretched too, and she was scarcely able
to move a foot. The peewit flew up as she stumbled over the mound of
earth where it had built its nest. The bird cried, as it always cried,
"You thief! you thief!" She had never stolen her neighbor's goods; but
as a little girl she had caused eggs and young birds to be taken
from the trees, and she thought of that now.
From where she lay she could see the sand-dunes. By the seashore
lived fishermen; but she could not get so far, she was so ill. The
great white sea-mews flew over her head, and screamed as the crows and
daws screamed at home in the garden of the manor house. The birds flew
quite close to her, and at last it seemed to her as if they became
black as crows, and then all was night before her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, she was being lifted and
carried. A great strong man had taken her up in his arms, and she
was looking straight into his bearded face. He had a scar over one
eye, which seemed to divide the eyebrow into two parts. Weak as she
was, he carried her to the ship, where he got a rating for it from the
captain.
The next day the ship sailed away. Madame Grubbe had not been
put ashore, so she sailed away with it. But she will return, will
she not? Yes, but where, and when?
The clerk could tell about this too, and it was not a story
which he patched together himself. He had the whole strange history
out of an old authentic book, which we ourselves can take out and
read. The Danish historian, Ludwig Holberg, who has written so many
useful books and merry comedies, from which we can get such a good
idea of his times and their people, tells in his letters of Marie
Grubbe, where and how he met her. It is well worth hearing; but for
all that, we don't at all forget Poultry Meg, who is sitting
cheerful and comfortable in the charming fowl-house.
The ship sailed away with Marie Grubbe. That's where we left off.
Long years went by.
The plague was raging at Copenhagen; it was in the year 1711.
The Queen of Denmark went away to her German home, the King quitted
the capital, and everybody who could do so hurried away. The students,
even those who had board and lodging gratis, left the city. One of
these students, the last who had remained in the free college, at last
went away too. It was two o'clock in the morning. He was carrying
his knapsack, which was better stacked with books and writings than
with clothes. A damp mist hung over the town; not a person was to be
seen in the streets; the street-doors around were marked with crosses,
as a sign that the plague was within, or that all the inmates were
dead. A great wagon rattled past him; the coachman brandished his
whip, and the horses flew by at a gallop. The wagon was filled with
corpses. The young student kept his hand before his face, and smelt at
some strong spirits that he had with him on a sponge in a little brass
scent-case. Out of a small tavern in one of the streets there were
sounds of singing and of unhallowed laughter, from people who drank
the night through to forget that the plague was at their doors, and
that they might be put into the wagon as the others had been. The
student turned his steps towards the canal at the castle bridge, where
a couple of small ships were lying; one of these was weighing
anchor, to get away from the plague-stricken city.
"If God spares our lives and grants us a fair wind, we are going
to Gronmud, near Falster," said the captain; and he asked the name
of the student who wished to go with him.
"Ludwig Holberg," answered the student; and the name sounded
like any other. But now there sounds in it one of the proudest names
of Denmark; then it was the name of a young, unknown student.
The ship glided past the castle. It was not yet bright day when it
was in the open sea. A light wind filled the sails, and the young
student sat down with his face turned towards the fresh wind, and went
to sleep, which was not exactly the most prudent thing he could have
done.
Already on the third day the ship lay by the island of Falster.
"Do you know any one here with whom I could lodge cheaply?"
Holberg asked the captain.
"I should think you would do well to go to the ferry-woman in
Borrehaus," answered the captain. "If you want to be very civil to
her, her name is Mother Soren Sorensen Muller. But it may happen
that she may fly into a fury if you are too polite to her. The man
is in custody for a crime, and that's why she manages the ferry-boat
herself- she has fists of her own."
The student took his knapsack and betook himself to the
ferry-house. The house door was not locked- it opened, and he went
into a room with a brick floor, where a bench, with a great coverlet
of leather, formed the chief article of furniture. A white hen, who
had a brood of chickens, was fastened to the bench, and had overturned
the pipkin of water, so that the wet ran across the floor. There
were no people either here or in the adjoining room; only a cradle
stood there, in which was a child. The ferry-boat came back with
only one person in it. Whether that person was a man or a woman was
not an easy matter to determine. The person in question was wrapped in
a great cloak, and wore a kind of hood. Presently the boat lay to.
It was a woman who got out of it and came into the room. She
looked very stately when she straightened her back; two proud eyes
looked forth from beneath her black eyebrows. It was Mother Soren, the
ferry-wife. The crows and daws might have called out another name
for her, which we know better.
She looked morose, and did not seem to care to talk; but this much
was settled, that the student should board in her house for an
indefinite time, while things looked so bad in Copenhagen.
This or that honest citizen would often come to the ferry-house
from the neighboring little town. There came Frank the cutler, and
Sivert the exciseman. They drank a mug of beer in the ferry-house, and
used to converse with the student, for he was a clever young man,
who knew his "Practica," as they called it; he could read Greek and
Latin, and was well up in learned subjects.
"The less one knows, the less it presses upon one," said Mother
Soren.
"You have to work hard," said Holberg one day, when she was
dipping clothes in the strong soapy water, and was obliged herself
to split the logs for the fire.
"That's my affair," she replied.
"Have you been obliged to toil in this way from your childhood?"
"You can read that from my hands," she replied, and held out her
hands, that were small indeed, but hard and strong, with bitten nails.
"You are learned, and can read."
At Christmas-time it began to snow heavily. The cold came on,
the wind blue sharp, as if there were vitriol in it to wash the
people's faces. Mother Soren did not let that disturb her; she threw
her cloak around her, and drew her hood over her head. Early in the
afternoon- it was already dark in the house- she laid wood and turf on
the hearth, and then she sat down to darn her stockings, for there was
no one to do it for her. Towards evening she spoke more words to the
student than it was customary with her to use; she spoke of her
husband.
"He killed a sailor of Dragor by mischance, and for that he has to
work for three years in irons. He's only a common sailor, and
therefore the law must take its course."
"The law is there for people of high rank, too," said Holberg.
"Do you think so?" said Mother Soren; then she looked into the
fire for a while; but after a time she began to speak again. "Have you
heard of Kai Lykke, who caused a church to be pulled down, and when
the clergyman, Master Martin, thundered from the pulpit about it, he
had him put in irons, and sat in judgment upon him, and condemned
him to death? Yes, and the clergyman was obliged to bow his head to
the stroke. And yet Kai Lykke went scot-free."
"He had a right to do as he did in those times," said Holberg;
"but now we have left those times behind us."
"You may get a fool to believe that," cried Mother Soren; and
she got up and went into the room where the child lay. She lifted up
the child, and laid it down more comfortably. Then she arranged the
bed-place of the student. He had the green coverlet, for he felt the
cold more than she, though he was born in Norway.
On New Year's morning it was a bright sunshiny day. The frost
had been so strong, and was still so strong, that the fallen snow
had become a hard mass, and one could walk upon it. The bells of the
little town were tolling for church. Student Holberg wrapped himself
up in his woollen cloak, and wanted to go to the town.
Over the ferry-house the crows and daws were flying with loud
cries; one could hardly hear the church bells for their screaming.
Mother Soren stood in front of the house, filling a brass pot with
snow, which she was going to put on the fire to get drinking water.
She looked up to the crowd of birds, and thought her own thoughts.
Student Holberg went to church. On his way there and on his return
he passed by the house of tax-collector Sivert, by the town-gate. Here
he was invited to take a mug of brown beer with treacle and sugar. The
discourse fell upon Mother Soren, but the tax collector did not know
much about her, and, indeed, few knew much about her. She did not
belong to the island of Falster, he said; she had a little property of
her own at one time. Her husband was a common sailor, a fellow of a
very hot temper, and had killed a sailor of Dragor; and he beat his
wife, and yet she defended him.
"I should not endure such treatment," said the tax-collector's
wife. "I am come of more respectable people. My father was
stocking-weaver to the Court."
"And consequently you have married a governmental official,"
said Holberg, and made a bow to her and to the collector.
It was on Twelfth Night, the evening of the festival of the
Three Kings, Mother Soren lit up for Holberg a three-king candle, that
is, a tallow candle with three wicks, which she had herself prepared.
"A light for each man," said Holberg.
"For each man?" repeated the woman, looking sharply at him.
"For each of the wise men from the East," said Holberg.
"You mean it that way," said she, and then she was silent for a
long time. But on this evening he learned more about her than he had
yet known.
"You speak very affectionately of your husband," observed Holberg,
"and yet the people say that he ill-uses you every day."
"That's no one's business but mine," she replied. "The blows might
have done me good when I was a child; now, I suppose, I get them for
my sins. But I know what good he has done me," and she rose up.
"When I lay sick upon the desolate heath, and no one would have pity
on me, and no one would have anything to do with me, except the
crows and daws, which came to peck me to bits, he carried me in his
arms, and had to bear hard words because of the burden he brought on
board ship. It's not in my nature to be sick, and so I got well. Every
man has his own way, and Soren has his; but the horse must not be
