Part IV.—Peter The Graybeard.
Peter the Graybeard did not at all resemble Gudbrand. He was self-willed, imperious, passionate, and had no more patience than a dog when you snatch away his bone or a cat when you're trying to strangle her. He would have been insufferable, had not Heaven, in its mercy, given him a wife who was a match for him. She was headstrong, quarrelsome, discontented and morose—always ready to keep quiet when her husband preserved silence, and just as ready to scream at the top of her voice the moment he opened his mouth.
It was great good fortune for Peter to have such a spouse. Without her, would he ever have known that patience is not the merit of fools?
One day, in the mowing Season, when he came home, after a fifteen hours' spell of hard work, in worse humor than usual, and was swearing, cursing and execrating all women and their laziness, because his soup was not yet ready for him, his wife exclaimed,—
'Good Lord! Peter, you talk away at a fine rate. Would you like to change places? To-morrow, I will mow, instead of you, and you stay at home here and play housekeeper. Then, we'll see which of us will have the hardest task and come out of it the best.'
'Agreed!' thundered Peter; 'you'll have a chance to find out, once for all, what a poor husband has to suffer. The trial will teach you a lesson of respect—something you greatly need.'
So, the next morning, at day-break, the wife set out afield with the rake over her shoulder and the sickle by her side, all joyous at the sight of the bright sunshine, and singing like a lark.
Now, who felt not a little surprised, and a little foolish too, to find himself shut up at home? Our friend Peter the Graybeard. Still, he wasn't going to own himself beaten, but fell to work churning butter, as though he had never done anything else all the days of his life.
It's no hard matter to get over-heated when one takes up a new trade, and Peter soon, feeling very dry, went down into the cellar to draw a mug of beer from the cask. He had just knocked out the bung and was applying the spigot, when he heard an ominous crunching and grunting overhead. It was the sow, devastating the kitchen.
'Oh Lord! my butter's lost!' yelled Peter the Graybeard, as he rushed pell-mell up the steps, with the spigot in his hand. What a spectacle was there! the churn upset, the cream spilt all over the floor, and the huge sow fairly wallowing in the rich and savory tide.
Now even a wiser man would have lost all patience; as for Peter, he rushed upon the brute, who, with piercing screams, strove to escape; but it was a hapless day to the thief, for her master caught her in the doorway and dealt her so well applied and vigorous a blow on the side of her skull with the spigot that the sow fell dead on the spot.
As he drew back his novel weapon, now covered with blood, Peter recollected that he had not closed the bung-hole of his cask, and that all this time his beer was running to waste. So down he rushed again to the cellar. Fortunately, the beer had ceased to run, but then that was because not a drop remained in the cask.
He had now to begin his morning's work again, and churn some more butter if he expected to see any dinner that day. So Peter visited the dairy-house, and there found enough cream to replaced what he had just lost. At it he goes again, and churns and churns away, more vigorously than ever. But, in the midst of his churning, he remembers—a little late to be sure, but better late than never—that the cow was still in the stable, and that she had neither food nor water, although the sun was now high above the horizon. Away he runs then to the stable. But experience has made him wise: 'I've my little child there rolling on the floor; now, if I leave the churn, the greedy scamp will turn it over, and something worse might easily happen!' Whereupon, he takes up the churn on his back and hastens to the well to draw water for the cow. The well was deep, and the buckets did not go down far enough. So Peter leans with all his might, in hot haste, on the rope, and away goes the cream out of the churn, over his head and shoulders, into the well!
'Confound it!' said Peter between his teeth, 'it's clear that I'm to have no butter to-day. Let's attend to the cow; it's too late to take her out to pasture, but there's a fine lot of hay on the house-thatch that hasn't been cut, and so she'll lose nothing by staying at home.' To get the cow out of the stable and to put her on the house-roof was no great trouble, for the dwelling was set in a hollow in the hill-side, so that the thatch was almost on a level with the ground. A plank served the purpose of a bridge, and behold the cow comfortably installed in her elevated pasture! Peter, of course, could not remain upon the roof to watch the animal; he had to make the mid-day porridge and take it to the mowers. But he was a prudent man, and did not want to leave his cow exposed to the risk of breaking her bones; so he tied a small rope around her neck, and this rope he passed carefully down the chimney of the cottage into the kitchen below. Having effected this, he descended himself, and, entering the kitchen, attached the other end of the rope to his own leg.
'In this way,' said he, 'I make sure that the cow will keep quiet, and that nothing bad can happen to her.'
He now filled the kettle, dropped into it a good 'lump' of lard, the necessary vegetables and condiments, placed it on the well-piled fagots, struck fire with flint and steel, and was applying the match to the wood, blowing it well the while, when, all at once, crish—crash! away goes the cow, slipping down over the roof, and dragging our good man, with one leg in the air and head downwards, clear up the chimney. What would have become of him, no one could tell, had not a thick bar of iron arrested his upward flight. And now there they are, both together, dangling in the air, the cow outside and Peter within; both, too, uttering the most frightful cries of distress.
As good luck would have it, the wife was just as impatient as her husband, and, when she had waited just three seconds to see whether Peter would bring her porridge at the stated time, she darted off for the house as though it were on fire. When she saw the cow swinging between heaven and earth, she drew her sickle and cut the rope, greatly to the delight of the poor brute, who now found herself safe again, on the only sort of floor she liked. It was a chance no less fortunate for Peter, who was not accustomed to gazing at the sky with his feet in the air. But he fell smack into the kettle, head foremost. It had been decreed, however, that all should come out right with him, that day; the fire had died out, the water was cold, and the kettle awry, so that he got off with nothing worse than a scratched forehead, a peeled nose, and two well scraped cheeks, and, thank Heaven! nothing was broken but the saucepan.
When his better half entered the kitchen, she found Master Graybeard looking very sheepish and bloody.
'Well! well!' said she, planting her arms akimbo and her two fists on her haunches: 'who's the best housekeeper, pray? I have mowed and reaped, and here I am as good as I was yesterday, while you, you, Mister Cook, Mister Stay-at-home, Mr. Nurse, where is the butter, where's the sow, where's the cow, and where's our dinner? If our little one's alive yet, no thanks to you. Poor little fellow!—what would become of it without kind and careful mamma?'
Whereupon, Mrs. Peter begins to snivel and sob. Indeed, she has need to, for is not sensibility woman's field of triumph, and are not tears the triumph of sensibility?
Peter bore the storm in silence, and did well, for resignation is the virtue of great souls!