“My father hit me on one shoulder and my mother on the other, crying, ‘Strike back at her, you coward!’ but I, not wishing to strike a girl, made my escape.”
All at once, Lamme went pale all over and began to tremble in every limb, and Claes saw a tall woman approaching, and by her side a young girl, very thin and fierce of aspect.
“Oh, oh!” cried Lamme, holding on to Claes by his breeches, “here are my mother and my sister come to find me. Protect me, please, Mr. Charcoal-burner!”
“Wait,” said Claes. “First of all let me give you this penny-farthing as your wages, and now let us go and meet them without fear.”
When the two women saw Lamme, they ran up and both began to belabour him—the mother because of the fright he had given her, the sister because it was her habit so to do. Lamme took refuge behind Claes, and cried out:
“I have earned a penny-farthing! I have earned a penny-farthing! Do not beat me!”
By this time, however, his mother had begun to embrace him, while the girl was trying to force open his hands and to get at the money. But Lamme shouted:
“The money belongs to me. You shall not have it.”
And he kept his fingers tightly closed. But Claes shook the girl roughly by the ears, and said to her:
“If you go on picking quarrels like this with your brother, he that is as good and gentle as a lamb, I shall put you in a black charcoal-pit, and then it won’t be I any longer that will be shaking you by the ears, but the red devil himself from hell, and he will pull you into pieces with his great claws and his teeth that are like forks.”