“‘Shove off,’ said the stranger, ‘you have got quite load enough for one trip;’ and so they had, for the gunwales were not a couple of inches from the water, and the boats pulled so heavily, that it was as much as the men could do to get to the Vandsyssel side; if the water had not been wonderfully calm, they could not have done it at all—but it was calm; and all under the wake of the moon it looked as if it was covered with a network of silver filigree, to chain down the ripples.
“As soon as the boats touched the Vandsyssel shore, they began rising in the water again, as if their freight had been taken out of them, and then the stranger sent them back again; and so it went on throughout the whole night, and very hard work the ferrymen had, bringing over cargoes of emptiness.
“Then the day began to break, and the eastern sky to whiten; and just as the coming sun shot up his seven lances to show the world that King Day was at hand, the stranger, who had arranged all this, paid the ferrymen, not counting the coins, but filling their hats with them with both hands, as a boy shovels out his nuts.
“‘What had they been bringing over?’ asked one of them. ‘Cannot you be quiet, and know when you are well off,’ said the stranger; ‘you need not be afraid of the custom-house dues; they will have sharp eyes to see anything contraband in what you have carried over last night; put your money in your pockets and be thankful—you will not earn so much in the next three years.’
“But in the mean while one of the ferrymen, a sharper fellow than his neighbours, jumped on shore, and did just exactly what Torkel did just now—put a piece of clay from the sole of his shoe on the crown of his head. His eyes were opened at once; all the sandhills about Aalberg were alive with little people, every one of them carrying on his back gold and silver pots, and jugs, and vessels of every description—the whole place looked like one gigantic anthill.
“‘O-ho,’ said he, ‘that’s what you are about; well, joy go with you, we shall not be plagued with you any more on our side of the water; that’s one good job, anyhow.’
“But it was not a good job for him; it is very possible to be too sharp for one’s own good. All his gold money turned to yellow queens,[26] and his silver money to chipped oyster-shells, and he never got rich, or anything more than a poor ferryman of Sund, while his companions had their hats full of ancient Danish gold and silver coins, and bought ships of their own, and went trading to Holland and the free towns, and became great men.”
“Upon my word, Torkel,” said the Parson, “you are too venturesome; it is just as well that there were no Trolls to be seen just now at the well; but you must not try it again, or you will never become a great man, or command a ship—not that this would suit you very well, I suppose.”
“Torkel would undertake the command of the Haabet, just now, I’ll engage, little as he knows about seamanship, if he could only get young Svensen out of her,” said Mr Tom, with a knowing grin; to which innuendo, whatever it might mean, Torkel playfully replied by kicking out behind at him with one foot, after the manner of a donkey. He missed Tom, however, to his and Piersen’s intense mirth; but what was the precise nature of the joke, there was now no opportunity of explaining, as the descent had become so steep that the assistance of the hand was necessary, in order to keep their footing.
At a few hundred yards from the dwarf’s well, they had fallen in with a little streamlet, running eastward, on a pretty rapid descent, even from the first, but which now began to form a series of diminutive cascades, leaping in so many spouts from rock to rock, while the ground, over which it ran, seemed as if it was fast changing from the horizontal to the perpendicular; indeed, had there not been plenty of rocks jutting out, and a good crop of twisted and gnarled trunks and roots, many portions of the journey might have been accomplished with more speed than pleasure.