Of such kind was the long-standing feud between the factory owner in the Old Town and Knud Clausen, his next-door neighbor, who kept cows. Knud’s manure heap, which was his wealth, for he had also a farm, was right under the other’s dining-room window and was not nice, to put it mildly. The man of industry and wealth tried to buy it many a time and oft, but Knud would not sell; not he, for in an unguarded moment the other had disputed his right to keep it there at all, and he was merely standing upon his undoubted rights. Had not his father kept it there before him? So it was a drawn battle, and the subject of many heart-burnings, until the Palm Sunday when the manufacturer’s daughter went to confirmation. Knud loved the ground she trod on, as did every one else in the Old Town, and sought a way of showing his good-will. He found it in the bone of contention in his back yard. When the family, returning from church, sat down to dinner, they beheld the offensive pile hidden entirely under a layer of grass and green leaves with daisies stuck in, like silver stars on a green carpet, and Knud himself beaming all over, presenting congratulations in mimic show.
When the government undertook to replace the deadly slow old hymns that were sung in church on Sunday with some of more modern cast, and to that end introduced a new hymnbook, it came to a characteristic fight between the conservative countryfolk, who wanted no change, and their clergy carrying out the orders from headquarters. The peasants flatly refused to sing the new tunes. When the preceptor struck up one, they calmly sang the old and drowned him and the parson out. The battle raged for years before the new prevailed, just how I do not know. The government tried to seize the old books and burn them, but it only made matters worse. Some compromise was made, without doubt, or they would be singing the old tunes to this day.
The “stalwart Jutes” they called the countryfolk round about the Old Town, and stalwart they are, as Germany is finding out trying to bend those south of the Konge-aa to her will. She may do it in Alsace and Lorraine perhaps,—I don’t know,—but not with them. They will be Danes four hundred years hence, as they have been these forty under daily persecution. They will do nothing rash, but give in they never will. It is their way. Let me end this battlesome chapter, when I yearned only for peace, with the characteristic tale of my old friend Rosenvinge, who was set to guard a prisoner in the war of ’49. The man was a disloyal burgomaster or sheriff or something from one of the Schleswig towns, brought in by order of the government, to be kept and guarded in Ribe. Rosenvinge—may his shadow never grow less! he lives yet, near the nineties if not in them, and goes his daily rounds in the old cloister of which he is the keeper—Rosenvinge was the sentinel. The call for breakfast came after a night on the road, for suspects had to be taken by stealth and under cover of darkness. The sentinel was hungry. Never was man a hero without his porridge. No guard relief was in sight. There was but one way, and he took it. He put his gun in the corner with the prisoner, and went calmly across the street to the tavern, whence came the compelling savors of fried herring and hot Tvebak. Nor did he hurry himself over his coffee, but took his time. A soldier must have a good digestion, or he will have no stomach for the stern duties of war. Let it be recorded that he found his prisoner faithfully guarding the gun when he came back and awaiting his turn at the herring. To disturb a man’s breakfast by running away—if, indeed, it would have disturbed it—would have been dishonorable; not to mention that thereby he would have lost his own. A square deal and nothing in haste was the good working plan of the Old Town.
“He found his prisoner faithfully guarding the gun when he came back.”
CHAPTER III
“Eyes that spoke of things unseen by the crowd.”
Our house was in Black Friars’ Street, right around the corner from Peer Down’s Slip in the picture. The Slip was a short cut to school for us boys, and we skipped through it lightly enough, morning, noon, and evening. Mother never passed it, but always went the other way. It stood for the great sorrow of her life, for at the foot of it, where the river ran swiftly, my younger brother was drowned while at play. Theodore was ten. Though my mother had a house full, I do not believe she ever got over the shock of this first great trouble. To me it calls up two things which at the time caused me much wonderment. One was the strange consideration, even deference, with which I was treated by the boys who used to fight me and call me names, in the long week while they dragged the river for the body. Even my arch-enemy, Liar Hans, who skinned cats and hated me, let me alone. It gave me a queer feeling of being deserted and cast out which I made haste to get over when opportunity came. The other had somehow to do with this same experience, though I could not make out the connection.
