"Pshaw, Ma! The sand of many years has been strewed over that event."
When the game was again started, the captain's wife went with her knitting-work to the card-table, snuffed first one candle and then the other, leaned over her husband, and whispered something.
The captain looked up, rather surprised. "Yes, indeed, Ma! Yes, indeed—'My camel for your dromedary,' said Peter Vangensten, when he swapped his old spavined horse for Mamen's blooded foal. If you come with your arrack from Holland and farther India, then I put my red wine direct from France against it—genuine Bordeaux, brought home and drawn straight from the hogshead! There were just two dozen the governor sent us with the wagon the autumn Jörgen was baptized.—The two farthest to the left, Ma! You had better take Marit with you with the lantern. Then you can tell the governor's wife that we drank her health up here among the snow-drifts, Rönnow."
"Yes, she is very susceptible to that kind of thing, Peter Jäger."
When the captain's wife came in again, she had the stiff damask tablecloth on her arm, and was accompanied by a girl who helped move the folding-table out on the floor. It was to be set for supper, and the card-table must be moved into the best room, across the hall, which was now warm.
"Can you wait, Ma, till the rubber is played?"
Ma did not answer; but they felt the full pressure of her silence; her honor was at stake—the roast veal.
And they played on silently, but at a tearing pace as with full steam.
Finally the captain exclaimed, while Ma stood immovable with the cloth in the middle of the floor, "There, there, we must get away, Rönnow!"