Jeppe—If you had not hanged me yourselves, I should have been glad to thank you for taking me down again.
Judge—Be content, Jeppe, and let us know when your wife beats you again, and we shall look into the matter. See, here are four Rixdollars, which you can have a good time with for awhile, and don't forget to drink our health.
(Jeppe kisses his hand and thanks him. The judge goes away.)
Scene 3.
Jeppe (alone)—Here I have lived for fifty years, and in all that time I have not gone through as much as in these two days. This is certainly a queer story, when I stop to think of it; one hour a drunken peasant, another hour baron, a third hour peasant again; now dead, now alive on a gallows,—which is the funniest of it all; maybe when live people get hanged they die, and when dead people get hanged they come to life again. I guess that a drink of whiskey would taste fine on this. Hey! Jakob Skomager, come out!
Scene 4.
Jakob Skomager. Jeppe.
Jakob—Welcome back from town! Did you get the soap for your wife?
Jeppe—Ay, you rascal, you must know what kind of people you are talking to! Off with your cap! for you are but an idiot compared to a fellow like me.
Jakob—I'd not stand such words from anyone else, Jeppe. But since you give my house a daily penny, I won't be too particular.