“What do they want?” Wooden-leg Larsen pulled himself together. “I’ve knocked up against a lot of people, I have, and as far as I can understand it they want to get justice; they want to take the right of coining money away from the Crown and give it to everybody. And they want to overthrow everything, that is quite certain.”
“Well,” said Master Andres, “what they want, I believe, is perfectly right, only they’ll never get it. I know a little about it, on account of Garibaldi.”
“But what do they want, then, if they don’t want to overthrow the whole world?”
“What do they want? Well, what do they want? That everybody should have exactly the same?” Master Andres was uncertain.
“Then the ship’s boy would have as much as the captain! No, it would be the devil and all!” Baker Jörgen smacked his thigh and laughed.
“And they want to abolish the king,” said Wooden-leg Larsen eagerly.
“Who the devil would reign over us then? The Germans would soon come hurrying over! That’s a most wicked thing, that Danish people should want to hand over their country to the enemy! All I wonder is that they don’t shoot them down without trial! They’d never be admitted to Bornholm.”
“That we don’t really know!” The young master smiled.
“To the devil with them—we’d all go down to the shore and shoot them: they should never land alive!”
“They are just a miserable rabble, the lot of them,” said Jeppe. “I should very much like to know whether there is a decent citizen among them.”