“Yes, yes; I’ve no part in such fine things now! It was as though one served the wicked goblin that stands over the door: Work to-day, eat to- morrow! And to-morrow never came. What kindness I’ve known has been from my own people; a poor bird will pull out its own feathers to cover another. But I can’t complain; I have had bad days, but there are folks who have had worse. And the women have always been good to me. Bengta was a grumbler, but she meant it kindly; Karna sacrificed money and health to me—God be thanked that she didn’t live after they took the farm from me. For I’ve been a landowner too; I had almost forgotten that in all my misery! Yes, and old Lise—Begging Lise, as they called her— she shared bed and board with me! She died of starvation, smart though she was. Would you believe that? ‘Eat!’ she used to say; ‘we have food enough!’ And I, old devil, I ate the last crust, and suspected nothing, and in the morning she was lying dead and cold at my side! There was not a scrap of flesh on her whole body; nothing but skin over dry bones. But she was one of God’s angels! We used to sing together, she and I. Ach, poor people take the bread out of one another’s mouths!”
Lasse lay for a time sunk in memories, and began to sing, with the gestures he had employed in the courtyard. Pelle held him down and endeavored to bring him to reason, but the old man thought he was dealing with the street urchins. When he came to the verse which spoke of his son he wept.
“Don’t cry, father!” said Pelle, quite beside himself, and he laid his heavy head against that of the old man. “I am with you again!”
Lasse lay still for a time, blinking his eyes, with his hand groping to and fro over his son’s face.
“Yes, you are really here,” he said faintly, “and I thought you had gone away again. Do you know what, Pelle? You have been the whole light of my life! When you came into the world I was already past the best of my years; but then you came, and it was as though the sun had been born anew! ‘What may he not bring with him?’ I used to think, and I held my head high in the air. You were no bigger than a pint bottle! ‘Perhaps he’ll make his fortune,’ I thought, ‘and then there’ll be a bit of luck for you as well!’ So I thought, and so I’ve always believed—but now I must give it up. But I’ve lived to see you respected. You haven’t become a rich man—well, that need not matter; but the poor speak well of you! You have fought their battles for them without taking anything to fill your own belly. Now I understand it, and my old heart rejoices that you are my son!”
When Lasse fell asleep Pelle lay on the sofa for a while. But he did not rest long; the old man slept like a bird, opening his eyes every moment. If he did not see his son close to his bed he lay tossing from side to side and complaining in a half-slumber. In the middle of the night he raised his head and held it up in a listening attitude. Pelle awoke.
“What do you want, father?” he asked, as he tumbled onto his feet.
“Ach, I can hear something flowing, far out yonder, beyond the sea- line…. It is as though the water were pouring into the abyss. But oughtn’t you to go home to Ellen now? I shall be all right alone overnight, and perhaps she’s sitting worrying as to where you are.”
“I’ve sent to Ellen to tell her that I shouldn’t be home overnight,” said Pelle.
The old man lay considering his son with a pondering glance, “Are you happy, too, now?” he asked. “It seems to me as though there is something about your marriage that ought not to be.”