LITMIR.BIZ

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breaks my heart. Alack-a-day, may God have mercy upon us! Ye’re not the same father to the two children, but sure it’s right that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation—and the sins of the mother too, and little Anne’s nothin’ but a whore’s brat—ay, I tell ye to yer face, she’s nothin’ but a whore’s brat, a whore’s brat in the sight of God and man,—but you, her father!—shame on ye, shame!—yes, I tell ye, even ’f ye lay hands on me, as ye did two years ago come Michaelmas, shame on ye! Fie on ye that ye let yer own child feel she’s conceived in sin! ye do let her feel it, you and M’ree both of ye let her feel it,—even ef ye hit me, I say ye let her feel it—”

      Erik Grubbe sprang up and stamped the floor.

      “Gallows and wheel! Are you spital-mad, woman? You’re drunk, that’s what you are. Go and lie down on your bed and sleep off your booze and your spleen too! ’Twould serve you right if I boxed your ears, you shrew! No—not another word! Marie shall be gone from here before to-morrow is over. I want peace—in times of peace.”

      Anne sobbed aloud.

      “O Lord, O Lord, that such a thing should come to pass—an everlastin’ shame! Tell me I’m tipsy! In all the time we’ve ben together or all the time before, have ye seen me in the scullery with a fuddled head? Have y’ ever heard me talkin’ drivel? Show me the spot where ye’ve seen me o’ercome with drink! That’s the thanks I get. Sleep off my booze! Would to God I might sleep! would to God I might sink down dead before you, since ye put shame upon me—”

      The dogs began to bark outside, and the beat of horses’ hoofs sounded beneath the windows.

      Anne dried her eyes hastily, and Erik Grubbe opened the window to ask who had come.

      “A messenger riding from Fovsing,” answered one of the men about the house.

      “Then take his horse and send him in,” and with these words the window was closed.

      Anne straightened herself in her chair and held up one hand to shade her eyes, red with weeping.

      The messenger presented the compliments of Christian Skeel of Fovsing and Odden, Governor of the Diocese, who sent to apprise Erik Grubbe of the notice he had that day received by royal courier, saying that war had been declared on June first. Since it became necessary that he should travel to Aarhus and possibly even to Copenhagen, he made inquiry of Erik Grubbe whether he would accompany him on the road so far as served his convenience, for they might at least end the suit they were bringing against certain citizens of Aarhus. With regard to Copenhagen, the Governor well knew that Erik Grubbe had plenty of reasons for going thither. At all events, Christian Skeel would arrive at Tjele about four hours after high noon on the following day.

      Erik Grubbe replied that he would be ready for the journey, and the messenger departed with this answer.

      Anne and Erik Grubbe then discussed at length all that must be done while he was away, and decided that Marie should go with him to Copenhagen and remain for a year or two with her Aunt Rigitze.

      The impending farewells had calmed them both, though the quarrel was on the point of blazing out again when it came to the question of letting Marie take with her sundry dresses and jewels that had belonged to her dead mother. The matter was settled amicably at last, and Anne went to bed early, for the next day would be a long one.

      Again the dogs announced visitors, but this time it was only the pastor of Tjele and Vinge parish, Jens Jensen Paludan.

      “Good even to the house!” he said as he stepped in.

      He was a large-boned, long-limbed man, with a stoop in his broad shoulders. His hair was rough as a crow’s nest, grayish and tangled, but his face was of a deep yet clear pink, seemingly out of keeping with his coarse, rugged features and bushy eyebrows.

      Erik Grubbe invited him to a seat and asked about his haymaking. The conversation dwelt on the chief labors of the farm at that season and died away in a sigh over the poor harvest of last year. Meanwhile the pastor was casting sidelong glances at the mug and finally said: “Your honor is always temperate—keeping to the natural drinks. No doubt they are the healthiest. New milk is a blessed gift of heaven, good both for a weak stomach and a sore chest.”

      “Indeed the gifts of God are all good, whether they come from the udder or the tap. But you must taste a keg of genuine mum that we brought home from Viborg the other day. She’s both good and German, though I can’t see that the customs have put their mark on her.”

      Goblets and a large ebony tankard ornamented with silver rings were brought in and set before them.

      They drank to each other.

      “Heydenkamper! Genuine, peerless Heydenkamper!” exclaimed the pastor in a voice that trembled with emotion. He leaned back blissfully in his chair and very nearly shed tears of enthusiasm.

      “You are a connoisseur,” smirked Erik Grubbe.

      “Ah, connoisseur! We are but of yesterday and know nothing,” murmured the pastor absent-mindedly, “though I’m wondering,” he went on in a louder voice, “whether it be true what I have been told about the brew-house of the Heydenkampers. ’Twas a free-master who related it in Hanover, the time I travelled with young Master Jörgen. He said they would always begin the brew on a Friday night, but before any one was allowed to put a finger to it he had to go to the oldest journeyman and lay his hand on the great scales and swear by fire and blood and water that he harbored no spiteful or evil thoughts, for such might harm the beer. The man also told me that on Sundays, when the church-bells sounded, they would open all the doors and windows to let the ringing pass over the beer. But the most important of all was what took place when they set the brew aside to ferment; for then the master himself would bring a splendid chest, from which he would take heavy gold rings and chains and precious stones inscribed with strange signs, and all these would be put into the beer. In truth, one may well believe that these noble treasures would impart to it something of their own secret potency given them by nature.”

      “That is not for us to say,” declared Erik Grubbe. “I have more faith, I own, in the Brunswick hops and the other herbs they mix.”

      “Nay,” said the pastor, “it were wrong to think so, for there is much that is hidden from us in the realm of nature,—of that there can be no doubt. Everything, living or dead, has its miraculum within it, and we need but patience to seek and open eyes to find. Alas, in the old days when it was not so long since the Lord had taken his hands from the earth, then all things were still so engirded with his power that they exhaled healing and all that was good for time and eternity. But now the earth is no longer new nor fine: it is defiled with the sins of many generations. Now it is only at particular times that these powers manifest themselves, at certain places and certain seasons, when strange signs may be seen in the heavens,—as I was saying to the blacksmith, when we spoke of the awful flaming light that has been visible in half the heavens for several nights recently.... That reminds me, a mounted courier passed us just then; he was bound this way, I think.”

      “So he was, Pastor Jens.”

      “I hope he rode with none but good tidings?”

      “He rode with the tidings that war has been declared.”

      “Lord Jesu! Alas the day! Yet it had to come some time.”

      “Ay, but when they’d waited so long, they might as well have waited till folks had their harvest in.”

      “’Tis the Skaanings who are back of it, I make no doubt. They still feel the smart of the last war and would seek balm in this.”

      “Oh, it’s not only the Skaanings. The Sjælland people are ever spoiling for war. They know it will pass them by as usual. Well, it’s a good time for neats and fools, when the Councillors of the Realm have gone mad one and all!”

      “’Tis said the Lord High Constable did not desire war.”

      “May

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