United States or French Polynesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Next day, when the paste was dry, Harald could send up his kite and watch it rise, and feel unknown emotion within him, as I did now. Ready to start. Fruen comes out; all the family are there to see her off. The priest and his wife both know me again, return my greeting, and say a few words but I heard nothing said of my taking service with them now.
I made haste to finish my meal, and moved away. I took the buckets and went down for more water for the horses, though there was no need. I sat down by the stream and stayed there. After a little while Fruen called: "You must come and stand by the horses; we are going off to see if we can find some wild hops or something nice."
I opened the carriage door, and asked respectfully if Fruen would let me drive this time. She looked me calmly in the face. "No. What for?" she said. "Grindhusen might be a little done up, perhaps I don't know...." "He promised to drive," she said. "And he's not done up. Isn't he nearly ready?" "I can't see him," I answered.
But one day Falkenberg played me a mean trick: he came home with a bunch of hazel twigs for a carpet-beater, that Fruen had asked me expressly to cut for her. And he sang every evening now. Then it was I resolved to make Fruen jealous ey, ey, my good man, are you mad now, or merely foolish? As if Fruen would ever give it as much as a thought, whatever you did. But so it was.
Ragnhild smiled and shook her head; then she went on: "Heaven forgive me for smiling, but the Captain's face was so queer; he stood there like a sheep. 'Didn't you guess as much before? asked Fruen. The Captain looked over at me and said: 'What's that you're doing there all this time? 'I asked her to pick up those buttons for me, said Fruen.
'twas a woman's wit no doubt, 'twas Elisabet had put him up to that! We were sitting at the long dining-table in the kitchen, Nils and I and the lad; Fruen was there, and the maids were busy with their own work. Then in comes the Captain from the house with a brush in his hand. "Give my coat a bit of a brush, d'you mind?" says he to Ragnhild. She obeyed.
"Yes, I suppose it is," Fruen agreed. "I don't know.... Anyhow, it's just dinner-time; if you'd like to go in and get something to eat meanwhile. Such as it is." "Thank you kindly," answered Falkenberg. Now, that seemed to my mind a poor and vulgar way to speak; I felt he shamed us both in answering so, and it distressed me. So I must put in a word myself.
The Captain was aware of Ragnhild's doings, and once said to his wife so all might hear he was drunk, no doubt, and annoyed at something or other: "That Ragnhild's an underhanded creature; I'd be glad to be rid of her." Fruen answered: "It's not the first time you've wanted to get Ragnhild out of the way; Heaven knows what for! She's the best maid we've ever had."
But in this case, it seems, she doesn't. The woman I'm married to doesn't know or do you? But Fruen did not answer. 'Do you know? I ask you! Oh, but again she could not answer, only slipped down to the floor again and cried. Really, I don't know but perhaps I'm on her side after all; it was dreadful for her, poor thing.
My hair and beard are turning grey, I thought to myself; should they not respect me at least for that? "Yes, you're lovelier still tonight," says the man again. I come up alongside them, touching my cap carelessly, and pass on. "I'll tell you this much: you'll gain nothing by it," says Fruen. And then: "Here, you've dropped something," she calls to me. Dropped something?
Word Of The Day