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Updated: September 28, 2025
He turned about cautiously, so as to keep his eye on the sailor, lest the latter should pull his feet from under him. He knew the grip, and also how it should be parried; and he held his hands in readiness. Suddenly something in the stooping position struck him as familiar. This was Per Kofod Howling Peter, from the village school at home, in his own person!
"Why, then he's Uncle Kalle's eldest, and in a way my cousin Kalle, that is to say, isn't really his father. His wife had him before she was married he's the son of the owner of Stone Farm." "So he's a Kongstrup, then!" cried Per Kofod, and he laughed loudly. "Well, that's as it should be!" Pelle paid, and they got up to go. The two girls were still standing by the tree.
From some stacks of timber near by came a bellowing as of some one in torment, and the sound of blows. Pelle wanted, to turn aside, but Per Kofod seized his arm and dragged him forward. In among the timber-stacks three "coalies" were engaged in beating a fourth. He did not cry out, but gave vent to a muffled roar every time he received a blow. The blood was flowing down his face.
They drew a red rag from his bulging jacket-pocket, and wiped the worst of the blood away. "What sort of a fellow are you, damn it all, that you can't stand a drubbing?" said Per Kofod. "I didn't call for help," said the man thickly. His lips were swollen to a snout. "But you didn't hit back again! Yet you look as if you'd strength enough.
But old people knew that when their grandparents were children, it had been a crofter's cottage where only two horses were kept, and belonged to a certain Vevest Koller, a grandson of Jens Kofod, the liberator of Bornholm. During his time, the cottage became a farm. He worked himself to death on it, and grudged food both for himself and the others.
The windlass squeaked horribly, and in between the squeaking one could hear Master Jorgen Kofod, in a high falsetto, disputing with his son. "You're a noodle, a pitiful simpleton whatever will become of you? Do you think we've nothing more to do than to go running out to prayer-meetings on a working day? Perhaps that will get us our daily bread?
"I don't know him at all," said Pelle; "he was at sea already when I was still a youngster. Anyhow, I've got to go home to bed now I get to work early in the mornings." They stood on the quay, taking leave of one another. Per Kofod promised to look Pelle up next time he was in port. While they were talking the door of the after-cabin rattled. Howling Peter drew Pelle behind a stack of coal.
From some stacks of timber near by came a bellowing as of some one in torment, and the sound of blows. Pelle wanted, to turn aside, but Per Kofod seized his arm and dragged him forward. In among the timber-stacks three "coalies" were engaged in beating a fourth. He did not cry out, but gave vent to a muffled roar every time he received a blow. The blood was flowing down his face.
Jorgen Kofod, as a rule, came clumping in with great wooden shoes, and Jeppe used to scold him. "One wouldn't believe you've got a shoemaker for a brother!" he would say crossly; "and yet we all get our black bread from you." "But what if I can't keep my feet warm now in those damned leather shoes? And I'm full through and through of gout it's a real misery!"
"Because they were starving, Per!" said Pelle earnestly. "That does happen at times in this accursed city." Kofod stared at him and whistled. "Oh, Satan! Wife and child, and the whole lot without food what? And she in childbed. They were married, right enough, you can see that. Oh, the devil! What a honeymoon! What misery!"
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