Pelle the Conqueror | Page 3

as much as to
give a civil answer to a civil question?" he said angrily.
The fishermen looked backward and forward at one another, taking
mute counsel.

"No, but I tell you what it is! She must come some time," said the head
man at last.
"What 'she'?"
"The steamer, of course. And she generally comes about this time. Now
you've got it!"
"Naturally--of course! But isn't it a little unwise to speak so loud about
it?" jeered the traveller.
The fishermen had turned their backs on him, and were scraping out
their pipes.
"We're not quite so free with our speech here as some people, and yet
we make our living," said the head man to the others. They growled
their approval.
As the stranger wandered on down the harbor hill, the fishermen looked
after him with a feeling of relief. "What a talker!" said one. "He wanted
to show off a bit, but you gave him what he won't forget in a hurry."
"Yes, I think it touched him on the raw, all right," answered the man,
with pride. "It's these fine gentlemen you need to be most careful of."
Half-way down the harbor hill, an inn-keeper stood at his door yawning.
The morning stroller repeated his question to him, and received an
immediate answer, the man being a Copenhagener.
"Well, you see we're expecting the steamer from Ystad today, with a
big cargo of slaves--cheap Swedish laborers, that's to say, who live on
black bread and salt herrings, and do the work of three. They ought to
be flogged with red-hot icicles, that sort, and the brutes of farmers, too!
You won't take a little early morning glass of something, I suppose?"
"No, thank you, I think not--so early."
"Very well, please yourself."

Down at the harbor a number of farmers' carts were already standing,
and fresh ones arrived at full gallop every minute. The newcomers
guided their teams as far to the front as possible, examined their
neighbors' horses with a critical eye, and settled themselves into a
half-doze, with their fur collars turned up about their ears.
Custom-house men in uniform, and pilots, looking like monster
penguins, wandered restlessly about, peering out to sea and listening.
Every moment the bell at the end of the mole rang, and was answered
by the pilot-boat's horn somewhere out in the fog over the sea, with a
long, dreary hoot, like the howl of some suffering animal.
"What was that noise?" asked a farmer who had just come, catching up
the reins in fear. His fear communicated itself to his horses, and they
stood trembling with heads raised listening in the direction of the sea,
with questioning terror in their eyes.
"It was only the sea-serpent," answered a custom-house officer. "He
always suffers from wind in this foggy weather. He's a wind-sucker,
you see." And the custom-house men put their heads together and
grinned.
Merry sailors dressed in blue with white handkerchiefs round their
necks went about patting the horses, or pricking their nostrils with a
straw to make them rear. When the farmers woke up and scolded, they
laughed with delight, and sang--
"A sailor he must go through A deal more bad than good, good, good!"
A big pilot, in an Iceland vest and woollen gloves, was rushing
anxiously about with a megaphone in his hand, growling like an uneasy
bear. Now and then he climbed up on the molehead, put the megaphone
to his mouth, and roared out over the water:
"Do--you--hear--any--thing?" The roar went on for a long time out
upon the long swells, up and down, leaving behind it an oppressive
silence, until it suddenly returned from the town above, in the shape of
a confused babble that made people laugh.
"N-o-o!" was heard a little while after in a thin and long-drawn-out cry

from the sea; and again the horn was heard, a long, hoarse sound that
came rocking in on the waves, and burst gurgling in the splash under
the wharf and on the slips.
The farmers were out of it all. They dozed a little or sat flicking their
whips to pass the time. But every one else was in a state of suspense. A
number of people had gradually gathered about the harbor --fishermen,
sailors waiting to be hired, and master-artisans who were too restless to
stay in their workshop. They came down in their leather aprons, and
began at once to discuss the situation; they used nautical expressions,
most of them having been at sea in their youth. The coming of the
steamer was always an event that brought people to the harbor; but
to-day she had a great many people on board, and she was already an
hour behind time. The dangerous fog kept the suspense at high pressure;
but