The Great Hunger | Page 6

this way and that at every bound, and the boat's frame shook and groaned under the blows.
"She'll smash the boat and we'll go to the bottom," cried Peer.
And now HIS knife flashed out and sent a stream of blood spouting from between the shoulders, but the blow cost him his foothold--and in a moment the two bodies were rolling over and over together in the bottom of the boat.
"Oh, Lord Jesus!" shrieked Klaus, clinging to the stempost. "She'll kill him! She'll kill him!"
Peer was half up now, on his knees, but as he reached out a hand to grasp the side, the brute's jaws seized on his arm. The boy's face was contorted with pain--another moment and the sharp teeth would have bitten through, when, swift as thought, Peter Ronningen dropped his oars and sent his knife straight in between the beast's eyes. The blade pierced through to the brain, and the grip of the teeth relaxed.
"C-c-cursed d-d-devil!" stammered Peter, as he scrambled back to his oars. Another moment, and Peer had dragged himself clear and was kneeling by the forward thwart, holding the ragged sleeve of his wounded arm, while the blood trickled through his fingers.
When at last they were pulling homeward, the little boat overloaded with the weight of the great carcase, all at once they stopped rowing.
"Where is Klaus?" asked Peer--for the doctor's son was gone from where he had sat, clinging to the stem.
"Why--there he is--in the bottom!"
There lay the big lout of fifteen, who already boasted of his love- affairs, learned German, and was to be a gentleman like his father-- there he lay on the bottom-boards in the bow in a dead faint.
The others were frightened at first, but Peer, who was sitting washing his wounded arm, took a dipper full of water and flung it in the unconscious one's face. The next instant Klaus had started up sitting, caught wildly at the gunwale, and shrieked out:
"Cut the line, and row for your lives!"
A roar of laughter went up from the rest; they dropped their oars and sat doubled up and gasping. But on the beach, before going home, they agreed to say nothing about Klaus's fainting fit. And for weeks afterwards the four scamps' exploit was the talk of the village, so that they felt there was not much fear of their getting the thrashing they deserved when the men came home.
Chapter II
When Peer, as quite a little fellow, had been sent to live with the old couple at Troen, he had already passed several times from one adopted home to another, though this he did not remember. He was one of the madcaps of the village now, but it was not long since he had been a solitary child, moping apart from the rest. Why did people always say "Poor child!" whenever they were speaking about his real mother? Why did they do it? Why, even Peter Ronningen, when he was angry, would stammer out: "You ba-ba-bastard!" But Peer called the pock-marked good-wife at Troen "mother" and her bandy-legged husband "father," and lent the old man a hand wherever he was wanted--in the smithy or in the boats at the fishing.
His childhood was passed among folk who counted it sinful to smile, and whose minds were gloomy as the grey sea-fog with poverty, psalm-singing, and the fear of hell.
One day, coming home from his work at the peat bog, he found the elders snuffling and sighing over their afternoon meal. Peer wiped the sweat from his forehead, and asked what was the matter.
The eldest son shoved a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, wiped his eyes, swallowed, and said: "Poor Peer!"
"Aye, poor little chap," sighed the old man, thrusting his horn spoon into a crack in the wall that served as a rack.
"Neither father nor mother now," whimpered the eldest daughter, looking over to the window.
"Mother? Is she--"
"Ay, dearie, yes," sighed the old woman. "She's gone for sure-- gone to meet her Judge."
Later, as the day went on, Peer tried to cry too. The worst thing of all was that every one in the house seemed so perfectly certain where his mother had gone to. And to heaven it certainly was not. But how could they be so sure about it?
Peer had seen her only once, one summer's day when she had come out to see the place. She wore a light dress and a big straw hat, and he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful before. She made no secret of it among the neighbours that Peer was not her only child; there was a little girl, too, named Louise, who was with some folks away up in the inland parishes. She was in high spirits, and told risky stories and sang songs by no means sacred. The old