Emanuel, or Children of the Soil/Book 3, Chapter 13
Anders Jörgen and Emanuel went to the stables first; they were newly built, and immediately opposite the ancient living house. There were two big red Wallachian horses, and a rough-haired yearling; they all rattled their chains and whinnied into their mangers with the hollow, comfortable sound horses make when they are visited in their stables.
With sudden liveliness, which astonished Emanuel, Anders Jörgen began giving minute details of the age, character, and breed of the animals. With great pride he explained that "the lass there"—he meant the foal—was a direct descendant of "Starkodder II.," who had taken prizes three years running at Roeskildé Horse Show, and could hang more medals and marks of honour on its breast than many a prince.
Emanuel listened attentively to him, and looked with great interest at the various appliances in the stable and in the adjoining barns and threshing sheds. He examined the chaff-cutting and winnowing machines, and asked the use of various screws and cogwheels, and had himself initiated generally into the mysteries of agriculture, of which he had seen nothing since his childhood, when he used to visit an uncle in Jutland. When they entered the cow-byre his attention was caught at once by a bird's nest which was built close up under the rafters, among the cobwebs, and out of which a pair of swallows flew just as they came in.
"Oh! look there!" he said with delight.
Anders Jörgen, who thought that such an enthusiastic exclamation could only refer to the condition of his cattle, let his hand fall heavily on the back of a fat beast, with a delighted smile, and said:
"There's a bit o' flesh for your Reverence!"
The cows were Anders Jörgen's pets, and he had a considerable reputation in the neighbourhood as a breeder and fattener of cattle. He knew exactly how much milk each of his cows had given, and their weights ever since they had been in his stable. He could tell off on his fingers how many pounds of bran, chaff, straw, and oilcake they had consumed; and the relative prices of butter, meat, and fodder for the last twenty years,—and he held forth on these subjects with a most surprising eloquence to Emanuel; giving him at the same time a most learned explanation of the modern stall and artificial feeding, and shewed himself a most determined adherent of the system.
Emanuel listened to him with rising astonishment. This little half-blind man, with his awkward manners—whom he had hitherto looked upon as a simple clown—now stood before him full of eagerness, asserting independent views, shewing insight, and unfolding a knowledge of his subject which quite overwhelmed him.
All this strengthened him in his opinion, that much of the want of appreciation, and injustice from which the peasants suffered, was entirely due to the want of understanding of the kernel which was hidden behind their external shyness and helplessness; and that therefore it was absolutely necessary, for anyone who wished to do anything among these people, to bind themselves to them heart and soul, to be able to win their confidence.
Anders Jörgen, who was flattered by Emanuel's interest in his occupations, became more and more communicative. He led him round all the outhouses and barns, shewed him the granary, the closed horse threshing machine, took him into the sheepfold, and down into the curing cellars,—and Emanuel followed him everywhere without opposition. When they arrived at the pigsties, and Anders Jörgen in his zeal wanted him to go inside to feel the pigs, he laid his hand on his shoulder and said smilingly: "Thank you, my dear fellow, I must ask you to leave that till another time."
At this point the white-haired lad Ole appeared, to say that dinner was ready. Emanuel nodded kindly to his future brother-in-law, and examined him closely for the first time. He was a fresh-coloured, bright boy of fifteen, rather short, like Hansine, with a child-like expression.
"We two must make friends," said Emanuel, and pinched his apple cheek. The boy stared open-mouthed at him, and then at his father, and no sooner did Emanuel let him go than he ran away as hard as he could behind the barn into the brewhouse, where he told the woman, with a grin, what the curate had said to him. But the woman, who had made out what was in the wind, pursed up her mouth and said: "You're a reg-lar simpleton, Ole! can't ye see what's a-goin' on?"
Then he understood. He stared at the woman, his face blood red, and then turned round and ran away. When his mother shortly after stepped outside the door and called him to dinner, he did not answer, nor did he appear at the meal.
In the living room the table was spread with a clean white cloth and gay flowered earthenware dishes. The place at the head of the table was reserved for Emanuel. At first he tried to get Hansine to sit by him, but he soon discovered that it would be against all peasant etiquette for the daughter of the house to sit down while the guest dined. So he had to content himself with nodding to her as she carried the dishes in and out from the kitchen.
He was completely happy. The chill fogs of doubt which had closed around his spirit in the long sleepless night were long since dispersed. He was sure that his love would conquer fear and old prejudices, and it seemed to him that everything smiled and wished him joy.
The dinner was rather frugal to one of Emanuel's habits, and he did not know that rice-milk porridge followed by fried bacon, and scrambled eggs were looked upon as gala food in a peasant's house. All the same, no meal had ever seemed more festive to him than this. The sun threw its golden rays over the cloth, and he felt for the first time that he was indeed in the country. A fresh scent of hay came in through the open door, and first a white butterfly fluttered in on the warm breeze—like a little ship with sails set—then a busy humble bee, filling the room for a moment with its angry buzzing before it flew out again.
Last of all, the chickens flocked in, attracted by the clatter of spoons and forks; one by one they hopped in, as if accustomed to it, and picked up the crumbs off the earthen floor under the table and benches. Only the big strutting cock stayed outside, crowing softly like a wide-awake inspector, encouraging them and warning at the same time.
After dinner Hansine was so tired that she was obliged to go to her room to rest. It was a bitter disappointment to Emanuel, who had been longing to talk to her in private. He was obliged to be satisfied with Else for an hour, as Anders Jörgen also saw his chance to creep away and take his mid-day snooze in the barn, with one of his wooden shoes for a pillow.
According to custom among peasants, Else took Emanuel all over the house. She shewed him the kitchen and brew-house—and here the smiling labourer's wife wished him joy, and offered him a dripping hand to shake—then she led him down to the salting cellar and the dairy, where she made up a pat of fresh-churned butter in his honour. Last of all, they went into the "best room," a big room with the walls distempered blue, which lay by itself on the other side of the entrance. The only furniture was a double wardrobe, and three large green painted chests containing their stores of bed and table linen and family relics. Else opened the chests one by one, and Emanuel saw many things which interested him very much. There were wedding skirts a hundred years old, stomachers cunningly embroidered in Hedebo stitch and with woven names and dates, which were the labour of years; there were ancient, gold-embroidered caps, and others sewn all over with beads, all of which had belonged to the wedding costumes of their ancestors; prayer books, shoe buckles, chains, and silver buttons.
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Else was most taken up with shewing him the savings of years, in the shape of rolls of linen, bales of homespun and bundles of yarn; because this was—what Emanuel did not know, and never would have understood—the most important part of the children's portions, for the farm was leasehold for three lives, and Anders Jörgen's was the last.
"Yes, this is what we've gathered together," she said, not without pride, while she exhibited piece after piece of her treasure, passing her hand tenderly over them. "It's perhaps not so much, for Anders and I were married late in life, and for the first few years the takings were small. Then many a time we've had bad years, misfortunes with the beasts and the harvests, so we may be thankful we've done as well as we have. When I had my thoughts on Anders, my mother foretold both the poorhouse and all sorts of other miseries, but the Almighty willed it otherwise, and we've much to be thankful for."
Handling all these many stored-up things woke all kinds of old memories, and she told him how Anders and she had found each other in their youth while they served on farms together in a neighbouring parish. Emanuel listened, full of admiration, to her half-bashful story, how they had to serve fifteen years among strangers, and bear with all kinds of opposition, before they had saved enough between them to set up house,—and he felt a new joy in thinking that he might be a comfort and prop in their old age to this faithful pair.