CHAPTER XVIII

IN May of sixteen hundred and ninety-five Erik Grubbe died at the age of eighty-seven. The inheritance was promptly divided among his three daughters, but Marie did not get much, as the old man, before his death, had issued various letters of credit in favor of the other two, thus withdrawing from the estate the greater part of his property to the disadvantage of Marie.

Even so, her portion was sufficient to make her and her husband respectable folk instead of beggars, and with a little common sense, they might have secured a fair income to the end of their days. Unluckily S?ren made up his mind to become a horse-dealer, and it was not long before he had squandered most of the money. Still there was enough left so they could buy the Burdock House at the Falster ferry.

In the early days they had a hard time, and Marie often had to lend a hand at the oars, but later on her chief task was to mind the ale-house which was a part of the ferry privileges. On the whole, they were very happy, for Marie still loved her husband above everything else in the world, and though he would sometimes get drunk and beat her, she did not take it much to heart. She realized that she had enrolled in a class where such things were an every-day matter, and though she would sometimes feel irritated, she would soon get over it by telling herself that this man who could be so rough and hard was the same S?ren who had once shot a human being for her sake.

The people they ferried over were generally peasants and cattle-men, but occasionally there would come some one who was a little higher up in the world. One day Sti H?gh passed that way. Marie and her husband rowed him across, - 246 - and he sat in the stern of the boat, where he could talk with Marie, who had the oar nearest him. He recognized her at once, but showed no signs of surprise; perhaps he had known that he would find her there. Marie had to look twice before she knew him, for he was very much changed. His face was red and bloated, his eyes were watery; his lower jaw dropped, as if the corners of his mouth were paralyzed, his legs were thin, and his stomach hung down,—in short, he bore every mark of a life spent in stupefying debauchery of every kind, and this had, as a matter of fact, been his chief pursuit ever since he left Marie. As far as the external events went, he had for a time been gentilhomme and ma?tre d’h?tel in the house of a royal cardinal in Rome, had gone over to the Catholic Church, had joined his brother, Just H?gh, then ambassador to Nimeguen, had been converted back to the Lutheran religion again, and returned to Denmark, where he was living on the bounty of his brother.

“Is this,” he asked, nodding in the direction of S?ren,—“is this the one I foretold was to come after me?”

“Ay, he is the one,” said Marie, hesitating a little, for she would have preferred not to reply.

“And he is greater than I—was?” he went on, straightening himself in his seat.

“Nay, you can’t be likened to him, your lordship,” she answered, affecting the speech of a peasant woman.

“Oh, ay, so it goes—you and I have indeed cheapened ourselves—we’ve sold ourselves to life for less pay than we had thought to, you in one manner, I in another.”

“But your lordship is surely well enough off?” asked Marie, in the same simple tone.

“Well enough,” he laughed, “well enough is more than half ill; I am indeed well enough off. And you, Marie?”

- 247 -

“Thank you kindly for asking; we’ve got our health, and when we keep tugging at the oars every day, we’ve got bread and brandy too.”

They had reached land, and Sti stepped out and said good-by.

“Lord,” said Marie, looking after him pityingly, “he’s certainly been shorn of crest and wings too.”

Peacefully and quietly the days passed at the Burdock House, with daily work and daily gain. Little by little, the pair improved their condition, hired boatmen to do the ferrying, carried on a little trade, and built a wing on their old house. They lived to the end of the old century and ten years into the new. Marie turned sixty, and she turned sixty-five, and still she was as brisk and merry at her work as if she had been on the sunny side of sixty. But then it happened, on her sixty-eighth birthday, in the spring of seventeen hundred and eleven, that S?ren accidentally shot and killed a skipper from Drag?r under very suspicious circumstances, and in consequence was arrested.

This was a hard blow to Marie. She had to endure a long suspense, for judgment was not pronounced until midsummer of the following year, and this, together with her anxiety lest the old affair of his attempt on the life of Anne Trinderup should be taken up again, aged her very much.

One day, in the beginning of this period of waiting, Marie went down to meet the ferry just as it was landing. There were two passengers on board, and one of these, a journeyman, absorbed her attention by refusing to show his passport, declaring that he had shown it to the boatmen, when he went on board, which they, however, denied. When she threatened to charge him full fare, unless - 248 - he would produce his passport as proof of his right as a journeyman to travel for half price, he had to give in. This matter being settled, Marie turned to the other passenger, a little slender man who stood, pale and shivering after the seasickness he had just endured, wrapped in his mantle of coarse, greenish-black stuff, and leaning against the side of a boat that had been dragged up on the beach. He asked in a peevish voice whether he could get lodgings in the Burdock House, and Marie replied that he might look at their spare room.

She showed him a little chamber which, besides bed and chair, contained a barrel of brandy with funnel and waste-cup, some large kegs of molasses and vinegar, and a table with legs painted in pearl-color and a top of square tiles, on which scenes from the Old and New Testament were drawn in purplish black. The stranger at once noticed that three of the tiles represented Jonah being thrown on land from the mouth of the whale, and when he put his hand on them, he shuddered, declaring he was sure to catch a cold, if he should be so careless as to sit and read with his elbows on the table.

When Marie questioned him, he explained that he had left Copenhagen on account of the plague, and meant to stay until it was over. He ate only three times a day, and he could not stand salt meat or fresh bread. As for the rest, he was a master of arts, at present fellow at Borch’s Collegium, and his name was Holberg, Ludvig Holberg.

Master Holberg was a very quiet man of remarkably youthful appearance. At first glance, he appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen years old, but upon closer examination, his mouth, his hands, and the inflection of his voice showed that he must be a good deal older. He kept - 249 - to himself, spoke but little, and that little—so it seemed—with reluctance. Not that he avoided other people, but he simply wanted them to leave him in peace and not draw him into conversation. When the ferry came and went with passengers, or when the fishermen brought in their catch, he liked to watch the busy life from a distance and to listen to the discussions. He seemed to enjoy the sight of people at work, whether it was ploughing or stacking or launching the boats, and whenever any one put forth an effort that showed more than common strength, he would smile with pleasure and lift his shoulders in quiet delight. When he had been at the Burdock House for a month, he began to approach Marie Grubbe, or rather he allowed her to approach him, and they would often sit talking, in the warm summer evenings, for an hour or two at a time, in the common room, where they could look out through the open door, over the bright surface of the water, to the blue, hazy outlines of M?en.

One evening, after their friendship had been well established, Marie told him her story, and ended with a sigh, because they had taken S?ren away from her.

“I must own,” said Holberg, “that I am utterly unable to comprehend how you could prefer an ordinary groom and country oaf to such a polished gentleman as his Excellency the Viceroy, who is praised by everybody as a past master in all the graces of fashion, nay as the model of everything that is elegant and pleasing.”

“Even though he had been as full of it as the book they call the Alamodische Sittenbuch, it would not have mattered a rush, since I had once for all conceived such an aversion and loathing for him that I could scarce bear to have him come into my presence; and you know how impossible it is - 250 - to overcome such an aversion, so that if one had the virtue and principles of an angel, yet this natural aversion would be stronger. On the other hand, my poor present husband woke in me such instant and unlooked-for inclination that I could ascribe it to nothing but a natural attraction, which it would be vain to resist.”

“Ha! That were surely well reasoned! Then we have but to pack all morality into a strong chest and send it to Hekkenfell, and live on according to the desires of our hearts, for then there is no lewdness to be named but we can dress it up as a natural and irresistible attraction, and in the same manner there is not one of all the virtues but we can easily escape from the exercise of it; for one may have an aversion for sobriety, one for honesty, one for modesty, and such a natural aversion, he would say, is quite irresistible, so one who feels it is quite innocent. But you have altogether too clear an understanding, goodwife, not to know that all this is naught but wicked conceits and bedlam talk.”

Marie made no answer.

“But do you not believe in God, goodwife,” Master Holberg went on, “and in the life everlasting?”

“Ay, God be praised, I do. I believe in our Lord.”

“But eternal punishment and eternal reward, goodwife?”

“I believe every human being lives his own life and dies his own death, that is what I believe.”

“But that is no faith; do you believe we shall rise again from the dead?”

“How shall I rise? As the young innocent child I was when I first came out among people, or as the honored and envied favorite of the King and the ornament of the court, - 251 - or as poor old hopeless Ferryman’s Marie? And shall I answer for what the others, the child and the woman in the fullness of life, have sinned, or shall one of them answer for me? Can you tell me that, Master Holberg?”

“Yet you have had but one soul, goodwife!”

“Have I indeed?” asked Marie, and sat musing for a while. “Let me speak to you plainly, and answer me truly as you think. Do you believe that one who his whole life has sinned grievously against God in heaven, and who in his last moment, when he is struggling with death, confesses his sin from a true heart, repents, and gives himself over to the mercy of God, without fear and without doubt, do you think such a one is more pleasing to God than another who has likewise sinned and offended against Him, but then for many years of her life has striven to do her duty, has borne every burden without a murmur, but never in prayer or open repentance has wept over her former life, do you think that she who has lived as she thought was rightly lived, but without hope of any reward hereafter and without prayer, do you think God will thrust her from Him and cast her out, even though she has never uttered a word of prayer to Him?”

“That is more than any man may dare to say,” replied Master Holberg and left her.

Shortly afterwards he went away.

In August of the following year, judgment was pronounced against S?ren Ferryman, and he was sentenced to three years of hard labor in irons at Bremerholm.

It was a long time to suffer, longer to wait, yet at last it was over. S?ren came home, but the confinement and harsh treatment had undermined his health, and before Marie had nursed him for a year, they bore him to the grave.

- 252 -

For yet another long, long year Marie had to endure this life. Then she suddenly fell ill and died. Her mind was wandering during her illness, and the pastor could neither pray with her nor give her the sacrament.

On a sunny day in summer they buried her at S?ren’s side, and over the bright waters and the golden grainfields sounded the hymn, as the poor little group of mourners, dulled by the heat, sang without sorrow and without thought:
“Lord God, in mercy hear our cry before Thee, Thy bloody scourge lift from us, we implore Thee; Turn Thou from us Thy wrath all men pursuing For their wrongdoing.
“If Thou regard alone our vile offending, If upon us true justice were descending, Then must the earth and all upon it crumble, Yea, proud and humble.”

The End