Poultry Meg's Family Page #3

"Poultry Meg's Family" by Hans Christian Andersen is a heartwarming tale revolving around the main character, Poultry Meg, who is known throughout the entire town for her chicken farm. This story takes readers on a journey through Meg's life, from the joys of caring for her chickens to the hardships and trials she endures in her personal life. It explores themes of love, community spirit, resilience, and the universal human experience, showing how a seemingly insignificant life can have a profound impact on those around them.

• Children

								

daws screamed at home in the garden of the manor house. The birds flew
quite close to her, and at last it seemed to her as if they became
black as crows, and then all was night before her eyes.

When she opened her eyes again, she was being lifted and
carried. A great strong man had taken her up in his arms, and she
was looking straight into his bearded face. He had a scar over one
eye, which seemed to divide the eyebrow into two parts. Weak as she
was, he carried her to the ship, where he got a rating for it from the
captain.

The next day the ship sailed away. Madame Grubbe had not been
put ashore, so she sailed away with it. But she will return, will
she not? Yes, but where, and when?

The clerk could tell about this too, and it was not a story
which he patched together himself. He had the whole strange history
out of an old authentic book, which we ourselves can take out and
read. The Danish historian, Ludwig Holberg, who has written so many
useful books and merry comedies, from which we can get such a good
idea of his times and their people, tells in his letters of Marie
Grubbe, where and how he met her. It is well worth hearing; but for
all that, we don't at all forget Poultry Meg, who is sitting
cheerful and comfortable in the charming fowl-house.

The ship sailed away with Marie Grubbe. That's where we left off.

Long years went by.

The plague was raging at Copenhagen; it was in the year 1711.
The Queen of Denmark went away to her German home, the King quitted
the capital, and everybody who could do so hurried away. The students,
even those who had board and lodging gratis, left the city. One of
these students, the last who had remained in the free college, at last
went away too. It was two o'clock in the morning. He was carrying
his knapsack, which was better stacked with books and writings than
with clothes. A damp mist hung over the town; not a person was to be
seen in the streets; the street-doors around were marked with crosses,
as a sign that the plague was within, or that all the inmates were
dead. A great wagon rattled past him; the coachman brandished his
whip, and the horses flew by at a gallop. The wagon was filled with
corpses. The young student kept his hand before his face, and smelt at
some strong spirits that he had with him on a sponge in a little brass
scent-case. Out of a small tavern in one of the streets there were
sounds of singing and of unhallowed laughter, from people who drank
the night through to forget that the plague was at their doors, and
that they might be put into the wagon as the others had been. The
student turned his steps towards the canal at the castle bridge, where
a couple of small ships were lying; one of these was weighing
anchor, to get away from the plague-stricken city.

"If God spares our lives and grants us a fair wind, we are going
to Gronmud, near Falster," said the captain; and he asked the name
of the student who wished to go with him.

"Ludwig Holberg," answered the student; and the name sounded
like any other. But now there sounds in it one of the proudest names
of Denmark; then it was the name of a young, unknown student.

The ship glided past the castle. It was not yet bright day when it
was in the open sea. A light wind filled the sails, and the young
student sat down with his face turned towards the fresh wind, and went
to sleep, which was not exactly the most prudent thing he could have
done.

Already on the third day the ship lay by the island of Falster.

"Do you know any one here with whom I could lodge cheaply?"
Holberg asked the captain.

"I should think you would do well to go to the ferry-woman in
Borrehaus," answered the captain. "If you want to be very civil to
her, her name is Mother Soren Sorensen Muller. But it may happen
that she may fly into a fury if you are too polite to her. The man
is in custody for a crime, and that's why she manages the ferry-boat
herself--she has fists of her own."

The student took his knapsack and betook himself to the
ferry-house. The house door was not locked--it opened, and he went
into a room with a brick floor, where a bench, with a great coverlet
of leather, formed the chief article of furniture. A white hen, who
had a brood of chickens, was fastened to the bench, and had overturned
the pipkin of water, so that the wet ran across the floor. There
were no people either here or in the adjoining room; only a cradle
stood there, in which was a child. The ferry-boat came back with
only one person in it. Whether that person was a man or a woman was
not an easy matter to determine. The person in question was wrapped in
a great cloak, and wore a kind of hood. Presently the boat lay to.

It was a woman who got out of it and came into the room. She
looked very stately when she straightened her back; two proud eyes
looked forth from beneath her black eyebrows. It was Mother Soren, the
ferry-wife. The crows and daws might have called out another name
for her, which we know better.

She looked morose, and did not seem to care to talk; but this much
was settled, that the student should board in her house for an
indefinite time, while things looked so bad in Copenhagen.

This or that honest citizen would often come to the ferry-house
from the neighboring little town. There came Frank the cutler, and
Sivert the exciseman. They drank a mug of beer in the ferry-house, and
used to converse with the student, for he was a clever young man,
who knew his "Practica," as they called it; he could read Greek and
Latin, and was well up in learned subjects.

"The less one knows, the less it presses upon one," said Mother
Soren.

"You have to work hard," said Holberg one day, when she was
dipping clothes in the strong soapy water, and was obliged herself
to split the logs for the fire.

"That's my affair," she replied.

"Have you been obliged to toil in this way from your childhood?"

"You can read that from my hands," she replied, and held out her
hands, that were small indeed, but hard and strong, with bitten nails.
"You are learned, and can read."

At Christmas-time it began to snow heavily. The cold came on,
the wind blue sharp, as if there were vitriol in it to wash the
people's faces. Mother Soren did not let that disturb her; she threw
her cloak around her, and drew her hood over her head. Early in the
afternoon--it was already dark in the house--she laid wood and turf on
the hearth, and then she sat down to darn her stockings, for there was
no one to do it for her. Towards evening she spoke more words to the
student than it was customary with her to use; she spoke of her
husband.

"He killed a sailor of Dragor by mischance, and for that he has to
work for three years in irons. He's only a common sailor, and
therefore the law must take its course."

"The law is there for people of high rank, too," said Holberg.

"Do you think so?" said Mother Soren; then she looked into the
fire for a while; but after a time she began to speak again. "Have you
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