Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/227

Rh good, even if it comes out of the porridge-pot! Wake up our Mary, old girl."

Now you must know Mary was their daughter, a ready and trusty lass; she had the strength of a man too, and always had her wits about her. So she was to take our clerk and bury him in an out-of-the-way dale, so that nothing should ever be heard of him. If she did this, she was to have a new suit of working clothes, which were meant for her mother.

Well! the lassie took our clerk round the body, tossed him on her back, and strode off from the farm, not forgetting to take his hat. But when she had gone a bit of the way, she heard a fiddle going, for there was a dance at a farm near the road, and so she crept in and set our clerk down upright behind the backstairs. There he sat with his hat between his hands, just as though he were begging an alms, and leaning against the wall and a post.

After a while came a girl in a flurry.

"I wonder whoever this can be?" she said. "The master of the house is as grey as a goose, but this fellow is as black as a raven. Hulloa, you, sir, why are you sitting there, blocking up the way? One can scarce get by."

But our clerk said never a word.

"Are you poor? Do you beg for a penny for Heaven's sake? Ah! poor fellow! Here's twopence for you," and as she said this she tossed them into his hat. Still our clerk said never a word. She waited a little, for she thought he would say "Thank you," but our clerk did not so much as nod his head.

"No, I never," said the girl, when she went back