"It's only now that life's beginning to be worth living," said Pelle, "so you've come out just at the right time."

"Ah, no!" said Brun despondently. "I'm not in the ascendant! I meet young men and my mind inclines to them; but it's like evening and morning meeting in the same glow during the light nights. I've only got my share in the new because the old must bend to it, so that the ring may be completed. You go in where I go out."

"It must have been a melancholy existence to be always among books, books, without a creature that cared for you," put in Ellen. "Why didn't you marry? Surely we women aren't so terrible that there mightn't have been one that you liked?"

"No, you'd think not, but it's true nevertheless," answered Brun, with a smile. "The antipathy was mutual too; it's always like that. I suppose it wasn't intended that an old fellow like me should put children into the world! It's not nice, though, to be the end of something."

Ellen laughed. "Yes, but you haven't always been old!"

"Yes, I have really; I was born old. I'm only now beginning to feel young. And who knows?" he exclaimed with grim humor. "I may play Providence a trick and make my appearance some day with a little wife on my arm."

"Brun's indulging in fancies," said Pelle, as they went down to bed. "But I suppose they'll go when he's about again."

"He's not had much of a time, poor old soul!" said Ellen, going closer to Pelle. "It's a shame that there are people who get no share in all the love there is—just as great a shame as what you're working against, I think!"

"Yes, but we can't put that straight!" exclaimed Pelle, laughing.



XXI

In the garden at "Daybreak" the snow was disappearing from day to day. First it went away nearest the house, and gave place to a little forest of snowdrops and crocuses. The hyacinths in the grass began to break through the earth, coming up like a row of knuckles that first knocked at the door.

The children were always out watching the progress made. They could not understand how the delicate crocus could push straight up out of the frozen ground without freezing to death, but died when it came into the warm room. Every day they wrapped some snowdrops in paper and laid them on Brun's table—they were "snowdrop-letters"—and then hovered about in ungovernable excitement until he came in from the fields, when they met him with an air of mystery, and did all they could to entice him upstairs.

Out in the fields they were nearly finished with the excavations, and were only waiting for the winter water to sink in order to cart up gravel and stone and begin the foundations; the ground was too soft as yet.

Old Brun was not so active now after his confinement to bed; although there was not much the matter with him, it had weakened him. He allowed Pelle a free hand with the works, and said Yea and Amen to everything he proposed. "I can't keep it all in my head," he would say when Pelle came to suggest some alteration; "but just do as you like, my son, and it's sure to be right." There were not enough palpable happenings down there to keep his mind aglow, and he was too old to hear it grow and draw strength from that. His faith, however, merely shifted from the Cause over to Pelle; he saw him alive before him, and could lean upon his youthful vigor.

He had given up his work on the plans. He could not keep at it, and contented himself with going the round of the fields two or three times a day and watching the men. The sudden flame of energy that Pelle's youth had called to life within him had died down, leaving a pathetic old man, who had been out in the cold all his life, and was now luxuriating in a few late rays of evening sun. He no longer measured himself by Pelle, and was not jealous of his taking the lead in anything, but simply admired him and kept carefully within the circle of those for whom Pelle acted providence. Ellen treated him like a big child who needed a great deal of care, and the children of course looked upon him as their equal.

When he went his round of the fields, he generally had Boy Comfort by the hand; the two could both keep pace with one another and converse together. There was one thing that interested them both and kept them in great excitement. The stork was expected every day back at the Hill Farm, and when it came it would bring a baby to Mother Ellen. The expectation was not an unmixed pleasure. The stork always bit the mother in the leg when he came with a baby for her. Boy Comfort's own mother died of the bite; he was wise enough to know that now. The little fellow looked upon Ellen as his mother, and went about in a serious, almost depressed, mood. He did not talk to the other children of his anxiety, for fear they would make fun of him; but when he and the old man walked together in the fields they discussed the matter, and Brun, as the older and wiser, came to the conclusion that there was no danger. All the same, they always kept near the house so as to be at hand.

One day Pelle stayed at home from work, and Ellen did not get up as usual. "I'm going to lie here and wait for the stork," she said to Boy Comfort. "Go out and watch for it." The little boy took a stick, and he and Brun tramped round the house; and when they heard Ellen cry out, they squeezed one another's hands. It was such a disturbed day, it was impossible to keep anything going straight; now a carriage drove up to the door with a fat woman in it, now it was Lasse Frederik who leaped upon his bicycle and raced down the field-path, standing on the pedals. Before Boy Comfort had any idea of it, the stork had been there, and Ellen was lying with a baby boy on her arm. He and Brun went in together to congratulate her, and they were both equally astonished. The old man had to be allowed to touch the baby's cheek.

"He's still so ugly," said Ellen, with a shy smile, as she lifted the corner of the shawl from the baby's head. Then she had to be left quiet, and Brun took Boy Comfort upstairs with him.

Pelle sat on the edge of the bed, holding Ellen's hand, which in a few hours had become white and thin. "Now we must send for 'Queen Theresa,'" she said.

"Shan't we send for your mother too?" asked Pelle, who had often proposed that they should take the matter into their own hands, and go and see the old people. He did not like keeping up old quarrels.

Ellen shook her head. "They must come of their own accord," she said decidedly. She did not mind for herself, but they had looked down upon Pelle, so it was not more than fair that they should come and make it up.

"But I have sent for them," said Pelle. "That was what Lasse Frederik went about. You mustn't have a baby without help from your mother."

In less than a couple of hours Madam Stolpe had arrived. She was much moved, and to hide it she began turning the house inside out for clean cloths and binders, scolding all the time. A nice time, indeed, to send for anybody, when it was all over!

Father Stolpe was harder. He was not one to come directly he was whistled for! But two or three evenings after the baby had arrived, Pelle ran up against him hanging about a little below the house. Well, he was waiting for mother, to take her home, and it didn't concern anybody else, he supposed. He pretended to be very determined, but it was comparatively easy to persuade him to come in; and once in, it was not long before Ellen had thawed him. She had, as usual, her own manner of procedure.

"Let me tell you, father, that it's not me that sent for you, but Pelle; and if you don't give him your hand and say you've done him an injustice, we shall never be good friends again!"

"Upon my word, she's the same confounded way of taking the bull by the horns that she always had!" said Stolpe, without looking at her. "Well, I suppose I may as well give in at once, and own that I've played the fool. Shall we agree to let bygones be bygones, son-in-law?" extending his hand to Pelle.

When once the reconciliation was effected, Stolpe became quite cheerful. "I never dreamt I should see you so soon, least of all with a baby!" he said contentedly, stroking Ellen's face with his rough hand.

"No, she's always been his darling, and father's often been tired of it," said Madam Stolpe. "But men make themselves so hard!"

"Rubbish, mother!" growled Stolpe. "Women will always talk nonsense!"

Time had left its mark upon them both. There had been a certain amount of unemployment in his trade, and Stolpe was getting on in years and had a difficulty in keeping up with the young men on the scaffolding. Their clothes showed that they were not so prosperous as formerly; but Stolpe was still chairman of his trade union and a highly respected man within the Movement.

"And now, my boy," he said suddenly, placing his hands on Pelle's shoulders, "you must explain to me what it is you're doing this time. I hear you've begun to stir up men's feelings again."

Pelle told him about his great plan for cooperative works. The old man knew indeed a good deal about it; it appeared that he had followed Pelle's movements from a distance.

"That's perhaps not so out of the way," he said. "We might squeeze capital out of existence just as quietly, if we all bestirred ourselves. But you must get the Movement to join you; and it must be made clear that every one who doesn't support his own set is a black-leg."

"I have got a connection, but it goes rather slowly," said Pelle.

"Then we must stir them up a little. I say, that queer fellow—Brun, I think you call him—doesn't he live with you?"

"He isn't a queer fellow," said Pelle, laughing. "We can go up and see him."

Brun and Stolpe very soon found something to talk about. They were of the same age, and had witnessed the first days of the Movement, each from his own side. Madam Stolpe came several times and pulled her husband by the coat: they ought to be going home.

"Well, it's not worth while to quarrel with your own wife," said Stolpe at last; "but I shall come again. I hear you're building out here, and I should like to see what our own houses'll be like."

"We've not begun yet," answered Pelle. "But come out on Sunday, and Brun and I will show it all to you."

"I suppose it's masters who'll get it?" asked Stolpe.

"No, we thought of letting the unemployed have the work if they could undertake it, and have a man to put at the head," said Brun. "Perhaps you could undertake it?"

"Why, of course I can!" answered Stolpe, with a feeling of his own importance. "I'm the man to build houses for workmen! I was member of the party when it numbered only one man."

"Yes, Stolpe's the veteran of the Movement," said Pelle.

"Upon my word, it'd be awfully nice if it was me!" exclaimed Stolpe when Pelle accompanied the old couple down to the tram. "I'll get together a set of workmen that have never been equalled. And what houses we shall put up! There won't be much papier-mache there!"



XXII

It still sometimes happened that Pelle awoke in the night not knowing where he was. He was oppressed with a stifling anxiety, dreaming that he was in prison, and fancying he could still smell the rank, mouldy odor of the cell. He gradually came to his senses and knew where he was; the sounds of breathing around him, and the warm influence of the darkness itself, brought him back to his home. He sat up joyfully, and struck a match to get a glimpse of Ellen and the little ones. He dared not go to sleep again, for sleep would instantly take him back to the prison; so he dressed quietly and stole out to see the day awaken.

It was strange with these dreams, for they turned everything upside down. In the prison he always dreamed he was free and living happily; nothing less would do there. There the day was bad and the night good, and here it was the reverse. It was as though something within one would always have everything. "That must be the soul!" he thought as he wandered eastward to meet the first gleam of day. In the country at home, the old people in his childhood believed that dreams were the soul wandering about by itself; some had seen it as a white mouse creeping out of the sleeper's mouth to gather fresh experiences for him. It was true, too, that through dreams the poor man had hitherto had everything; they carried him out of his prison. Perhaps the roles were exchanged during the darkness of night. Perhaps the rich man's soul came during the night and slipped into the poor man's body to gather suffering for his master.

There was spring in the air. As yet it was only perceptible to Pelle in a feeling of elation, a desire to expand and burst all boundaries. He walked with his face toward the opening day, and had a feeling of unconquerable power. Whence this feeling came he knew not, but it was there. He felt himself as something immense that was shut into a small space and would blow up the world if it were let loose. He walked on quickly. Above his head rose the first lark. Slowly the earth drew from its face the wonderful veil of rest and mystery that was night.

Perhaps the feeling of strength came from his having taken possession of his spirit and commanding a view of the world. The world had no limits, but neither had his powers; the force that could throw him out of his course did not exist. In his own footfall he heard the whole future; the Movement would soon be concluded when it had taken in the fact that the whole thing must be included. There was still a little difficulty; from that side they still made it a condition for their cooperation that Pelle should demand a public recognition of his good character. Pelle laughed and raised his face to the morning breeze which came like a cold shiver before the sunrise. Outsider! Yes, there was some truth in it. He did not belong to the existing state of things; he desired no civil rights there. That he was outside was his stamp of nobility; his relations to the future were contained in that fact. He had begun the fight as one of the lowest of the people, and as such he would triumph. When he rose there should no longer be a pariah caste.

As he walked along with the night behind him and his face to the light, he seemed to have just entered into youth with everything before him— everything to look forward to! And yet he seemed to have existed since the morning of time, so thoroughly did he know the world of darkness that he left. Was not man a wonderful being, both in his power to shrink up and become nothing, and in his power to expand and fill everything? He now understood Uncle Kalle's smile on all occasions; he had armed himself with it in order that life should not draw too deep furrows in his gentle nature. The poor man had been obliged to dull himself; he would simply bleed to death if he gave himself up to stern reality. The dullness had been like a hard shell that protected the poor; and now they came with their heart quite safe in spite of everything. They could very well lead when times were good.

Pelle had always a vague feeling of being chosen. Even as a child it made him look with courage in the face of a hard world, and filled his bare limbs with elasticity. Poor and naked he came into the world, apparently without a gift of any kind; and yet he came as a bright promise to the elderly, work-bowed Father Lasse. Light radiated from him, insignificant and ordinary though he was; God had given him the spark, the old man always said, and he always looked upon the boy as a little miracle of heaven. The boy Pelle wondered a little at it, but was happy in his father's pleasure. He himself knew some very different miracles at that time, for instance the calf of the fair with two heads, and the lamb with eight legs. He had his own demands to make of life's wonderful riches, and was not struck with surprise at a very ordinary, big-eared urchin such as one might see any day.

And now he was just showing that Father Lasse had been right. The greatest miracles were in himself—Pelle, who resembled hundreds of millions of other workmen, and had never yet had more than just enough for his food. Man was really the most wonderful of all. Was he not himself, in all his commonplace naturalness, like a luminous spark, sprung from the huge anvil of divine thought? He could send out his inquiring thought to the uttermost borders of space, and back to the dawn of time. And this all-embracing power seemed to have proceeded from nothing, like God Himself! The mere fact that he, who made so much noise, had to go to prison in order to comprehend the great object of things, was a marvel! There must have been far-reaching plans deposited in him, since he shut himself in.

When he looked out over the rising, he felt himself to be facing a world-thought with extraordinarily long sight. The common people, without knowing it, had been for centuries preparing themselves for an entry into a new world; the migration of the masses would not be stopped until they had reached their goal. A law which they did not even know themselves, and could not enter into, led them the right way; and Pelle was not afraid. At the back of his unwearied labor with the great problem of the age was the recognition that he was one of those on whom the nation laid the responsibility for the future; but he was never in doubt as to the aim, nor the means. During the great lock-out the foreseeing had feared the impossibility of leading all these crowds into the fire. And then the whole thing had opened out of itself quite naturally, from an apparently tiny cause to a steadily ordered battle all along the line. The world had never before heard a call so great as that which he and his followers brought forward! It meant nothing less than the triumph of goodness! He was not fond of using great words, but at the bottom of his heart he was convinced that everything bad originated in want and misery. Distrust and selfishness came from misusage; they were man's defence against extortion. And the extortion came from insecure conditions, from reminders of want or unconscious fear of it. Most crimes could easily be traced back to the distressing conditions, and even where the connection was not perceptible he was sure that it nevertheless existed. It was his experience that every one in reality was good: the evil in them could nearly always be traced back to something definite, while the goodness often existed in spite of everything. It would triumph altogether when the conditions became secure for everybody. He was sure that even the crimes that were due to abnormity would cease of themselves when there were no longer hidden reminders of misery in the community.

It was his firm belief that he and his followers should renew the world; the common people should turn it into a paradise for the multitude, just as it had already made it a paradise for the few. It would require a great and courageous mind for this, but his army had been well tested. Those who, from time immemorial, had patiently borne the pressure of existence for others, must be well fitted to take upon themselves the leadership into the new age.

Pelle at last found himself in Strand Road, and it was too late to return home. He was ravenously hungry and bought a couple of rolls at a baker's, and ate them on his way to work.

* * * * *

At midday Brun came into the works to sign some papers and go through accounts with Pelle. They were sitting up in the office behind the shop. Pelle read out the items and made remarks on them, while the old man gave his half attention and merely nodded. He was longing to get back to "Daybreak."

"You won't mind making it as short as possible?" he said, "for I don't feel quite well." The harsh spring winds were bad for him and made his breathing difficult. The doctor had advised a couple of months in the Riviera—until the spring was over; but the old man could not make up his mind. He had not the courage to set out alone.

The shop-bell rang, and Pelle went in to serve. A young sunburnt man stood on the other side of the counter and laughed.

"Don't you know me?" he asked, holding out his hand to Pelle. It was Karl, the youngest of the three orphans in the "Ark."

"Why, of course I know you!" answered Pelle, delighted. "I've been to Adel Street to look for you; I was told you had your business there."

That had been a long time ago! Now Karl Anker was manager of a large supply association over on Funen. He had come over to order some boots and shoes from Pelle for the association. "It's only a trial," he said. "If it succeeds I'll get you a connection with the cooperative association, and that's a customer that takes something, I can tell you!"

Pelle had to make haste to take down the order, as Karl had to catch a train.

"It's a pity you haven't got time to see our works," said Pelle. "Do you remember little Paul from the 'Ark'? The factory-girl's child that she tied to the stove when she went to work? He's become a splendid fellow. He's my head man in the factory. He'd like to see you!"

"When Karl was gone and Pelle was about to go in to Brun in the office, he caught sight of a small, somewhat deformed woman with a child, walking to and fro above the workshop windows, and taking stolen glances down. They timidly made way for people passing, and looked very frightened. Pelle called them into the shop.

"Do you want to speak to Peter Dreyer?" he asked.

The woman nodded. She had a refined face with large, sorrowful eyes. "If it won't disturb him," she said.

Pelle called Peter Dreyer and then went into the office, where he found Brun had fallen asleep.

He heard them whispering in the shop. Peter was angry, and the woman and the child cried; he could hear it in the tones of their whisper. It did not last more than a minute, and then Peter let them out. Pelle went quickly into the shop.

"If it was money," he said hurriedly, "you know you've only got to tell me."

"No, it was the big meeting of unemployed this afternoon. They were begging me to stop at home, silly creatures! Goodness knows what's come to them!" Peter was quite offended. "By the by—I suppose you haven't any objection to my going now? It begins in an hour's time."

"I thought it had been postponed," said Pelle.

"Yes, but that was only a ruse to prevent its being prohibited. We're holding it in a field out by Norrebro. You ought to come too; it'll be a meeting that'll be remembered. We shall settle great matters to-day." Peter was nervous, and fidgeted with his clothes while he spoke.

Pelle placed his hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. "You'd better do what those two want," he said earnestly. "I don't know them, of course; but if their welfare's dependent on you, then they too have a claim upon you. Give up what you were going to do, and go out for a walk with those two! Everything's budding now; take them to the woods! It's better to make two people happy than a thousand unhappy."

Peter looked away. "We're not going to do anything special, so what is there to make such a fuss about?" he murmured.

"You are going to do something to-day; I can see it in you. And if you can't carry it through, who'll have to take the consequences? Why, the women and children! You can't carry it through! Our strength doesn't lie in that direction."

"You go your way and let me go mine," said Peter, gently freeing himself.

Two policemen were standing on the opposite pavement, talking together, while they secretly kept an eye on the shop. Pelle pointed to them.

"The police don't know where the meeting's to be held, so they're keeping watch on me," said Peter, shrugging his shoulders. "I can easily put those two on the wrong track."

The policemen crossed the street and separated outside the shop. One of them stood looking at the articles exhibited in the window for a little while, and then quickly entered the shop. "Is Peter Dreyer here?" he asked haughtily.

"I'm he," answered Peter, withdrawing behind the counter. "But I advise you not to touch me! I can't bear the touch of a policeman's hands."

"You're arrested!" said the policeman shortly, following him.

Pelle laid his hand upon his arm. "You should go to work with a little gentleness," he said. But the man pushed him roughly away. "I'll have no interference from you!" he cried, blowing his whistle. Peter started, and for a moment his thoughts were at a standstill; then he leaped like a cat over the iron railing, of the workshop steps. But the other policeman was there to receive him, and he sprang once more into the shop, close up to his pursuer. He had his revolver in his hand. "I've had enough of this, confound you!" he hissed.

Two shots sounded, one immediately after the other. The policeman just managed to turn round, but fell forward with his head under the counter, and Peter dropped upon the top of him. It looked as if he had tripped over the policeman's leg; but when Pelle went to help him up he saw that the blood was trickling from a hole in his temple. The policeman was dead.

Peter opened his eyes with difficulty when Pelle raised his head. "Take me away!" he whispered, turning his head toward the dead man with an expression of loathing. He still kept a convulsive hold upon his revolver.

Pelle took it from him, and carried him in to the sofa in the office. "Get me a little water!" said Pelle to the old librarian, who was standing trembling at the door, but the old man did not hear him.

Peter made a sign that he needed nothing now. "But those two," he whispered. Pelle nodded. "And then—Pelle—comrade—" He tried to fix his dying gaze upon Pelle, but suddenly started convulsively, his knees being drawn right up to his chin. "Bloodhounds!" he groaned, his eyes converging so strongly that the pupils disappeared altogether; but then his features fell once more into their ordinary folds as his head sank back, and he was dead.

The policeman came in. "Well, is he dead?" he asked maliciously. "He's made fools of us long enough!"

Pelle took him by the arm and led him to the door. "He's no longer in your district," he said, as he closed the door behind him and followed the man into the shop, where the dead policeman lay upon the counter. His fellow-policeman had laid him there, locked the outer door, and pulled down the blinds.

"Will you stop the work and tell the men what has happened?" said Pelle quietly to Brun. "There's something else I must see to. There'll be no more work done here to-day."

"Are you going?" asked the old man anxiously.

"Yes, I'm going to take Peter's meeting for him, now that he can't do it himself," answered Pelle in a low voice.

They had gone down through the workshop, where the men were standing about, looking at one another. They had heard the shots, but had no idea what they meant. "Peter is dead!" said Pelle. His emotion prevented him from saying anything more. Everything seemed suddenly to rush over him, and he hastened out and jumped onto a tram-car.

Out on one of the large fields behind Norrebro a couple of thousand unemployed were gathered. The wind had risen and blew gustily from the west over the field. The men tramped backward and forward, or stood shivering in their thin clothes. The temper of the crowd was threatening. Men continued to pour out from the side streets, most of them sorry figures, with faces made older by want of work. Many of them could no longer show themselves in the town for want of clothes, and took this opportunity of joining the others.

There was grumbling among them because the meeting had not begun. Men asked one another what the reason was, and no one could tell. Suppose Peter Dreyer had cheated them too, and had gone over to the corporation!

Suddenly a figure appeared upon the cart that was to be used as a platform, and the men pressed forward on all sides. Who in the world was it? It was not Peter Dreyer! Pelle? What smith? Oh, him from The Great Struggle—"the Lightning"! Was he still to the fore? Yes, indeed he was! Why, he'd become a big manufacturer and a regular pillar of society. What in the world did he want here? He had plenty of cheek!

Suddenly a storm of shouts and hisses broke out, mingled with a little applause.

Pelle stood looking out over the crowd with an expression of terrible earnestness. Their demonstration against him did not move him; he was standing here in the stead of a dead man. He still felt Peter's heavy head on his arm.

When comparative quiet was restored he raised his head. "Peter Dreyer is dead!" he said in a voice that was heard by every one. Whispers passed through the crowd, and they looked questioningly at one another as though they had not heard correctly. He saw from their expression how much would go to pieces in their lives when they believed it.

"It's a lie!" suddenly cried a voice, relieving the tension. "You're hired by the police to entice us round the corner, you sly fellow!"

Pelle turned pale. "Peter Dreyer is lying in the factory with a bullet through his head," he repealed inexorably. "The police were going to arrest him, and he shot both the policeman and himself!"

For a moment all the life in the crowd seemed to be petrified by the pitiless truth, and he saw how they had loved Peter Dreyer. Then they began to make an uproar, shouting that they would go and speak to the police, and some even turned to go.

"Silence, people!" cried Pelle in a loud voice. "Are you grown men and yet will get up a row beside the dead body of a comrade?"

"What do you know about it?" answered one. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

"I do know at any rate that at a place out by Vesterbro there sits a woman with a child, waiting for Peter, and he will not come. Would you have more like them? What are you thinking of, wanting to jump into the sea and drown yourselves because you're wet through? Will those you leave behind be well off? For if you think so, it's your duty to sacrifice yourselves. But don't you think rather that the community will throw you into a great common pit, and leave your widows and fatherless children to weep over you?"

"It's all very well for you to talk!" some one shouted. "Yours are safe enough!"

"I'm busy making yours safe for you, and you want to spoil it by stupidity! It's all very well for me to talk, you say! But if there's any one of you who dares turn his face to heaven and say he has gone through more than I have, let him come up here and take my place."

He was silent and looked out over the crowd. Their wasted faces told him that they were in need of food, but still more of fresh hope. Their eyes gazed into uncertainty. A responsibility must be laid upon them—a great responsibility for such prejudiced beings—if possible, great enough to carry them on to the goal.

"What is the matter with you?" he went on. "You suffer want, but you've always done that without getting anything for it; and now when there's some purpose in it, you won't go any further. We aren't just from yesterday, remember! Wasn't it us who fought the great battle to its end together? Now you scorn it and the whole Movement and say they've brought nothing; but it was then we broke through into life and won our right as men.

"Before that time we have for centuries borne our blind hope safely through oppression and want. Is there any other class of society that has a marching route like ours? Forced by circumstances, we prepared for centuries of wandering in the desert and never forgot the country; the good God had given us some of His own infinite long-suffering to carry us through the toilsome time. And now, when we are at the border, you've forgotten what we were marching for, and sacrifice the whole thing if only you can be changed from thin slaves to fat slaves!"

"There are no slaves here!" was the threatening cry on all sides.

"You're working horses, in harness and with blinkers on! Now you demand good feeding. When will the scales fall from your eyes, so that you take the responsibility upon yourselves? You think you're no end of fine fellows when you dare to bare your chest to the bayonets, but are we a match for brutality? If we were, the future would not be ours."

"Are you scoffing at Peter Dreyer?" asked a sullen voice.

"No, I am not. Peter Dreyer was one of those who go on in advance, and smear the stones on the road with their hearts' blood, so that the rest of us may find our way. But you've no right to compare yourselves with him. He sank under the weight of a tremendous responsibility; and what are you doing? If you want to honor Peter's memory as it deserves, go quietly home, and join the Movement again. There you have work to do that will transform the world when you all set about it. What will it matter if your strength ebbs and you suffer hunger for a little longer while you're building your own house? You were hungry too when you were building for others.

"You referred to Peter Dreyer, but we are none of us great martyrs; we are everyday, ordinary men, and there's where our work lies. Haven't the thousands who have suffered and died in silence a still greater claim to be followed? They have gone down peacefully for the sake of the development, and have the strongest right to demand our belief in a peaceable development. It is just we that come from the lowest stratum who must preserve the historic development; never has any movement had so long and sad a previous history as ours! Suffering and want have taught us to accept the leadership, when the good has justice done to it; and you want to throw the whole thing overboard by an act of violence."

They listened to him in silence now. He had caught their minds, but it was not knowledge they absorbed. At present they looked most like weary people who are told that they still have a long way to go. But he would get them through!

"Comrades!" he cried earnestly, "perhaps we who are here shall not live to see the new, but it's through us that it'll some day become reality. Providence has stopped at us, and has appointed us to fight for it. Is that not an honor? Look! we come right from the bottom of everything— entirely naked; the old doesn't hang about our clothes, for we haven't any; we can clothe ourselves in the new. The old God, with His thousands of priests as a defence against injustice, we do not know; the moral of war we have never understood—we who have always been its victims. We believe in the Good, because we know that without the victory of goodness there will be no future. Our mind is light and can receive the light; we will lift up our little country and show that it has a mission on the earth. We who are little ourselves will show how the little ones keep up and assert themselves by the principle of goodness. We wish no harm to any one, therefore the good is on our side. Nothing can in the long run keep us down! And now go home! Your wives and children are perhaps anxious on your account."

They stood for a moment as though still listening, and then dispersed in silence.

When Pelle sprang down from the cart, Morten came up and held out his hand. "You are strong, Pelle!" he said quietly.

"Where have you come from?" exclaimed Pelle in glad surprise.

"I came by the steamer this afternoon, and went straight up to the works. Brun told me what had happened and that you were here. It must have been a threatening meeting! There was a detachment of police over there in one of the side streets. What was going on?"

"They'd planned some demonstration or other, and would in that case have met with harsh treatment, I suppose," said Pelle gravely.

"It was well you got them to change their minds. I've seen these demonstrations in the South, where the police and the soldiers ride over the miserable unemployed. It's a sad sight."

They walked up across the fields toward "Daybreak." "To think that you're home again!" said Pelle, with childlike delight. "You never wrote a word about coming."

"Well, I'd meant to stay away another couple of months. But one day I saw the birds of passage flying northward across the Mediterranean, and I began to be so homesick. It was just as well I came too, for now I can see Brun before he goes."

"Oh, is he going away, after all? That's been settled very quickly. This morning he couldn't make up his mind."

"It's this about Peter. The old man's fallen off very much in the last six months. But let's walk quicker! I'm longing to see Ellen and the children. How's the baby?"

"He's a little fatty!" said Pelle proudly. "Nine pounds without his clothes! Isn't that splendid? He's a regular sunshine baby."



XXIII

It is spring once more in Denmark.

It has been coming for a long time. The lark came before the frost was out of the ground, and then the starling appeared. And one day the air seemed suddenly to have become high and light so that the eye could once more see far out; there was a peculiar broad airiness in the wind—the breath of spring. It rushed along with messages of young, manly strength, and people threw back their shoulders and took deep breaths. "Ah! the south wind!" they said, and opened their minds in anticipation.

There he comes riding across the sea from the south, in the middle of his youthful train. Never before has his coming been so glorious! Is he not like the sun himself? The sea glitters under golden hoofs, and the air is quivering with sunbeam-darts caught and thrown in the wild gallop over the waves. Heigh-ho! Who'll be the first to reach the Danish shore?

Like a broad wind the spring advances over islands and belts, embracing the whole in arrogant strength. He sings in the children's open mouths as in a shell, and is lavish of his airy freshness. Women's teeth grow whiter with his kiss, and vie with their eyes in brightness; their cheeks glow beneath his touch, though they remain cool—like sun-ripe fruit under the morning dew. Men's brains whirl once more, and expand into an airy vault, as large as heaven itself, giddy with expectancy. From high up comes the sound of the passage birds in flight; the air is dizzy with its own infinitude.

Bareheaded and with a sunny smile the spring advances like a young giant intoxicated with his own strength, stretches out his arms and wakens everything with his song. Nothing can resist him. He touches lightly the heart of the sleeping earth, calling merrily into her dull ears to awake. And deep down the roots of life begin to stir and wake, and send the sap circulating once more. Hedgehogs and field-mice emerge sleepily and begin to busy themselves in the hedges. From the darkness below old decayed matter ferments and bubbles up, and the stagnant water in the ditches begins to run toward the sea.

Men stand and gaze in amazement after the open-handed giant, until they feel the growth in themselves and can afford something. All that was impossible before has suddenly become possible, and more besides. The farmer has long since had his plough in the earth, and the sower straps his basket on: the land is to be clothed again.

The days lengthen and become warmer; it is delightful to watch them and know that they are going upward. One day Ellen opens wide the double doors out to the garden; it is like a release. But what a quantity of dirt the light reveals!

"We shall have to be busy now, Petra Dreyer!" says Ellen. The little deformed sewing-woman smiles with her sad eyes, and the two women begin to sweep floors and wash windows. Now and then a little girl comes in from the garden complaining that she is not allowed to play with Anna's big doll. Boy Comfort is in the fields from morning to night, helping Grandfather Stolpe to build the new workmen's houses. A fine help his is! When Ellen fetches him in to meals, he is so dirty that she nearly loses all patience.

"I wonder how Old Brun is!" says Ellen suddenly, in the middle of her work. "We haven't heard from him now for three days. It's quite sad to think he's so far away. I only hope they'll look after him properly."

Pelle is tremendously busy, and they do not see much of him. The Movement has taken up his idea now in earnest, and he is to have the management of it all, so that he has his hands full. "Have I got a husband or not?" says Ellen, when she gets hold of him now and again.

"It'll soon be better," he answers. "When once we've got the machinery properly started, it'll go by itself."

Morten is the only one who has not set seriously to work on anything, and in the midst of all the bustle has an incongruous effect. "He's thinking!" says Ellen, stopping in the middle of beating a carpet. "Thank goodness we're not all authors!"

Pelle would like to draw him into the business. "There's so much to write and lecture about," he says, "and you could do all that so much better than I."

"Oh, no, I couldn't," says Morten. "Your work's growing in me too. I'm always thinking about it and have thought of giving a hand too, but I can't. If I ever contribute anything to your great work, it'll be in some other way."

"You're doing nothing with your book about the sun either," says Pelle anxiously.

"No, because whenever I set to work on it, it mixes up so strangely with your work, and I can't keep the ideas apart. At present I feel like a mole, digging blindly in the black earth under the mighty tree of life. I dig and search, and am continually coming across the thick roots of the huge thing above the surface. I can't see them, but I can hear sounds from above there, and it hurts me not to be able to follow them into their strong connection up in the light."

* * * * *

One Sunday morning at the end of May they were sitting out in the garden. The cradle had been moved out into the sun, and Pelle and Ellen were sitting one on either side, talking over domestic matters. Ellen had so much to tell him when she had him to herself. The child lay staring up into the sky with its dark eyes that were the image of Ellen's. He was brown and chubby; any one could see that he had been conceived in sunshine and love.

Lasse Frederik was sitting by the hedge painting a picture that Pelle was not to see until it was finished. He went to the drawing-school now, and was clever. He had a good eye for figures, and poor people especially he hit off in any position. He had a light hand, and in two or three lines could give what his father had had to work at carefully. "You cheat!" Pelle often said, half resentfully. '"It won't bear looking closely at." He had to admit, however, that it was a good likeness.

"Well, can't I see the picture soon?" he called across. He was very curious.

"Yes, it's finished now," said Lasse Frederik, coming up with it.

The picture represented a street in which stood a solitary milk-cart, and behind the cart lay a boy with bleeding head. "He fell asleep because he had to get up so early," Lasse Frederik explained; "and then when the cart started he tumbled backward." The morning emptiness of the street was well done, but the blood was too brilliantly red.

"It's very unpleasant," said Ellen, with a shudder. "But it's true."

Morten came home from town with a big letter which he handed to Pelle, saying: "Here's news for you from Brun." Pelle went into the house to read it undisturbed, and a little while after came out again.

"Yes, important news this time," he said with some emotion. "Would you like to hear it?" he asked, sitting down.

"DEAR PELLE:

"I am sitting up in bed to write to you. I am poorly, and have been for some days; but I hope it is nothing serious. We all have to die some day, but I should like to start on the great voyage round the world from your home. I long to see 'Daybreak' and all of you, and I feel very lonely. If the business could do without you for a few days, I should be so glad if you would come down here. Then we could go home together, for I should not like to venture on the journey by myself.

"The sun is just going down, and sends its last rays in to me. It has been gray and gloomy all day, but now the sun has broken through the clouds, and kisses the earth and me, poor old man, too, in farewell. It makes me want to say something to you, Pelle, for my day was like this before I knew you—endlessly long and gray! When you are the last member of a dying family, you have to bear the gray existence of the others too.

"I have often thought how wonderful the hidden force of life is. Intercourse with you has been like a lever to me, although I knew well that I should not accomplish anything more, and had no one to come after me. I feel, nevertheless, through you, in alliance with the future. You are in the ascendant and must look upon me as something that is vanishing. But look how life makes us all live by using us each in his own way. Be strong in your faith in the future; with you lies the development. I wish with all my heart that I were an awakening proletary and stood in the dawn of day; but I am nevertheless glad because my eyes will be closed by the new in you.

"I have imagined that life was tiresome and dull and far too well known. I had it arranged in my catalogues. And look how it renews itself! In my old age I have experienced its eternal youth. Formerly I had never cared about the country; in my mind it was a place where you waded either in dust or mud. The black earth appeared to me horrible rather than anything else; it was only associated in my mind with the churchyard. That shows how far I was from nature. The country was something that farmers moved about in—those big, voracious creatures, who almost seemed like a kind of animal trying to imitate man. Rational beings could not possibly live out there. That was the view in my circle, and I had myself a touch of the same complaint, although my university training of course paraphrased and veiled it all to some extent. All this about our relations to nature seemed to me very interesting aesthetically, but with more or less of a contradictory, not to say hostile, character. I could not understand how any one could see anything beautiful in a ploughed field or a dike. It was only when I got to know you that something moved within me and called me out; there was something about you like the air from out there.

"Now I also understand my forefathers! Formerly they seemed to me only like thick-skinned boors, who scraped together all the money that two generations of us have lived upon without doing a pennyworth of good. They enabled us, however, to live life, I have always thought, and I considered it the only excuse for their being in the family, coarse and robust as they were. Now I see that it was they who lived, while we after them, with all our wealth, have only had a bed in life's inn.

"For all this I thank you. I am glad to have become acquainted through you with men of the new age, and to be able to give my fortune back. It was made by all those who work, and gathered together by a few; my giving it back is merely a natural consequence. Others will come to do as I am doing, either of their own free will or by compulsion, until everything belongs to everybody. Then only can the conflict about human interests begin. Capitalism has created wonderful machines, but what wonderful men await us in the new age! Happy the man who could have lived to see it!

"I have left all my money to you and Morten. As yet there is no institution that I could give it to, so you must administer it in the name of cooperation. You two are the best guardians of the poor, and I know you will employ it in the best manner. I place it with confidence in your hands. The will is at my lawyer's; I arranged it all before I left home.

"My greetings to all at 'Daybreak'—Ellen, the children, and Morten. If the baby is christened before I get home, remember that he is to be called after me. But I am hoping that you will come."

* * * * *

Ellen drew a deep breath when Pelle had finished the letter. "I only hope he's not worse than he makes out," she said. "I suppose you'll go?"

"Yes, I'll arrange what's necessary at the works to-morrow early, and take the morning express."

"Then I must see to your things," exclaimed Ellen, and went in.

Pelle and Morten went for a stroll along the edge of the hill, past the half-finished houses, whose red bricks shone in the sun.

"Everything seems to turn out well for you, Pelle," said Morten suddenly.

"Yes," said Pelle; "nothing has succeeded in injuring me, so I suppose what Father Lasse and the others said is right, that I was born with a caul. The ill-usage I suffered as a child taught me to be good to others, and in prison I gained liberty; what might have made me a criminal made a man of me instead. Nothing has succeeded in injuring me! So I suppose I may say that everything has turned out well."

"Yes, you may, and now I've found a subject, Pelle! I'm not going to hunt about blindly in the dark; I'm going to write a great work now."

"I congratulate you! What will it be about? Is it to be the work on the sun?"

"Yes, both about the sun and about him who conquers. It's to be a book about you, Pelle!"

"About me?" exclaimed Pelle.

"Yes, about the naked Pelle with the caul! It's about time to call out the naked man into the light and look at him well, now that he's going to take over the future. You like to read about counts and barons, but now I'm going to write a story about a prince who finds the treasure and wins the princess. He's looked for her all over the world and she wasn't there, and now there's only himself left, and there he finds her, for he's taken her heart. Won't that be a good story?"

"I think it's a lot of rubbish," said Pelle, laughing. "And you'll have to lay the lies on thick if you're going to make me into a prince. I don't think you'll get the workpeople to take it for a real book; it'll all be so well known and ordinary."

"They'll snatch at it, and weep with delight and pride at finding themselves in it. Perhaps they'll name their children after it out of pure gratitude!"

"What are you going to call it then?" asked Pelle.

"I'm going to call it 'PELLE THE CONQUEROR.'"

THE END