PETER THE GRAYBEARD.
Peter the Graybeard did not at all resemble Gudbrand. He was
self-willed, imperious, passionate, and had no more patience than a dog
when you snatch away his bone or a cat when you're trying to strangle
her. He would have been insufferable, had not Heaven, in its mercy,
given him a wife who was a match for him. She was headstrong,
quarrelsome, discontented and morose--always ready to keep quiet when
her husband preserved silence, and just as ready to scream at the top of
her voice the moment he opened his mouth.
It was great good fortune for Peter to have such a spouse. Without her,
would he ever have known that patience is not the merit of fools?
One day, in the mowing Season, when he came home, after a fifteen hours'
spell of hard work, in worse humor than usual, and was swearing, cursing
and execrating all women and their laziness, because his soup was not
yet ready for him, his wife exclaimed,--
'Good Lord! Peter, you talk away at a fine rate. Would you like to
change places? To-morrow, I will mow, instead of you, and you stay at
home here and play housekeeper. Then, we'll see which of us will have
the hardest task and come out of it the best.'
'Agreed!' thundered Peter; 'you'll have a chance to find out, once for
all, what a poor husband has to suffer. The trial will teach you a
lesson of respect--something you greatly need.'
So, the next morning, at day-break, the wife set out afield with the
rake over her shoulder and the sickle by her side, all joyous at the
sight of the bright sunshine, and singing like a lark.
Now, who felt not a little surprised, and a little foolish too, to find
himself shut up at home? Our friend Peter the Graybeard. Still, he
wasn't going to own himself beaten, but fell to work churning butter, as
though he had never done anything else all the days of his life.
It's no hard matter to get over-heated when one takes up a new trade,
and Peter soon, feeling very dry, went down into the cellar to draw a
mug of beer from the cask. He had just knocked out the bung and was
applying the spigot, when he heard an ominous crunching and grunting
overhead. It was the sow, devastating the kitchen.
'Oh Lord! my butter's lost!' yelled Peter the Graybeard, as he rushed
pell-mell up the steps, with the spigot in his hand. What a spectacle
was there! the churn upset, the cream spilt all over the floor, and the
huge sow fairly wallowing in the rich and savory tide.
Now even a wiser man would have lost all patience; as for Peter, he
rushed upon the brute, who, with piercing screams, strove to escape; but
it was a hapless day to the thief, for her master caught her in the
doorway and dealt her so well applied and vigorous a blow on the side of
her skull with the spigot that the sow fell dead on the spot.
As he drew back his novel weapon, now covered with blood, Peter
recollected that he had not closed the bung-hole of his cask, and that
all this time his beer was running to waste. So down he rushed again to
the cellar. Fortunately, the beer had ceased to run, but then that was
because not a drop remained in the cask.
He had now to begin his morning's work again, and churn some more butter
if he expected to see any dinner that day. So Peter visited the
dairy-house, and there found enough cream to replaced what he had just
lost. At it he goes again, and churns and churns away, more vigorously
than ever. But, in the midst of his churning, he remembers--a little
late to be sure, but better late than never--that the cow was still in
the stable, and that she had neither food nor water, although the sun
was now high above the horizon. Away he runs then to the stable. But
experience has made him wise: 'I've my little child there rolling on the
floor; now, if I leave the churn, the greedy scamp will turn it over,
and something worse might easily happen!' Whereupon, he takes up the
churn on his back and hastens to the well to draw water for the cow. The
well was deep, and the buckets did not go down far enough. So Peter
leans with all his might, in hot haste, on the rope, and away goes the
cream out of the churn, over his head and shoulders, into the well!
'Confound it!' said Peter between his teeth, 'it's clear that I'm to
have no butter to-day. Let's attend to the cow; it's too late to take
her out to pasture, but there's a fine lot of hay on the house-thatch
that hasn't been cut, and so she'll lose nothing by staying at home.' To
get the cow out of the stable and to put her on the house-roof was no
great trouble, for the dwelling was set in a hollow in the hill-side, so
that the thatch was almost on a level with the ground. A plank served
the purpose of a bridge, and behold the cow comfortably installed in her
elevated pasture! Peter, of course, could not remain upon the roof to
watch the animal; he had to make the mid-day porridge and take it to the
mowers. But he was a prudent man, and did not want to leave his cow
exposed to the risk of breaking her bones; so he tied a small rope
around her neck, and this rope he passed carefully down the chimney of
the cottage into the kitchen below. Having effected this, he descended
himself, and, entering the kitchen, attached the other end of the rope
to his own leg.
'In this way,' said he, 'I make sure that the cow will keep quiet, and
that nothing bad can happen to her.'
He now filled the kettle, dropped into it a good 'lump' of lard, the
necessary vegetables and condiments, placed it on the well-piled fagots,
struck fire with flint and steel, and was applying the match to the
wood, blowing it well the while, when, all at once, crish--crash! away
goes the cow, slipping down over the roof, and dragging our good man,
with one leg in the air and head downwards, clear up the chimney. What
would have become of him, no one could tell, had not a thick bar of iron
arrested his upward flight. And now there they are, both together,
dangling in the air, the cow outside and Peter within; both, too,
uttering the most frightful cries of distress.
As good luck would have it, the wife was just as impatient as her
husband, and, when she had waited just three seconds to see whether
Peter would bring her porridge at the stated time, she darted off for
the house as though it were on fire. When she saw the cow swinging
between heaven and earth, she drew her sickle and cut the rope, greatly
to the delight of the poor brute, who now found herself safe again, on
the only sort of floor she liked. It was a chance no less fortunate for
Peter, who was not accustomed to gazing at the sky with his feet in the
air. But he fell smack into the kettle, head foremost. It had been
decreed, however, that all should come out right with him, that day; the
fire had died out, the water was cold, and the kettle awry, so that he
got off with nothing worse than a scratched forehead, a peeled nose, and
two well scraped cheeks, and, thank Heaven! nothing was broken but the
saucepan.
When his better half entered the kitchen, she found Master Graybeard
looking very sheepish and bloody.
'Well! well!' said she, planting her arms akimbo and her two fists on
her haunches: 'who's the best housekeeper, pray? I have mowed and
reaped, and here I am as good as I was yesterday, while you, _you_,
Mister Cook, Mister Stay-at-home, Mr. Nurse, where is the butter,
where's the sow, where's the cow, and where's our dinner? If our little
one's alive yet, no thanks to you. Poor little fellow!--what would
become of it without kind and careful mamma?'
Whereupon, Mrs. Peter begins to snivel and sob. Indeed, she has need to,
for is not sensibility woman's field of triumph, and are not tears the
triumph of sensibility?
Peter bore the storm in silence, and did well, for resignation is the
virtue of great souls!