The Great Hunger by Johan Bojer
page 37 of 280 (13%)
page 37 of 280 (13%)
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"Mercy on us!" cried the good-wife, as he came in. "What is the matter,
Peer? Are you ill?" Ah, it was good that night to creep in under the old familiar skin-rug once more. And the old mother sat on the bedside and talked to him of the Lord, by way of comfort. Peer clenched his hands under the clothes--somehow he thought now of the Lord as a sort of schoolmaster in a dressing-gown. Yet it was some comfort all the same to have the old soul sit there and talk to him. Peer had much to put up with in the days that followed--much tittering and whispers of "Look! there goes the priest," as he went by. At table, he felt ashamed of every mouthful he took; he hunted for jobs as day-labourer on distant farms so as to earn a little to help pay for his keep. And when the winter came he would have to do as the others did--hire himself out, young and small as he was, for the Lofoten fishing. But one day after church Klaus Brock drew him aside and got him to talk things over at length. First, Klaus told him that he himself was going away--he was to begin in one of the mechanical workshops in town, and go from there to the Technical College, to qualify for an engineer. And next he wanted to hear the whole truth about what had happened to Peer that day in town. For when people went slapping their thighs and sniggering about the young would-be priest that had turned out a beggar, Klaus felt he would like to give the lot of them a darned good hammering. So the two sixteen-year-old boys wandered up and down talking, and in the days to come Peer never forgot how his old accomplice in the |
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