at you and no one else does here!" shouted
Tom, bringing his fist down heavily on the table. He was beginning to
feel the effects of the rum.

"What's that about work? Do you mean to say--?" began the Swede.

"Hold your jaw!" cried Tom. "Let the old un have his say!"

"You are quite wrong, Martin," said Begmand, and this time without
stammering. The watery look of his old eyes told that the beer was
beginning to work. "It's shameful of you to talk like that about the
firm. They have given both your father and your grandfather certain
employment; and you might have had the same if you had behaved yourself.
The old Consul was the first man in the whole world, and the young
Consul is a glorious fellow too. Here's his health!"

"Oh!" broke in Martin, "I don't know what you are talking about,
grandfather. I don't see that you have got much to boast of. What about
my father, and Uncle Svend, and Uncle Reinert,--every one lost in the
Consul's ships; and what have you got by it all? Two empty hands, and
just as much food as will keep body and soul together. Or perhaps you
think," continued he, with a fiendish laugh, "that we have some
connection with the family because of Marianne!"

"Martin, it's--it's--" began the old man, his face crimsoning up to the
very roots of his hair, and struggling vainly with his infirmity.

"Have a drink, old un," said Tom, good naturedly, handing Begmand the
mug.

The old man paused for breath. "Thanks, Mr. Robson," said he, taking a
long breath.

Tom Robson made signs to the others to leave him alone. Begmand put his
pipe into his waistcoat pocket, got up, and went into the little room by
the kitchen, where he slept. The unwonted drink had roused again the
fire of his youth, and never had he felt his helplessness so keenly as
he did that evening.

The others still sat drinking till there was no more, and the lamp began
to grow dim as the oil gave out. Then they staggered off; Woodlouse away
through West End, while Tom clambered up a steep path that led over the
hill at the back of Begmand's cottage. He lived with a widow in a small
house near the farm buildings of Sandsgaard.

Torpander went with Robson, because he was afraid to go through West End
alone, and because he wanted to have a last glance at Marianne's window,
which looked on to the hillside.

Martin shut the door after them, and managed to lift up the lid of a
sort of locker in which he was going to sleep. He did not see t