Holberg asked the captain.
  "I should think you would do well to go to the ferry-woman inBorrehaus," answered the captain. "If you want to be very civil toher, her name is Mother Soren Sorensen Muller. But it may happenthat she may fly into a fury if you are too polite to her. The manis in custody for a crime, and that's why she manages the ferry-boatherself- she has fists of her own."
  The student took his knapsack and betook himself to theferry-house. The house door was not locked- it opened, and he wentinto a room with a brick floor, where a bench, with a great coverletof leather, formed the chief article of furniture. A white hen, whohad a brood of chickens, was fastened to the bench, and had overturnedthe pipkin of water, so that the wet ran across the floor. Therewere no people either here or in the adjoining room; only a cradlestood there, in which was a child. The ferry-boat came back withonly one person in it. Whether that person was a man or a woman wasnot an easy matter to determine. The person in question was wrapped ina great cloak, and wore a kind of hood. Presently the boat lay to.
  It was a woman who got out of it and came into the room. Shelooked very stately when she straightened her back; two proud eyeslooked forth from beneath her black eyebrows. It was Mother Soren, theferry-wife. The crows and daws might have called out another namefor her, which we know better.
  She looked morose, and did not seem to care to talk; but this muchwas settled, that the student should board in her house for anindefinite time, while things looked so bad in Copenhagen.
  This or that honest citizen would often come to the ferry-housefrom the neighboring little town. There came Frank the cutler, andSivert the exciseman. They drank a mug of beer in the ferry-house, andused to converse with the student, for he was a clever young man,who knew his "Practica," as they called it; he could read Greek andLatin, and was well up in learned subjects.
  "The less one knows, the less it presses upon one," said MotherSoren.
  "You have to work hard," said Holberg one day, when she wasdipping clothes in the strong soapy water, and was obliged herselfto split the logs for the fire.
  "That's my affair," she replied.
  "Have you been obliged to toil in this way from your childhood?"
  "You can read that from my hands," she replied, and held out herhands, that were small indeed, but hard and strong, with bitten nails."You are learned, and can read."
  At Christmas-time it began to snow heavily. The cold came on,the wind blue sharp, as if there were vitriol in it to wash thepeople's faces. Mother Soren did not let that disturb her; she threwher cloak around her, and drew her hood over her head. Early in theafternoon- it was already dark in the house- she laid wood and turf onthe hearth, and then she sat down to darn her stockings, for there wasno one to do it for her. Towards evening she spoke more words to thestudent than it was customary with her to use; she spoke of herhusband.
  "He killed a sailor of Dragor by mischance, and for that he has towork for three years in irons. He's only a common sailor, andtherefore the law must take its course."
  "The law is there for people of high rank, too," said Holberg.
  "Do you think so?" said Mother Soren; then she looked into thefire for a while; but after a time she began to speak again. "Have youheard of Kai Lykke, who caused a church to be pulled down, and whenthe clergyman, Master Martin, thundered from the pulpit about it, hehad him put in irons, and sat in judgment upon him, and condemnedhim to death?