Yes, and the clergyman was obliged to bow his head tothe stroke. And yet Kai Lykke went scot-free."
  "He had a right to do as he did in those times," said Holberg;"but now we have left those times behind us."
  "You may get a fool to believe that," cried Mother Soren; andshe got up and went into the room where the child lay. She lifted upthe child, and laid it down more comfortably. Then she arranged thebed-place of the student. He had the green coverlet, for he felt thecold more than she, though he was born in Norway.
  On New Year's morning it was a bright sunshiny day. The frosthad been so strong, and was still so strong, that the fallen snowhad become a hard mass, and one could walk upon it. The bells of thelittle town were tolling for church. Student Holberg wrapped himselfup in his woollen cloak, and wanted to go to the town.
  Over the ferry-house the crows and daws were flying with loudcries; one could hardly hear the church bells for their screaming.Mother Soren stood in front of the house, filling a brass pot withsnow, which she was going to put on the fire to get drinking water.She looked up to the crowd of birds, and thought her own thoughts.
  Student Holberg went to church. On his way there and on his returnhe passed by the house of tax-collector Sivert, by the town-gate. Herehe was invited to take a mug of brown beer with treacle and sugar. Thediscourse fell upon Mother Soren, but the tax collector did not knowmuch about her, and, indeed, few knew much about her. She did notbelong to the island of Falster, he said; she had a little property ofher own at one time. Her husband was a common sailor, a fellow of avery hot temper, and had killed a sailor of Dragor; and he beat hiswife, and yet she defended him.
  "I should not endure such treatment," said the tax-collector'swife. "I am come of more respectable people. My father wasstocking-weaver to the Court."
  "And consequently you have married a governmental official,"said Holberg, and made a bow to her and to the collector.
  It was on Twelfth Night, the evening of the festival of theThree Kings, Mother Soren lit up for Holberg a three-king candle, thatis, a tallow candle with three wicks, which she had herself prepared.
  "A light for each man," said Holberg.
  "For each man?" repeated the woman, looking sharply at him.
  "For each of the wise men from the East," said Holberg.
  "You mean it that way," said she, and then she was silent for along time. But on this evening he learned more about her than he hadyet known.
  "You speak very affectionately of your husband," observed Holberg,"and yet the people say that he ill-uses you every day."
  "That's no one's business but mine," she replied. "The blows mighthave done me good when I was a child; now, I suppose, I get them formy sins. But I know what good he has done me," and she rose up."When I lay sick upon the desolate heath, and no one would have pityon me, and no one would have anything to do with me, except thecrows and daws, which came to peck me to bits, he carried me in hisarms, and had to bear hard words because of the burden he brought onboard ship. It's not in my nature to be sick, and so I got well. Everyman has his own way, and Soren has his; but the horse must not bejudged by the halter. Taking one thing with another, I have lived moreagreeably with him than with the man whom they called the most nobleand gallant of the King's subjects. I have had the StadtholderGyldenlowe, the King's half-brother, for my husband; and afterwardsI took Palle Dyre. One is as good as another, each in his own way, andI in mine. That was a long gossip, but now you know all about me."
  And with those words she left the room.
  It was Marie Grubbe!