"You can see that in my hands!"said she,and showed him two small but strong,hard hands with bittennails."You have learning and can read." At Christmas it began to snow heavily.The cold cameon,the wind blew sharply,as if it had vitriol to wash peo-ple's faces with.Mother Sren did not let that disturb her.She drew her cloak around her,and pulled her hood downover her head.It was dark in the house,early in the after-noon.She laid wood and turf on the fire,and set herselfdown to darn her stockings,there was no one else to do it.Towards evening she talked more to the student than washer custom.She spoke about her husband. "He has by accident killed a skipper of Dragr,andfor that he must work three years in irons.He is only acommon sailor,and so the law must take its course." "The law applies also to people of higher position,"said Holberg. "De you think so?"said Mother Sren,and lookedinto the fire,but then she began again,"Have you heardof Kai Lykke,who caused one of his churches to be pulleddown,and when the priest thundered red from the pulpit aboutit,he caused the priest to be laid in irons,appointed acourt,and adjudged him to have forfeited his head,whichwas accordingly struck off;that was not an accident,andyet Kai Lykke went free that time!" "He was in the right according to the times!"saidHolberg,"now we are past that!" "You can try to make fools believe that,"said MotherSren as she rose and went into the room where the childlay,eased it and laid it down again,and then arranged thestudent's bed;he had the leather covering,for he felt thecold more than she did,and yet he had been born in Nor-way. On New Year's morning it was a real bright sunshinyday;the frost had been and still was so strong that thedrifted snow lay frozen hard,so that one could walk uponit.The bells in the town rang for church,and the studentHolberg took his woollen cloak about him and would go tothe town. Over the ferry-house the crows and rooks were flyingwith loud cries,one could scarcely hear the church bells fortheir noise.Mother Sren stood outside,filling a brasskettle with snow,which she was going to put on the fireto get drinking-water.She looked up to the swarm ofbirds,and had her own thoughts about it. The student Holberg went to church;on the waythere and back he passed Sivert the tax-collector's house,by the town gate;there he was invited in for a glass ofwarm ale with syrup and ginger.The conversation turnedon Mother Sren,but the tax-collector did not know muchabout her—indeed,few people did.She did not belong toFalster,he said;she had possessed a little property atone time;her husband was a common sailor with a violenttemper,who had murdered a skipper of Dragor."Hebeats his wife,and yet she takes his part." "I could not stand such treatment!"said the tax col-lector's wife."I am also come of better people;my fatherwas stocking-weaver to the Court!" "Consequently you have married a Government offi-cial,"said Holberg,and made a bow to her and the tax-collector. It was Twelfth Night,the evening of the festival ofthe Three Kings.Mother Soren lighted for Holberg athree-king candle—that is to say,a tallow-candle withthree branches,which she herself had dipped. "A candle for each man!"said Holberg. "Each man?"said the woman,and looked sharply athim. "Each of the wise men from the east!"said Hol-berg. "That way!"said she,and was silent for a longtime. But on the evening of the Three Kings he learnedmore about her than he did before. "You have an affectionate mind to your husband,"said Holberg,"and yet people say that he treats youbadly." "That is no one's business but mine!"she an-swered."The blows could have done me good as a child;now I get them for my sin's sake!I know what good hehas done me,"and she rose up."When I lay ill on theopen heath,and no one cared to come in contact with me,except perhaps the crows and the rooks to peck at me,hecarried me in his arms and got hard words for the catch hebrought on board.I am not used to be ill,and so I recov-ered.Every one has his own way,Sren has his,and oneshould not judge a horse by the halter!With him I havelived more comfortably than with the one they called themost gallant and noble of all the king's subjects.I havebeen married to the Stadtholder Gyldenlwe,the half-brother of the king;later on I took Palle Dyre!Right orwrong,each has his own way,and I have mine.That wasa long story,but now you know it!"And she went out ofthe room. It was Marie Grubbe!so strange had been the rollingball of her fortune.She did not live to see many more an-niversaries of the festival of the Three Kings;Holberg hasrecorded that she died in 1716,but he has not recorded,for he did not know it,that when Mother Sren,as she wascalled,lay a corpse in the ferry-house,a number of bigblackbirds flew over the place.They did not scream,as ifthey knew that silence belonged to a burial.As soon as shewas laid in the earth the birds disappeared,but the sameevening over at the old manor in Jutland an enormous num-ber of crows and rooks were seen;they all screamed asloud as they could,as if they had something to announce,perhaps about him who as a little boy took their eggs andyoung ones,the farmer's son who had to wear a garter ofiron,and the noble lady who ended her life as a ferry-woman at Grnsund. "Brave!brave!"they screamed. And the whole family screamed"Brave!brave!"when the old manor-house was pulled down. "They still cry,and there is no more to cry about!"said the clerk,when he told the story."The family is ex-tinct,the house pulled down,and where it stood,nowstands the grand hen-house with the gilded weathercock andwith old Poultry Meg.She is so delighted with her charm-ing dwelling;if she had not come here,she would havebeen in the workhouse."