“Skins,skins!”they cried,mocking him;“yes,we'll mark your skin for you,till it is black and blue.”
“Out of the town with him,”said they.And Great Claus was obliged to run as fast as he could,he had never before been so thoroughly beaten.
“Ah,”said he,as he came to his house;“Little Claus shall pay me for this;I will beat him to death.”
Meanwhile the old grandmother of Little Claus died.She had been cross,unkind,and really spiteful to him;but he was very sorry,and took the dead woman and laid her in his warm bed to see if he could bring her to life again.There he determined that she should lie the whole night,while he seated himself in a chair in a corner of the room as he had often done before.During the night,as he sat there,the door opened,and in came Great Claus with a hatchet.He knew well where Little Claus's bed stood;so he went right up to it,and struck the old grandmother on the head.thinking it must be Little Claus.
“There,”cried he,“now you cannot make a fool of me again;”and then he went home.
“That is a very wicked man,”thought Little Claus;“he meant to kill me.It is a good thing for my old grandmother that she was already dead,or he would have taken her life.”Then he dressed his old grandmother in her best clothes,borrowed a horse of his neighbor,and harnessed it to a cart.Then he placed the old woman on the back seat,so that she might not fall out as he drove,and rode away through the wood.By sunrise they reached a large inn,where Little Claus stopped and went to get something to eat.The landlord was a rich man,and a good man too;but as passionate as if he had been made of pepper and snuff.
“Good morning,”said he to Little Claus;“you are come betimes to-day.”
“Yes,”said Little Claus;“I am going to the town with my old grandmother;she is sitting at the back of the wagon,but I cannot bring her into the room.Will you take her a glass of mead?but you must speak very loud,for she cannot hear well.”
“Yes,certainly I will,”replied the landlord;and,pouring out a glass of mead,he carried it out to the dead grandmother,who sat upright in the cart.“Here is a glass of mead from your grandson,”said the landlord.The dead woman did not answer a word,but sat quite still.“Do you not hear?”cried the landlord as loud as he could;“here is a glass of mead from your grandson.”
Again and again he bawled it out,but as she did not stir he flew into a passion,and threw the glass of mead in her face;it struck her on the nose,and she fell backwards out of the cart,for she was only seated there,not tied in.
“Hallo!”cried Little Claus,rushing out of the door,and seizing hold of the landlord by the throat;“you have killed my grandmother;see,here is a great hole in her forehead.”
“Oh,how unfortunate,”said the landlord,wringing his hands.“This all comes of my fiery temper.Dear Little Claus,I will give you a bushel of money;I will bury your grandmother as if she were my own;only keep silent,or else they will cut off my head,and that would be disagreeable.”
So it happened that Little Claus received another bushel of money,and the landlord buried his old grandmother as if she had been his own.When Little Claus reached home again,he immediately sent a boy to Great Claus,requesting him to lend him a bushel measure.“How is this?”thought Great Claus;“did I not kill him?I must go and see for myself.”So he went to Little Claus,and took the bushel measure with him.“How did you get all this money?”asked Great Claus,staring with wide open eyes at his neighbor's treasures.
“You killed my grandmother instead of me,”said Little Claus;“so I have sold her for a bushel of money.”
“That is a good price at all events,”said Great Claus.So he went home,took a hatchet,and killed his old grandmother with one blow.Then he placed her on a cart,and drove into the town to the apothecary,and asked him if he would buy a dead body.
“Whose is it,and where did you get it?”asked the apothecary.
“It is my grandmother,”he replied;“I killed her with a blow,that I might get a bushel of money for her.”
“Heaven preserve us!”cried the apothecary,“you are out of your mind.Don't say such things,or you will lose your head.”And then he talked to him seriously about the wicked deed he had done,and told him that such a wicked man would surely be punished.Great Claus got so frightened that he rushed out of the surgery,jumped into the cart,whipped up his horses,and drove home quickly.The apothecary and all the people thought him mad,and let him drive where he liked.
“You shall pay for this,”said Great Claus,as soon as he got into the highroad,“that you shall,Little Claus.”So as soon as he reached home he took the largest sack he could find and went over to Little Claus.“You have played me another trick,”said he.“First,I killed all my horses,and then my old grandmother,and it is all your fault;but you shall not make a fool of me any more.”So he laid hold of Little Claus round the body,and pushed him into the sack,which he took on his shoulders,saying,“Now I'm going to drown you in the river.”
