BRASS-JENS[]
by Steen Steensen Blicher[]
Originally published in Messingjens,1842
RASMUS OWSTRUP, in his turn, told the following story:
As I was just saying, it was the time of the war, when the British had made such a to-do in Copenhagen; so then I wasn't let stay home either. The recruiting officer came and ordered me to the Session, and there they put me in a regiment of horse. I learned to ride and to kill people. But we didn't get any beatings, for I tell you how it is; they only beat us in peace time, but when there's a war on they're afraid we might turn on them. In peace time they've got the upper hand, but in war we've got it--that's the difference. I brought lots of good food in my bag when I came to the school, and I got more from home later, and that didn't do me any harm with the sergeant who drilled me. I got to stand well with him and with the captain, too.
So one day I'd given the sergeant a sausage and a couple of cheeses--for he was a married man, you must know--and then he said "Listen, do you know Brass-Jens?"--" 'Twould be strange if I didn't know him," said I. "He's the best horse in the regiment."--"Now," said he, "Watrup who rides him is sick, and it looks as if he's going to die."--"That may well be," said I.--"If you want Brass-Jens," said he, "I'll try to get him for you, but then you must remember my wife."--"I'll remember her," said I, "with a leg o'mutton and a bit o' bacon, if I can get Brass-Jens. And besides I'll give her a score of eggs and a couple o' pounds of butter as soon as my mother comes to see me."--"Agreed," said he. And sure enough, I got Brass-Jens, though it was quite a fracas, for everybody wanted him--but after all he couldn't carry more than one at a time.
The first rime I went to take him, he certainly looked at me as if he wanted to ask me: what kind of a fellow are you? But I talked sense to him, and told him that Watrup was in the hospital and not likely to get out of it, and the sergeant had said I should ride him, and it was no use to set himself against it. That he understood--for all those who knew him said he alone had as much sense as two cuirassiers. And it was true; all he lacked was that he couldn't talk, and that wasn't his fault.
I'll never forget when I told him that Watrup was so poorly; then the horse sighed just like anyone else. I tell you, we two had a lot of talk together, and to everything I said he would neigh or he'd whinny or he'd snort, and I always understood what he meant.
As I was going to tell you, we went down south, and we marched one day and another day, and then we got just a little tired of riding, and got a little sore in the part that's uppermost when you're picking chips. So the men got down and walked, now and then, with the bridle rein thrown over their arm. I walked, too, but I let Jens take care of himself. He followed me very faithfully, and if anyone came too near him, he would neigh--he had the spirit of a stallion--and would both bite and kick.
Well, then, we came to a village down near Aabenraa, and I got my quarters with a farmer. He was well-to-do, but he was a stingy dog, and we hardly got enough to eat. But then there was one of the daughters--he had six of them--and I liked her and she liked me, too, for the matter of that, and she gave me a good extra portion that same evening; and the next day--for we stayed over there--she was still kinder to me and wanted to do everything she could for me. The second morning when we were going to start, she came out in the stable where I was busy currying.
"Rasmus," said she, "now you're going to leave, and then it's hardly likely we'll see each other again."
"It might happen," said I.
"No," said she, "you may lose your life, or you may get a sweetheart out there."
"Do you know," said I, "whether I live or die, I don't want any sweetheart unless you'll be it, Helle!"
"God help us," she said. "My mother'll never let me, and not my father either. They have picked out someone else for me."
"Helle," said I, "if you really mean it that you'll come to me, then wait for me a little while and see if I get back. I'll soon have my discharge and my father's farm, too, and then we'll get married, if you're willing to run away from here and follow me to my home."
Then she put her arms around my neck and kissed me, and cried a little, and slipped out again.
Brass-Jens looked after her, and I put saddle and bridle on him and rode away with the others.--It was a bad time we had; sometimes we got something to eat and sometimes we didn't, but I always divided my bread--when I had any--with Jens; and just as soon as we came to quarters I took care of him first of all with straw and with oats, and with anything else I could find for him, sometimes rye and sometimes barley and sometimes wheat, just as it happened.--We went far away. I don't know where we were, but we didn't see anything of the war. After a long time we got orders to go home.
Helle had hardly been out of my thoughts on the whole march. When we came near enough to see her village, I rode over to our captain and told him how things had happened when I was there last, and what we had in mind to do, and I asked him for leave to take the girl along. "Brass-Jens," said I, "can carry us both easy, and I know he'll do it with right good will."
The captain smiled and said, "You're a devil of a fellow, but how do you think you'll get away with stealing a girl like that? They'll follow right on your heels and take her away from you. You'll pay dear for it--and I can't save you."
"That'll be no trouble," said I. "I'll give her my stable clothes to put on, and then nobody'll know her. I'll tell our boys and anybody else who asks that it's a sick dragoon from Fyn who had been left behind in the village there."
"Very well, you rogue," said he, "I'll talk to the colonel and get him to consent. But I won't give away your trick; I'll make him think it's Brass-Jens himself who out of pure compassion insisted on taking the sick dragoon on his back."
Everything went off as it should. We rode into the village, and there big and little were standing outside the gates and doors to wish us welcome. I looked for Helle--yes, sure enough, she was there, and when she caught sight of me and I greeted her with my sword, her whole face shone as if she'd been out hiring maids, as the saying is.
I didn't let on anything; I said good-day to old and young, but I made no difference. When we'd had our supper (and it was nothing but buckwheat mush and poor at that, and nothing but thin half-sour milk to dip it in) then I went out to feed my horse--I'd stolen a piece of bread out of the drawer under the table.
Jens whinnied when he saw me and smelt the bread. "Now I'm giving you this over and above your ration," said I. "D'you s'pose then you can stand to carry someone else besides me?"
"Hohohohohohoho!" said he.
"Now you're talking," said I. "And you won't be sorry--" Just then Helle came. She was both happy and sad; now she smiled and now she cried, and sometimes both at once. Now that the running-away was getting real, she felt a little bit bad about it. "They're my parents, after all, and I was born on the farm here, and now I shall never in my life see them again. I'm going among strangers, and I have only one friend. Rasmus, Rasmus! Will you be good to me?"
"You can see," said I, "how I am to Jens, though he's only a dumb brute. I share my last mouthful of bread with him--how then could I ever be unkind to you?"
"But how am I to get away from here?" said she. "I've thought of that," said L "Don't be afraid."
Then I gave her my stable clothes, cap and blouse and the whole outfit, a pair of stockings and a pair of shoes, and asked her to go into the menservants' room and take off her clothes and put on mine. Those she took off she was to throw in the lake near the farm so they'd think she'd made away with herself. Then I pasted a big moustache on her upper lip. I'd made it out of the ends of Jens's mane. At that she laughed.
"Go now," said I, "along this road here, till you come to the village that's about four miles from here. Then you can go into the inn and wait till we come. It won't be long. But you must act as if you were done up."
Well, she did everything just as I'd taught her. A couple of hours later, as day was dawning, the squadron started off. When we came to the inn and halted there, sure enough she came staggering out, and asked if one of us would take her along.
"What's the matter with you?" said I.
"I'm done up," she said. "I can't walk any farther."
I looked at the captain and asked permission.
"Certainly," said he, "but then where the deuce will you put--someone else, you know?"
"That'll be all right," said I. "I bet on Brass-Jens."
"Very well," said he, "you and Jens will have to settle it."
"We've settled it already," said I, and so no more was said.
The boys in the platoon looked at the little dragoon with the big whiskers, and laughed a little at him; but they didn't talk to him, because they thought he was sick.
Well, it's no use spending a lot of words on these doings. We came home safely, and we had our banns read in church and had our wedding as soon as we could, and--but here I'm almost forgetting to tell what happened to Brass-Jens after-' wards. When we came to Horsens, he got his discharge, too, and was sold with some other army horses. I bought him, though the price was too high.
But I said to him, "Brass-Jens," said I, "I want to keep you and feed you and curry you in your old age, for that you've earned."
"Hohoho!" said he; he was pleased. And I didn't fool him either. I kept him for near seven years, and he had an easier time than I did, for he had nothing to do except that I rode him to town sometimes, and in seed-time and harvest he might do a bit of work now and then.
But we can't live forever--Jens's time came. It was once I'd been away for four days, and when I got back there wasn't a living soul to be seen on the place, either up or down, except my old mother who was stirring the porridge over the fire.
"God's peace!" said I. "What's the matter? Where are all the others?"
"They're out in the pasture with Brass-Jens," she said. "Seems like he's going to drop."
I went out there. They all stood around him, Helle and both our children, and the manservant and the maid; and Jens was lying there on his side.
"I'm afraid you're in a bad way," said I. He lifted his head and looked at me, kind of pleading like, and sighed, then laid his head down again, stretched out his legs, and died.
"Helle," said I, "he must have a decent burial. I wouldn't for anything in the world have his skin taken off him; and he must be buried in the garden, for I don't want either pigs or dogs to be rooting around him." And so he came to lie under the old apple tree that my father grafted. Every time I look at the tree, I think of Brass-Jens. [Footnote: There are even now (1842) several people living who knew Brass-Jens in his prime, and his fame still lives, so far as I know, among the Slesvig Cuirassiers.--AUTHOR'S NOTE.]
* * *
That was a fine story, said Mads Uhr, even if it was only about a horse.