But now Fooloks gave the sign they were waiting for. It was time to begin, and, uttering war cries, Matt and Borka rushed forward at each other.
“It’s a great sorrow to me,” said Matt, flinging his bear’s arms around Borka’s body, “that you’re such a dirty devil”—here he squeezed, but only enough to make Borka begin to sweat a bit— “otherwise I might have made you my second-in-command long ago”—he took a more ferocious grip—“and not had to squeeze the kidneys out of you now”—here he crushed Borka’s ribs till he rattled.
But when Borka had finished rattling, he drove his hard skull forcibly against Matt’s nose so that the blood spurted.
“It’s a great sorrow to me,” said Borka, “that I’ve got to smash your snout”—he drove in another attack—“because you were as ugly as anyone could wish already”—now he grabbed one of Matt’s ears and pulled. “Two ears—do you need more than one?” he asked, and pulled again.
But as the ear was just beginning to come loose, he lost his grip, for Matt simultaneously sent him sprawling and with an iron-hard fist pressed his face down until it felt much flatter than before. “I’m extraordinarily sorry,” said Matt, “to have to batter you until Undis will cry every time she sees you by daylight!” He pressed again, but now Borka succeeded in getting a little piece of Matt’s palm between his teeth, and he bit.
Matt gave a yell and tried to snatch his hand away, but Borka hung on until he had to stop for lack of breath. Then he spat a few small scraps of skin in Matt’s face. “Here you are—take them home to the cat,” he said, but he was puffing and blowing, because now Matt was lying with his full weight on top of him. And it was soon obvious that even if Borka had strong teeth, as far as the rest of his strength was concerned, he was no match for Matt.
When the fight was over, Matt stood there, the chief now, bloody-faced and with what was left of his shirt fluttering in rags around his body. Nevertheless, he was every inch a chieftain. All the robbers had to admit it, even though it was a mournful moment for some, especially Borka.
Borka was much the worse for wear and close to tears, so Matt thought he would give him a few words of comfort.
“Brother Borka—yes, from now on we’re brothers,” he said. “You shall keep a chieftain’s name and fame all the days of your life, and you can carry on with your own men. But don’t forget that Matt is the mightiest chieftain in all the mountains and woods, and my word counts for more than yours from now on—you know that!”
Borka nodded dumbly. He was not feeling particularly talkative at that moment.
But on the same evening Matt held a feast in the stone hall for the robbers of Matt’s Fort, both his own and Borka’s, a splendid banquet, with plenty of food and a good deal of beer.
And as the evening went on, Matt and Borka became more and more like brothers. Now laughing, now crying, they sat side by side at the long table and remembered their childhood when they had hunted rats together in the old pigsty. Many other amusing things they had done together were now remembered and described. All the robbers listened with relish, roaring with laughter, and Birk and Ronia, sitting at the far end of the table, enjoyed hearing it too. Their laughter shrilled high and clear above the rough voices of the robbers, and it was a joy to Matt and Borka to hear them. For a long, hard time there had been no Ronia and no Birk to laugh in Matt’s Fort, and Matt and Borka had still scarcely gotten accustomed to the joy of having them home again. So that laughter was like the sweetest music in their ears, and it encouraged them to relate even more of their childhood doings.
But suddenly Matt said, “Don’t be upset, Borka, because things went badly for you today. Better times may come for the Borka clan. When you and I are no longer there, your son will be chief, I should think, because my daughter does not want to be, and when she says no, it is no. She gets that from her mother!”
Borka looked absolutely delighted to hear this, but Ronia called all the way up the table, “So you think Birk wants to be a robber chieftain?”
“He does,” said Borka positively.
Then Birk strode across the floor and stopped where everyone could see him. He raised his right hand and swore a solemn oath that never would he become a robber, no matter what happened.
A dismal silence fell over the stone hall. Borka sat there, tearfully bemoaning the son who had let them down so unnaturally. But Matt tried to comfort him.
“I have had to get used to it,” he said, “and you will have to, too. You can’t do anything with children these days. They do as they like—you just have to get used to it. But it’s not easy.”
The two chieftains sat for a long time, gazing gloomily into a future in which their proud robbers’ life would be no more than a legend.
Only gradually did they return to the memories of rat hunts in the pigsty and decide to enjoy themselves in spite of their headstrong children. And their robbers competed with one another in banishing all gloom with cheerful songs and vigorous dances. They whirled until the floorboards creaked. Birk and Ronia joined in their dancing, and Ronia taught Birk many a joyous robbers’ leap.
Throughout all this, Lovis and Undis sat in a room apart, eating, drinking, and chatting. Their tastes and ideas were different in almost every way. There was only one thing they agreed on: how truly wonderful it was to be able to rest their ears from time to time and not have to hear so much as a single squeak from any menfolk.
But in the stone hall the feast went on, until Noddle-Pete suddenly fell to the floor with exhaustion. He had had a glad and merry day despite his age, but now he could do no more, and Ronia helped him to his bedroom. There, tired and content, he sank down on his bed, and Ronia tucked the fur rug around him.
“It soothes my old heart,” said Noddle-Pete, “that neither you nor Birk want to be a robber. It was something you could do with pleasure once upon a time—I won’t deny it. But it’s tougher now, and you can be hanged before you know it.”
“Yes, and people scream and sob when you take their things away from them,” Ronia said. “I’d never be able to stand that.”
“No, my child, you’d never be able to stand that,” said Noddle-Pete. “But now I’m going to tell you a nice little secret, if you promise never to tell it to a living soul except one!”
Ronia promised.
Then Noddle-Pete took hold of her two warm little hands to warm his own, which were very cold. “My little pride and joy,” he said, “when I was young and spent my time in the woods just like you, I happened one day to save the life of a little gray dwarf whom the harpies were determined to tear to pieces. Of course, gray dwarfs are riffraff, but this one was a bit different, and he was so grateful afterward that I could scarcely get rid of him. He insisted on giving me… Well, here comes Matt, ” said Noddle-Pete, for Matt was standing in the doorway now and wanted to know why Ronia had stayed away so long. The feast was over and it was time for the Wolf Song.
“First I must hear the rest of this story, ” said Ronia.
And as Matt stood obstinately waiting, Noddle-Pete whispered the rest in her ear.
“Good, ” said Ronia when she had heard it all.
Night came and soon the whole of Matt’s Fort and all its rascally robbers were asleep. But Matt was complaining bitterly as he lay in bed. Of course Lovis had smoothed ointment onto all his wounds and bruises, but it was no use. Now he had time to be aware of them, and his injuries hurt him horribly if he so much as twitched his little toe. He was quite unable to sleep, and it annoyed him that Lovis lay there sleeping peacefully. At last he woke her up.
“I’m in terrible pain, ” he said, “and my one hope is that that villain Borka is lying there hurting worse than me! “
Lovis turned toward the wall.
“Men! ” she said, and fell back asleep at once.
Eighteen
“Old people have no business to go and freeze themselves to the bone at wild beasts’ matches, ” Lovis said sternly, when next day it became obvious that Noddle
-Pete had the aches and shivers all over and did not want to get up. Even after he had gotten over the shivers completely, he refused to leave his bed.
“I might just as well lie here and stare as sit up and stare, ” he said.
Matt came to his room every day to let him know how the new robber life was getting on. Matt himself was pleased. Borka was doing a good job, he said, and wasn’t too loud-mouthed either. Actually, he had his wits about him, and together they were now bringing in one fine haul after another. They fooled the sheriff’s
men—oh, it was a joy to see! —and soon Matt’s Forest would be free of all those trashy soldiers.
“Brag when you’re riding home,” muttered Noddle-Pete, but Matt did not listen to him. He didn’t have much time to sit there, in any case.
“You scrawny old dodderer,” he said tenderly, patting Noddle-Pete before he left. “Try to get a bit of meat on your bones so they’re strong enough to stand on!”
And Lovis did what she could. She brought hot, strengthening soups and other things that Noddle-Pete liked.
“Get that soup inside you to make you warm,” she said. But not even the hottest soup could drive the chill from Noddle-Pete’s bones, and Lovis was worried.
“We’ll have to take him into the stone hall and warm him up,” she told Matt one evening. And borne in Matt’s strong arms, Noddle-Pete left his solitary bedroom. He was to share the bed with Matt. Lovis moved over to Ronia and shared her bed.
“At last, poor old thing that I am, I’ll just about begin to thaw out,” Noddle-Pete said.
Matt was as warm as glowing embers, and Noddle-Pete crept close to him like a child seeking warmth and comfort from his mother.
“Don’t squash me,” said Matt, but Noddle-Pete continued to creep close in spite of him. And when morning came, he refused to move back to his room. He liked this bed and he would stay in it. He could lie there watching Lovis at work as the day went by; it was here that the robbers gathered around him and described their deeds when they came home at night, and Ronia came too and told him about the time she and Birk had spent out m their woods. Noddle-Pete was happy.
“This is the way I like it while I’m waiting,” he said.
“What are you waiting for?” Matt asked.
“Well, what do you think?” said Noddle-Pete.
Matt was unable to guess, but he noticed that bit by bit Noddle-Pete seemed to be crumbling away. He asked Lovis anxiously, “What do you think is the matter with him?”
“Old age,” said Lovis.
Matt gave her a worried look. “But he won’t die of it, will he?”
“Yes, he will,” said Lovis.
Matt burst into tears. “No, no, be quiet!” he shouted. “I’ll never stand for that!”
Lovis shook her head. “You decide a lot of things, Matt, but you won’t be deciding this!”
Ronia, too, was worried about Noddle-Pete, and as he faded away she spent more and more time with him. Now he usually lay with closed eyes, opening them only occasionally to look at her. Then he smiled and said, “My joy and gladness, you won’t forget what you know, will you?”
“No! If only I find the right place,” said Ronia.
“You will,” Noddle-Pete assured her. “When the time comes, you’ll find it.”
“Yes, of course I will,” she said.
Time passed, and Noddle-Pete grew weaker and weaker. At last there came a night when they were all watching over him, Matt and Lovis and Ronia and the robbers. Noddle-Pete lay there unmoving, his eyes closed. Matt searched anxiously for any sign of life. But the bed was in shadow despite the light from the fire and the candle Lovis had lit. It was impossible to see any sign of life, and suddenly Matt bellowed, “He’s dead!”
Then Noddle-Pete opened one eye and gave him a reproachful look. “I most certainly am not! Don’t you think I have enough manners to say good-bye before I go away?”
Then he closed his eyes again for a long time, and they stood in silence, hearing only a few small, wheezing breaths.
“But now,” said Noddle-Pete, opening his eyes, “now, my friends, I take leave of you all! Now I shall die.”
And so he died.
Ronia had never seen anyone die, and she cried for some time. But after all, he has been so tired lately, she thought; now perhaps he can rest—somewhere that I don’t know about.
But Matt walked up and down the stone hall weeping mightily and shouting, “He’s always been here! And now he’s not!”
Then Lovis said, “Matt, you know that no one can always be there. We are born and we die—that’s how it’s always been. What are you complaining about?”
“But I miss him,” shouted Matt. “I miss him so much it cuts my heart!”
“Would you like me to hold you for a bit?” asked Lovis.
“Yes, you might as well,” cried Matt. “And you too, Ronia.”
So he sat leaning first against Lovis and then against Ronia and wept out his grief for Noddle-Pete, who had been there all his life and was not there any more.
Next day they buried Noddle-Pete down by the river. The winter had come closer; now it was snowing for the first time, and soft, wet flakes fell on Noddle-Pete’s coffin as Matt and his robbers bore it to its place. Noddle-Pete had carved the coffin himself in the days of his strength and had kept it at the back of the costume chamber all through the years.
“A robber may need his coffin when he least expects it,” Noddle-Pete had said, and in the last few years he had expressed surprise that it was taking so long.
“But sooner or later it will come to pass,” he had said.
Now it had come to pass.
The loss of Noddle-Pete lay heavily on the fort. Matt was glum all winter long, and the robbers were downcast too, since it was Matt’s mood that meant either sorrow or gladness in Matt’s Fort.
Ronia took refuge with Birk in the woods, where it was now winter, and when she was skiing down the slopes she forgot all her sorrows. But she was reminded of them as soon as she came home and saw Matt brooding in front of the fire.
“Comfort me, Ronia,” he begged her. “Help me in my grief.”
“Soon it will be spring again. You’ll feel better then,” said Ronia, but Matt did not agree.
“Noddle-Pete won’t see spring,” he said grimly, and Ronia could find no comfort for him there.
But winter passed and spring came, as it always did, whoever lived or died. Matt began to cheer up, as he did every spring, and he whistled and sang when he rode out to the Wolf’s Neck at the head of his robbers.
Borka and his men were already waiting down below. Hurrah, now their robbers’ life was going to begin again at last, after a long winter! That delighted them, born to the robbers’ life as they were.
Their children were much wiser. They delighted in quite different things, such as the disappearance of the snow, so they could ride again, and in the thought of soon moving back to the Bear’s Cave.
“I’m glad you never want to be a robber, Birk, said Ronia.
Birk laughed. “No, I’ve taken an oath on it, haven’t I? But I do wonder what we’re going to live on, you and I.”
“I know,” said Ronia. “We’ll be miners—what do you say to that?”
And then she told Birk the story of Noddle-Pete’s silver mine, the one the little gray dwarf had shown him long ago in gratitude for his life.
“There are silver nuggets there as big as cobblestones,” Ronia said. “And who knows, it may not be just a fairy tale! Noddle-Pete swore it was true. We can ride up there one day and have a look. I know where it is.”
“But there’s no hurry,” said Birk. “Just make sure you keep it secret! Otherwise all the robbers will be in a rush to pick up the silver!”
Ronia laughed. “You’re as wise as Noddle-Pete. Robbers are as eager as buzzards—that’s what he said—and that is why I mustn’t tell anyone but you!”
“But for the time being we’ll be all right without silver, sister mine,”
said Birk. “In the Bear’s Cave we need different things.”
Spring grew more springlike every day, and Ronia was beginning to worry about the day when she would have to tell Matt that she was planning to move to the Bear’s Cave again. But Matt was an extraordinary man; you never knew what he might do next.
“My old cave is a fine place,” he said. “There’s no better place to live at this time of year—don’t you think so, Lovis?”
Lovis was used to his abrupt switches and was not particularly surprised. “Off you go, child, if your father says so,” she said. “But I’ll miss you!”
“But you’ll come home again in the autumn as you usually do, ” said Matt, just as if Ronia had been moving in and out of Matt’s Fort for years.
“Yes, I’ll do what I usually do, ” Ronia assured him, pleased and surprised that it had been so easy this time. She had been expecting tears and shouts, and there was Matt, looking just as happy as when he remembered his own childhood pleasures in the old pigsty.
“Oh, yes, when I was living in the Bear’s Cave it could have been worse, ” he said. “And that cave is really mine, don’t you forget it! I might come and visit you from time to time. “
When Ronia told Birk, he replied grandly, “He’s welcome to come as far as I’m concerned. But, ” he added, “it will be a relief not to have to see that black curly head of his every day! “
It is early morning. As beautiful as the first morning of the world! The new inhabitants of the Bear’s Cave come strolling through their woods, and all about them lies the splendor of springtime. Every tree, every stretch of water, and every green thicket is alive. There is twittering and rushing and buzzing and singing and murmuring. The fresh, wild song of spring can be heard everywhere.
And they come to their cave, their home in the wilderness. And everything is as before, safe and familiar. The river rushing down below, the woods in the morning light—everything is the same as ever. Spring is new, but it is still the same as ever.
Ronia, The Robber's Daughter Page 14