Man from Småland. Don't let us talk about it. More gin! Gin here! I've money, too. Do you see? Gold! (The liquor is served). It isn't mine, but I'll spend it on drink to the last farthing, and you'll please help me.
Windrank. And yet it isn't your money--how can you do that?
German. Who's wronged you, my dear fellow? I can see that you have fared badly.
A Man from Småland I am ruined! You see, I got two hundred oxen on trust, and when I came to Stockholm the King's agent took charge of the whole business, and he said I couldn't sell them for more than he allowed. It's the King that fixes the price on oxen--it's the King that has ruined me.
Man from Småland. Oh, I know a lot more. He means to take the priests and the monks away from us in order to give everything to the gentlefolk.
Man from Småland. Exactly! I wish King Christian--God bless him!--had cut off a few more heads.
Windrank. Well, is the King like that? I thought he had those noble fellows by the ear.
Man from Småland. He? No, he lets them be born with the right to cut oak on my ground, if I had any. For I did have a patch of land once, you see, but then came a lord who said that my great-grandmother had taken it all in loan from his great-grandfather, and so there was an end to that story.
German. Why, is the King like that? I would never have believed it.
Man from Småland. Indeed he is! Those high-born brats run around with their guns in our woods and pick off the deer out of sheer mischief, but if one of us peasants were dying from hunger and took a shot at one of the beasts--well, then he wouldn't have to starve to death, for they'd hang him--but not to an oak--Lord, no! That would be a shame for such a royal tree. No, just to an ordinary pine. The pine, you see, has no crown, and that's why it isn't royal--and that's why the old song says:
The peasants we hanged in lines From the tops of the tallest pities.
It has nothing to say about crowns, mind you.
German. But the pine carries its head high just the same, and its back is straight.
Man from Småland. Drink, good Sirs! You're right welcome to 't. It's a blessed drink. If only I didn't have wife and children at home! Oh, my, my, my! But that's all one! Oh, I know a lot more, but I know how to keep it to myself, too.