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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41414 ***
+
+                     The Girl From the Marsh Croft
+
+                           By Selma Lagerlöf
+
+    Author of "The Story of Gösta Berling," "The Miracles of
+    Antichrist," "Invisible Links," etc.
+
+
+    _Translated from the Swedish_
+    By Velma Swanston Howard
+
+    GARDEN CITY       NEW YORK
+    DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+    1916
+
+    _Copyright, 1910, by_
+    DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+    _All rights reserved, including that of
+    translation into foreign languages._
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE
+
+
+Readers of Miss Lagerlöf will observe that in this, her latest book,
+"The Girl from the Marsh Croft," the Swedish author has abandoned her
+former world of Romanticism and has entered the field of Naturalism and
+Realism.
+
+This writer's romantic style is most marked, perhaps, in her first
+successful work, "Gösta Berling."
+
+How "The Story of Gösta Berling" grew, and the years required to perfect
+it, is told in the author's unique literary autobiography, "The Story of
+a Story," which is embodied in the present volume.
+
+In "The Girl from the Marsh Croft" Miss Lagerlöf has courageously chosen
+a girl who had gone astray as the heroine of her love story, making her
+innate honesty and goodness the redemptive qualities which win for her
+the love of an honest man and the respect and esteem of all.
+
+To the kindness of the publishers of _Good Housekeeping_, I am indebted
+for permission to include "The Legend of the Christmas Rose" in this
+volume.
+
+This book is translated and published with the sanction of the author,
+Selma Lagerlöf.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I. THE GIRL FROM THE MARSH CROFT 3
+
+II. THE SILVER MINE 99
+
+III. THE AIRSHIP 125
+
+IV. THE WEDDING MARCH 163
+
+V. THE MUSICIAN 173
+
+VI. THE LEGEND OF THE CHRISTMAS ROSE 189
+
+VII. A STORY FROM JERUSALEM 219
+
+VIII. WHY THE POPE LIVED TO BE SO OLD 235
+
+IX. THE STORY OF A STORY 257
+
+
+
+
+The Girl from the Marsh Croft
+
+
+I
+
+It took place in the court room of a rural district. At the head of the
+Judges' table sits an old Judge--a tall and massively built man, with a
+broad, rough-hewn visage. For several hours he has been engaged in
+deciding one case after another, and finally something like disgust and
+melancholy has taken hold of him. It is difficult to know if it is the
+heat and closeness of the court room that are torturing him or if he has
+become low-spirited from handling all these petty wrangles, which seem
+to spring from no other cause than to bear witness to people's
+quarrel-mania, uncharitableness, and greed.
+
+He has just begun on one of the last cases to be tried during the day.
+It concerns a plea for help in the rearing of a child.
+
+This case had already been tried at the last Court Session, and the
+protocols of the former suit are being read; therefore one learns that
+the plaintiff is a poor farmer's daughter and the defendant is a married
+man.
+
+Moreover, it says in the protocol, the defendant maintains that the
+plaintiff has wrongfully, unjustly, and only with the desire of
+profiting thereby, sued the defendant. He admits that at one time the
+plaintiff had been employed in his household, but that during her stay
+in his home he had not carried on any intrigue with her, and she has no
+right to demand assistance from him. The plaintiff still holds firmly to
+her claim, and after a few witnesses have been heard, the defendant is
+called to take the oath and show cause why he should not be sentenced by
+the Court to assist the plaintiff.
+
+Both parties have come up and are standing, side by side, before the
+Judges' table. The plaintiff is very young and looks frightened to
+death. She is weeping from shyness and with difficulty wipes away the
+tears with a crumpled handkerchief, which she doesn't seem to know how
+to open out. She wears black clothes, which are quite new and whole, but
+they fit so badly that one is tempted to think she has borrowed them in
+order to appear before the Court of Justice in a befitting manner.
+
+As regards the defendant, one sees at a glance that he is a prosperous
+man. He is about forty and has a bold and dashing appearance. As he
+stands before the Court, he has a very good bearing. One can see that he
+does not think it a pleasure to stand there, but he doesn't appear to be
+the least concerned about it.
+
+As soon as the protocols have been read, the Judge turns to the
+defendant and asks him if he holds fast to his denials and if he is
+prepared to take the oath.
+
+To these questions the defendant promptly answers a curt yes. He digs
+down in his vest pocket and takes out a statement from the clergyman who
+attests that he understands the meaning and import of the oath and is
+qualified to take it.
+
+All through this the plaintiff has been weeping. She appears to be
+unconquerably bashful, and doggedly keeps her eyes fixed upon the floor.
+Thus far she has not raised her eyes sufficiently to look the defendant
+in the face.
+
+As he utters his "yes," she starts back. She moves a step or two nearer
+the Court, as if she had something to say to the contrary, and then she
+stands there perplexed. It is hardly possible, she seems to say to
+herself; he cannot have answered yes. I have heard wrongly.
+
+Meanwhile the Judge takes the clergyman's paper and motions to the court
+officer. The latter goes up to the table to find the Bible, which lies
+hidden under a pile of records, and lays it down in front of the
+defendant.
+
+The plaintiff hears that some one is walking past her and becomes
+restless. She forces herself to raise her eyes just enough to cast a
+glance over the table, and she sees then how the court officer moves the
+Bible.
+
+Again it appears as though she wished to raise some objection, and again
+she controls herself. It isn't possible that he will be allowed to take
+the oath. Surely the Judge must prevent him!
+
+The Judge is a wise man and knows how people in her home district think
+and feel. He knew, very likely, how severe all people were as soon as
+there was anything which affected the marriage relation. They knew of no
+worse sin than the one she had committed. Would she ever have confessed
+anything like this about herself if it were not true? The Judge must
+understand the awful contempt that she had brought down upon herself,
+and not contempt only, but all sorts of misery. No one wanted her in
+service--no one wanted her work. Her own parents could scarcely tolerate
+her presence in their cabin and talked all the while of casting her out.
+Oh, the Judge must know that she would never have asked for help from a
+married man had she no right to it.
+
+Surely the Judge could not believe that she lied in a case like this;
+that she would have called down upon herself such a terrible misfortune
+if she had had any one else to accuse than a married man. And if he
+knows this, he must stop the oath-taking.
+
+She sees that the Judge reads through the clergyman's statements a
+couple of times and she begins to think he intends to interfere.
+
+True, the Judge has a wary look. Now he shifts his glance to the
+plaintiff, and with that his weariness and disgust become even more
+marked. It appears as though he were unfavorably disposed toward her.
+Even if the plaintiff is telling the truth, she is nevertheless a bad
+woman and the Judge cannot feel any sympathy for her.
+
+Sometimes the Judge interposes in a case, like a good and wise
+counsellor, and keeps the parties from ruining themselves entirely. But
+to-day he is tired and cross and thinks only of letting the legal
+process have its course.
+
+He lays down the clergyman's recommendation and says a few words to the
+defendant to the effect that he hopes he has carefully considered the
+consequences of a perjured oath. The defendant listens to him with the
+calm air which he has shown all the while, and he answers respectfully
+and not without dignity.
+
+The plaintiff listens to this in extreme terror. She makes a few
+vehement protests and wrings her hands. Now she wants to speak to the
+Court. She struggles frightfully with her shyness and with the sobs
+which prevent her speaking. The result is that she cannot get out an
+audible word.
+
+Then the oath will be taken! She must give it up. No one will prevent
+him from swearing away his soul.
+
+Until now, she could not believe this possible. But now she is seized
+with the certainty that it is close at hand--that it will occur the next
+second. A fear more overpowering than any she has hitherto felt takes
+possession of her. She is absolutely paralyzed. She does not even weep
+more. Her eyes are glazed. It is his intention, then, to bring down upon
+himself eternal punishment.
+
+She comprehends that he wants to swear himself free for the sake of his
+wife. But even if the truth were to make trouble in his home, he should
+not for that reason throw away his soul's salvation.
+
+There is nothing so terrible as perjury. There is something uncanny and
+awful about that sin. There is no mercy or condonation for it. The gates
+of the infernal regions open of their own accord when the perjurer's
+name is mentioned.
+
+If she had then raised her eyes to his face, she would have been afraid
+of seeing it stamped with damnation's mark, branded by the wrath of God.
+
+As she stands there and works herself into greater and greater terror,
+the Judge instructs the defendant as to how he must place his fingers on
+the Bible. Then the Judge opens the law book to find the form of the
+oath.
+
+As she sees him place his fingers on the book, she comes a step nearer,
+and it appears as though she wished to reach across the table and push
+his hand away.
+
+But as yet she is restrained by a faint hope. She thinks he will relent
+now--at the last moment.
+
+The Judge has found the place in the law book, and now he begins to
+administer the oath loudly and distinctly. Then he makes a pause for the
+defendant to repeat his words. The defendant actually starts to repeat,
+but he stumbles over the words, and the Judge must begin again from the
+beginning.
+
+Now she can no longer entertain a trace of hope. She knows now that he
+means to swear falsely--that he means to bring down upon himself the
+wrath of God, both for this life and for the life to come.
+
+She stands wringing her hands in her helplessness. And it is all her
+fault because she has accused him! But she was without work; she was
+starving and freezing; the child came near dying. To whom else should
+she turn for help? Never had she thought that he would be willing to
+commit such an execrable sin.
+
+The Judge has again administered the oath. In a few seconds the thing
+will have been done: the kind of thing from which there is no turning
+back--which can never be retrieved, never blotted out.
+
+Just as the defendant begins to repeat the oath, she rushes forward,
+sweeps away his outstretched hand, and seizes the Bible.
+
+It is her terrible dread which has finally given her courage. He must
+not swear away his soul; he must not!
+
+The court officer hastens forward instantly to take the Bible from her
+and to bring her to order. She has a boundless fear of all that pertains
+to a Court of Justice and actually believes that what she has just done
+will bring her to prison; but she does not let go her hold on the Bible.
+Cost what it may, he cannot take the oath. He who would swear also runs
+up to take the Bible, but she resists him too.
+
+"You shall not take the oath!" she cries, "you shall not!"
+
+That which is happening naturally awakens the greatest surprise. The
+court attendants elbow their way up to the bar, the jurymen start to
+rise, the recording clerk jumps up with the ink bottle in his hand to
+prevent its being upset.
+
+Then the Judge shouts in a loud and angry tone, "Silence!" and everybody
+stands perfectly still.
+
+"What is the matter with you? What business have you with the Bible?"
+the Judge asks the plaintiff in the same hard and severe tone.
+
+Since, with the courage of despair, she has been able to give utterance
+to her distress, her anxiety has decreased so that she can answer, "He
+must not take the oath!"
+
+"Be silent, and put back the book!" demands the Judge.
+
+She does not obey, but holds the book tightly with both hands. "He
+cannot take the oath!" she cries fiercely.
+
+"Are you so determined to win your suit?" asks the Judge sharply.
+
+"I want to withdraw the suit," she shrieks in a high, shrill voice. "I
+don't want to force him to swear."
+
+"What are you shrieking about?" demands the Judge. "Have you lost your
+senses?"
+
+She catches her breath suddenly and tries to control herself. She hears
+herself how she is shrieking. The Judge will think she has gone mad if
+she cannot say what she would say calmly. She struggles with herself
+again to get control of her voice, and this time she succeeds. She says
+slowly, earnestly, and clearly, as she looks the Judge in the face: "I
+wish to withdraw the suit. He is the father of the child. I am still
+fond of him. I don't wish him to swear falsely."
+
+She stands erect and resolute, facing the Judges' table, all the while
+looking the Judge square in the face. He sits with both hands resting on
+the table and for a long while does not take his eyes off from her.
+While the Judge is looking at her, a great change comes over him. All
+the ennui and displeasure in his face vanishes, and the large,
+rough-hewn visage becomes beautiful with the most beautiful emotion.
+"Ah, see!" he thinks--"Ah, see! such is the mettle of my people. I shall
+not be vexed at them when there is so much love and godliness even in
+one of the humblest."
+
+Suddenly the Judge feels his eyes fill up with tears; then he pulls
+himself together, almost ashamed, and casts a hasty glance about him. He
+sees that the clerks and bailiffs and the whole long row of jurymen are
+leaning forward and looking at the girl who stands before the Judges'
+table with the Bible hugged close to her. And he sees a light in their
+faces, as though they had seen something very beautiful, which had made
+them happy all the way into their souls.
+
+Then the Judge casts a glance over the spectators, and he sees that they
+all breathe a quick sigh of relief, as if they had just heard what they
+had longed above everything to hear.
+
+Finally, the Judge looks at the defendant. Now it is _he_ who stands
+with lowered head and looks at the floor.
+
+The Judge turns once more to the poor girl. "It shall be as you wish,"
+he says. "The case shall be stricken from the Calendar,"--this to the
+recording clerk.
+
+The defendant makes a move, as though he wished to interpose an
+objection. "Well, what now?" the Judge bellows at him. "Have you
+anything against it?"
+
+The defendant's head hangs lower and lower, and he says, almost
+inaudibly, "Oh, no, I dare say it is best to let it go that way."
+
+The Judge sits still a moment more, and then he pushes the heavy chair
+back, rises, and walks around the table and up to the plaintiff.
+
+"Thank you!" he says and gives her his hand.
+
+She has laid down the Bible and stands wiping away the tears with the
+crumpled up handkerchief.
+
+"Thank you!" says the Judge once more, taking her hand and shaking it as
+if it belonged to a real man's man.
+
+
+II
+
+Let no one imagine that the girl who had passed through such a trying
+ordeal at the bar of justice thought that she had done anything
+praiseworthy! On the contrary, she considered herself disgraced before
+the whole court room. She did not understand that there was something
+honorable in the fact that the Judge had gone over and shaken hands with
+her. She thought it simply meant that the trial was over and that she
+might go her way.
+
+Nor did she observe that people gave her kindly glances and that there
+were several who wanted to press her hand. She stole by and wanted only
+to go. There was a crush at the door. The court was over and many in
+their hurry to get out made a rush for the door. She drew aside and was
+about the last person to leave the court room because she felt that
+every one else ought to go before her.
+
+When she finally came out, Gudmund Erlandsson's cart stood in waiting at
+the door. Gudmund was seated in the cart, holding the reins, and was
+apparently waiting for some one. As soon as he saw her among all the
+people who poured out of the court room, he called to her: "Come here,
+Helga! You can ride with me since we are going in the same direction."
+
+Although she heard her name, she could not believe that it was she whom
+he was calling. It was not possible that Gudmund Erlandsson wanted to
+ride with her. He was the most attractive man in the whole parish, young
+and handsome and of good family connections and popular with every one.
+She could not imagine that he wished to associate with her.
+
+She was walking with the head shawl drawn far down on her forehead, and
+was hastening past him without either glancing up or answering.
+
+"Don't you hear, Helga, that you can ride with me?" said Gudmund, and
+there was a friendly note in his voice. But she couldn't grasp that
+Gudmund meant well by her. She thought that, in one way or another, he
+wished to make sport of her and was only waiting for those who stood
+near by to begin tittering and laughing. She cast a frightened and
+indignant glance at him, and almost ran from the Court House grounds to
+be out of earshot when the laughter should start in.
+
+Gudmund was unmarried at that time and lived at home with his parents.
+His father was a farm-owner. His was not a large farm and he was not
+rich, but he made a good living. The son had gone to the Court House to
+fetch some deeds for his father, but as there was also another purpose
+in the trip, he had groomed himself carefully. He had taken the
+brand-new trap with not a crack in the lacquering, had rubbed up the
+harness and curried the horse until he shone like satin. He had placed a
+bright red blanket on the seat beside him, and himself he had adorned
+with a short hunting-jacket, a small gray felt hat, and top boots, into
+which the trousers were tucked. This was no holiday attire, but he
+probably knew that he looked handsome and manly.
+
+Gudmund was seated alone in the cart when he drove from home in the
+morning, but he had agreeable things to think of and the time had not
+seemed long to him. When he had arrived about half-way, he came across
+a poor young girl who was walking very slowly and looked as though she
+were scarcely able to move her feet because of exhaustion. It was autumn
+and the road was rain-soaked, and Gudmund saw how, with every step, she
+sank deeper into the mud. He stopped and asked where she was going. When
+he learned that she was on her way to the Court House, he invited her to
+ride. She thanked him and stepped up on the back of the cart to the
+narrow board where the hay sack was tied, as though she dared not touch
+the red blanket beside Gudmund. Nor was it his meaning that she should
+sit beside him. He didn't know who she was, but he supposed her to be
+the daughter of some poor backwoodsman and thought the rear of the cart
+was quite good enough for her.
+
+When they came to a steep hill and the horse began to slow up, Gudmund
+started talking. He wanted to know her name and where she was from. When
+he learned that her name was Helga, and that she came from a backwoods
+farm called Big Marsh, he began to feel uneasy. "Have you always lived
+at home on the farm or have you been out to service?" he asked.
+
+The past year she had been at home, but before this she had been working
+out.
+
+"Where?" asked Gudmund hastily.
+
+He thought it was a long while before the answer was forthcoming. "At
+the West Farm, with Per Mårtensson," she said finally, sinking her voice
+as if she would rather not have been heard.
+
+But Gudmund heard her. "Indeed! Then it is you who--" said he, but did
+not conclude his meaning. He turned from her, and sat up straight in his
+seat and said not another word to her.
+
+Gudmund gave the horse rap upon rap and talked loudly to himself about
+the wretched condition of the road and was in a very bad humor.
+
+The girl sat still for a moment; presently Gudmund felt her hand upon
+his arm. "What do you wish?" he asked without turning his head.
+
+Oh, he was to stop, so she could jump out.
+
+"Why so?" sneered Gudmund. "Aren't you riding comfortably?"
+
+"Yes, thank you, but I prefer to walk."
+
+Gudmund struggled a little with himself. It was provoking that he should
+have bidden a person of Helga's sort to ride with him to-day of all
+days! But he thought also that since he had taken her into the wagon,
+he could not drive her out.
+
+"Stop, Gudmund!" said the girl once again. She spoke in a very decided
+tone, and Gudmund drew in the reins.
+
+"It is she, of course, who wishes to step down," thought he. "I don't
+have to force her to ride against her will."
+
+She was down on the road before the horse had time to stop. "I thought
+you knew who I was when you asked me to ride," she said, "or I should
+not have stepped into the cart."
+
+Gudmund muttered a short good-bye and drove on. She was doubtless right
+in thinking that he knew her. He had seen the girl from the marsh croft
+many times as a child, but she had changed since she was grown up. At
+first he was very glad to be rid of the travelling companion, but
+gradually he began to feel displeased with himself. He could hardly have
+acted differently, yet he did not like being cruel to any one.
+
+Shortly after Gudmund had parted from Helga, he turned out of the road
+and up a narrow street, and came to a large and fine estate. As Gudmund
+drew up before the gate, the house door opened and one of the daughters
+appeared.
+
+Gudmund raised his hat; at the same time a faint flush covered his face.
+"Wonder if the Juryman is at home?" said he.
+
+"No, father has gone down to the Court House," replied the daughter.
+
+"Oh, then he has already gone," said Gudmund. "I drove over to ask if
+the Juryman would ride with me. I'm going to the Court House."
+
+"Father is always so punctual!" bewailed the daughter.
+
+"It doesn't matter," said Gudmund.
+
+"Father would have been pleased, I dare say, to ride behind such a fine
+horse and in such a pretty cart as you have," remarked the girl
+pleasantly.
+
+Gudmund smiled a little when he heard this commendation.
+
+"Well, then, I must be off again," said he.
+
+"Won't you step in, Gudmund?"
+
+"Thank you, Hildur, but I'm going to the Court House, you know. It won't
+do for me to be late."
+
+Now Gudmund takes the direct road to the Court House. He was very well
+pleased with himself and thought no more of his meeting with Helga. It
+was fortunate that only Hildur had come out on the porch and that she
+had seen the cart and blanket, the horse and harness. She had probably
+taken note of everything.
+
+This was the first time Gudmund had attended a Court. He thought that
+there was much to see and learn, and remained the whole day. He was
+sitting in the court room when Helga's case came up; saw how she
+snatched the Bible and hugged it close, and saw how she defied both
+court attendants and Judge. When it was all over and the Judge had
+shaken hands with Helga, Gudmund rose quickly and went out. He hurriedly
+hitched the horse to the cart and drove up to the steps. He thought
+Helga had been brave, and now he wished to honor her. But she was so
+frightened that she did not understand his purpose, and stole away from
+his intended honor.
+
+The same day Gudmund came to the marsh croft late in the evening. It was
+a little croft, which lay at the base of the forest ridge that enclosed
+the parish. The road leading thither was passable for a horse only in
+winter, and Gudmund had to go there on foot. It was difficult for him to
+find his way. He came near breaking his legs on stumps and stones, and
+he had to wade through brooks which crossed the path in several places.
+Had it not been for the bright moonlight, he could not have found his
+way to the croft. He thought it was a very hard road that Helga had to
+tramp this day.
+
+Big Marsh croft lay on the clearing about half-way up the ridge. Gudmund
+had never been there before, but he had often seen the place from the
+valley and was sufficiently familiar with it to know that he had gone
+aright.
+
+All around the clearing lay a hedge of brushwood, which was very thick
+and difficult to get through. It was probably meant to be a kind of
+defence and protection against the whole wilderness that surrounded the
+croft. The cabin stood at the upper edge of the enclosure. Before it
+stretched a sloping house-yard covered with short, thick grass; and
+below the yard lay a couple of gray outhouses and a larder with a
+moss-covered roof. It was a poor and humble place, but one couldn't deny
+that it was picturesque up there. The marsh, from which the croft had
+derived its name, lay somewhere near and sent forth mists which rose,
+beautiful, splendid, and silvery, in the moonlight, forming a halo
+around the marsh. The highest peak of the mountain loomed above the
+mist, and the ridge, prickly with pines, was sharply outlined against
+the horizon. Over the valley shone the moon. It was so light that one
+could distinguish fields and orchards and a winding brook, over which
+the mists curled, like the faintest smoke. It was not very far down
+there, but the peculiar thing was that the valley lay like a world
+apart, with which the forest and all that belonged to it seemed to have
+nothing in common. It was as if the people who lived here in the forest
+must ever remain under the shadow of these trees. They might find it
+quite as hard to feel contented down in the valley as woodcock and
+eagle-owl and lynx and star-flowers.
+
+Gudmund tramped across the open grass-plot and up to the cabin. There a
+gleam of firelight streamed through the window. As there were no shades
+at the windows, he peeped into the cabin to see if Helga was there. A
+small lamp burned on the table near the window, and there sat the master
+of the house, mending old shoes. The mistress was seated farther back in
+the room, close to the fireplace, where a slow fire burned. The
+spinning-wheel was before her, but she had paused in her work to play
+with a little child. She had taken it up from the cradle, and Gudmund
+heard how she prattled to it. Her face was lined and wrinkled and she
+looked severe. But, as she bent over the child, she had a mild
+expression and she smiled as tenderly at the little one as his own
+mother might have done.
+
+Gudmund peered in, but could not see Helga in any corner of the cabin.
+Then he thought it was best to remain outside until she came. He was
+surprised that she had not reached home. Perhaps she had stopped on the
+way somewhere to see an acquaintance and to get some food and rest? At
+all events, she would have to come back soon if she wished to be indoors
+before it was very late at night.
+
+Gudmund stood still a moment and listened for footsteps. He thought that
+never before had he sensed such stillness. It was as though the whole
+forest held its breath and stood waiting for something extraordinary to
+happen.
+
+No one tramped in the forest, no branch was broken, and no stone rolled
+down.
+
+"Surely, Helga won't be long in coming! I wonder what she will say when
+she sees that I'm here?" thought Gudmund. "Perhaps she will scream and
+rush into the forest and will not dare come home the whole night!"
+
+At the same time it struck him as rather strange that now, all of a
+sudden, he had so much business with that marsh croft girl!
+
+On his return from the Court House to his home, he had, as usual, gone
+to his mother to relate his experiences of the day. Gudmund's mother was
+a sensible and broad-minded woman who had always understood how to treat
+her son, and he had as much confidence in her now as when he was a
+child. She had been an invalid for several years and could not walk, but
+sat all day in her chair. It was always a good hour for her when Gudmund
+came home from an outing and brought her the news.
+
+When Gudmund had told his mother about Helga from Big Marsh, he observed
+that she became thoughtful. For a long while she sat quietly and looked
+straight ahead. "There seems to be something good in that girl still,"
+she remarked. "It will never do to condemn a person because she has once
+met with misfortune. She might be very grateful to any one who helped
+her now."
+
+Gudmund apprehended at once what his mother was thinking of. She could
+no longer help herself, but must have some one near her continually, and
+it was always difficult to find anybody who cared to remain in that
+capacity. His mother was exacting and not easy to get on with, and,
+moreover, all young folk preferred other work where they could have more
+freedom. Now, it must have occurred to his mother that she ought to take
+Helga from Big Marsh into her service, and Gudmund thought this a
+capital idea. Helga would certainly be very devoted to his mother.
+
+"It will be hard for the child," remarked the mother after a little, and
+Gudmund understood that she was thinking seriously of the matter.
+
+"Surely the parents would let it stay with them?" said Gudmund.
+
+"It does not follow that she wants to part with it."
+
+"She will have to give up thinking of what she wants or doesn't want. I
+thought that she looked starved out. They can't have much to eat at the
+croft," said the son.
+
+To this his mother made no reply, but began to talk of something else.
+It was evident that some new misgivings had come to her, which hindered
+her from coming to a decision.
+
+Then Gudmund told her of how he had found a pretext for calling at the
+Juryman's at Älvåkra and had met Hildur. He mentioned what she had said
+of the horse and wagon, and it was easily seen that he was pleased with
+the meeting. His mother was also very much pleased. Where she sat in the
+cottage, unable to move from her chair, it was her constant occupation
+to spin plans for her son's future, and it was she who had first hit
+upon the idea that he should try and set his cap for the pretty daughter
+of the Juryman. It was the finest match he could make.
+
+The Juryman was a yeoman farmer. He owned the largest farm in the parish
+and had much money and power. It was really absurd to hope that he would
+be satisfied with a son-in-law with no more wealth than Gudmund, but it
+was also possible that he would conform to his daughter's wishes. That
+Gudmund could win Hildur if he so wished, his mother was certain.
+
+This was the first time Gudmund had betrayed to his mother that her
+thought had taken root in him, and they talked long of Hildur and of all
+the riches and advantages that would come to the chosen one. Soon there
+was another lull in the conversation, for his mother was again absorbed
+in her thoughts. "Couldn't you send for this Helga? I should like to see
+her before taking her into my service," said the mother finally.
+
+"It is well, mother, that you wish to take her under your wing,"
+remarked Gudmund, thinking to himself that if his mother had a nurse
+with whom she was satisfied, his wife would have a pleasanter life here.
+"You'll see that you will be pleased with the girl," he continued.
+
+"Then, too, it would be a good deed to take her in hand," added the
+mother.
+
+As it grew dusk, the invalid retired, and Gudmund went out to the
+stable to tend the horses. It was beautiful weather, with a clear
+atmosphere, and the whole tract lay bathed in moonlight. It occurred to
+him that he ought to go to Big Marsh to-night and convey his mother's
+greeting. If the weather should continue clear on the morrow, he would
+be so busy taking in oats that neither he nor any one else would find
+time to go there.
+
+Now that Gudmund was standing outside the cabin at Big Marsh croft
+listening, he certainly heard no footsteps. But there were other sounds
+which at short intervals pierced through the stillness. He heard a soft
+weeping, a very low and smothered moaning, with now and then a sob.
+Gudmund thought that the sounds came from the outhouse lane, and he
+walked toward it. As he was nearing, the sobs ceased; but it was evident
+that some one moved in the woodshed. Gudmund seemed to comprehend
+instantly who was there. "Is it you, Helga, who sit here and weep?"
+asked Gudmund, placing himself in the doorway so that the girl could not
+rush away before he had spoken with her.
+
+Again it was perfectly still. Gudmund had guessed rightly that it was
+Helga who sat there and wept; but she tried to smother the sobs, so
+that Gudmund would think he had heard wrongly and go away. It was pitch
+dark in the woodshed, and she knew that he could not see her.
+
+But Helga was in such despair that evening it was not easy for her to
+keep back the sobs. She had not as yet gone into the cabin to see her
+parents. She hadn't had the courage to go in. When she trudged up the
+steep hill in the twilight and thought of how she must tell her parents
+that she was not to receive any assistance from Per Mårtensson in the
+rearing of her child, she began to fear all the harsh and cruel things
+she felt they would say to her and thought of burying herself in the
+swamp. And in her terror she jumped up and tried to rush past Gudmund;
+but he was too alert for her. "Oh, no! You sha'n't get by before I have
+spoken with you."
+
+"Only let me go!" she said, looking wildly at him.
+
+"You look as though you wanted to jump into the river," said he; for now
+she was out in the moonlight and he could see her face.
+
+"Well, what matters it if I did?" said Helga, throwing her head back and
+looking him straight in the eye. "This morning you didn't even care to
+have me ride on the back of your cart. No one wants to have anything to
+do with me! You must surely understand that it is best for a miserable
+creature like me to put an end to herself."
+
+Gudmund did not know what to do next. He wished himself far away, but he
+thought, also, that he could not desert a person who was in such
+distress. "Listen to me! Only promise that you will listen to what I
+have to say to you; afterwards you may go wherever you wish."
+
+She promised.
+
+"Is there anything here to sit on?"
+
+"The chopping-block is over yonder."
+
+"Then go over there and sit down and be quiet!"
+
+She went very obediently and seated herself.
+
+"And don't cry any more!" said he, for he thought he was beginning to
+get control over her. But he should not have said this, for immediately
+she buried her face in her hands and cried harder than ever.
+
+"Stop crying!" he said, ready to stamp his foot at her. "There are
+those, I dare say, who are worse off than you are."
+
+"No, no one can be worse off!"
+
+"You are young and strong. You should see how my mother fares! She is so
+wasted from suffering that she cannot move, but she never complains."
+
+"She is not abandoned by everybody, as I am."
+
+"You are not abandoned, either. I have spoken with my mother about you."
+
+There was a pause in the sobs. One heard, as it were, the great
+stillness of the forest, which always held its breath and waited for
+something wonderful. "I was to say to you that you should come down to
+my mother to-morrow that she might see you. Mother thinks of asking if
+you would care to take service with us."
+
+"Did she think of asking _me_?"
+
+"Yes; but she wants to see you first."
+
+"Does she know that--"
+
+"She knows as much about you as all the rest do."
+
+The girl leaped up with a cry of joy and wonderment, and the next moment
+Gudmund felt a pair of arms around his neck. He was thoroughly
+frightened, and his first impulse was to break loose and run; but he
+calmed himself and stood still. He understood that the girl was so
+beside herself with joy that she didn't know what she was doing. At that
+moment she could have hugged the worst ruffian, only to find a little
+sympathy in the great happiness that had come to her.
+
+"If she will take me into her service, I can live!" said she, burying
+her head on Gudmund's breast and weeping again. "You may know that I was
+in earnest when I wished to go down into the swamp," she said. "You
+deserve thanks for coming. You have saved my life." Until then Gudmund
+had been standing motionless, but now he felt that something tender and
+warm was beginning to stir within him. He raised his hand and stroked
+her hair. Then she started, as if awakened from a dream, and stood up
+straight as a rod before him. "You deserve thanks for coming," she
+repeated. She had become flame-red in the face, and he too reddened.
+
+"Well, then, you will come home to-morrow," he said, putting out his
+hand to say good-bye.
+
+"I shall never forget that you came to me to-night!" said Helga, and her
+great gratitude got the mastery over her shyness.
+
+"Oh, yes, it was well perhaps that I came," he said quite calmly, and he
+felt rather pleased with himself. "You will go in now, of course?"
+
+"Yes, now I shall go in."
+
+Gudmund suddenly felt himself rather pleased with Helga too--as one
+usually is with a person whom one has succeeded in helping. She lingered
+and did not want to go. "I would like to see you safely under shelter
+before I leave."
+
+"I thought they might retire before I went in."
+
+"No, you must go in at once, so that you can have your supper and rest
+yourself," said he, thinking it was agreeable to take her in hand.
+
+She went at once to the cabin, and he accompanied her, pleased and proud
+because she obeyed him.
+
+When she stood on the threshold, they said good-bye to each other again;
+but before he had gone two paces, she came after him. "Remain just
+outside the door until I am in. It will be easier for me if I know that
+you are standing without."
+
+"Yes," said he, "I shall stand here until you have come over the worst
+of it."
+
+Then Helga opened the cabin door, and Gudmund noticed that she left it
+slightly ajar. It was as if she did not wish to feel herself separated
+from her helper who stood without. Nor did he feel any compunction about
+hearing all that happened within the cabin.
+
+The old folks nodded pleasantly to Helga as she came in. Her mother
+promptly laid the child in the crib, and then went over to the cupboard
+and brought out a bowl of milk and a bread cake and placed them on the
+table.
+
+"There! Now sit down and eat," said she. Then she went up to the
+fireplace and freshened the fire. "I have kept the fire alive, so you
+could dry your feet and warm yourself when you came home. But eat
+something first! It is food that you need most."
+
+All the while Helga had been standing at the door. "You mustn't receive
+me so well, mother," she said in a low tone. "I will get no money from
+Per. I have renounced his help."
+
+"There was some one here from the Court House this evening who had been
+there and heard how it turned out for you," said the mother. "We know
+all."
+
+Helga was still standing by the door, looking out, as if she knew not
+which was in or out.
+
+Then the farmer put down his work, pushed his spectacles up on his
+forehead, and cleared his throat for a speech of which he had been
+thinking the whole evening. "It is a fact, Helga," said he, "that mother
+and I have always wanted to be decent and honorable folk, but we have
+thought that we had been disgraced on your account. It was as though we
+had not taught you to distinguish between good and evil. But when we
+learned what you did to-day, we said to each other--mother and I--that
+now folks could see anyway that you have had a proper bringing up and
+right teaching, and we thought that perhaps we might yet be happy in
+you. And mother did not want that we should go to bed before you came
+that you might have a hearty welcome home."
+
+
+III
+
+Helga from the marsh croft came to Närlunda, and there all went well.
+She was willing and teachable and grateful for every kind word said to
+her. She always felt herself to be the humblest of mortals and never
+wanted to push herself ahead. It was not long until the household and
+the servants were satisfied with her.
+
+The first days it appeared as if Gudmund was afraid to speak to Helga.
+He feared that this croft girl would get notions into her head because
+he had come to her assistance. But these were needless worries. Helga
+regarded him as altogether too fine and noble for her even to raise her
+eyes to. Gudmund soon perceived that he did not have to keep her at a
+distance. She was more shy of him than of any one else.
+
+The autumn that Helga came to Närlunda, Gudmund paid many visits to
+Älvåkra, and there was much talk about the good chance he stood of being
+the prospective son-in-law of this estate. That the courtship had been
+successful all were assured at Christmas. Then the Juryman, with his
+wife and daughter, came over to Närlunda, and it was evident that they
+had come there to see how Hildur would fare if she married Gudmund.
+
+This was the first time that Helga saw, at close range, her whom Gudmund
+was to marry. Hildur Ericsdotter was not yet twenty, but the marked
+thing about her was that no one could look at her without thinking what
+a handsome and dignified mistress she would be some day. She was tall
+and well built, fair and pretty, and apparently liked to have many about
+her to look after. She was never timid; she talked much and seemed to
+know everything better than the one with whom she was talking. She had
+attended school in the city for a couple of years and wore the prettiest
+frocks Helga had ever seen, but yet she didn't impress one as being
+showy or vain. Rich and beautiful as she was, she might have married a
+gentleman at any time, but she always declared that she did not wish to
+be a fine lady and sit with folded hands. She wanted to marry a farmer
+and look after her own house, like a real farmer's wife.
+
+Helga thought Hildur a perfect wonder. Never had she seen any one who
+made such a superb appearance. Nor had she ever dreamed that a person
+could be so nearly perfect in every particular. To her it seemed a
+great joy that in the near future she was to serve such a mistress.
+
+Everything had gone off well during the Juryman's visit. But whenever
+Helga looked back upon that day, she experienced a certain unrest. It
+seems that when the visitors had arrived, she had gone around and served
+coffee. When she came in with the tray, the Juryman's wife leaned
+forward and asked her mistress if she was not the girl from the marsh
+croft. She did not lower her voice much, and Helga had distinctly heard
+the question.
+
+Mother Ingeborg answered yes, and then the other had said something
+which Helga couldn't hear. But it was to the effect that she thought it
+singular they wanted a person of that sort in the house. This caused
+Helga many anxious moments. She tried to console herself with the
+thought that it was not Hildur, but her mother, who had said this.
+
+One Sunday in the early spring Helga and Gudmund walked home together
+from church. As they came down the slope, they were with the other
+church people; but soon one after another dropped off until, finally,
+Helga and Gudmund were alone.
+
+Then Gudmund happened to think that he had not been alone with Helga
+since that night at the croft, and the memory of that night came
+forcibly back to him. He had thought of their first meeting often enough
+during the winter, and with it he had always felt something sweet and
+pleasant thrill through his senses. As he went about his work, he would
+call forth in thought that whole beautiful evening: the white mist, the
+bright moonlight, the dark forest heights, the light valley, and the
+girl who had thrown her arms round his neck and wept for joy. The whole
+incident became more beautiful each time that it recurred to his memory.
+But when Gudmund saw Helga going about among the others at home, toiling
+and slaving, it was hard for him to think that it was she who had shared
+in this. Now that he was walking alone with her on the church slope, he
+couldn't help wishing for a moment that she would be the same girl she
+was on that evening.
+
+Helga began immediately to speak of Hildur. She praised her much: said
+she was the prettiest and most sensible girl in the whole parish, and
+congratulated Gudmund because he would have such an excellent wife. "You
+must tell her to let me remain always at Närlunda," she said. "It will
+be a pleasure to work for a mistress like her."
+
+Gudmund smiled at her enthusiasm, but answered only in monosyllables, as
+though he did not exactly follow her. It was well, of course, that she
+was so fond of Hildur, and so happy because he was going to be married.
+
+"You have been content to be with us this winter?" he asked.
+
+"Indeed I have! I cannot begin to tell you how kind mother Ingeborg and
+all of you have been to me!"
+
+"Have you not been homesick for the forest?"
+
+"Oh, yes, in the beginning, but not now any more."
+
+"I thought that one who belonged to the forest could not help yearning
+for it."
+
+Helga turned half round and looked at him, who walked on the other side
+of the road. Gudmund had become almost a stranger to her; but now there
+was something in his voice, his smile, that was familiar. Yes, he was
+the same man who had come to her and saved her in her greatest distress.
+Although he was to marry another, she was certain that he wanted to be a
+good friend to her, and a faithful helper.
+
+She was very happy to feel that she could confide in him, as in none
+other, and thought that she must tell him of all that had happened to
+her since they last talked together. "I must tell you that it was rather
+hard for me the first weeks at Närlunda," she began. "But you mustn't
+speak of this to your mother."
+
+"If you want me to be silent, I'll be silent."
+
+"Fancy! I was so homesick in the beginning that I was about to go back
+to the forest."
+
+"Were you homesick? I thought you were glad to be with us."
+
+"I simply could not help it," she said apologetically. "I understood, of
+course, how well it was for me to be here; you were all so good to me,
+and the work was not so hard but that I could manage with it, but I was
+homesick nevertheless. There was something that took hold of me and
+wanted to draw me back to the forest. I thought that I was deserting and
+betraying some one who had a right to me, when I wanted to stay here in
+the village."
+
+"It was perhaps--" began Gudmund, but checked himself.
+
+"No, it was not the boy I longed for. I knew that he was well cared for
+and that mother was kind to him. It was nothing in particular. I felt as
+though I were a wild bird that had been caged, and I thought I should
+die if I were not let out."
+
+"To think that you had such a hard time of it!" said Gudmund smiling,
+for now, all at once, he recognized her. Now it was as if nothing had
+come between them, but that they had parted at the forest farm the
+evening before.
+
+Helga smiled again, but continued to speak of her torments. "I didn't
+sleep a single night," said she, "and as soon as I went to bed, the
+tears started to flow, and when I got up of a morning, the pillow was
+wet through. In the daytime, when I went about among all of you, I could
+keep back the tears, but as soon as I was alone my eyes would fill up."
+
+"You have wept much in your time," said Gudmund without looking the
+least bit sympathetic as he pronounced the words.
+
+Helga thought that he was laughing to himself all the while. "You surely
+don't comprehend how hard it was for me!" she said, speaking faster and
+faster in her effort to make him understand her. "A great longing took
+possession of me and carried me out of myself. Not for a moment could I
+feel happy! Nothing was beautiful, nothing was a pleasure; not a human
+being could I become attached to. You all remained just as strange to me
+as you were the first time I entered the house."
+
+"But didn't you say a moment ago that you wished to remain with us?"
+said Gudmund wonderingly.
+
+"Of course I did!"
+
+"Then, surely, you are not homesick now?"
+
+"No, it has passed over. I have been cured. Wait, and you shall hear!"
+
+As she said this, Gudmund crossed to the other side of the road and
+walked beside her, laughing to himself all the while. He seemed glad to
+hear her speak, but probably he didn't attach much importance to what
+she was relating. Gradually Helga took on his mood, and she thought
+everything was becoming easy and light. The church road was long and
+difficult to walk, but to-day she was not tired. There was something
+that carried her. She continued with her story because she had begun it,
+but it was no longer of much importance to her to speak. It would have
+been quite as agreeable to her if she might have walked silently beside
+him.
+
+"When I was the most unhappy," she said, "I asked mother Ingeborg one
+Saturday evening to let me go home and remain over Sunday. And that
+evening, as I tramped over the hills to the marsh, I believed positively
+that I should never again go back to Närlunda. But at home father and
+mother were so happy because I had found service with good and
+respectable people, that I didn't dare tell them I could not endure
+remaining with you. Then, too, as soon as I came up into the forest all
+the anguish and pain vanished entirely. I thought the whole thing had
+been only a fancy. And then it was so difficult about the child. Mother
+had become attached to the boy and had made him her own. He wasn't mine
+any more. And it was well thus, but it was hard to get used to."
+
+"Perhaps you began to be homesick for us?" blurted Gudmund.
+
+"Oh, no! On Monday morning, as I awoke and thought of having to return
+to you, the longing came over me again. I lay crying and fretting
+because the only right and proper thing for me to do was to go back to
+Närlunda. But I felt all the same as though I were going to be ill or
+lose my senses if I went back. Suddenly I remembered having once heard
+some one say that if one took some ashes from the hearth in one's own
+home and strewed them on the fire in the strange place, one would be rid
+of homesickness."
+
+"Then it was a remedy that was easy to take," said Gudmund.
+
+"Yes, but it was supposed to have this effect also: afterwards one could
+never be content in any other place. If one were to move from the
+homestead to which one had borne the ashes, one must long to get back
+there again just as much as one had longed before to get away from
+there."
+
+"Couldn't one carry ashes along wherever one moved to?"
+
+"No, it can't be done more than once. Afterwards there is no turning
+back, so it was a great risk to try anything like that."
+
+"I shouldn't have taken chances on a thing of that kind," said Gudmund,
+and she could hear that he was laughing at her.
+
+"But I dared, all the same," retorted Helga. "It was better than having
+to appear as an ingrate in your mother's eyes and in yours, when you had
+tried to help me. I brought a little ashes from home, and when I got
+back to Närlunda I watched my opportunity, when no one was in, and
+scattered the ashes over the hearth."
+
+"And now you believe it is ashes that have helped you?"
+
+"Wait, and you shall hear how it turned out! Immediately I became
+absorbed in my work and thought no more about the ashes all that day. I
+grieved exactly as before and was just as weary of everything as I had
+been. There was much to be done that day, both in the house and out of
+it, and when I finished with the evening's milking and was going in, the
+fire on the hearth was already lighted."
+
+"Now I'm very curious to hear what happened," said Gudmund.
+
+"Think! Already, as I was crossing the house yard, I thought there was
+something familiar in the gleam from the fire, and when I opened the
+door, it flashed across my mind that I was going into our own cabin and
+that father and mother would be sitting by the hearth. This flew past
+like a dream, but when I came in, I was surprised that it looked so
+pretty and homelike in the cottage. To me your mother and the rest of
+you had never appeared as pleasant as you did in the firelight. It
+seemed really good to come in, and this was not so before. I was so
+astonished that I could hardly keep from clapping my hands and shouting.
+I thought you were all so changed. You were no longer strangers to me
+and I could talk to you about all sorts of things. You can understand,
+of course, that I was happy, but I couldn't help being astonished. I
+wondered if I had been bewitched, and then I remembered the ashes I had
+strewn over the hearth."
+
+"Yes, it was marvellous," said Gudmund. He did not believe the least
+little bit in witchcraft and was not at all superstitious; but he didn't
+dislike hearing Helga talk of such things. "Now the wild forest girl has
+returned," thought he. "Can anybody comprehend how one who has passed
+through all that she has can still be so childish?"
+
+"Of course it was wonderful!" said Helga. "And the same thing has been
+coming back all winter. As soon as the fire on the hearth was burning, I
+felt the same confidence and security as if I had been at home. But
+there must be something extraordinary about this fire--not with any
+other kind of fire, perhaps--only that which burns on a hearth, with all
+the household gathered around it, night after night. It gets sort of
+acquainted with one. It plays and dances for one and talks to one, and
+sometimes it is ill-humored. It is as if it had the power to create
+comfort and discomfort. I thought now that the fire from home had come
+to me and that it gave the same glow of pleasure to every one here that
+it had done back home."
+
+"What if you had to leave Närlunda?" said Gudmund.
+
+"Then I must long to come back again all my life," said she. And the
+quiver in her voice betrayed that this was spoken in profound
+seriousness.
+
+"Well, I shall not be the one to drive you away!" said Gudmund. Although
+he was laughing, there was something warm in his tone.
+
+They started no new subject of conversation, but walked on in silence
+until they came to the homestead. Now and then Gudmund turned his head
+to look at her who was walking at his side. She had gathered strength
+after her hard time of the year before. Her features were delicate and
+refined; her hair was like an aureole around her head, and her eyes were
+not easy to read. Her step was light and elastic, and when she spoke,
+the words came readily, yet modestly. She was afraid of being laughed
+at, still she had to speak out what was in her heart.
+
+Gudmund wondered if he wished Hildur to be like this, but he probably
+didn't. This Helga would be nothing special to marry.
+
+A fortnight later Helga heard that she must leave Närlunda in April
+because Hildur Ericsdotter would not live under the same roof with her.
+The master and mistress of the house did not say this in so many words,
+but the mistress hinted that when the new daughter-in-law came, they
+would in all probability get so much help from her they would not
+require so many servants. On another occasion she said she had heard of
+a good place where Helga would fare better than with them.
+
+It was not necessary for Helga to hear anything further to understand
+that she must leave, and she immediately announced that she would move,
+but she did not wish any other situation and would return to her home.
+
+It was apparent that it was not of their own free will they were
+dismissing Helga from Närlunda.
+
+When she was leaving, there was a spread for her. It was like a party,
+and mother Ingeborg gave her such heaps of dresses and shoes that she,
+who had come to them with only a bundle under her arm, could now barely
+find room enough in a chest for her possessions.
+
+"I shall never again have such an excellent servant in my house as you
+have been," said mother Ingeborg. "And do not think too hard of me for
+letting you go! You understand, no doubt, that it is not my will, this.
+I shall not forget you. So long as I have any power, you shall never
+have to suffer want."
+
+She arranged with Helga that she was to weave sheets and towels for her.
+She gave her employment for at least half a year.
+
+Gudmund was in the woodshed splitting wood the day Helga was leaving. He
+did not come in to say good-bye, although his horse was at the door. He
+appeared to be so busy that he didn't take note of what was going on.
+She had to go out to him to say farewell.
+
+He laid down the axe, took Helga's hand, and said rather hurriedly,
+"Thank you for all!" and began chopping again. Helga had wanted to say
+something about her understanding that it was impossible for them to
+keep her and that it was all her own fault. She had brought this upon
+herself. But Gudmund chopped away until the splinters flew around him,
+and she couldn't make up her mind to speak.
+
+But the strangest thing about this whole moving affair was that the
+master himself, old Erland Erlandsson, drove Helga up to the marsh.
+
+Gudmund's father was a little weazened man, with a bald pate and
+beautiful and knowing eyes. He was very timid, and so reticent at times
+that he did not speak a word the whole day. So long as everything went
+smoothly, one took no notice of him, but when anything went wrong, he
+always said and did what there was to be said and done to right matters.
+He was a capable accountant and enjoyed the confidence of every man in
+the township. He executed all kinds of public commissions and was more
+respected than many a man with a large estate and great riches.
+
+Erland Erlandsson drove Helga home in his own wagon, and he wouldn't
+allow her to step down and walk up any of the hills. When they arrived
+at the marsh croft, he sat a long while in the cabin and talked with
+Helga's parents, telling them of how pleased he and mother Ingeborg had
+been with her. It was only because they did not need so many servants
+that they were sending her home. She, who was the youngest, must go.
+They had felt that it was wrong to dismiss any of those who were old in
+their service.
+
+Erland Erlandsson's speech had the desired effect, and the parents gave
+Helga a warm welcome. When they heard that she had received such large
+orders that she could support herself with weaving, they were satisfied,
+and she remained at home.
+
+
+IV
+
+Gudmund thought that he had loved Hildur until the day when she exacted
+from him the promise that Helga should be sent away from Närlunda; at
+least up to that time there was no one whom he had esteemed more highly
+than Hildur. No other young girl, to his thinking, could come up to her.
+It had been a pleasure for him to picture a future with Hildur. They
+would be rich and looked up to, and he felt instinctively that the home
+Hildur managed would be good to live in. He liked also to think that he
+would be well supplied with money after he had married her. He could
+then improve the land, rebuild all the tumble-down houses, extend the
+farm, and be a real landed proprietor.
+
+The same Sunday that he had walked home from church with Helga, he had
+driven over to Älvåkra in the evening. Then Hildur had started talking
+about Helga and had said that she wouldn't come to Närlunda until that
+girl was sent away. At first Gudmund had tried to dismiss the whole
+matter as a jest, but it was soon obvious that Hildur was in earnest.
+Gudmund pleaded Helga's cause exceedingly well and remarked that she was
+very young when first sent out to service and it was not strange that
+things went badly when she came across such a worthless fellow as Per
+Mårtensson. But since his mother had taken her in hand, she had always
+conducted herself well. "It can't be right to push her out," said he.
+"Then, perhaps, she might meet with misfortune again."
+
+But Hildur would not yield. "If that girl is to remain at Närlunda,
+then I will never come there," she declared. "I cannot tolerate a person
+of that kind in my home."
+
+"You don't know what you are doing," said Gudmund. "No one understands
+so well as Helga how to care for mother. We have all been glad that she
+came to us. Before she came, mother was often peevish and depressed."
+
+"I shall not compel you to send her away," said Hildur, but it was clear
+that if Gudmund were to take her at her word, in this instance, she was
+ready to break the engagement.
+
+"It will probably have to be as you wish," said Gudmund. He did not feel
+that he could jeopardize his whole future for Helga's sake, but he was
+very pale when he acquiesced, and he was silent and low-spirited the
+entire evening.
+
+It was this which had caused Gudmund to fear that perhaps Hildur was not
+altogether what he had fancied her. He did not like, I dare say, that
+she had pitted her will against his. But the worst of it was that he
+could not comprehend anything else than that she was in the wrong. He
+felt that he would willingly have given in to her had she been
+broad-minded, but instead, it seemed to him, she was only petty and
+heartless. Once his doubts were awakened, it was not long before he
+perceived one thing and another which were not as he wished. "Doubtless
+she is one of those who think first and foremost of themselves," he
+muttered every time he parted from her, and he wondered how long her
+love for him would last if it were put to the test. He tried to console
+himself with the idea that all people thought of themselves first, but
+instantly Helga flashed into his mind. He saw her as she stood in the
+court room and snatched the Bible, and heard how she cried out: "I
+withdraw the suit. I am still fond of him and I don't want him to swear
+falsely." It was thus he would have Hildur. Helga had become for him a
+standard by which he measured people. Though certainly there were many
+who were equal to her in affection!
+
+Day by day he thought less of Hildur, but it did not occur to him that
+he should relinquish his prospective bride. He tried to imagine his
+discouragement was simply an idle whim. Only a few weeks ago he regarded
+her as the best in the world!
+
+Had this been at the beginning of the courtship, he would have
+withdrawn, perhaps, but now the banns were already published and the
+wedding day fixed, and in his home they had begun repairing and
+rebuilding. Nor did he wish to forfeit the wealth and the good social
+position which awaited him. What excuse could he offer for breaking the
+engagement? That which he had to bring against Hildur was so
+inconsequential that it would have turned to air on his lips had he
+attempted to express it.
+
+But the heart of him was often heavy, and every time he had an errand
+down to the parish or the city he bought ale or wine at the shops to
+drink himself into a good humor. When he had emptied a couple of
+bottles, he was again proud of the marriage and pleased with Hildur.
+Then he didn't understand what it was that pained him.
+
+Gudmund often thought of Helga and longed to meet her. But he fancied
+that Helga believed him a wretch because he had not kept the promise
+which he voluntarily made her, but had allowed her to go away. He could
+neither explain nor excuse himself, therefore he avoided her.
+
+One morning, when Gudmund was walking up the road, he met Helga, who had
+been down in the village to buy milk. Gudmund turned about and joined
+her.
+
+She didn't appear to be pleased with his company and walked rapidly, as
+if she wished to get away from him, and said nothing. Gudmund, too, kept
+still because he didn't quite know how he should begin the
+conversation.
+
+A vehicle was seen on the road, far behind. Gudmund was absorbed in
+thought and did not mark it, but Helga had seen it and turned abruptly
+to him: "It is not worth your while to be in my company, Gudmund, for,
+unless I see wrongly, it is the Juryman from Älvåkra and his daughter
+who come driving back there."
+
+Gudmund glanced up quickly, recognized the horse, and made a movement as
+if to turn back; but the next instant he straightened up and walked
+calmly at Helga's side until the vehicle had passed. Then he slackened
+his pace. Helga continued to walk rapidly, and they parted company
+without his having said a word to her. But all that day he was better
+satisfied with himself than he had been in a long while.
+
+
+V
+
+It was decided that Gudmund and Hildur's wedding should be celebrated at
+Älvåkra the day following Palm Sunday. On the Friday before, Gudmund
+drove to town to make some purchases for the home-coming banquet, which
+was to be held at Närlunda the day after the wedding. In the village he
+happened across a number of young men from his parish. They knew it was
+his last trip to the city before the marriage and made it the occasion
+for a carouse. All insisted that Gudmund must drink, and they succeeded
+finally in getting him thoroughly intoxicated.
+
+He came home on Saturday morning so late that his father and the men
+servants had already gone out to their work, and he slept on until late
+in the afternoon. When he arose and was going to dress himself, he
+noticed that his coat was torn in several places. "It looks as though I
+had been in a fight last night," said he, trying to recall what he had
+been up to. He remembered this much: he had left the public tavern at
+eleven o'clock in company with his comrades; but where they had gone
+afterwards, he couldn't remember. It was like trying to peer into a
+great darkness. He did not know if they had only driven around on the
+streets or if they had been in somebody's home. He didn't remember
+whether he or some one else had harnessed the horse and had no
+recollection whatever of the drive home.
+
+When he came into the living-room of the cottage, it was scoured and
+arranged for the occasion. All work was over for the day, and the
+household were having coffee. No one spoke of Gudmund's trip. It seemed
+to be a matter agreed upon that he should have the freedom of living as
+he chose these last weeks.
+
+Gudmund sat down at the table and had his coffee like the others. As he
+sat pouring it from the cup into the saucer and back into the cup again
+to let it cool, mother Ingeborg, who had finished with hers, took up the
+newspaper, which had just arrived, and began reading. She read aloud
+column after column, and Gudmund, his father, and the rest sat and
+listened.
+
+Among other things which she read, there was an account of a fight that
+had taken place the night before, on the big square, between a gang of
+drunken farmers and some laborers. As soon as the police turned up, the
+fighters fled, but one of them lay dead on the square. The man was
+carried to the police station, and when no outward injury was found on
+him, they had tried to resuscitate him. But all attempts had been in
+vain, and at last they discovered that a knife-blade was imbedded in the
+skull. It was the blade of an uncommonly large clasp-knife that had
+pierced the brain and was broken off close to the head. The murderer had
+fled with the knife-handle, but as the police knew perfectly well who
+had been in the fight, they had hopes of soon finding him.
+
+While mother Ingeborg was reading this, Gudmund set down the
+coffee-cup, stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out a clasp-knife, and
+glanced at it carelessly. But almost immediately he started, turned the
+knife over, and poked it into his pocket as quickly as though it had
+burned him. He did not touch the coffee after that, but sat a long
+while, perfectly still, with a puzzled expression on his face. His brows
+were contracted, and it was apparent that he was trying with all his
+might to think out something.
+
+Finally he stood up, stretched himself, yawned, and walked leisurely
+toward the door. "I'll have to bestir myself. I haven't been out of
+doors all day," he said, leaving the room.
+
+About the same time Erland Erlandsson also arose. He had smoked out his
+pipe, and now he went into the side room to get some tobacco. As he was
+standing in there, refilling his pipe, he saw Gudmund walking along. The
+windows of the side room did not, like those of the main room, face the
+yard, but looked out upon a little garden plot with a couple of tall
+apple trees. Beyond the plot lay a bit of swamp land where in the spring
+of the year there were big pools of water, but which were almost dried
+out in the summer. Toward this side it was seldom that any one went.
+Erland Erlandsson wondered what Gudmund was doing there, and followed
+him with his eyes. Then he saw that the son stuck his hand into his
+pocket, drew out some object, and flung it away in the morass. Thereupon
+he walked back across the little garden plot, leaped a fence, and went
+down the road.
+
+As soon as his son was out of sight, Erland, in his turn, betook
+himself, as he should have done, to the swamp. He waded out into the
+mire, bent down, and picked up something his foot had touched. It was a
+large clasp-knife with the biggest blade broken off. He turned it over
+and over and examined it carefully while he still stood in the water.
+Then he put it into his pocket, but he took it out again and looked at
+it before returning to the house.
+
+Gudmund did not come home until the household had retired. He went
+immediately to bed without touching his supper, which was spread in the
+main room.
+
+Erland Erlandsson and his wife slept in the side room. At daybreak
+Erland thought he heard footsteps outside the window. He got up, drew
+aside the curtain, and saw Gudmund walking down to the swamp. He
+stripped off stockings and shoes and waded out into the water, tramping
+back and forth, like one who is searching for something. He kept this up
+for a long while, then he walked back to dry land, as if he intended to
+go away, but soon turned back to resume his search. A whole hour his
+father stood watching him. Then Gudmund went back to the house again and
+to bed.
+
+On Palm Sunday Gudmund was to drive to church. As he started to hitch up
+the horse, his father came out. "You have forgotten to polish the
+harness to-day," he said, as he walked by; for both harness and cart
+were muddy.
+
+"I have had other things to think of," said Gudmund listlessly, and
+drove off without doing anything in the matter.
+
+After the service Gudmund accompanied his betrothed to Älvåkra and
+remained there all day. A number of young people came to celebrate
+Hildur's last evening as a maid, and there was dancing till far into the
+night. Intoxicants were plentiful, but Gudmund did not touch them. The
+whole evening he had scarcely spoken a word to any one, but he danced
+wildly and laughed at times, loudly and stridently, without any one's
+knowing what he was so amused over.
+
+Gudmund did not come home until about two in the morning, and when he
+had stabled the horse he went down to the swamp back of the house. He
+took off his shoes and stockings, rolled up his trousers, and waded
+into the water and mud. It was a light spring night, and his father was
+standing in the side room behind the curtain, watching his son. He saw
+how he walked bending over the water and searching as on the previous
+night. He went up on land between times, but after a moment or two he
+would wade again through the mud. Once he went and fetched a bucket from
+the barn and began dipping water from the pools, as if he intended to
+drain them, but really found it unprofitable and set the bucket aside.
+He tried also with a pole-net. He ploughed through the entire
+swamp-ground with it, but seemed to bring up nothing but mud. He did not
+go in until the morning was so well on that the people in the house were
+beginning to bestir themselves. Then he was so tired and spent that he
+staggered as he walked, and he flung himself upon the bed without
+undressing.
+
+When the clock struck eight, his father came and waked him. Gudmund lay
+upon the bed, his clothing covered with mud and clay, but his father did
+not ask what he had been doing. He simply said, "It is time now to get
+up," and closed the door.
+
+After a while Gudmund came down stairs, dressed in his wedding clothes.
+He was pale, and his eyes wore a troubled expression, but no one had
+ever seen him look so handsome. His features were as if illumined by an
+inner light. One felt that one was looking upon something no longer made
+up of flesh and blood,--only of soul and will.
+
+It was solemnly ceremonious down in the main room. His mother was in
+black, and she had thrown a pretty silk shawl across her shoulders,
+although she was not to be at the wedding. Fresh birch leaves were
+arranged in the fireplace. The table was spread, and there was a great
+quantity of food.
+
+When they had breakfasted, mother Ingeborg read a hymn and something
+from the Bible. Then she turned to Gudmund, thanked him for having been
+a good son, wished him happiness in his new life, and gave him her
+blessing. Mother Ingeborg could arrange her words well, and Gudmund was
+deeply moved. The tears welled to his eyes time and again, but he
+managed to choke them back. His father, too, said a few words. "It will
+be hard for your parents to lose you," he said, and again Gudmund came
+near breaking down. All the servants came forward and shook hands with
+him and thanked him for the past. Tears were in his eyes all the while.
+He pulled himself together and made several attempts to speak, but
+could scarcely get a word past his lips.
+
+His father was to accompany him to the wedding and be one of the party.
+He went out and harnessed the horse, after which he came back and
+announced that it was time to start. When Gudmund was seated in the
+cart, he noticed that it was cleansed and burnished. Everything was as
+bright and shiny as he himself always wished it to be. At the same time
+he saw, also, how neat everything about the place looked. The driveway
+had been laid with new gravel; piles of old wood and rubbish, which had
+lain there all his life, were removed. On each side of the entrance door
+stood a birch branch, as a gate of honor. A large wreath of blueberry
+hung on the weather-vane, and from every aperture peeped light green
+birch-leaves. Again Gudmund was ready to burst into tears. He grasped
+his father's hand hard when he was about to start; it was as though he
+wished to prevent his going.
+
+"Is there something--?" said the father.
+
+"Oh, no!" said Gudmund. "It is best, I dare say, that we go ahead."
+
+Gudmund had to say one more farewell before he was very far from the
+homestead. It was Helga from Big Marsh, who stood waiting at the hedge,
+where the foliage path leading from her home opened into the highway.
+The father was driving and stopped when he saw Helga.
+
+"I have been waiting for you, as I wanted to wish you happiness to-day,"
+said Helga.
+
+Gudmund leaned far out over the cart and shook hands with Helga. He
+thought that she had grown thin and that her eyelids were red. Very
+probably she had lain awake and cried all night and was homesick for
+Närlunda. But now she tried to appear happy and smiled sweetly at him.
+Again he felt deeply moved but could not speak.
+
+His father, who was reputed never to speak a word until it was called
+forth by extreme necessity, joined in: "That good wish, I think, Gudmund
+will be more glad over than any other."
+
+"Yes, of that you may be sure!" said Gudmund. He shook hands with Helga
+once more, and then they drove on.
+
+Gudmund leaned back in the cart and looked after Helga. When she was
+hidden from view by a couple of trees, he hastily tore aside the apron
+of the carriage, as if he wished to jump out.
+
+"Is there anything more you wish to say to Helga?" asked his father.
+
+"No, oh, no!" answered Gudmund and turned round again.
+
+Suddenly Gudmund leaned his head against his father's shoulder and burst
+out crying.
+
+"What ails you?" asked Erland Erlandsson, drawing in the reins so
+suddenly that the horse stopped.
+
+"Oh, they are all so good to me and I don't deserve it."
+
+"But you have never done anything wrong, surely?"
+
+"Yes, father, I have."
+
+"That we can't believe."
+
+"I have killed a human being!"
+
+The father drew a deep breath. It sounded almost like a sigh of relief,
+and Gudmund raised his head, astonished, and looked at him. His father
+set the horse in motion again; then he said calmly, "I'm glad you have
+told of this yourself."
+
+"Did you know it already, father?"
+
+"I surmised last Saturday evening that there was something wrong. And
+then I found your knife down in the morass."
+
+"So it was you who found the knife!"
+
+"I found it and I noticed that one of the blades had been broken off."
+
+"Yes, father, I'm aware that the knife-blade is gone, but still I
+cannot get it into my head that I did it."
+
+"It was probably done in the drunkenness and delirium."
+
+"I know nothing; I remember nothing. I could see by my clothes that I
+had been in a fight and I knew that the knife-blade was missing."
+
+"I understand that it was your intention to be silent about this," said
+the father.
+
+"I thought that perhaps the rest of the party were as irresponsible as
+myself and _I_ couldn't remember anything. There was perhaps no other
+evidence against me than the knife, therefore I threw it away."
+
+"I comprehend that you must have reasoned in that way."
+
+"You understand, father, that I do not know who is dead. I had never
+seen him before, I dare say. I have no recollection of having done it. I
+didn't think I ought to suffer for what I had not done knowingly. But
+soon I got to thinking that I must have been mad to throw the knife into
+the marsh. It dries out in summer, and then any one might find it. I
+tried last night and the night before to find it."
+
+"Didn't it occur to you that you should confess?"
+
+"No! Yesterday I thought only of how I could keep it a secret, and I
+tried to dance and be merry, so that no one would mark any change in
+me."
+
+"Was it your intention to go to the bridal altar to-day without
+confessing? You were assuming a grave responsibility. Didn't you
+understand that if you were discovered you would drag Hildur and her kin
+with you into misery?"
+
+"I thought that I was sparing them most by saying nothing."
+
+They drove now as fast as possible. The father seemed to be in haste to
+arrive, and all the time he talked with his son. He had not said so much
+to him in all his life before.
+
+"I wonder how you came to think differently?" said he.
+
+"It was because Helga came and wished me luck. Then there was something
+hard in me that broke. I was touched by something in her. Mother, also,
+moved me this morning, and I wanted to speak out and tell her that I was
+not worthy of your love; but then the hardness was still within me and
+made resistance. But when Helga appeared, it was all over with me. I
+felt that she really ought to be angry with me who was to blame for her
+having to leave our home."
+
+"Now I think you are agreed with me that we must let the Juryman know
+this at once," said the father.
+
+"Yes," answered Gudmund in a low tone. "Why, certainly!" he added almost
+immediately after, louder and firmer. "I don't want to drag Hildur into
+my misfortune. This she would never forgive me."
+
+"The Älvåkra folk are jealous of their honor, like the rest," remarked
+the father. "And you may as well know, Gudmund, that when I left home
+this morning I was thinking that I must tell the Juryman your position
+if you did not decide to do so yourself. I never could have stood
+silently by and let Hildur marry a man who at any moment might be
+accused of murder."
+
+He cracked the whip and drove on, faster and faster. "This will be the
+hardest thing for you," said he, "but we'll try and have it over with
+quickly. I believe that, to the Juryman's mind, it will be right for you
+to give yourself up, and they will be kind to you, no doubt."
+
+Gudmund said nothing. His torture increased the nearer they approached
+Älvåkra. The father continued talking to keep up his courage.
+
+"I have heard something of this sort before," said he. "There was a
+bridegroom once who happened to shoot a comrade to death during a hunt.
+He did not do it intentionally, and it was not discovered that he was
+the one who had fired the fatal shot. But a day or two later he was to
+be married, and when he came to the home of the bride, he went to her
+and said: 'The marriage cannot take place. I do not care to drag you
+into the misery which awaits me.' But she stood, dressed in bridal
+wreath and crown, and took him by the hand and led him into the
+drawing-room, where the guests were assembled and all was in readiness
+for the ceremony. She related in a clear voice what the bridegroom had
+just said to her. 'I have told of this, that all may know you have
+practised no deceit on me.' Then she turned to the bridegroom. 'Now I
+want to be married to you at once. You are what you are, even though you
+have met with misfortune, and whatever awaits you, I want to share it
+equally with you.'"
+
+Just as the father had finished the narrative, they were on the long
+avenue leading to Älvåkra. Gudmund turned to him with a melancholy
+smile. "It will not end thus for us," he said.
+
+"Who knows?" said the father, straightening in the cart. He looked upon
+his son and was again astonished at his beauty this day. "It would not
+surprise me if something great and unexpected were to come to him,"
+thought he.
+
+There was to have been a church ceremony, and already a crowd of people
+were gathered at the bride's home to join in the wedding procession. A
+number of the Juryman's relatives from a distance had also arrived. They
+were sitting on the porch in their best attire, ready for the drive to
+church. Carts and carriages were strung out in the yard, and one could
+hear the horses stamping in the stable as they were being curried. The
+parish fiddler sat on the steps of the storehouse alone, tuning his
+fiddle. At a window in the upper story of the cottage stood the bride,
+dressed and waiting to have a peep at the bridegroom before he had time
+to discover her.
+
+Erland and Gudmund stepped from the carriage and asked immediately for a
+private conference with Hildur and her parents. Soon they were all
+standing in the little room which the Juryman used as his study.
+
+"I think you must have read in the papers of that fight in town last
+Saturday night, where a man was killed," said Gudmund, as rapidly as if
+he were repeating a lesson.
+
+"Oh, yes, I've read about it, of course," said the Juryman.
+
+"I happened to be in town that night," continued Gudmund. Now there was
+no response. It was as still as death. Gudmund thought they all glared
+at him with such fury that he was unable to continue. But his father
+came to his aid.
+
+"Gudmund had been invited out by a few friends. He had probably drunk
+too much that night, and when he came home he did not know what he had
+been doing. But it was apparent that he had been in a fight, for his
+clothes were torn."
+
+Gudmund saw that the dread which the others felt increased with every
+word that was said, but he himself was growing calmer. There awoke in
+him a sense of defiance, and he took up the words again: "When the paper
+came on Saturday evening and I read of the fight and of the knife-blade
+which was imbedded in the man's skull, I took out my knife and saw that
+a blade was missing."
+
+"It is bad news that Gudmund brings with him," said the Juryman. "It
+would have been better had he told us of this yesterday."
+
+Gudmund was silent; and now his father came to the rescue again. "It was
+not so easy for Gudmund. It was a great temptation to keep quiet about
+the whole affair. He is losing much by this confession."
+
+"We may be glad that he has spoken now, and that we have not been
+tricked and dragged into this wretched affair," said the Juryman
+bitterly.
+
+Gudmund kept his eyes fixed on Hildur all the while. She was adorned
+with veil and crown, and now he saw how she raised her hand and drew out
+one of the large pins which held the crown in place. She seemed to do
+this unconsciously. When she observed that Gudmund's glance rested upon
+her, she stuck the pin in again.
+
+"It is not yet fully proved that Gudmund is the slayer," said his
+father, "but I can well understand that you wish the wedding postponed
+until everything has been cleared up."
+
+"It is not worth while to talk of postponement," said the Juryman. "I
+think that Gudmund's case is clear enough for us to decide that all is
+over between him and Hildur now."
+
+Gudmund did not at once reply to this judgment. He walked over to his
+betrothed and put out his hand. She sat perfectly still and seemed not
+to see him. "Won't you say farewell to me, Hildur?"
+
+Then she looked up, and her large eyes stared coldly at him. "Was it
+with that hand you guided the knife?" she asked.
+
+Gudmund did not answer her, but turned to the Juryman. "Now I am sure of
+my case," he said. "It is useless to talk of a wedding."
+
+With this the conference was ended, and Gudmund and Erland went their
+way.
+
+They had to pass through a number of rooms and corridors before they
+came out, and everywhere they saw preparations for the wedding. The door
+leading to the kitchen was open, and they saw many bustling about in
+eager haste. The smell of roasts and of baking penetrated the air; the
+whole fireplace was covered with large and small pots and pans, and the
+copper saucepans, which usually decorated the walls, were down and in
+use. "Fancy, it is for my wedding that they are puttering like this!"
+thought Gudmund, as he was passing.
+
+He caught a glimpse, so to speak, of all the wealth of this old peasant
+estate as he wandered through the house. He saw the dining-hall, where
+the long tables were set with a long row of silver goblets and
+decanters. He passed by the clothes-press, where the floor was covered
+with great chests and where the walls were hung with an endless array of
+wearing apparel. When he came out in the yard, he saw many vehicles, old
+and new, and fine horses being led out from the stable, and gorgeous
+carriage robes placed in the carriages. He looked out across a couple of
+farms with cow-sheds, barns, sheep-folds, storehouses, sheds, larders,
+and many other buildings. "All this might have been mine," he thought,
+as he seated himself in the cart.
+
+Suddenly he was seized with a sense of bitter regret. He would have
+liked to throw himself out of the cart and go in and say that what he
+had told them was not true. He had only wished to joke with them and
+frighten them. It was awfully stupid of him to confess. Of what use had
+it been to him to confess? The dead was dead. No, this confession
+carried nothing with it save his ruin.
+
+These last weeks he had not been very enthusiastic over this marriage.
+But now, when he must renounce it, he realized what it was worth to him.
+It meant much to lose Hildur Ericsdotter and all that went with her.
+What did it matter that she was domineering and opinionated? She was
+still the peer of all in these regions, and through her he would have
+come by great power and honor.
+
+It was not only Hildur and her possessions he was missing, but minor
+things as well. At this moment he should have been driving to the
+church, and all who looked upon him would have envied him. And it was
+to-day that he should have sat at the head of the wedding table and been
+in the thick of the dancing and the gayety. It was his great luck-day
+that was going from him.
+
+Erland turned time and again to his son and looked at him. Now he was
+not so handsome or transfigured as he had been in the morning, but sat
+there listless and heavy and dull-eyed. The father wondered if the son
+regretted having confessed and meant to question him about it, but
+thought it best to be silent.
+
+"Where are we driving to now?" asked Gudmund presently. "Wouldn't it be
+as well to go at once to the sheriff?"
+
+"You had better go home first and have a good sleep," said the father.
+"You have not had much sleep these last nights, I dare say."
+
+"Mother will be frightened when she sees us."
+
+"She won't be surprised," answered the father, "for she knows quite as
+much as I do. She will be glad, of course, that you have confessed."
+
+"I believe mother and the rest of you at home are glad to get me into
+prison," snarled Gudmund.
+
+"We know that you are losing a good deal in acting rightly," said the
+father. "We can't help but be glad because you have conquered yourself."
+
+Gudmund felt that he could not endure going home and having to listen to
+all who would commend him because he had spoiled his future. He sought
+some excuse that he might escape meeting any one until he had recovered
+his poise. Then they drove by the place where the path led to Big Marsh.
+"Will you stop here, father? I think I'll run up to see Helga and have a
+talk with her."
+
+Willingly the father reined in the horse. "Only come home as quickly as
+you can, that you may rest yourself," said he.
+
+Gudmund went into the woods and was soon out of sight. He did not think
+of seeking Helga; he was only thinking of being alone, so that he
+wouldn't have to control himself. He felt an unreasonable anger toward
+everything, kicked at stones that lay in his path, and paused sometimes
+to break off a big branch only because a leaf had brushed his cheek.
+
+He followed the path to Big Marsh, but walked past the croft and up the
+hill which lay above it. He had wandered off the path, and in order to
+reach the hill-top he must cross a broad ridge of sharp, jagged rocks.
+It was a hazardous tramp over the sharp rock edges. He might have broken
+both arms and legs had he made a misstep. He understood this perfectly,
+but went on as if it amused him to run into danger. "If I were to fall
+and hurt myself, no one can find me up here," thought he. "What of it? I
+may as well die here as to sit for years within prison walls."
+
+All went well, however, and a few moments later he was up on High Peak.
+Once a forest fire had swept the mountain. The highest point was still
+bare, and from there one had a seven-mile outlook. He saw valleys and
+lakes, dark forest tracts and flourishing towns, churches and manors,
+little woodland crofts and large villages. Far in the distance lay the
+city, enveloped in a white haze from which a pair of gleaming spires
+peeped out. Public roads wound through the valleys, and a railway train
+was rushing along the border of the forest. It was a whole kingdom that
+he saw.
+
+He flung himself upon the ground, all the while keeping his eyes riveted
+upon the vast outlook. There was something grand and majestic about the
+landscape before him, which made him feel himself and his sorrows small
+and insignificant.
+
+He remembered how, when a child, he had read that the tempter led Jesus
+up to a high mountain and showed him all the world's glories, and he
+always fancied that they had stood up here on Great Peak, and he
+repeated the old words: "All these things will I give thee if thou wilt
+fall down and worship me."
+
+All of a sudden he was thinking that a similar temptation had come to
+him these last days. Certainly the tempter had not borne him to a high
+mountain and shown him all the glories and powers of this world! "Only
+be silent about the evil which you think you have done," said he, "and I
+will give you all these things."
+
+As Gudmund thought on this, a grain of satisfaction came to him. "I have
+answered no," he said, and suddenly he understood what it had meant for
+him. If he had kept silent, would he not have been compelled to worship
+the tempter all his life? He would have been a timid and faint-hearted
+man; simply a slave to his possessions. The fear of discovery would
+always have weighed upon him. Nevermore would he have felt himself a
+free man.
+
+A great peace came over Gudmund. He was happy in the consciousness that
+he had done right. When he thought back to the past days, he felt that
+he had groped his way out of a great darkness. It was wonderful that he
+had come out right finally. He asked himself how he had ever happened to
+go astray. "It was because they were so kind to me at home," he thought,
+"and the best help was that Helga came and wished me happiness."
+
+He lay up there on the mountain a little longer, but presently he felt
+that he must go home to his father and mother and tell them that he was
+at peace with himself. When he rose to go, he saw Helga sitting on a
+ledge a little farther down the mountain.
+
+Where she sat, she had not the big, broad outlook which he enjoyed; only
+a little glint of the valley was visible to her. This was in the
+direction where Närlunda lay, and possibly she could see a portion of
+the farm. When Gudmund discovered her, he felt that his heart, which all
+the day before had labored heavily and anxiously, began to beat lightly
+and merrily; at the same time such a thrill of joy ran through him that
+he stood still and marvelled at himself. "What has come over me? What is
+this?" he wondered, as the blood surged through his body and happiness
+gripped him with a force that was almost painful. At last he said to
+himself in a surprised tone: "Why, it is she that I'm fond of! Think,
+that I did not know it until now!"
+
+It took hold of him with the strength of a loosened torrent. He had been
+bound the whole time he knew her. All that had drawn him to her he had
+held back. Now, at last, he was freed from the thought of marrying some
+one else--free to love her.
+
+"Helga!" he cried, rushing down the steep to her. She turned round with
+a terrified shriek. "Don't be frightened! It is only I."
+
+"But are you not at church being married?"
+
+"No, indeed! There will be no wedding to-day. She doesn't want
+me--she--Hildur."
+
+Helga rose. She placed her hand on her heart and closed her eyes. At
+that moment she must have thought it was not Gudmund who had come. It
+must be that her eyes and ears were bewitched in the forest. Yet it was
+sweet and dear of him to come, if only in a vision! She closed her eyes
+and stood motionless to keep this vision a few seconds longer.
+
+Gudmund was wild and dizzy from the great love that had flamed up in
+him. As soon as he came down to Helga, he threw his arms around her and
+kissed her, and she let it happen, for she was absolutely stupefied with
+surprise. It was too wonderful to believe that he, who should now be
+standing in church beside his bride, actually could have come here to
+the forest. This phantom or ghost of him that had come to her may as
+well kiss her.
+
+But while Gudmund was kissing Helga, she awoke and pushed him from her.
+She began to shower him with questions. Was it really he? What was he
+doing in the forest? Had any misfortune happened to him? Why was the
+wedding postponed? Was Hildur ill? Did the clergyman have a stroke in
+church?
+
+Gudmund had not wished to talk to her of anything in the world save his
+love, but she forced him to tell her what had occurred. While he was
+speaking she sat still and listened with rapt attention.
+
+She did not interrupt him until he mentioned the broken blade. Then she
+leaped up suddenly and asked if it was his clasp-knife, the one he had
+when she served with them.
+
+"Yes, it was just that one," said he.
+
+"How many blades were broken off?" she asked.
+
+"Only one," he answered.
+
+Then Helga's head began working. She sat with knit brows trying to
+recall something. Wait! Why, certainly she remembered distinctly that
+she had borrowed the knife from him to shave wood with the day before
+she left. She had broken it then, but she had never told him of it. He
+had avoided her, and at that time he had not wished to hold any converse
+with her. And of course the knife had been in his pocket ever since and
+he hadn't noticed that it was broken.
+
+She raised her head and was about to tell him of this, but he went on
+talking of his visit that morning to the house where the wedding was to
+have been celebrated, and she wanted to let him finish. When she heard
+how he had parted from Hildur, she thought it such a terrible misfortune
+that she began upbraiding him. "This is your own fault," said she. "You
+and your father came and frightened the life out of her with the
+shocking news. She would not have answered thus had she been mistress of
+herself. I want to say to you that I believe she regrets it at this very
+moment."
+
+"Let her regret it as much as she likes, for all of me!" said Gudmund.
+"I know now that she is the sort who thinks only of herself. I am glad
+I'm rid of her!"
+
+Helga pressed her lips, as if to keep the great secret from escaping.
+There was much for her to think about. It was more than a question of
+clearing Gudmund of the murder; the wretched affair had also dragged
+with it enmity between Gudmund and his sweetheart. Perhaps she might try
+to adjust this matter with the help of what she knew.
+
+Again she sat silent and pondered until Gudmund began telling that he
+had transferred his affections to her.
+
+But to her this seemed to be the greatest misfortune he had met with
+that day. It was bad that he was about to miss the advantageous
+marriage, but still worse were he to woo a girl like herself. "No, such
+things you must not say to me," she said, rising abruptly.
+
+"Why shouldn't I say this to you?" asked Gudmund, turning pale. "Perhaps
+it is with you as with Hildur--you are afraid of me?"
+
+"No, that's not the reason."
+
+She wanted to explain how he was seeking his own ruin, but he was not
+listening to her. "I have heard said that there were women-folk in olden
+times who stood side by side with men when they were in trouble; but
+that kind one does not encounter nowadays."
+
+A tremor passed through Helga. She could have thrown her arms around his
+neck, but remained perfectly still. To-day it was she who must be
+sensible.
+
+"True, I should not have asked you to become my wife on the day that I
+must go to prison. You see, if I only knew that you would wait for me
+until I'm free again, I should go through all the hardship with courage.
+Every one will now regard me as a criminal, as one who drinks and
+murders. If only there were some one who could think of me with
+affection!--this would sustain me more than anything else."
+
+"You know, surely, that I shall never think anything but good of you,
+Gudmund."
+
+Helga was so still! Gudmund's entreaties were becoming almost too much
+for her. She didn't know how she should escape him. He apprehended
+nothing of this, but began thinking he had been mistaken. She could not
+feel toward him as he did toward her. He came very close and looked at
+her, as though he wanted to look through her. "Are you not sitting on
+this particular ledge of the mountain that you may look down to
+Närlunda?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Don't you long night and day to be there?"
+
+"Yes, but I'm not longing for any person."
+
+"And you don't care for me?"
+
+"Yes, but I don't want to marry you."
+
+"Whom do you care for, then?"
+
+Helga was silent.
+
+"Is it Per Mårtensson?"
+
+"I have already told you that I liked him," she said, exhausted by the
+strain of it all.
+
+Gudmund stood for a moment, with tense features, and looked at her.
+"Farewell, then! Now we must go our separate ways, you and I," said he.
+With that he made a long jump from this ledge of the mountain down to
+the next landing and disappeared among the trees.
+
+
+VI
+
+Gudmund was hardly out of sight when Helga rushed down the mountain in
+another direction. She ran past the marsh without stopping and hurried
+over the wooded hills as fast as she could and down the road. She
+stopped at the first farmhouse she came to and asked for the loan of a
+horse and car to drive to Älvåkra. She said that it was a matter of life
+and death and promised to pay for the help. The church folk had already
+returned to their homes and were talking of the adjourned wedding. They
+were all very much excited and very solicitous and were eager to help
+Helga, since she appeared to have an important errand to the home of the
+bride.
+
+At Älvåkra Hildur Ericsdotter sat in a little room on the upper floor
+where she had dressed as a bride. Her mother and several other peasant
+women were with her. Hildur did not weep; she was unusually quiet, and
+so pale that she looked as though she might be ill at any moment. The
+women talked all the while of Gudmund. All blamed him and seemed to
+regard it as a fortunate thing that she was rid of him. Some thought
+that Gudmund had shown very little consideration for his parents-in-law
+in not letting them know on Palm Sunday how matters stood with him.
+Others, again, said that one who had had such happiness awaiting him
+should have known how to take better care of himself. A few
+congratulated Hildur because she had escaped marrying a man who could
+drink himself so full that he did not know what he was doing.
+
+Amid this, Hildur was losing her patience and rose to go out. As soon as
+she was outside the door, her best friend, a young peasant girl, came
+and whispered something to her. "There is some one below who wants to
+speak with you."
+
+"Is it Gudmund?" asked Hildur, and a spark of life came into her eyes.
+
+"No, but it may be a messenger from him. She wouldn't divulge the nature
+of her errand to any one but yourself, she declared."
+
+Hildur had been sitting thinking all day that some one must come who
+could put an end to her misery. She couldn't comprehend that such a
+dreadful misfortune should come to her. She felt that something ought to
+happen that she might again don her crown and wreath, so they could
+proceed with the wedding. When she heard now of a messenger from
+Gudmund, she was interested and immediately went out to the kitchen hall
+and looked for her.
+
+Hildur probably wondered why Gudmund had sent Helga to her, but she
+thought that perhaps he couldn't find any other messenger on a holiday,
+and greeted her pleasantly. She motioned to Helga to come with her into
+the dairy across the yard. "I know no other place where we can be
+alone," she said. "The house is still full of guests."
+
+As soon as they were inside, Helga went close up to Hildur and looked
+her square in the face. "Before I say anything more, I must know if you
+love Gudmund."
+
+Hildur winced. It was painful for her to be obliged to exchange a single
+word with Helga, and she had no desire to make a confidant of her. But
+now it was a case of necessity, and she forced herself to answer, "Why
+else do you suppose I wished to marry him?"
+
+"I mean, do you still love him?"
+
+Hildur was like stone, but she could not lie under the other woman's
+searching glance. "Perhaps I have never loved him so much as to-day,"
+she said, but she said this so feebly that one might think it hurt her
+to speak out.
+
+"Then come with me at once!" said Helga. "I have a wagon down the road.
+Go in after a cloak or something to wrap around you; then we'll drive to
+Närlunda."
+
+"What good would it do for me to go there?" asked Hildur.
+
+"You must go there and say you want to be Gudmund's, no matter what he
+may have done, and that you will wait faithfully for him while he is in
+prison."
+
+"Why should I say this?"
+
+"So all will be well between you."
+
+"But that is impossible. I don't want to marry any one who has been in
+prison!"
+
+Helga staggered back, as though she had bumped against a wall, but she
+quickly regained her courage. She could understand that one who was rich
+and powerful, like Hildur, must think thus. "I should not come and ask
+you to go to Närlunda did I not know that Gudmund was innocent," said
+she.
+
+Now it was Hildur who came a step or two towards Helga. "Do you know
+this for certain, or is it only something which you imagine?"
+
+"It will be better for us to get into the cart immediately; then I can
+talk on the way."
+
+"No, you must first explain what you mean; I must know what I'm doing."
+
+Helga was in such a fever of excitement that she could hardly stand
+still; nevertheless she had to make up her mind to tell Hildur how she
+happened to know that Gudmund was not the murderer.
+
+"Didn't you tell Gudmund of this at once?"
+
+"No, I'm telling it now to Hildur. No one else knows of it."
+
+"And why do you come to me with this?"
+
+"That all may be well between you two. He will soon learn that he has
+done no wrong; but I want you to go to him as if of your own accord, and
+make it up."
+
+"Sha'n't I say that I know he is innocent?"
+
+"You must come entirely of your own accord and must never let him know I
+have spoken to you; otherwise he will never forgive you for what you
+said to him this morning."
+
+Hildur listened quietly. There was something in this which she had never
+met with in her life before, and she was striving to make it clear to
+herself. "Do you know that it was I who wanted you to leave Närlunda?"
+
+"I know, of course, that it was not the folk at Närlunda who wished me
+away."
+
+"I can't comprehend that you should come to me to-day with the desire to
+help me."
+
+"Only come along now, Hildur, so all will be well!"
+
+Hildur stared at Helga, trying all the while to reason it out. "Perhaps
+Gudmund loves you?" she blurted out.
+
+And now Helga's patience was exhausted. "What could I be to him?" she
+said sharply. "You know, Hildur, that I am only a poor croft girl, and
+that's not the worst about me!"
+
+The two young women stole unobserved from the homestead and were soon
+seated in the cart. Helga held the reins, and she did not spare the
+horse, but drove at full speed. Both girls were silent. Hildur sat
+gazing at Helga. She marvelled at her and was thinking more of her than
+of anything else.
+
+As they were nearing the Erlandsson farm, Helga gave the reins to
+Hildur. "Now you must go alone to the house and talk with Gudmund. I'll
+follow a little later and tell that about the knife. But you mustn't say
+a word to Gudmund about my having brought you here."
+
+Gudmund sat in the living-room at Närlunda beside his mother and talked
+with her. His father was sitting a little way from them, smoking. He
+looked pleased and said not a word. It was apparent that he thought
+everything was going now as it should and that it was not necessary for
+him to interfere.
+
+"I wonder, mother, what you would have said if you had got Helga for a
+daughter-in-law?" ventured Gudmund.
+
+Mother Ingeborg raised her head and said in a firm voice, "I will with
+pleasure welcome any daughter-in-law if I only know that she loves you
+as a wife should love her husband."
+
+This was barely spoken when they saw Hildur Ericsdotter drive into the
+yard. She came immediately into the cottage and was unlike herself in
+many respects. She did not step into the room with her usual briskness,
+but it appeared almost as though she were inclined to pause near the
+door, like some poor beggarwoman.
+
+However, she came forward finally and shook hands with mother Ingeborg
+and Erland. Then she turned to Gudmund: "It is with you that I would
+have a word or two."
+
+Gudmund arose, and they went into the side room. He arranged a chair for
+Hildur, but she did not seat herself. She blushed with embarrassment,
+and the words dropped slowly and heavily from her lips. "I was--yes, it
+was much too hard--that which I said to you this morning."
+
+"We came so abruptly, Hildur," said Gudmund.
+
+She grew still more red and embarrassed. "I should have thought twice.
+We could--it would of course--"
+
+"It is probably best as it is, Hildur. It is nothing to speak of now,
+but it was kind of you to come."
+
+She put her hands to her face, drew a breath as deep as a sigh, then
+raised her head again.
+
+"No!" she said, "I can't do it in this way. I don't want you to think
+that I'm better than I am. There was some one who came to me and told me
+that you were not guilty and advised me to hurry over here at once and
+make everything right again. And I was not to mention that I already
+knew you were innocent, for then you wouldn't think it so noble of me to
+come. Now I want to say to you that I wish I had thought of this myself,
+but I hadn't. But I have longed for you all day and wished that all
+might be well between us. Whichever way it turns out, I want to say that
+I am glad you are innocent."
+
+"Who advised you to do this?" asked Gudmund.
+
+"I was not to tell you that."
+
+"I am surprised that any one should know of it. Father has but just
+returned from the Sheriff. He telegraphed to the city, and an answer has
+come that the real murderer has already been found."
+
+As Gudmund was relating this, Hildur felt that her legs were beginning
+to shake, and she sat down quickly in the chair. She was frightened
+because Gudmund was so calm and pleasant, and she was beginning to
+perceive that he was wholly out of her power. "I can understand that you
+can never forget how I behaved to you this forenoon."
+
+"Surely I can forgive you that," he said in the same even tone. "We will
+never speak of the matter again."
+
+She shivered, dropped her eyes, and sat as though she were expecting
+something. "It was simply a stroke of good fortune, Hildur," he said,
+coming forward and grasping her hand, "that it is over between us, for
+to-day it became clear to me that I love another. I think I have been
+fond of her for a long time, but I did not know it until to-day."
+
+"Whom do you care for, Gudmund?" came in a colorless voice from Hildur.
+
+"It doesn't matter. I shall not marry her, as she does not care for me,
+nor can I marry anyone else."
+
+Hildur raised her head. It was not easy to tell what was taking place in
+her. At this moment she felt that she, the rich farmer's daughter, with
+all her beauty and all her possessions, was nothing to Gudmund. She was
+proud and did not wish to part from him without teaching him that she
+had a value of her own, apart from all the external things. "I want you
+to tell me, Gudmund, if it is Helga from Big Marsh whom you love."
+
+Gudmund was silent.
+
+"It was she who came to me and taught me what I should do that all might
+be well between us. She knew you were innocent, but she did not say so
+to you. She let me know it first."
+
+Gudmund looked her steadily in the eyes. "Do you think this means that
+she has a great affection for me?"
+
+"You may be sure of it, Gudmund. I can prove it. No one in the world
+could love you more than she does."
+
+He walked rapidly across the floor and back, then he stopped suddenly
+before Hildur. "And you--why do you tell me this?"
+
+"Surely I do not wish to stand beneath Helga in magnanimity!"
+
+"Oh, Hildur, Hildur!" he cried, placing his hands on her shoulders and
+shaking her to give vent to his emotion. "You don't know, oh, you don't
+know how much I like you at this moment! You don't know how happy you
+have made me!"
+
+Helga sat by the roadside and waited. With her cheek resting on her
+hand, she sat and pictured Hildur and Gudmund together and thought how
+happy they must be now.
+
+While she sat thus, a servant from Närlunda came along. He stopped when
+he saw her. "I suppose you have heard that affair which concerns
+Gudmund?"
+
+She had.
+
+"It was not true, fortunately. The real murderer is already in custody."
+
+"I knew it couldn't be true," said Helga.
+
+Thereupon the man went, and Helga sat there alone, as before. So they
+knew it already down there! It was not necessary for her to go to
+Närlunda and tell of it.
+
+She felt herself so strangely shut out! Earlier in the day she had been
+so eager. She had not thought of herself--only that Gudmund and Hildur's
+marriage should take place. But now it flashed upon her how alone she
+was. And it was hard not to be something to those of whom one is fond.
+Gudmund did not need her now, and her own child had been appropriated by
+her mother, who would hardly allow her to look at it.
+
+She was thinking that she had better rise and go home, but the hills
+appeared long and difficult to her. She didn't know how she should ever
+be able to climb them.
+
+A vehicle came along now from the direction of Närlunda. Hildur and
+Gudmund were seated in the cart. Now they were probably on their way to
+Älvåkra to tell that they were reconciled. To-morrow the wedding would
+take place.
+
+When they discovered Helga, they stopped the horse. Gudmund handed the
+reins to Hildur and jumped down. Hildur nodded to Helga and drove on.
+
+Gudmund remained standing on the road and facing Helga. "I am glad you
+are sitting here, Helga," he said. "I thought that I would have to go up
+to Big Marsh to meet you."
+
+He said this abruptly, almost harshly; at the same time he gripped her
+hand tightly. And she read in his eyes that he knew now where he had
+her. Now she could no more escape from him.
+
+
+
+
+The Silver Mine
+
+
+King Gustaf the Third was travelling through Dalecarlia. He was pressed
+for time, and all the way he wanted to drive like lightning. Although
+they drove with such speed that the horses were extended like stretched
+rubber bands and the coach cleared the turns on two wheels, the King
+poked his head out of the window and shouted to the postilion: "Why
+don't you go ahead? Do you think you are driving over eggs?"
+
+Since they had to drive over poor country roads at such a mad pace, it
+would have been almost a miracle had the harness and wagon held
+together! And they didn't, either; for at the foot of a steep hill the
+pole broke--and there the King sat! The courtiers sprang from the coach
+and scolded the driver, but this did not lessen the damage done. There
+was no possibility of continuing the journey until the coach was mended.
+
+When the courtiers looked round to try and find something with which the
+King could amuse himself while he waited, they noticed a church spire
+looming high above the trees in a grove a short distance ahead. They
+intimated to the King that he might step into one of the coaches in
+which the attendants were riding and drive up to the church. It was a
+Sunday, and the King might attend service to pass the time until the
+royal coach was ready.
+
+The King accepted the proposal and drove toward the church. He had been
+travelling for hours through dark forest regions, but here it looked
+more cheerful, with fairly large meadows and villages, and with the Dal
+River gliding on, light and pretty, between thick rows of alder bushes.
+
+But the King had ill-luck to this extent: the bellringer took up the
+recessional chant just as the King was stepping from the coach on the
+church knoll and the people were coming out from the service. But when
+they came walking past him, the King remained standing, with one foot in
+the wagon and the other on the footstep. He did not move from the
+spot--only stared at them. They were the finest lot of folk he had ever
+seen. All the men were above the average height, with intelligent and
+earnest faces, and the women were dignified and stately, with an air of
+Sabbath peace about them.
+
+The whole of the preceding day the King had talked only of the desolate
+tracts he was passing through, and had said to his courtiers again and
+again, "Now I am certainly driving through the very poorest part of my
+kingdom!" But now, when he saw the people, garbed in the picturesque
+dress of this section of the country, he forgot to think of their
+poverty; instead his heart warmed, and he remarked to himself: "The King
+of Sweden is not so badly off as his enemies think. So long as my
+subjects look like this, I shall probably be able to defend both my
+faith and my country."
+
+He commanded the courtiers to make known to the people that the stranger
+who was standing amongst them was their King, and that they should
+gather around him, so he could talk to them.
+
+And then the King made a speech to the people. He spoke from the high
+steps outside the vestry, and the narrow step upon which he stood is
+there even to-day.
+
+The King gave an account of the sad plight in which the kingdom was
+placed. He said that the Swedes were threatened with war, both by
+Russians and Danes. Under ordinary circumstances it wouldn't be such a
+serious matter, but now the army was filled with traitors, and he did
+not dare depend upon it. Therefore there was no other course for him to
+pursue than to go himself into the country settlements and ask his
+subjects if they would be loyal to their King and help him with men and
+money, so he could save the Fatherland.
+
+The peasants stood quietly while the King was speaking, and when he had
+finished they gave no sign either of approval or disapproval.
+
+The King himself thought that he had spoken very well. The tears had
+sprung to his eyes several times while he was speaking. But when the
+peasants stood there all the while, troubled and undecided, and could
+not make up their minds to answer him, the King frowned and looked
+displeased.
+
+The peasants understood that it was becoming monotonous for the King to
+wait, and finally one of them stepped out from the crowd.
+
+"Now, you must know, King Gustaf, that we were not expecting a royal
+visit in the parish to-day," said the peasant, "and therefore we are not
+prepared to answer you at once. I advise you to go into the vestry and
+speak with our pastor, while we discuss among ourselves this matter
+which you have laid before us."
+
+The King apprehended that a more satisfactory response was not to be had
+immediately, so he felt that it would be best for him to follow the
+peasant's advice.
+
+When he came into the vestry, he found no one there but a man who looked
+like a peasant. He was tall and rugged, with big hands, toughened by
+labor, and he wore neither cassock nor collar, but leather breeches and
+a long white homespun coat, like all the other men.
+
+He arose and bowed to the King when the latter entered.
+
+"I thought I should find the parson in here," said the King.
+
+The man grew somewhat red in the face. He thought it annoying to mention
+the fact that he was the parson of this parish, when he saw that the
+King had mistaken him for a peasant. "Yes," said he, "the parson is
+usually on hand in here."
+
+The King dropped into a large armchair which stood in the vestry at that
+time, and which stands there to-day, looking exactly like itself, with
+this difference: the congregation has had a gilded crown attached to the
+back of it.
+
+"Have you a good parson in this parish?" asked the King, who wanted to
+appear interested in the welfare of the peasants.
+
+When the King questioned him in this manner, the parson felt that he
+couldn't possibly tell who he was. "It's better to let him go on
+believing that I'm only a peasant," thought he, and replied that the
+parson was good enough. He preached a pure and clear gospel and tried to
+live as he taught.
+
+The King thought that this was a good commendation, but he had a sharp
+ear and marked a certain doubt in the tone. "You sound as if you were
+not quite satisfied with the parson," said the King.
+
+"He's a bit arbitrary," said the man, thinking that if the King should
+find out later who he was, he would not think that the parson had been
+standing here and blowing his own horn, therefore he wished to come out
+with a little fault-finding also. "There are some, no doubt, who say the
+parson wants to be the only one to counsel and rule in this parish," he
+continued.
+
+"Then, at all events, he has led and managed in the best possible way,"
+said the King. He didn't like it that the peasant complained of one who
+was placed above him. "To me it appears as though good habits and
+old-time simplicity were the rule here."
+
+"The people are good enough," said the curate, "but then they live in
+poverty and isolation. Human beings here would certainly be no better
+than others if this world's temptations came closer to them."
+
+"But there's no fear of anything of the sort happening," said the King
+with a shrug.
+
+He said nothing further, but began thrumming on the table with his
+fingers. He thought he had exchanged a sufficient number of gracious
+words with this peasant and wondered when the others would be ready with
+their answer.
+
+"These peasants are not very eager to help their King," thought he. "If
+I only had my coach, I would drive away from them and their palaver!"
+
+The pastor sat there troubled, debating with himself as to how he should
+decide an important matter which he must settle. He was beginning to
+feel happy because he had not told the King who he was. Now he felt that
+he could speak with him about matters which otherwise he could not have
+placed before him.
+
+After a while the parson broke the silence and asked the King if it was
+an actual fact that enemies were upon them and that the kingdom was in
+danger.
+
+The King thought this man ought to have sense enough not to trouble him
+further. He simply glared at him and said nothing.
+
+"I ask because I was standing in here and could not hear very well,"
+said the parson. "But if this is really the case, I want to say to you
+that the pastor of this congregation might perhaps be able to procure
+for the King as much money as he will need."
+
+"I thought you said just now that every one here was poor," said the
+King, thinking that the man didn't know what he was talking about.
+
+"Yes, that is true," replied the rector, "and the parson has no more
+than any of the others. But if the King would condescend to listen to me
+for a moment, I will explain how the pastor happens to have the power to
+help him."
+
+"You may speak," said the King. "You seem to find it easier to get the
+words past your lips than your friends and neighbors out there, who
+never will be ready with what they have to tell me."
+
+"It is not so easy to reply to the King! I'm afraid that, in the end, it
+will be the parson who must undertake this on behalf of the others."
+
+The King crossed his legs, folded his arms, and let his head sink down
+on his breast. "You may begin now," he said in the tone of one already
+asleep.
+
+"Once upon a time there were five men from this parish who were out on a
+moose hunt," began the clergyman. "One of them was the parson of whom
+we are speaking. Two of the others were soldiers, named Olaf and Eric
+Svärd; the fourth man was the innkeeper in this settlement, and the
+fifth was a peasant named Israel Per Persson."
+
+"Don't go to the trouble of mentioning so many names," muttered the
+King, letting his head droop to one side.
+
+"Those men were good hunters," continued the parson, "who usually had
+luck with them; but that day they had wandered long and far without
+getting anything. Finally they gave up the hunt altogether and sat down
+on the ground to talk. They said there was not a spot in the whole
+forest fit for cultivation; all of it was only mountain and swamp land.
+'Our Lord has not done right by us in giving us such a poor land to live
+in,' said one. 'In other localities people can get riches for themselves
+in abundance, but here, with all our toil and drudgery, we can scarcely
+get our daily bread.'"
+
+The pastor paused a moment, as if uncertain that the King heard him, but
+the latter moved his little finger to show that he was awake.
+
+"Just as the hunters were discussing this matter, the parson saw
+something that glittered at the base of the mountain, where he had
+kicked away a moss-tuft. 'This is a queer mountain,' he thought, as he
+kicked off another moss-tuft. He picked up a shiver of stone that came
+with the moss and which shone exactly like the other. 'It can't be
+possible that this stuff is lead,' said he. Then the others sprang up
+and scraped away the turf with the butt end of their rifles. When they
+did this, they saw plainly that a broad vein of ore followed the
+mountain. 'What do you think this might be?' asked the parson. The men
+chipped off bits of stone and bit into them. 'It must be lead, or zinc
+at least,' said they. 'And the whole mountain is full of it,' added the
+innkeeper."
+
+When the parson had got thus far in his narrative, the King's head was
+seen to straighten up a little and one eye opened. "Do you know if any
+of those persons knew anything about ore and minerals?" he asked.
+
+"They did not," replied the parson.
+
+Then the King's head sank and both eyes closed.
+
+"The clergyman and his companions were very happy," continued the
+speaker, without letting himself be disturbed by the King's
+indifference; "they fancied that now they had found that which would
+give them and their descendants wealth. 'I'll never have to do any more
+work,' said one. 'Now I can afford to do nothing at all the whole week
+through, and on Sundays I shall drive to church in a golden chariot!'
+They were otherwise sensible men, but the great find had gone to their
+heads and they talked like children. Still they had enough presence of
+mind to put back the moss-tufts and conceal the vein of ore. Then they
+carefully noted the place where it was, and went home. Before they
+parted company, they agreed that the parson should travel to Falun and
+ask the mining expert what kind of ore this was. He was to return as
+soon as possible, and until then they promised one another on oath not
+to reveal to a single soul where the ore was to be found."
+
+The King's head was raised again a trifle, but he did not interrupt the
+speaker with a word. It appeared as though he was beginning to believe
+that the man actually had something of importance he wished to say to
+him, since he didn't allow himself to be disturbed by his indifference.
+
+"Then the parson departed with a few samples of ore in his pocket. He
+was just as happy in the thought of becoming rich as the others were. He
+was thinking of rebuilding the parsonage, which at present was no better
+than a peasant's cottage, and then he would marry a dean's daughter whom
+he liked. He had thought that he might have to wait for her many years!
+He was poor and obscure and knew that it would be a long while before he
+should get any post that would enable him to marry.
+
+"The parson drove over to Falun in two days, and there he had to wait
+another whole day because the mining expert was away. Finally, he ran
+across him and showed him the bits of ore. The mining expert took them
+in his hand. He looked at them first, then at the parson. The parson
+related how he had found them in a mountain at home in his parish, and
+wondered if it might not be lead.
+
+"'No, it's not lead,' said the mining expert.
+
+"'Perhaps it is zinc, then?' asked the parson.
+
+"'Nor is it zinc,' said the mineralogist.
+
+"The parson thought that all the hope within him sank. He had not been
+so depressed in many a long day.
+
+"'Have you many stones like these in your parish?' asked the
+mineralogist.
+
+"'We have a whole mountain full,' said the parson.
+
+"Then the mineralogist came up closer, slapped the parson on the
+shoulder, and said, 'Let us see that you make such good use of this that
+it will prove a blessing both to yourselves and to the country, for this
+is silver.'
+
+"'Indeed?' said the parson, feeling his way. 'So it is silver!'
+
+"The mineralogist began telling him how he should go to work to get
+legal rights to the mine and gave him many valuable suggestions; but the
+parson stood there dazed and didn't listen to what he was saying. He was
+only thinking of how wonderful it was that at home in his poor parish
+stood a whole mountain of silver ore, waiting for him."
+
+The King raised his head so suddenly that the parson stopped short in
+his narrative. "It turned out, of course, that when he got home and
+began working the mine, he saw that the mineralogist had only been
+fooling him," said the King.
+
+"Oh, no, the mineralogist had not fooled him," said the parson.
+
+"You may continue," said the King, as he settled himself more
+comfortably in the chair to listen.
+
+"When the parson was at home again and was driving through the parish,"
+continued the clergyman, "he thought that first of all he should inform
+his partners of the value of their find. And as he drove alongside the
+innkeeper Sten Stensson's place, he intended to drive up to the house to
+tell him they had found silver. But when he stopped outside the gate,
+he noticed that a broad path of evergreen was strewn all the way up to
+the doorstep.
+
+"'Who has died in this place?' asked the parson of a boy who stood
+leaning against the fence.
+
+"'The innkeeper himself,' answered the boy. Then he let the clergyman
+know that the innkeeper had drunk himself full every day for a week.
+'Oh, so much brandy, so much brandy has been drunk here!'
+
+"'How can that be?' asked the parson. 'The innkeeper used never to drink
+himself full.'
+
+"'Oh,' said the boy, 'he drank because he said he had found a mine. He
+was very rich. He should never have to do anything now but drink, he
+said. Last night he drove off, full as he was, and the wagon turned over
+and he was killed.'
+
+"When the parson heard this, he drove homeward. He was distressed over
+what he had heard. He had come back so happy, rejoicing because he could
+tell the great good news.
+
+"When the parson had driven a few paces, he saw Israel Per Persson
+walking along. He looked about as usual, and the parson thought it was
+well that fortune had not gone to his head too. Him he would cheer at
+once with the news that he was a rich man.
+
+"'Good day!' said Per Persson. 'Do you come from Falun now?'
+
+"'I do,' said the parson. 'And now I must tell you that it has turned
+out even better than we had imagined. The mineralogist said it was
+silver ore that we had found.'
+
+"That instant Per Persson looked as though the ground under him had
+opened! 'What are you saying, what are you saying? Is it silver?'
+
+"'Yes,' answered the parson. 'We'll all be rich men now, all of us, and
+can live like gentlemen.'
+
+"'Oh, is it silver!' said Per Persson once again, looking more and more
+mournful.
+
+"'Why, of course it is silver,' replied the parson. 'You mustn't think
+that I want to deceive you. You mustn't be afraid of being happy.'
+
+"'Happy!' said Per Persson. 'Should I be happy? I believed it was only
+glitter that we had found, so I thought it would be better to take the
+certain for the uncertain: I have sold my share in the mine to Olaf
+Svärd for a hundred dollars.' He was desperate, and when the parson
+drove away from him, he stood on the highway and wept.
+
+"When the clergyman got back to his home, he sent a servant to Olaf
+Svärd and his brother to tell them that it was silver they had found.
+He thought that he had had quite enough of driving around and spreading
+the good news.
+
+"But in the evening, when the parson sat alone, his joy asserted itself
+again. He went out in the darkness and stood on a hillock upon which he
+contemplated building the new parsonage. It should be imposing, of
+course, as fine as a bishop's palace. He stood out there long that
+night; nor did he content himself with rebuilding the parsonage! It
+occurred to him that, since there were such riches to be found in the
+parish, throngs of people would pour in and, finally, a whole city would
+be built around the mine. And then he would have to erect a new church
+in place of the old one. Towards this object a large portion of his
+wealth would probably go. And he was not content with this, either, but
+fancied that when his church was ready, the King and many bishops would
+come to the dedication. Then the King would be pleased with the church,
+but he would remark that there was no place where a king might put up,
+and then he would have to erect a castle in the new city."
+
+Just then one of the King's courtiers opened the door of the vestry and
+announced that the big royal coach was mended.
+
+At the first moment the King was ready to withdraw, but on second
+thought he changed his mind. "You may tell your story to the end," he
+said to the parson. "But you can hurry it a bit. We know all about how
+the man thought and dreamed. We want to know how he acted."
+
+"But while the parson was still lost in his dreams," continued the
+clergyman, "word came to him that Israel Per Persson had made away with
+himself. He had not been able to bear the disappointment of having sold
+his share in the mine. He had thought, no doubt, that he could not
+endure to go about every day seeing another enjoying the wealth that
+might have been his."
+
+The King straightened up a little. He kept both eyes open. "Upon my
+word," he said, "if I had been that parson, I should have had enough of
+the mine!"
+
+"The King is a rich man," said the parson. "He has quite enough, at all
+events. It is not the same thing with a poor curate who possesses
+nothing. The unhappy wretch thought instead, when he saw that God's
+blessing was not with his enterprise: 'I will dream no more of bringing
+glory and profit to myself with these riches; but I can't let the silver
+lie buried in the earth! I must take it out, for the benefit of the
+poor and needy. I will work the mine, to put the whole parish on its
+feet.'
+
+"So one day the parson went out to see Olaf Svärd, to ask him and his
+brother as to what should be done immediately with the silver mountain.
+When he came in the vicinity of the barracks, he met a cart surrounded
+by armed peasants, and in the cart sat a man with his hands tied behind
+him and a rope around his ankles.
+
+"When the parson passed by, the cart stopped, and he had time to regard
+the prisoner, whose head was tied up so it wasn't easy to see who he
+was. But the parson thought he recognized Olaf Svärd. He heard the
+prisoner beg those who guarded him to let him speak a few words with the
+parson.
+
+"The parson drew nearer, and the prisoner turned toward him. 'You will
+soon be the only one who knows where the silver mine is,' said Olaf.
+
+"'What are you saying, Olaf?' asked the parson.
+
+"'Well, you see, parson, since we have learned that it was a silver mine
+we had found, my brother and I could no longer be as good friends as
+before. We were continually quarrelling. Last night we got into a
+controversy over which one of us five it was who first discovered the
+mine. It ended in strife between us, and we came to blows. I have killed
+my brother and he has left me with a souvenir across the forehead to
+remember him by. I must hang now, and then you will be the only one who
+knows anything about the mine; therefore I wish to ask something of
+you.'
+
+"'Speak out!' said the parson. 'I'll do what I can for you.'
+
+"'You know that l am leaving several little children behind me,' began
+the soldier, but the parson interrupted him.
+
+"'As regards this, you can rest easy. That which comes to your share in
+the mine, they shall have, exactly as if you yourself were living.'
+
+"'No,' said Olaf Svärd, 'it was another thing I wanted to ask of you.
+Don't let them have any portion of that which comes from the mine!'
+
+"The parson staggered back a step. He stood there dumb and could not
+answer.
+
+"'If you do not promise me this, I cannot die in peace,' said the
+prisoner.
+
+"'Yes,' said the parson slowly and painfully. 'I promise you what you
+ask of me.'
+
+"Thereupon the murderer was taken away, and the parson stood on the
+highway thinking how he should keep the promise he had given him. On
+the way home he thought of the wealth which he had been so happy over.
+But if it really were true that the people in this community could not
+stand riches?--Already four were ruined, who hitherto had been dignified
+and excellent men. He seemed to see the whole community before him, and
+he pictured to himself how this silver mine would destroy one after
+another. Was it befitting that he, who had been appointed to watch over
+these poor human beings' souls, should let loose upon them that which
+would be their destruction?"
+
+All of a sudden the King sat bolt upright in his chair. "I declare!"
+said he, "you'll make me understand that a parson in this isolated
+settlement must be every inch a man."
+
+"Nor was it enough with what had already happened," continued the
+parson, "for as soon as the news about the mine spread among the
+parishioners, they stopped working and went about in idleness, waiting
+for the time when great riches should pour in on them. All the
+ne'er-do-wells there were in this section streamed in, and drunkenness
+and fighting were what the parson heard talked of continually. A lot of
+people did nothing but tramp round in the forest searching for the mine,
+and the parson marked that as soon as he left the house people followed
+him stealthily to find out if he wasn't going to the silver mountain and
+to steal the secret from him.
+
+"When matters were come to this pass, the parson called the peasants
+together to vote. To start with, he reminded them of all the misfortunes
+which the discovery of the mountain had brought upon them, and he asked
+them if they were going to let themselves be ruined or if they would
+save themselves. Then he told them that they must not expect him, who
+was their spiritual adviser, to help on their destruction. Now he had
+decided not to reveal to any one where the silver mine was, and never
+would he himself take riches from it. And then he asked the peasants how
+they would have it henceforth. If they wished to continue their search
+for the mine and wait upon riches, then he would go so far away that not
+a hearsay of their misery could reach him; but if they would give up
+thinking about the silver mine and be as heretofore, he would remain
+with them. 'Whichever way you may choose,' said the parson, 'remember
+this, that from me no one shall ever know anything about the silver
+mountain!'"
+
+"Well," said the King, "how did they decide?"
+
+"They did as their pastor wished," said the parson. "They understood
+that he meant well by them when he wanted to remain poor for their
+sakes. And they commissioned him to go to the forest and conceal the
+vein of ore with evergreen and stone, so that no one would be able to
+find it--neither they themselves nor their posterity."
+
+"And ever since the parson has been living here just as poor as the
+rest?"
+
+"Yes," answered the curate, "he has lived here just as poor as the
+rest."
+
+"He has married, of course, and built himself a new parsonage?" said the
+King.
+
+"No, he couldn't afford to marry, and he lives in the old cabin."
+
+"It's a pretty story that you have told me," said the King. After a few
+seconds he resumed: "Was it of the silver mountain that you were
+thinking when you said that the parson here would be able to procure for
+me as much money as I need?"
+
+"Yes," said the other.
+
+"But I can't put the thumb-screws on him," said the King. "Or how would
+you that I should get such a man to show me the mountain--a man who has
+renounced his sweetheart and all the allurements of life?"
+
+"Oh, that's a different matter," said the parson. "But if it's the
+Fatherland that is in need of the fortune, he will probably give in."
+
+"Will you answer for that?" asked the King.
+
+"Yes, that I will answer for," said the clergyman.
+
+"Doesn't he care, then, what becomes of his parishioners?"
+
+"That can rest in God's hand."
+
+The King rose from the chair and walked over to the window. He stood for
+a moment and looked upon the group of people outside. The longer he
+looked, the clearer his large eyes shone, and his figure seemed to grow.
+"You may greet the pastor of this congregation, and say that for
+Sweden's King there is no sight more beautiful than to see a people such
+as this!"
+
+Then the King turned from the window and looked at the clergyman. He
+began to smile. "Is it true that the pastor of this parish is so poor
+that he removes his black clothes as soon as the service is over and
+dresses himself like a peasant?" asked the King.
+
+"Yes, so poor is he," said the curate, and a crimson flush leaped into
+his rough-hewn face.
+
+The King went back to the window. One could see that he was in his best
+mood. All that was noble and great within him had been quickened into
+life. "You must let that mine lie in peace," said the King. "Inasmuch
+as you have labored and starved a lifetime to make this people such as
+you would have it, you may keep it as it is."
+
+"But if the kingdom is in danger?" said the parson.
+
+"The kingdom is better served with men than with money," remarked the
+King. When he had said this, he bade the clergyman farewell and went out
+from the vestry.
+
+Without stood the group of people, as quiet and taciturn as they were
+when he went in. As the King came down the steps, a peasant stepped up
+to him.
+
+"Have you had a talk with our pastor?" said the peasant.
+
+"Yes," said the King. "I have talked with him."
+
+"Then of course you have our answer?" said the peasant. "We asked you to
+go in and talk with our parson, that he might give you an answer from
+us."
+
+"I have the answer," said the King.
+
+
+
+
+The Airship
+
+
+Father and the boys are seated one rainy October evening in a
+third-class railway coach on their way to Stockholm. The father is
+sitting by himself on one bench, and the boys sit close together
+directly opposite him, reading a Jules Verne romance entitled "Six Weeks
+in a Balloon." The book is much worn. The boys know it almost by heart
+and have held endless discussions on it, but they always read it with
+the same pleasure. They have forgotten everything else to follow the
+daring sailors of the air all over Africa, and seldom raise their eyes
+from the book to glance at the Swedish towns they are travelling
+through.
+
+The boys are very like each other. They are the same height, are dressed
+alike, with blue caps and gray overcoats, and both have large dreamy
+eyes and little pug noses. They are always good friends, always
+together, do not bother with other children, and are forever talking
+about inventions and exploring expeditions. In point of talent they are
+quite unlike. Lennart, the elder, who is thirteen, is backward in his
+studies at the High School and can hardly keep up with his class in any
+theme. To make up for this, he is very handy and enterprising. He is
+going to be an inventor and works all the time on a flying-machine which
+he is constructing. Hugo is a year younger than Lennart, but he is
+quicker at study and is already in the same grade as his brother. He
+doesn't find studying any special fun, either; but, on the other hand,
+he is a great sportsman--a ski-runner, a cyclist, and a skater. He
+intends to start out on voyages of discovery when he is grown up. As
+soon as Lennart's airship is ready, Hugo is going to travel in it in
+order to explore what is still left of this globe to be discovered.
+
+Their father is a tall thin man with a sunken chest, a haggard face, and
+pretty, slender hands. He is carelessly dressed. His shirt bosom is
+wrinkled and the coat band pokes up at the neck; his vest is buttoned
+wrongly and his socks sag down over his shoes. He wears his hair so long
+at the neck that it hangs on his coat collar. This is due not to
+carelessness, but to habit and taste.
+
+The father is a descendant of an old musical family from far back in a
+rural district, and he has brought with him into the world two strong
+inclinations, one of which is a great musical talent; and it was this
+that first came into the light. He was graduated from the Academy in
+Stockholm and then studied a few years abroad, and during these study
+years made such brilliant progress that both he and his teacher thought
+he would some day be a great and world-renowned violinist. He certainly
+had talent enough to reach the goal, but he lacked grit and
+perseverance. He couldn't fight his way to any sort of standing out in
+the world, but soon came home again and accepted a situation as organist
+in a country town. At the start he felt ashamed because he had not lived
+up to the expectations of every one, but he felt, also, that it was good
+to have an assured income and not be forced to depend any longer upon
+the charity of others.
+
+Shortly after he had got the appointment, he married, and a few years
+later he was perfectly satisfied with his lot. He had a pretty little
+home, a cheerful and contented wife, and two little boys. He was the
+town favorite, feted, and in great demand everywhere. But then there
+came a time when all this did not seem to satisfy him. He longed to go
+out in the world once more and try his luck; but he felt bound down at
+home because he had a wife and children.
+
+More than all, it was the wife who had persuaded him to give up this
+journey. She had not believed that he would succeed any better now than
+before. She felt they were so happy that there was no need for him to
+strive after anything else. Unquestionably she made a mistake in this
+instance, but she also lived to regret it bitterly, for, from that time
+on, the other family trait showed itself. When his yearning for success
+and fame was not satisfied, he tried to console himself with drinking.
+
+Now it turned out with him, as was usual with folk of his family--he
+drank inordinately. By degrees he became an entirely different person.
+He was no longer charming or lovable, but harsh and cruel; and the
+greatest misfortune of all was that he conceived a terrible hatred for
+his wife and tortured her in every conceivable way, both when he was
+drunk and when he wasn't.
+
+So the boys did not have a good home, and their childhood would have
+been very unhappy had they not been able to create for themselves a
+little world of their own, filled with machine models, exploring
+schemes, and books of adventure. The only one who has ever caught a
+glimpse of this world is the mother. The father hasn't even a suspicion
+of its existence, nor can he talk with the boys about anything that
+interests them. He disturbs them, time and again, by asking if they
+don't think it will be fun to see Stockholm; if they are not glad to be
+out travelling with father, and other things in that way, to which the
+boys give brief replies, in order that they may immediately bury
+themselves in the book again. Nevertheless the father continues to
+question the boys. He thinks they are charmed with his affability,
+although they are too bashful to show it.
+
+"They have been too long under petticoat rule," he thinks. "They have
+become timid and namby-pamby. There will be some go in them now, when I
+take them in hand."
+
+Father is mistaken. It is not because the boys are bashful that they
+answer him so briefly; it simply shows that they are well brought up and
+do not wish to hurt his feelings. If they were not polite, they would
+answer him in a very different manner. "Why should we think it fun to be
+travelling with father?" they would then say. "Father must think himself
+something wonderful, but we know, of course, that he is only a poor
+wreck of a man. And why should we be glad to see Stockholm? We
+understand very well that it is not for our sakes that father has taken
+us along, but only to make mother unhappy!"
+
+It would be wiser, no doubt, if the father were to let the boys read
+without interrupting them. They are sad and apprehensive, and it
+irritates them to see him in a good humor. "It is only because he knows
+that mother is sitting at home crying that he is so happy to-day," they
+whisper to each other.
+
+Father's questions finally bring matters to this pass: the boys read no
+more, although they continue to sit bent over the book. Instead, their
+thoughts begin in bitterness to embrace all that they have had to endure
+on their father's account.
+
+They remember the time when he drank himself full in the morning and
+came staggering up the street, with a crowd of school boys after him,
+who poked fun at him. They recall how the other boys teased them and
+gave them nicknames because they had a father who drank.
+
+They have been put to shame for their father. They have been forced to
+live in a state of constant anxiety for his sake, and as soon as they
+were having any enjoyment, he always came and spoiled their fun. It is
+no small register of sins that they are setting down against him! The
+boys are very meek and patient, but they feel a greater and greater
+wrath springing up in them.
+
+He should at least understand that, as yet, they cannot forgive him for
+the great wrong he did them yesterday. This was by far the worst wrong
+he had ever done them.
+
+It seems that, last year, mother and the boys decided to part from
+father. For a number of years he had been persecuting and torturing her
+in every possible way, but she was loath to part from him and remained,
+so that he wouldn't go altogether to rack and ruin. But now, at last,
+she wanted to do it for the sake of her boys. She had noticed that their
+father made them unhappy, and realized that she must take them away from
+this misery and provide them with a good and peaceable home.
+
+When the spring school-term was over, she sent them to her parents in
+the country, and she herself went abroad in order to obtain a divorce in
+the easiest way possible. She regretted that, by going about it in this
+way, it would appear as though it were her fault that the marriage was
+dissolved; but that she must submit to. She was even less pleased when
+the courts turned the boys over to the father because she was a run-away
+wife. She consoled herself with the thought that he couldn't possibly
+wish to keep the children; but she had felt quite ill at ease.
+
+As soon as the divorce was settled, she came back and took a small
+apartment where she and the boys were to live. In two days she had
+everything in readiness, so that they could come home to her.
+
+It was the happiest day the boys had experienced. The entire apartment
+consisted of one large living-room and a big kitchen, but everything was
+new and pretty, and mother had arranged the place so cosily. The big
+room she and they were to use daytimes as a work-room, and nights they
+were to sleep there. The kitchen was light and comfortable. There they
+would eat, and in a little closet off the kitchen mother had her bed.
+
+She had told them that they would be very poor. She had secured a place
+as singing-teacher at the girls' school, and this was all they had to
+live upon. They couldn't afford to keep a servant, but must get along
+all by themselves. The boys were in ecstasies over everything--most of
+all, because they might help along. They volunteered to carry water and
+wood. They were to brush their own shoes and make their own beds. It was
+only fun to think up all that they were going to do!
+
+There was a little wardrobe, in which Lennart was to keep all his
+mechanical apparatus. He was to have the key himself, and no one but
+Hugo and he should ever go in there.
+
+But the boys were allowed to be happy with their mother only for a
+single day. Afterwards their father spoiled their pleasure, as he had
+always done as far back as they could remember. Mother told them she had
+heard that their father had received a legacy of a few thousand kronor,
+and that he had resigned from his position as organist and was going to
+move to Stockholm. Both they and mother were glad that he was leaving
+town, so they would escape meeting him on the streets. And then a friend
+of father's had called on mother to tell her that father wanted to take
+the boys with him to Stockholm.
+
+Mother had wept and begged that she might keep her boys, but father's
+messenger had answered her that her husband was determined to have the
+boys under his guardianship. If they did not come willingly, he would
+let the police fetch them. He bade mother read through the divorce
+papers, and there it said plainly that the boys would belong to their
+father. This, of course, she already knew. It was not to be gainsaid.
+
+Father's friend had said many nice things of father and had told her of
+how much he loved his sons, and for this reason he wanted them to be
+with him. But the boys knew that father was taking them away solely for
+the purpose of torturing mother. She would have to live in a state of
+continual anxiety for them. The whole thing was nothing but malice and
+revenge!
+
+But father had his own way, and here they were now, on their way to
+Stockholm. And right opposite them their father sits, rejoicing in the
+thought that he has made their mother unhappy. With every second that
+passes, the thought of having to live with father becomes more
+repellent. Are they then wholly in his power? Will there be no help for
+this?
+
+Father leans back in his seat, and after a bit he falls asleep.
+Immediately the boys begin whispering to each other very earnestly. It
+isn't difficult for them to come to a decision. The whole day they have
+been sitting there thinking that they ought to run away. They conclude
+to steal out on the platform and to jump from the train when it goes
+through a big forest. Then they will build them a hut in the most
+secluded spot in the forest, and live all by themselves and never show
+themselves to a human being.
+
+While the boys are laying their plans, the train stops at a station, and
+a peasant woman, leading a little boy by the hand, comes into the coupé.
+She is dressed in black, with a shawl on her head, and has a kind and
+friendly appearance. She removes the little one's overcoat, which is wet
+from the rain, and wraps a shawl around him. Then she takes off his
+shoes and stockings, dries his little cold feet, takes from a bundle dry
+shoes and stockings and puts them on him. Then she gives him a stick of
+candy and lays him down on the seat with his head resting on her lap,
+that he might sleep.
+
+First one boy, then the other casts a glance over at the peasant woman.
+These glances become more frequent, and suddenly the eyes of both boys
+fill with tears. Then they look up no more, but keep their eyes
+obstinately lowered.
+
+It seems that when the peasant woman entered some one else--some one who
+was invisible and imperceptible to all save the boys--came into the
+coupé. The boys fancied that she came and sat down between them and took
+their hands in hers, as she had done late last night, when it was
+settled that they must leave her; and she was talking to them now as she
+did then. "You must promise me that you will not be angry with father
+for my sake. Father has never been able to forgive me for preventing him
+from going abroad. He thinks it is my fault that he has never amounted
+to anything and that he drinks. He can never punish me enough. But you
+mustn't be angry at him on that account. Now, when you are to live with
+father, you must promise me that you will be kind to him. You mustn't
+quarrel with him and you are to look after his needs as well as you can.
+This you must promise me, otherwise I don't know how I can ever let you
+go." And the boys promised. "You mustn't run away from father, promise
+me that!" mother had said. That they had also promised.
+
+The boys are as good as their word, and the instant they happen to think
+that they had given mother these promises, they abandon all thought of
+flight. Father sleeps all the while and they remain patiently in their
+places. Then they resume their reading with redoubled zeal, and their
+friend, the good Jules Verne, soon takes them away from many heavy
+sorrows to Africa's happy wonder world.
+
+Far out on the south side of the city, father has rented two rooms and a
+kitchen on the ground floor, with an entrance from the court and an
+outlook over a narrow yard. The apartment has long been in use; it has
+gone from family to family, without ever having been renovated. The wall
+paper is full of tears and spots; the ceilings are sooty; a couple of
+window-panes are cracked, and the kitchen floor is so worn that it is
+full of ruts. Expressmen have brought the furniture cases from the
+railway station and have left them there, helter skelter. Father and the
+boys are now unpacking. Father stands with axe raised to hack open a
+box. The boys are taking out glass and porcelain ware from another box,
+and are arranging them in a wall cupboard. They are handy and work
+eagerly, but the father never stops cautioning them to be careful, and
+forbids their carrying more than one glass or plate at a time. Meanwhile
+it goes slowly with father's own work. His hands are fumbly and
+powerless, and he works himself into a sweat without getting the lock
+off the box. He lays down the axe, walks around the box, and wonders if
+it's the bottom that is uppermost. Then one of the boys takes hold of
+the axe and begins to bend the lock, but father pushes him aside. "That
+lock is nailed down too hard. Surely you don't imagine that you can
+force the lock when father couldn't do it? Only a regular workman can
+open that box," says father, putting on his hat and coat to go and fetch
+the janitor.
+
+Father is hardly outside the door when an idea strikes him. Instantly he
+understands why he has no strength in his hands. It is still quite early
+in the morning and he has not consumed anything which could set the
+blood in motion. If he were to step into a café and have a cognac, he
+would get back his strength and could manage without help. This is
+better than calling the janitor.
+
+Then father goes into the street to try and hunt up a café. When he
+returns to the little apartment on the court, it is eight o'clock in the
+evening.
+
+In father's youth, when he attended the Academy, he had lived at the
+south end of the city. He was then a member of a double quartette,
+mostly made up of choristers and petty tradesmen, who used to meet in a
+cellar near Mosebacke. Father had taken a notion to go and see if the
+little cellar was still there. It was, in fact, and father had the luck
+to run across a pair of old comrades who were seated there having their
+breakfast. They had received him with the greatest delight, had invited
+him to breakfast, and had celebrated his advent in Stockholm in the
+friendliest way possible. When the breakfast was over, finally, father
+wanted to go home and unpack his furniture, but his friends persuaded
+him to remain and take dinner with them. This function was so long drawn
+out that he hadn't been able to go home until around eight o'clock. And
+it had cost him more than a slight effort to tear himself away from the
+lively place that early.
+
+When father comes home, the boys are in the dark, for they have no
+matches. Father has a match in his pocket, and when he has lighted a
+little stump of a candle, which luckily had come along with their
+furnishings, he sees that the boys are hot and dusty, but well and happy
+and apparently very well pleased with their day.
+
+In the rooms the furniture is arranged alongside the walls, the boxes
+have been removed and straw and papers have been swept away. Hugo is
+just turning down the boys' beds in the outer room. The inner room is to
+be father's bedroom, and there stands his bed, turned down with as great
+care as he could possibly wish.
+
+Now a sudden revulsion of feeling possesses him. When he came home, he
+was displeased with himself because he had gone away from his work and
+had left the boys without food; but now, when he sees that they are in
+good spirits and not in any distress, he regrets that, for their sakes,
+he should have left his friends; and he becomes irritable and
+quarrelsome.
+
+He sees, no doubt, that the boys are proud of all the work they have
+accomplished and expect him to praise them; but this he is not at all
+inclined to do. Instead, he asks who has been here and helped them, and
+begs them to remember that here in Stockholm one gets nothing without
+money, and that the janitor must be paid for all he does. The boys
+answer that they have had no assistance and have got on by themselves.
+But father continues to grumble. It was wrong of them to open the big
+box. They might have hurt themselves on it. Had he not forbidden them to
+open it? Now they would have to obey him. He is the one who must answer
+for their welfare.
+
+He takes the candle, goes out into the kitchen, and peeps into the
+cupboards. The scanty supply of glass and porcelain is arranged on the
+shelves in an orderly manner. He scrutinizes everything very carefully
+to find an excuse for further complaint.
+
+All of a sudden he catches sight of some leavings from the boys' supper,
+and begins immediately to grumble because they have had chicken. Where
+did they get it from? Do they think of living like princes? Is it his
+money they are throwing away on chicken? Then he remembers that he had
+not left them any money. He wonders if they have stolen the chicken and
+becomes perturbed. He preaches and admonishes, scolds and fusses, but
+now he gets no response from the boys. They do not bother themselves
+about telling him where they got the chicken, but let him go on. He
+makes long speeches and exhausts his forces. Finally he begs and
+implores.
+
+"I beseech you to tell me the truth. I will forgive you, no matter what
+you have done, if you will only tell me the truth!"
+
+Now the boys can hold in no longer. Father hears a spluttering sound.
+They throw off the quilts and sit up, and he notices that they are
+purple in the face from suppressed laughter. And as they can laugh now
+without restraint, Lennart says between the paroxysms, "Mother put a
+chicken in the food sack which she gave us when we left home."
+
+Father, draws himself up, looks at the boys, wants to speak, but finds
+no suitable words. He becomes even more majestic in his bearing, looks
+with withering scorn at them, and goes to his room without further
+parley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It has dawned upon father how handy the boys are, and he makes use of
+this fact to escape hiring servants. Mornings he sends Lennart into the
+kitchen to make coffee and lets Hugo lay the breakfast-table and fetch
+bread from the baker's. After breakfast he sits down on a chair and
+watches how the boys make up the beds, sweep the floors, and build a
+fire in the grate. He gives endless orders and sends them from one task
+to another, only to show his authority. When the morning chores are
+over, he goes out and remains away all the forenoon. The dinner he lets
+them fetch from a cooking-school in the neighborhood. After dinner he
+leaves the boys for the evening, and exacts nothing more of them than
+that his bed shall be turned down when he comes home.
+
+The boys are practically alone almost the entire day and can busy
+themselves in any way they choose.
+
+One of their most important tasks is to write to their mother. They get
+letters from her every day, and she sends them paper and postage, so
+that they can answer her. Mother's letters are mostly admonitions that
+they shall be good to their father. She writes constantly of how lovable
+father was when she first knew him, of how industrious and thrifty he
+was at the beginning of his career. They must be tender and kind to him.
+They must never forget how unhappy he is. "If you are very good to
+father, perhaps he may feel sorry for you and let you come home to me."
+
+Mother tells them that she has called to see the dean and the
+burgomaster to ask if it were not possible to get back the boys. Both of
+them had replied that there was no help for her. The boys would have to
+stay with their father. Mother wants to move to Stockholm that she may
+see her boys once in a while, at least, but every one advises her to
+have patience and abide her time. They think father will soon tire of
+the boys and send them home. Mother doesn't quite know what she should
+do. On the one hand she thinks it dreadful that the boys are living in
+Stockholm with no one to look after them, and on the other hand she
+knows that if she were to leave her home and her work, she could not
+take them and support them, even if they were freed. But for Christmas,
+at all events, mother is coming to Stockholm to look after them.
+
+The boys write and tell her what they do all day, hour by hour. They let
+mother know that they cook for father and make his bed. She apprehends
+that they are trying to be kind to him for her sake, but she probably
+perceives that they like him no better now than formerly.
+
+Her little boys appear to be always alone. They live in a large city,
+where there are lots of people, but no one asks after them. And perhaps
+it is better thus. Who can tell what might happen to them were they to
+make any acquaintances?
+
+They always beg of her not to be uneasy about them. They tell how they
+darn their stockings and sew on their buttons. They also intimate that
+Lennart has made great headway with his invention and say that when this
+is finished all will be well.
+
+Mother lives in a state of continual fear. Night and day her thoughts
+are with her boys. Night and day she prays God to watch over her little
+sons, who live alone in a great city, with no one to shield them from
+the temptations of the destroyer, and to keep their young hearts from
+the desire for evil.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Father and the boys are sitting one morning at the Opera. One of
+father's old comrades, who is with the Royal Orchestra, has invited him
+to be present at a symphony rehearsal, and father has taken the boys
+along. When the orchestra strikes up and the auditorium is filled with
+tone, father is so affected that he can't control himself, and begins to
+weep. He sobs and blows his nose and moans aloud, time and again. He
+puts no restraint upon his feelings, but makes such a noise that the
+musicians are disturbed. A guard comes along and beckons him away, and
+father takes the boys by the hand and slinks out without a word of
+protest. All the way home his tears continue to flow.
+
+Father is walking on, with a boy on each side, and he has kept their
+hands in his all the while. Suddenly the boys start crying. They
+understand now for the first time how much father has loved his art. It
+was painful for him to sit there, besotten and broken, and listen to
+others playing. They feel sorry for him who had never become what he
+might have been. It was with father as it might be with Lennart were he
+never to finish his flying-machine, or with Hugo if he were not to make
+any voyages of discovery. Think if they should one day sit like old
+good-for-nothings and see fine airships sailing over their heads which
+they had not invented and were not allowed to pilot!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The boys were sitting one morning on opposite sides of the
+writing-table. Father had taken a music roll under his arm and gone out.
+He had mumbled something about giving a music lesson, but the boys had
+not for a moment been tempted into believing this true.
+
+Father is in an ugly mood as he walks up the street. He noticed the look
+the boys exchanged when he said that he was going to a music lesson.
+"They are setting themselves up as judges of their father," he thinks.
+"I am too indulgent toward them. I should have given them each a sound
+box on the ear. It's their mother, I dare say, who is setting them
+against me. Suppose I were to keep an eye on the fine gentlemen?" he
+continues. "It would do no harm to find out how they attend to their
+lessons."
+
+He turns back, walks quietly across the court, opens the door very
+softly, and stands in the boys' room without either of them having heard
+him coming. The boys jump up, red in the face, and Lennart quickly
+snatches a bundle of papers which he throws into the table drawer.
+
+When the boys had been in Stockholm a day or two, they had asked which
+school they were to attend, and the father had replied that their
+school-going days were over now. He would try and procure a private
+tutor who would teach them. This proposition he had never carried into
+effect, nor had the boys said anything more about going to school. But
+in less than a week a school chart was discovered hanging on the wall in
+the boys' room. The school books had been brought forth, and every
+morning they sat on opposite sides of an old writing-table and studied
+their lessons aloud. It was evident that they had received letters from
+their mother counselling them to try and study, so as not to forget
+entirely what they had learned.
+
+Now, as father unexpectedly comes into the room, he goes up to the chart
+first and studies it. He takes out his watch and compares. "Wednesday,
+between ten and eleven, Geography." Then he comes up to the table.
+"Shouldn't you have geography at this hour?"
+
+"Yes," the boys reply, growing flame-red in the face.
+
+"Have you the geography and the map?"
+
+The boys glance over at the book shelf and look confused. "We haven't
+begun yet," says Lennart.
+
+"Indeed!" says father. "You must have been up to something else." He
+straightens up, thoroughly pleased with himself. He has an advantage,
+which he doesn't care to let go until he has browbeaten them very
+effectually.
+
+Both boys are silent. Ever since the day they accompanied father to the
+Opera, they have felt sympathy for him, and it has not been such an
+effort for them to be kind to him as it was before. But, naturally, they
+haven't for a moment thought of taking father into their confidence. He
+has not risen in their estimation although they are sorry for him.
+
+"Were you writing letters?" father asks in his severest tone.
+
+"No," say both boys at the same time.
+
+"What were you doing?"
+
+"Oh, just talking."
+
+"That isn't true. I saw that Lennart hid something in the drawer of the
+table."
+
+Now both boys are mum again.
+
+"Take it out!" shouts the father, purple with rage. He thinks the sons
+have written to his wife, and, since they don't care to show the letter,
+of course there is something mean about him in it.
+
+The boys do not stir, and father raises his hand to strike Lennart, who
+is sitting before the table drawer.
+
+"Don't touch him!" cries Hugo. "We were only talking over something
+which Lennart has invented."
+
+Hugo pushes Lennart aside, opens the drawer, and pulls out the paper,
+which is scrawled full of airships of the most extraordinary shapes.
+"Last night Lennart thought out a new kind of sail for his airship. It
+was of this we were speaking."
+
+Father wouldn't believe him. He bends over, searches in the drawer, but
+finds only sheets of paper covered with drawings of balloons,
+parachutes, flying-machines, and everything else appertaining to
+air-sailing.
+
+To the great surprise of the boys, father does not cast this aside at
+once, nor does he laugh at their attempts, but examines closely sheet
+after sheet. As a matter of fact, father, too, has a little leaning
+toward mechanics, and was interested in things of this sort in days gone
+by, when his brain was still good for something. Soon he begins to ask
+questions as to the meaning of one thing and another, and inasmuch as
+his words betray that he is deeply interested and understands what he
+sees, Lennart fights his bashfulness, and answers him, hesitatingly at
+first and then more willingly.
+
+Soon father and boys are absorbed in a profound discussion about
+airships and air-sailing. After they are fairly well started, the boys
+chatter unreservedly and give father a share in their plans and dreams
+of greatness. And while the father comprehends, of course, that the boys
+cannot fly very far with the airship which they have constructed, he is
+very much impressed. His little sons talk of aluminum motors,
+aeroplanes, and balancers, as though they were the simplest things in
+the world. He had thought them regular blockheads because they didn't
+get on very fast at school. Now, all at once, he believes they are a
+pair of little scientists.
+
+The high-soaring thoughts and aspirations father understands better than
+anything else; he cognizes them. He himself has dreamed in the same
+way, and he has no desire to laugh at such dreams.
+
+Father doesn't go out again that morning, but sits and chats with the
+boys until it is time to fetch the food for dinner and set the table.
+And at that meal father and the boys are real good friends, to their
+great and mutual astonishment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The hour is eleven at night, and father is staggering up the street. The
+little boys are walking on either side of him, and he holds their hands
+tightly clasped in his all the while.
+
+They have sought him out in one of his haunts, where they have stationed
+themselves just inside the door. Father sits by himself at a table with
+a big brown toddy in front of him, and listens to a ladies' orchestra
+which is playing at the other end of the hall. After a moment's
+hesitancy he rises reluctantly and goes over to the boys. "What is it?"
+he asks. "Why do you come here?"
+
+"Father was to come home," they say. "This is the fifth of December.
+Father promised--"
+
+Then he remembers that Lennart had confided to him that it was Hugo's
+birthday and that he had promised him to come home early. But this he
+had entirely forgotten. Hugo was probably expecting a birthday present
+from him, but he had not remembered to get him one.
+
+At any rate, he has gone with the boys and is walking along, displeased
+with them and with himself. When he comes home, the birthday table is
+laid. The boys had wished to give a little party. Lennart had creamed
+some pancakes, which are now a few hours old and look like pieces of
+leather. They had received a little money from their mother, and with
+this they had bought nuts, raisins, and a bottle of soda-water.
+
+This fine feast they did not care to enjoy all by themselves, and they
+had been sitting and waiting for father to come home and share it with
+them. Now, since they and father have become friends, they cannot
+celebrate such a big event without him. Father understands it all, and
+the thought of being missed flatters him and puts him in a fairly good
+humor. Half full as he is, he plumps himself down at the table. Just as
+he is about to take his place he stumbles, clutches at the table-cloth,
+falls, and draws down on the floor everything on the table. As he raises
+himself, he sees how the soda flows out over the floor and pickles and
+pancakes are strewn about among bits of porcelain and broken glass.
+
+Father glances at the boys' long faces, rips out an oath, and makes a
+rush for the door, and he doesn't come back home until on towards
+morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One morning in February, the boys are coming up the street with their
+skates dangling from their shoulders. They are not quite like
+themselves. They have grown thin and pale and look untidy and uncared
+for. Their hair is uncut; they are not well washed and they have holes
+in both stockings and shoes. When they address each other, they use a
+lot of street-boy expressions, and one and another oath escapes from
+their lips.
+
+A change has taken place in the boys. It had its beginning on the
+evening when their father forgot to come home to help celebrate Hugo's
+birthday. It was as if until that time they had been kept up by the hope
+that soon their father would be a changed man.
+
+At first they had counted on his tiring of them and sending them home.
+Later, they had fancied that he would become fond of them and give up
+drinking for their sakes, and they had even imagined that mother and he
+might become reconciled and that all of them would be happy. But it
+dawned upon them that night that father was impossible. He could love
+nothing but drink. Even if he were kind to them for a little while, he
+didn't really care for them.
+
+A heavy hopelessness fell upon the boys; nothing would ever be changed
+for them. They should never get away from father. They felt as though
+they were doomed to sit shut in a dark prison all their lives. Not even
+their great plans for the future could comfort them. In the way that
+they were bound down, these plans could never be carried out. Only
+think, they were not learning anything! They knew enough of the
+histories of great men to know that he who wants to accomplish anything
+noteworthy must first of all have knowledge.
+
+Still the hardest blow was that mother did not come to them at
+Christmas. In the beginning of December she had fallen down stairs and
+broken her leg, and was forced to lie in a hospital during the Christmas
+holidays, therefore she could not come to Stockholm. Now that mother was
+up, her school had begun again. Apart from this, she had no money with
+which to travel. The little that she had saved was spent while she lay
+ill.
+
+The boys felt themselves deserted by the whole world. It was obvious
+that it never would be any better for them, no matter how good they
+were! So, gradually, they ceased to exert themselves with the sort of
+things that were tiresome. They might just as well do that which amused
+them.
+
+The boys began to shirk their morning studies. No one heard their
+lessons, so what was the use of their studying? There had been good
+skating for a couple of days and they might as well play truant all day.
+On the ice there were always throngs of boys, and they had made the
+acquaintance of a number who also preferred skating to being shut in the
+house with their books.
+
+It has turned out to be such a fine day that it is impossible to think
+of staying indoors. The weather is so clear and sunny that the school
+children have been granted skating leave. The whole street is filled
+with children, who have been home to get their skates and are now
+hurrying down to the ice.
+
+The boys, as they move among the other children, appear solemn and
+low-spirited. Not a smile lights up their faces. Their misfortune is so
+heavy that they cannot forget it for a second.
+
+When they come down on the ice, it is full of life and movement. All
+along the edges it is bordered with a tight mass of people; farther
+out, the skaters circle around one another, like gnats, and still
+farther out, solitary black specks that float along at lightning speed
+are seen.
+
+The boys buckle on their skates and join the other skaters. They skate
+very well, and as they glide out on the ice, full speed, they get color
+in their cheeks and their eyes sparkle, but not for a moment do they
+appear happy, like other children.
+
+All of a sudden, as they are making a turn toward land, they catch sight
+of something very pretty. A big balloon comes from the direction of
+Stockholm and is sailing out toward Salt Lake. It is striped in reds and
+yellows, and when the sun strikes it it glitters like a ball of fire.
+The basket is decorated with many-hued flags, and as the balloon does
+not fly very high the bright color-play can be seen quite plainly.
+
+When the boys spy the balloon, they send up a shriek of delight. It is
+the first time in their lives that they have seen a big balloon sailing
+through the air. All the dreams and plans which have been their
+consolation and joy during the many trying days come back to them when
+they see it. They stand still that they may observe how the ropes and
+lines are fastened; and they take note of the anchor and the sand bags
+on the edge of the car.
+
+The balloon moves with good speed over the ice-bound fiord. All the
+skaters, big and little, dart around one another, laughing and hooting
+at it when it first comes into sight, and then they bound after it. They
+follow it out to sea, in a long swaying line, like a drag line. The
+air-sailors amuse themselves by scattering handfuls of paper strips in a
+variety of colors, which come circling down slowly through the blue air.
+
+The boys are foremost in the long line that is chasing after the
+balloon. They hurry forward, with heads thrown back, and gaze steadily
+turned upward. Their eyes dance with delight for the first time since
+they parted from their mother. They are beside themselves with
+excitement over the airship and think of nothing else than to follow it
+as long as possible.
+
+But the balloon moves ahead rapidly, and one has to be a good skater not
+to be left behind. The crowd chasing after it thins down, but in the
+lead of those who keep up the pursuit the two little boys are seen.
+Afterwards people said there was something strange about them. They
+neither laughed nor shouted, but on their upturned faces there was a
+look of transport--as though they had seen a heavenly vision.
+
+The balloon also affects the boys like a celestial guide, who has come
+to lead them back to the right path and teach them how to go forward
+with renewed courage. When the boys see it, their hearts bound with
+longing to begin work again on the great invention. Once more they feel
+confident and happy. If only they are patient, they'll probably work
+their way toward success. A day will surely come when they can step into
+their own airship and soar aloft in space. Some day _they_ will be the
+ones who travel up there, far above the people, and _their_ airship will
+be more perfect than the one they now see. Theirs shall be an airship
+that can be steered and turned, lowered and raised, sail against wind
+and without wind. It shall carry them by day and by night, wherever they
+may wish to travel. They shall descend to the highest mountain peaks,
+travel over the dreariest deserts, and explore the most inaccessible
+regions. They shall behold all the glories of the world.
+
+"It isn't worth while to lose heart, Hugo," says Lennart. "We'll have a
+fine time if we can only finish it!"
+
+Father and his ill-luck are things which do not concern them any more.
+One who has something as great to strive for as they have cannot let
+himself be hindered by anything so pitiable!
+
+The balloon gains in speed the farther out it comes. The skaters have
+ceased following it. The only ones who continue the chase are the two
+little boys. They move ahead as swiftly and lightly as if their feet had
+taken on wings.
+
+Suddenly the people who stand on the shore and can look far out across
+the fiord send up a great cry of horror and fear. They see that the
+balloon, pursued all the while by the two children, sails away toward
+the fairway, where there is open sea. "Open sea! It is open sea out
+there!" the people shout.
+
+The skaters down on the ice hear the shouts and turn their eyes toward
+the mouth of the fiord. They see how a strip of water shimmers in the
+sunlight yonder. They see, also, that two little boys are skating toward
+this strip, which they do not notice because their eyes are fixed on the
+balloon; and not for a second do they turn them toward earth.
+
+The people are calling out with all their might and stamping on the ice.
+Fast runners are hurrying on to stop them; but the little ones mark
+nothing of all this, where they are chasing after the airship. They do
+not know that they alone are following it. They hear no cries back of
+them. They do not hear the splash and roar of the water ahead of them.
+They see only the balloon, which as it were carries them with it.
+Lennart already feels his own airship rising under him, and Hugo soars
+away over the North Pole.
+
+The people on the ice and on the shore see how rapidly they are nearing
+the open sea. For a second or two they are in such breathless suspense
+that they can neither move nor cry out. It seems as if the two children
+are under a magic spell--in their chase after a shining heavenly vision.
+
+The air-sailors up in the balloon have also caught a glimpse of the
+little boys. They see that they are in danger and scream at them and
+make warning gestures; but the boys do not understand them. When they
+notice that the air-sailors are making signs at them, they think they
+want to take them up into the car. They stretch their arms toward them,
+overjoyed in the hope of accompanying them through the bright upper
+regions.
+
+At this moment the boys have reached the sailing channel, and, with arms
+uplifted, they skate down into the water and disappear without a cry for
+help. The skaters, who have tried to reach them in time, are standing a
+couple of seconds later on the edge of the ice, but the current has
+carried their bodies under the ice, and no helping hand can reach
+them.
+
+
+
+
+The Wedding March
+
+
+Now I'm going to tell a pretty story.
+
+A good many years ago there was to be a very big wedding at Svartsjö
+parish in Vermland.
+
+First, there was to be a church ceremony and after that three days of
+feasting and merrymaking, and every day while the festivities lasted
+there was to be dancing from early morning till far into the night.
+
+Since there was to be so much dancing, it was of very great importance
+to get a good fiddler, and Juryman Nils Olafsson, who was managing the
+wedding, worried almost more over this than over anything else.
+
+The fiddler they had at Svartsjö he did not care to engage. His name was
+Jan Öster. The Juryman knew, to be sure, that he had quite a big name;
+but he was so poor that sometimes he would appear at a wedding in a
+frayed jacket and without shoes to his feet. The Juryman didn't wish to
+see such a ragtag at the head of the bridal procession, so he decided to
+send a messenger to a musician in Jösse parish, who was commonly called
+Fiddler Mårten, and ask him if he wouldn't come and play at the wedding.
+
+Fiddler Mårten didn't consider the proposition for a second, but
+promptly replied that he did not want to play at Svartsjö, because in
+that parish lived a musician who was more skilled than all others in
+Vermland. While they had him, there was no need for them to call
+another.
+
+When Nils Olafsson received this answer, he took a few days to think it
+over, and then he sent word to a fiddler in Big Kil parish, named Olle
+in Säby, to ask him if he wouldn't come and play at his daughter's
+wedding.
+
+Olle in Säby answered in the same way as Fiddler Mårten. He sent his
+compliments to Nils Olafsson, and said that so long as there was such a
+capable musician as Jan Öster to be had in Svartsjö, he didn't want to
+go there to play.
+
+Nils Olafsson didn't like it that the musicians tried in this way to
+force upon him the very one he did not want. Now he considered that it
+was a point of honor with him to get another fiddler than Jan Öster.
+
+A few days after he had the answer from Olle in Säby, he sent his
+servant to fiddler Lars Larsson, who lived at the game lodge in Ullerud
+parish. Lars Larsson was a well-to-do man who owned a fine farm. He was
+sensible and considerate and no hotspur, like the other musicians. But
+Lars Larsson, like the others, at once thought of Jan Öster, and asked
+how it happened that he was not to play at the wedding.
+
+Nils Olafsson's servant thought it best to say to him that, since Jan
+Öster lived at Svartsjö, they could hear him play at any time. As Nils
+Olafsson was making ready to give a grand wedding, he wished to treat
+his guests to something a little better and more select.
+
+"I doubt if you can get any one better," said Lars Larsson.
+
+"Now you must be thinking of answering in the same way as fiddler Mårten
+and Olle in Säby did," said the servant. Then he told him how he had
+fared with them.
+
+Lars Larsson paid close attention to the servant's story, and then he
+sat quietly for a long while and pondered. Finally he answered in the
+affirmative: "Tell your master that I thank him for his invitation and
+will come."
+
+The following Sunday Lars Larsson journeyed down to Svartsjö. He drove
+up to the church knoll just as the wedding guests were forming into line
+to march to the church. He came driving in his own chaise and with a
+good horse and dressed in black broadcloth. He took out his fiddle from
+a highly polished box. Nils Olafsson received him effusively, thinking
+that here was a fiddler of whom he might be proud.
+
+Immediately after Lars Larsson's arrival, Jan Öster, too, came marching
+up to the church, with his fiddle under his arm. He walked straight up
+to the crowd around the bride, exactly as if he were asked to come and
+play at the wedding.
+
+Jan Öster had come in the old gray homespun jacket which they had seen
+him wearing for ages. But, as this was to be such a grand wedding, his
+wife had made an attempt at mending the holes at the elbow by sewing big
+green patches over them. Jan Öster was a tall handsome man, and would
+have made a fine appearance at the head of the bridal procession, had he
+not been so shabbily dressed, and had his face not been so lined and
+seamed by worries and the hard struggle with misfortune.
+
+When Lars Larsson saw Jan Öster coming, he seemed a bit displeased. "So
+you have called Jan Öster, too," he said under his breath to the Juryman
+Nils Olafsson, "but at a grand wedding there's no harm in having two
+fiddlers."
+
+"I did not invite him, that's certain!" protested Nils Olafsson. "I
+can't comprehend why he has come. Just wait, and I'll let him know that
+he has no business here!"
+
+"Then some practical joker must have bidden him," said Lars Larsson.
+"But if you care to be guided by my counsel, appear as if nothing were
+wrong and go over and bid him welcome. I have heard said that he is a
+quick-tempered man, and who knows but he may begin to quarrel and fight
+if you were to tell him that he was not invited?"
+
+This the Juryman knew, too! It was no time to begin fussing when the
+bridal procession was forming on the church grounds; so he walked up to
+Jan Öster and bade him be welcome. Thereupon the two fiddlers took their
+places at the head of the procession. The bridal pair walked under a
+canopy, the bridesmaids and the groomsmen marched in pairs, and after
+them came the parents and relatives; so the procession was both imposing
+and long.
+
+When everything was in readiness, a groomsman stepped up to the
+musicians and asked them to play the Wedding March. Both musicians swung
+their fiddles up to their chins, but beyond that they did not get. And
+thus they stood! It was an old custom in Svartsjö for the best fiddler
+to strike up the Wedding March and to lead the music.
+
+The groomsman looked at Lars Larsson, as though he were waiting for him
+to start; but Lars Larsson looked at Jan Öster and said, "It is you, Jan
+Öster, who must begin."
+
+It did not seem possible to Jan Öster that the other fiddler, who was as
+finely dressed as any gentleman, should not be better than himself, who
+had come in his old homespun jacket straight from the wretched hovel
+where there were only poverty and distress. "No, indeed!" said he. "No,
+indeed!"
+
+He saw that the bridegroom put forth his hand and touched Lars Larsson.
+"Larsson shall begin," said he.
+
+When Jan Öster heard the bridegroom say this, he promptly lowered his
+fiddle and stepped aside.
+
+Lars Larsson, on the other hand, did not move from the spot, but
+remained standing in his place, confident and pleased with himself. Nor
+did he raise the bow. "It is Jan Öster who shall begin," he repeated
+stubbornly and resistingly, as one who is used to having his own way.
+
+There was some commotion among the crowds over the cause of the delay.
+The bride's father came forward and begged Lars Larsson to begin. The
+sexton stepped to the door of the church and beckoned to them to hurry
+along. The parson stood waiting at the altar.
+
+"You can ask Jan Öster to begin, then," said Lars Larsson. "We musicians
+consider him to be the best among us."
+
+"That may be so," said a peasant, "but we peasants consider you the best
+one."
+
+Then the other peasants also gathered around them. "Well, begin, why
+don't you?" they said. "The parson is waiting. We'll become a
+laughing-stock to the church people."
+
+Lars Larsson stood there quite as stubborn and determined as before. "I
+can't see why the people in this parish are so opposed to having their
+own fiddler placed in the lead."
+
+Nils Olafsson was perfectly furious because they wished in this way to
+force Jan Öster upon him. He came close up to Lars Larsson and
+whispered: "I comprehend that it is you who have called hither Jan
+Öster, and that you have arranged this to do him honor. But be quick,
+now, and play up, or I'll drive that ragamuffin from the church grounds
+in disgrace and by force!"
+
+Lars Larsson looked him square in the face and nodded to him without
+displaying any irritation. "Yes, you are right in saying that we must
+have an end of this," said he.
+
+He beckoned to Jan Öster to return to his place. Then he himself walked
+forward a step or two, and turned around that all might see him. Then
+he flung the bow far from him, pulled out his case-knife, and cut all
+four violin strings, which snapped with a sharp twang. "It shall not be
+said of me that I count myself better than Jan Öster!" said he.
+
+It appears that for three years Jan Öster had been musing on an air
+which he couldn't get out over the strings because at home he was bound
+down by dull, gray cares and worries, and nothing ever happened to him,
+either great or small, to lift him above the daily grind. But when he
+heard Lars Larsson's strings snap, he threw back his head and filled his
+lungs. His features were rapt, as though he were listening to something
+far away; and then he began to play. And the air which he had been
+musing over for three years became all at once clear to him, and as the
+tones of it vibrated he walked with proud step down to the church.
+
+The bridal procession had never before heard an air like that! It
+carried them along with such speed that not even Nils Olafsson could
+think of staying back. And every one was so pleased both with Jan Öster
+and with Lars Larsson that the entire following entered the church,
+their eyes brimming with tears of joy.
+
+
+
+
+The Musician
+
+
+No one in Ullerud could say anything of fiddler Lars Larsson but that he
+was both meek and modest in his later years. But he had not always been
+thus, it seems. In his youth he had been so overbearing and boastful
+that people were in despair about him. It is said that he was changed
+and made over in a single night, and this is the way it happened.
+
+Lars Larsson went out for a stroll late one Saturday night, with his
+fiddle under his arm. He was excessively gay and jovial, for he had just
+come from a party where his playing had tempted both young and old to
+dance. He walked along, thinking that while his bow was in motion no one
+had been able to sit still. There had been such a whirl in the cabin
+that once or twice he fancied the chairs and tables were dancing too! "I
+verily believe they have never before had a musician like me in these
+parts," he remarked to himself. "But I had a mighty rough time of it
+before I became such a clever chap!" he continued. "When I was a child,
+it was no fun for me when my parents put me to tending cows and sheep
+and when I forgot everything else to sit and twang my fiddle. And just
+fancy! they wouldn't so much as give me a real violin. I had nothing to
+play on but an old wooden box over which I had stretched some strings.
+In the daytime, when I could be alone in the woods, I fared rather well;
+but it was none too cheerful to come home in the evening when the cattle
+had strayed from me! Then I heard often enough, from both father and
+mother, that I was a good-for-nothing and never would amount to
+anything."
+
+In that part of the forest where Lars Larsson was strolling a little
+river was trying to find its way. The ground was stony and hilly, and
+the stream had great difficulty in getting ahead, winding this way and
+that way, rolling over little falls and rapids--and yet it appeared to
+get nowhere. The path where the fiddler walked, on the other hand, tried
+to go as straight ahead as possible. Therefore it was continually
+meeting the sinuous stream, and each time it would dart across it by
+using a little bridge. The musician also had to cross the stream
+repeatedly, and he was glad of it. He thought it was as though he had
+found company in the forest.
+
+Where he was tramping it was light summer-night. The sun had not yet
+come up, but its being away made no difference, for it was as light as
+day all the same.
+
+Still the light was not quite what it is in the daytime. Everything had
+a different color. The sky was perfectly white, the trees and the
+growths on the ground were grayish, but everything was as distinctly
+visible as in the daytime, and when Lars Larsson paused on any of the
+numerous bridges and looked down into the stream, he could distinguish
+every ripple on the water.
+
+"When I see a stream like this in the wilderness," he thought, "I am
+reminded of my own life. As persistent as this stream have I been in
+forcing my way past all that has obstructed my path. Father has been my
+rock ahead, and mother tried to hold me back and bury me between
+moss-tufts, but I stole past both of them and got out in the world.
+Hay-ho, hi, hi! I think mother is still sitting at home and weeping for
+me. But what do I care! She might have known that I should amount to
+something some day, instead of trying to oppose me!"
+
+Impatiently he tore some leaves from a branch and threw them into the
+river.
+
+"Look! thus have I torn myself loose from everything at home," he said,
+as he watched the leaves borne away by the water. "I am just wondering
+if mother knows that I'm the best musician in Vermland?" he remarked as
+he went farther.
+
+He walked on rapidly until he came across the stream again. Then he
+stopped and looked into the water.
+
+Here the river went along in a struggling rapid, creating a terrible
+racket. As it was night, one heard from the stream sounds quite
+different from those of the daytime, and the musician was perfectly
+astonished when he stood still and listened. There was no bird song in
+the trees and no music in the pines and no rustling in the leaves. No
+wagon wheels creaked in the road and no cow-bells tinkled in the wood.
+One heard only the rapid; but because all the other things were hushed,
+it could be heard so much better than during the day. It sounded as
+though everything thinkable and unthinkable was rioting and clamoring in
+the depths of the stream. First, it sounded as if some one were sitting
+down there and grinding grain between stones, and then it sounded as
+though goblets were clinking in a drinking-bout; and again there was a
+murmuring, as when the congregation had left the church and were
+standing on the church knoll after the service, talking earnestly
+together.
+
+"I suppose this, too, is a kind of music," thought the fiddler,
+"although I can't find anything much in it! I think the air that I
+composed the other day was much more worth listening to."
+
+But the longer Lars Larsson listened to the music of the rapid, the
+better he thought it sounded.
+
+"I believe you are improving," he said to the rapid. "It must have
+dawned upon you that the best musician in Vermland is listening to you!"
+
+The instant he had made this remark, he fancied he heard a couple of
+clear metallic sounds, as when some one picks a violin string to hear if
+it is in tune.
+
+"But see, hark! The Water-Sprite himself has arrived. I can hear how he
+begins to thrum on the violin. Let us hear now if you can play better
+than I!" said Lars Larsson, laughing. "But I can't stand here all night
+waiting for you to begin," he called to the water. "Now I must be going;
+but I promise you that I will also stop at the next bridge and listen,
+to hear if you can cope with me."
+
+He went farther and, as the stream in its winding course ran into the
+wood, he began thinking once more of his home.
+
+"I wonder how the little brooklet that runs by our house is getting on?
+I should like to see it again. I ought to go home once in a while, to
+see if mother is suffering want and hardship since father's death. But
+busy as I am, it is almost impossible. As busy as I am just now, I say,
+I can't look after anything but the fiddle. There is hardly an evening
+in the week that I am at liberty."
+
+In a little while he met the stream again, and his thoughts were turned
+to something else. At this crossing the river did not come rushing on in
+a noisy rapid, but glided ahead rather quietly. It lay perfectly black
+and shiny under the night-gray forest trees, and carried with it one and
+another patch of snow-white scum from the rapids above.
+
+When the musician came down upon the bridge and heard no sound from the
+stream but a soft swish now and then, he began to laugh.
+
+"I might have known that the Water-Sprite wouldn't care to come to the
+meeting," he shouted. "To be sure, I have always heard that he is
+considered an excellent performer, but one who lies still forever in a
+brook and never hears anything new can't know very much! He perceives,
+no doubt, that here stands one who knows more about music than he,
+therefore he doesn't care to let me hear him."
+
+Then he went farther and lost sight of the river again. He came into a
+part of the forest which he had always thought dismal and bleak to
+wander through. There the ground was covered with big stone heaps, and
+gnarled pine stumps lay uprooted among them. If there was anything
+magical or fearsome in the forest, one would naturally think that it
+concealed itself here.
+
+When the musician came in among the wild stone blocks, a shudder passed
+through him, and he began to wonder if it had not been unwise of him to
+boast in the presence of the Water-Sprite. He fancied the large pine
+roots began to gesticulate, as if they were threatening him. "Beware,
+you who think yourself cleverer than the Water-Sprite!" it seemed as if
+they wanted to say.
+
+Lars Larsson felt how his heart contracted with dread. A heavy weight
+bore down upon his chest, so that he could scarcely breathe, and his
+hands became ice-cold. Then he stopped in the middle of the wood and
+tried to talk sense to himself.
+
+"Why, there's no musician in the waterfall!" said he. "Such things are
+only superstition and nonsense! It's of no consequence what I have said
+or haven't said to him."
+
+As he spoke, he looked around him, as if for some confirmation of the
+truth of what he said. Had it been daytime, every tiny leaf would have
+winked at him that there was nothing dangerous in the wood; but now, at
+night, the leaves on the trees were closed and silent and looked as
+though they were hiding all sorts of dangerous secrets.
+
+Lars Larsson grew more and more alarmed. That which caused him the
+greatest fear was having to cross the stream once more before it and the
+road parted company and went in different directions. He wondered what
+the Water-Sprite would do to him when he walked across the last
+bridge--if he might perhaps stretch a big black hand out of the water
+and drag him down into the depths.
+
+He had worked himself into such a state of fright that he thought of
+turning back. But then he would meet the stream again. And if he were to
+turn out of the road and go into the wood, he would also meet it, the
+way it kept bending and winding itself!
+
+He felt so nervous that he didn't know what to do. He was snared and
+captured and bound by that stream, and saw no possibility of escape.
+
+Finally he saw before him the last bridge crossing. Directly opposite
+him, on the other side of the stream, stood an old mill, which must have
+been abandoned these many years. The big mill-wheel hung motionless over
+the water. The sluice-gate lay mouldering on the land; the mill-race was
+moss-grown, and its sides were lined with common fern and beard-moss.
+
+"If all had been as formerly and there were people here," thought the
+musician, "I should be safe now from all danger."
+
+But, at all events, he felt reassured in seeing a building constructed
+by human hands, and, as he crossed the stream, he was scarcely
+frightened at all. Nor did anything dreadful happen to him. The
+Water-Sprite seemed to have no quarrel with him. He was simply amazed to
+think he had worked himself into a panic over nothing whatever.
+
+He felt very happy and secure, and became even happier when the mill
+door opened and a young girl came out to him. She looked like an
+ordinary peasant girl. She had a cotton kerchief on her head and wore a
+short skirt and full jacket, but her feet were bare.
+
+She walked up to the musician and said to him without further ceremony,
+"If you will play for me, I'll dance for you."
+
+"Why, certainly," said the fiddler, who was in fine spirits now that he
+was rid of his fear. "That I can do, of course. I have never in my life
+refused to play for a pretty girl who wants to dance."
+
+He took his place on a stone near the edge of the mill-pond, raised the
+violin to his chin, and began to play.
+
+The girl took a few steps in rhythm with the music; then she stopped.
+"What kind of a polka are you playing?" said she. "There is no vim in
+it."
+
+The fiddler changed his tune; he tried one with more life in it.
+
+The girl was just as dissatisfied. "I can't dance to such a draggy
+polka," said she.
+
+Then Lars Larsson struck up the wildest air he knew. "If you are not
+satisfied with this one," he said, "you will have to call hither a
+better musician than I am."
+
+The instant he said this, he felt that a hand caught his arm at the
+elbow and began to guide the bow and increase the tempo. Then from the
+violin there poured forth a strain the like of which he had never before
+heard. It moved in such a quick tempo he thought that a rolling wheel
+couldn't have kept up with it.
+
+"Now, that's what I call a polka!" said the girl, and began to swing
+round.
+
+But the musician did not glance at her. He was so astonished at the air
+he was playing that he stood with closed eyes, to hear better. When he
+opened them after a moment, the girl was gone. But he did not wonder
+much at this. He continued to play on, long and well, only because he
+had never before heard such violin playing.
+
+"It must be time now to finish with this," he thought finally, and
+wanted to lay down the bow. But the bow kept up its motion; he couldn't
+make it stop. It travelled back and forth over the strings and jerked
+the hand and arm with it; and the hand that held the neck of the violin
+and fingered the strings could not free itself, either.
+
+The cold sweat stood out on Lars Larsson's brow, and he was frightened
+now in earnest.
+
+"How will this end? Shall I sit here and play till doomsday?" he asked
+himself in despair.
+
+The bow ran on and on, and magically called forth one tune after
+another. Always it was something new, and it was so beautiful that the
+poor fiddler must have known how little his own skill was worth. And it
+was this that tortured him worse than the fatigue.
+
+"He who plays upon my violin understands the art. But never in all my
+born days have I been anything but a bungler. Now for the first time I'm
+learning how music should sound."
+
+For a few seconds he became so transported by the music that he forgot
+his evil fate; then he felt how his arm ached from weariness and he was
+seized anew with despair.
+
+"This violin I cannot lay down until I have played myself to death. I
+can understand that the Water-Sprite won't be satisfied with less."
+
+He began to weep over himself, but all the while he kept on playing.
+
+"It would have been better for me had I stayed at home in the little
+cabin with mother. What is all the glory worth if it is to end in this
+way?"
+
+He sat there hour after hour. Morning came on, the sun rose, and the
+birds sang all around him; but he played and he played, without
+intermission.
+
+As it was a Sunday that dawned, he had to sit there by the old mill all
+alone. No human beings tramped in this part of the forest. They went to
+church down in the dale, and to the villages along the big highway.
+
+Forenoon came along, and the sun stepped higher and higher in the sky.
+The birds grew silent, and the wind began to murmur in the long pine
+needles.
+
+Lars Larsson did not let the summer day's heat deter him. He played and
+played. At last evening was ushered in, the sun sank, but his bow needed
+no rest, and his arm continued to move.
+
+"It is absolutely certain that this will be the death of me!" said he.
+"And it is a righteous punishment for all my conceit."
+
+Far along in the evening a human being came wandering through the wood.
+It was a poor old woman with bent back and white hair, and a countenance
+that was furrowed by many sorrows.
+
+"It seems strange," thought the player, "but I think I recognize that
+old woman. Can it be possible that it is my mother? Can it be possible
+that mother has grown so old and gray?"
+
+He called aloud and stopped her. "Mother, mother, come here to me!" he
+cried.
+
+She paused, as if unwillingly. "I hear now with my own ears that you are
+the best musician in Vermland," said she. "I can well understand that
+you do not care any more for a poor old woman like me!"
+
+"Mother, mother, don't pass me by!" cried Lars Larsson. "I'm no great
+performer--only a poor wretch. Come here that I may speak with you!"
+
+Then the mother came nearer and saw how he sat and played. His face was
+as pale as death, his hair dripped sweat, and blood oozed out from under
+the roots of his nails.
+
+"Mother, I have fallen into misfortune because of my vanity, and now I
+must play myself to death. But tell me, before this happens, if you can
+forgive me, who left you alone and poor in your old age!"
+
+His mother was seized with a great compassion for the son, and all the
+anger she had felt toward him was as if blown away. "Why, surely I
+forgive you!" said she. And as she saw his anguish and bewilderment and
+wanted him to understand that she meant what she said, she repeated it
+in the name of God.
+
+"In the name of God our Redeemer, I forgive you!"
+
+And when she said this, the bow stopped, the violin fell to the ground,
+and the musician arose saved and redeemed. For the enchantment was
+broken, because his old mother had felt such compassion for his distress
+that she had spoken God's name over him.
+
+
+
+
+The Legend of the Christmas Rose
+
+
+Robber Mother, who lived in Robbers' Cave up in Göinge forest, went down
+to the village one day on a begging tour. Robber Father, who was an
+outlawed man, did not dare to leave the forest, but had to content
+himself with lying in wait for the wayfarers who ventured within its
+borders. But at that time travellers were not very plentiful in Southern
+Skåne. If it so happened that the man had had a few weeks of ill luck
+with his hunt, his wife would take to the road. She took with her five
+youngsters, and each youngster wore a ragged leathern suit and
+birch-bark shoes and bore a sack on his back as long as himself. When
+Robber Mother stepped inside the door of a cabin, no one dared refuse to
+give her whatever she demanded; for she was not above coming back the
+following night and setting fire to the house if she had not been well
+received. Robber Mother and her brood were worse than a pack of wolves,
+and many a man felt like running a spear through them; but it was never
+done, because they all knew that the man stayed up in the forest, and he
+would have known how to wreak vengeance if anything had happened to the
+children or the old woman.
+
+Now that Robber Mother went from house to house and begged, she came one
+day to Övid, which at that time was a cloister. She rang the bell of the
+cloister gate and asked for food. The watchman let down a small wicket
+in the gate and handed her six round bread cakes--one for herself and
+one for each of the five children.
+
+While the mother was standing quietly at the gate, her youngsters were
+running about. And now one of them came and pulled at her skirt, as a
+signal that he had discovered something which she ought to come and see,
+and Robber Mother followed him promptly.
+
+The entire cloister was surrounded by a high and strong wall, but the
+youngster had managed to find a little back gate which stood ajar. When
+Robber Mother got there, she pushed the gate open and walked inside
+without asking leave, as it was her custom to do.
+
+Övid Cloister was managed at that time by Abbot Hans, who knew all about
+herbs. Just within the cloister wall he had planted a little herb
+garden, and it was into this that the old woman had forced her way.
+
+At first glance Robber Mother was so astonished that she paused at the
+gate. It was high summertide, and Abbot Hans' garden was so full of
+flowers that the eyes were fairly dazzled by the blues, reds, and
+yellows, as one looked into it. But presently an indulgent smile spread
+over her features, and she started to walk up a narrow path that lay
+between many flower-beds.
+
+In the garden a lay brother walked about, pulling up weeds. It was he
+who had left the door in the wall open, that he might throw the weeds
+and tares on the rubbish heap outside.
+
+When he saw Robber Mother coming in, with all five youngsters in tow, he
+ran toward her at once and ordered them away. But the beggar woman
+walked right on as before. She cast her eyes up and down, looking now at
+the stiff white lilies which spread near the ground, then on the ivy
+climbing high upon the cloister wall, and took no notice whatever of the
+lay brother.
+
+He thought she had not understood him, and wanted to take her by the arm
+and turn her toward the gate. But when the robber woman saw his purpose,
+she gave him a look that sent him reeling backward. She had been walking
+with back bent under her beggar's pack, but now she straightened
+herself to her full height. "I am Robber Mother from Göinge forest; so
+touch me if you dare!" And it was obvious that she was as certain she
+would be left in peace as if she had announced that she was the Queen of
+Denmark.
+
+And yet the lay brother dared to oppose her, although now, when he knew
+who she was, he spoke reasonably to her. "You must know, Robber Mother,
+that this is a monks' cloister, and no woman in the land is allowed
+within these walls. If you do not go away, the monks will be angry with
+me because I forgot to close the gate, and perhaps they will drive me
+away from the cloister and the herb garden."
+
+But such prayers were wasted on Robber Mother. She walked straight ahead
+among the little flower-beds and looked at the hyssop with its magenta
+blossoms, and at the honeysuckles, which were full of deep
+orange-colored flower clusters.
+
+Then the lay brother knew of no other remedy than to run into the
+cloister and call for help.
+
+He returned with two stalwart monks, and Robber Mother saw that now it
+meant business! With feet firmly planted she stood in the path and began
+shrieking in strident tones all the awful vengeance she would wreak on
+the cloister if she couldn't remain in the herb garden as long as she
+wished. But the monks did not see why they need fear her and thought
+only of driving her out. Then Robber Mother let out a perfect volley of
+shrieks, and, throwing herself upon the monks, clawed and bit at them;
+so did all the youngsters. The men soon learned that she could overpower
+them, and all they could do was to go back into the cloister for
+reinforcements.
+
+As they ran through the passage-way which led to the cloister, they met
+Abbot Hans, who came rushing out to learn what all this noise was about.
+
+Then they had to confess that Robber Mother from Göinge forest had come
+into the cloister and that they were unable to drive her out and must
+call for assistance.
+
+But Abbot Hans upbraided them for using force and forbade their calling
+for help. He sent both monks back to their work, and although he was an
+old and fragile man, he took with him only the lay brother.
+
+When Abbot Hans came out in the garden, Robber Mother was still
+wandering among the flower-beds. He regarded her with astonishment. He
+was certain that Robber Mother had never before seen an herb garden; yet
+she sauntered leisurely between all the small patches, each of which
+had been planted with its own species of rare flower, and looked at them
+as if they were old acquaintances. At some she smiled, at others she
+shook her head.
+
+Abbot Hans loved his herb garden as much as it was possible for him to
+love anything earthly and perishable. Wild and terrible as the old woman
+looked, he couldn't help liking that she had fought with three monks for
+the privilege of viewing the garden in peace. He came up to her and
+asked in a mild tone if the garden pleased her.
+
+Robber Mother turned defiantly toward Abbot Hans, for she expected only
+to be trapped and overpowered. But when she noticed his white hair and
+bent form, she answered peaceably, "First, when I saw this, I thought I
+had never seen a prettier garden; but now I see that it can't be
+compared with one I know of."
+
+Abbot Hans had certainly expected a different answer. When he heard that
+Robber Mother had seen a garden more beautiful than his, a faint flush
+spread over his withered cheek. The lay brother, who was standing close
+by, immediately began to censure the old woman. "This is Abbot Hans,"
+said he, "who with much care and diligence has gathered the flowers
+from far and near for his herb garden. We all know that there is not a
+more beautiful garden to be found in all Skåne, and it is not befitting
+that you, who live in the wild forest all the year around, should find
+fault with his work."
+
+"I don't wish to make myself the judge of either him or you," said
+Robber Mother. "I'm only saying that if you could see the garden of
+which I am thinking you would uproot all the flowers planted here and
+cast them away like weeds."
+
+But the Abbot's assistant was hardly less proud of the flowers than the
+Abbot himself, and after hearing her remarks he laughed derisively. "I
+can understand that you only talk like this to tease us. It must be a
+pretty garden that you have made for yourself amongst the pines in
+Göinge forest! I'd be willing to wager my soul's salvation that you have
+never before been within the walls of an herb garden."
+
+Robber Mother grew crimson with rage to think that her word was doubted,
+and she cried out: "It may be true that until to-day I had never been
+within the walls of an herb garden; but you monks, who are holy men,
+certainly must know that on every Christmas Eve the great Göinge forest
+is transformed into a beautiful garden, to commemorate the hour of our
+Lord's birth. We who live in the forest have seen this happen every
+year. And in that garden I have seen flowers so lovely that I dared not
+lift my hand to pluck them."
+
+The lay brother wanted to continue the argument, but Abbot Hans gave him
+a sign to be silent. For, ever since his childhood, Abbot Hans had heard
+it said that on every Christmas Eve the forest was dressed in holiday
+glory. He had often longed to see it, but he had never had the good
+fortune. Eagerly he begged and implored Robber Mother that he might come
+up to the Robbers' Cave on Christmas Eve. If she would only send one of
+her children to show him the way, he could ride up there alone, and he
+would never betray them--on the contrary, he would reward them, in so
+far as it lay in his power.
+
+Robber Mother said no at first, for she was thinking of Robber Father
+and of the peril which might befall him should she permit Abbot Hans to
+ride up to their cave. At the same time the desire to prove to the monk
+that the garden which she knew was more beautiful than his got the
+better of her, and she gave in.
+
+"But more than one follower you cannot take with you," said she, "and
+you are not to waylay us or trap us, as sure as you are a holy man."
+
+This Abbot Hans promised, and then Robber Mother went her way. Abbot
+Hans commanded the lay brother not to reveal to a soul that which had
+been agreed upon. He feared that the monks, should they learn of his
+purpose, would not allow a man of his years to go up to the Robbers'
+Cave.
+
+Nor did he himself intend to reveal his project to a human being. And
+then it happened that Archbishop Absalon from Lund came to Övid and
+remained through the night. When Abbot Hans was showing him the herb
+garden, he got to thinking of Robber Mother's visit, and the lay
+brother, who was at work in the garden, heard Abbot Hans telling the
+Bishop about Robber Father, who these many years had lived as an outlaw
+in the forest, and asking him for a letter of ransom for the man, that
+he might lead an honest life among respectable folk. "As things are
+now," said Abbot Hans, "his children are growing up into worse
+malefactors than himself, and you will soon have a whole gang of robbers
+to deal with up there in the forest."
+
+But the Archbishop replied that he did not care to let the robber loose
+among honest folk in the villages. It would be best for all that he
+remain in the forest.
+
+Then Abbot Hans grew zealous and told the Bishop all about Göinge
+forest, which, every year at Yuletide, clothed itself in summer bloom
+around the Robbers' Cave. "If these bandits are not so bad but that
+God's glories can be made manifest to them, surely we cannot be too
+wicked to experience the same blessing."
+
+The Archbishop knew how to answer Abbot Hans. "This much I will promise
+you, Abbot Hans," he said, smiling, "that any day you send me a blossom
+from the garden in Göinge forest, I will give you letters of ransom for
+all the outlaws you may choose to plead for."
+
+The lay brother apprehended that Bishop Absalon believed as little in
+this story of Robber Mother's as he himself; but Abbot Hans perceived
+nothing of the sort, but thanked Absalon for his good promise and said
+that he would surely send him the flower.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Abbot Hans had his way. And the following Christmas Eve he did not sit
+at home with his monks in Övid Cloister, but was on his way to Göinge
+forest. One of Robber Mother's wild youngsters ran ahead of him, and
+close behind him was the lay brother who had talked with Robber Mother
+in the herb garden.
+
+Abbot Hans had been longing to make this journey, and he was very happy
+now that it had come to pass. But it was a different matter with the
+lay brother who accompanied him. Abbot Hans was very dear to him, and he
+would not willingly have allowed another to attend him and watch over
+him; but he didn't believe that he should see any Christmas Eve garden.
+He thought the whole thing a snare which Robber Mother had, with great
+cunning, laid for Abbot Hans, that he might fall into her husband's
+clutches.
+
+While Abbot Hans was riding toward the forest, he saw that everywhere
+they were preparing to celebrate Christmas. In every peasant settlement
+fires were lighted in the bath-house to warm it for the afternoon
+bathing. Great hunks of meat and bread were being carried from the
+larders into the cabins, and from the barns came the men with big
+sheaves of straw to be strewn over the floors.
+
+As he rode by the little country churches, he observed that each parson,
+with his sexton, was busily engaged in decorating his church; and when
+he came to the road which leads to Bösjo Cloister, he observed that all
+the poor of the parish were coming with armfuls of bread and long
+candles, which they had received at the cloister gate.
+
+When Abbot Hans saw all these Christmas preparations, his haste
+increased. He was thinking of the festivities that awaited him, which
+were greater than any the others would be privileged to enjoy.
+
+But the lay brother whined and fretted when he saw how they were
+preparing to celebrate Christmas in every humble cottage. He grew more
+and more anxious, and begged and implored Abbot Hans to turn back and
+not to throw himself deliberately into the robber's hands.
+
+Abbot Hans went straight ahead, paying no heed to his lamentations. He
+left the plain behind him and came up into desolate and wild forest
+regions. Here the road was bad, almost like a stony and burr-strewn
+path, with neither bridge nor plank to help them over brooklet and
+rivulet. The farther they rode, the colder it grew, and after a while
+they came upon snow-covered ground.
+
+It turned out to be a long and hazardous ride through the forest. They
+climbed steep and slippery side paths, crawled over swamp and marsh, and
+pushed through windfall and bramble. Just as daylight was waning, the
+robber boy guided them across a forest meadow, skirted by tall, naked
+leaf trees and green fir trees. Back of the meadow loomed a mountain
+wall, and in this wall they saw a door of thick boards. Now Abbot Hans
+understood that they had arrived, and dismounted. The child opened the
+heavy door for him, and he looked into a poor mountain grotto, with bare
+stone walls. Robber Mother was seated before a log fire that burned in
+the middle of the floor. Alongside the walls were beds of virgin pine
+and moss, and on one of these beds lay Robber Father asleep.
+
+"Come in, you out there!" shouted Robber Mother without rising, "and
+fetch the horses in with you, so they won't be destroyed by the night
+cold."
+
+Abbot Hans walked boldly into the cave, and the lay brother followed.
+Here were wretchedness and poverty! and nothing was done to celebrate
+Christmas. Robber Mother had neither brewed nor baked; she had neither
+washed nor scoured. The youngsters were lying on the floor around a
+kettle, eating; but no better food was provided for them than a watery
+gruel.
+
+Robber Mother spoke in a tone as haughty and dictatorial as any
+well-to-do peasant woman. "Sit down by the fire and warm yourself, Abbot
+Hans," said she; "and if you have food with you, eat, for the food which
+we in the forest prepare you wouldn't care to taste. And if you are
+tired after the long journey, you can lie down on one of these beds to
+sleep. You needn't be afraid of oversleeping, for I'm sitting here by
+the fire keeping watch. I shall awaken you in time to see that which you
+have come up here to see."
+
+Abbot Hans obeyed Robber Mother and brought forth his food sack; but he
+was so fatigued after the journey he was hardly able to eat, and as soon
+as he could stretch himself on the bed, he fell asleep.
+
+The lay brother was also assigned a bed to rest upon, but he didn't dare
+sleep, as he thought he had better keep his eye on Robber Father to
+prevent his getting up and capturing Abbot Hans. But gradually fatigue
+got the better of him, too, and he dropped into a doze.
+
+When he woke up, he saw that Abbot Hans had left his bed and was sitting
+by the fire talking with Robber Mother. The outlawed robber sat also by
+the fire. He was a tall, raw-boned man with a dull, sluggish appearance.
+His back was turned to Abbot Hans, as though he would have it appear
+that he was not listening to the conversation.
+
+Abbot Hans was telling Robber Mother all about the Christmas
+preparations he had seen on the journey, reminding her of Christmas
+feasts and games which she must have known in her youth, when she lived
+at peace with mankind. "I'm sorry for your children, who can never run
+on the village street in holiday dress or tumble in the Christmas
+straw," said he.
+
+At first Robber Mother answered in short, gruff sentences, but by
+degrees she became more subdued and listened more intently. Suddenly
+Robber Father turned toward Abbot Hans and shook his clenched fist in
+his face. "You miserable monk! did you come here to coax from me my wife
+and children? Don't you know that I am an outlaw and may not leave the
+forest?"
+
+Abbot Hans looked him fearlessly in the eyes. "It is my purpose to get a
+letter of ransom for you from Archbishop Absalon," said he. He had
+hardly finished speaking when the robber and his wife burst out
+laughing. They knew well enough the kind of mercy a forest robber could
+expect from Bishop Absalon!
+
+"Oh, if I get a letter of ransom from Absalon," said Robber Father,
+"then I'll promise you that never again will I steal so much as a
+goose."
+
+The lay brother was annoyed with the robber folk for daring to laugh at
+Abbot Hans, but on his own account he was well pleased. He had seldom
+seen the Abbot sitting more peaceful and meek with his monks at Övid
+than he now sat with this wild robber folk.
+
+Suddenly Robber Mother rose. "You sit here and talk, Abbot Hans," she
+said, "so that we are forgetting to look at the forest. Now I can hear,
+even in this cave, how the Christmas bells are ringing."
+
+The words were barely uttered when they all sprang up and rushed out.
+But in the forest it was still dark night and bleak winter. The only
+thing they marked was a distant clang borne on a light south wind.
+
+"How can this bell ringing ever awaken the dead forest?" thought Abbot
+Hans. For now, as he stood out in the winter darkness, he thought it far
+more impossible that a summer garden could spring up here than it had
+seemed to him before.
+
+When the bells had been ringing a few moments, a sudden illumination
+penetrated the forest; the next moment it was dark again, and then the
+light came back. It pushed its way forward between the stark trees, like
+a shimmering mist. This much it effected: The darkness merged into a
+faint daybreak. Then Abbot Hans saw that the snow had vanished from the
+ground, as if some one had removed a carpet, and the earth began to take
+on a green covering. Then the ferns shot up their fronds, rolled like a
+bishop's staff. The heather that grew on the stony hills and the
+bog-myrtle rooted in the ground moss dressed themselves quickly in new
+bloom. The moss-tufts thickened and raised themselves, and the spring
+blossoms shot upward their swelling buds, which already had a touch of
+color.
+
+Abbot Hans' heart beat fast as he marked the first signs of the forest's
+awakening. "Old man that I am, shall I behold such a miracle?" thought
+he, and the tears wanted to spring to his eyes. Again it grew so hazy
+that he feared the darkness would once more cover the earth; but almost
+immediately there came a new wave of light. It brought with it the
+splash of rivulet and the rush of cataract. Then the leaves of the trees
+burst into bloom, as if a swarm of green butterflies came flying and
+clustered on the branches. It was not only trees and plants that awoke,
+but crossbeaks hopped from branch to branch, and the woodpeckers
+hammered on the limbs until the splinters fairly flew around them. A
+flock of starlings from up country lighted in a fir top to rest. They
+were paradise starlings. The tips of each tiny feather shone in
+brilliant reds, and, as the birds moved, they glittered like so many
+jewels.
+
+Again, all was dark for an instant, but soon there came a new light
+wave. A fresh, warm south wind blew and scattered over the forest
+meadow all the little seeds that had been brought here from southern
+lands by birds and ships and winds, and which could not thrive elsewhere
+because of this country's cruel cold. These took root and sprang up the
+instant they touched the ground.
+
+When the next warm wind came along, the blueberries and lignon ripened.
+Cranes and wild geese shrieked in the air, the bullfinches built nests,
+and the baby squirrels began playing on the branches of the trees.
+
+Everything came so fast now that Abbot Hans could not stop to reflect on
+how immeasurably great was the miracle that was taking place. He had
+time only to use his eyes and ears. The next light wave that came
+rushing in brought with it the scent of newly ploughed acres, and far
+off in the distance the milkmaids were heard coaxing the cows--and the
+tinkle of the sheep's bells. Pine and spruce trees were so thickly
+clothed with red cones that they shone like crimson mantles. The juniper
+berries changed color every second, and forest flowers covered the
+ground till it was all red, blue, and yellow.
+
+Abbot Hans bent down to the earth and broke off a wild strawberry
+blossom, and, as he straightened up, the berry ripened in his hand.
+
+The mother fox came out of her lair with a big litter of black-legged
+young. She went up to Robber Mother and scratched at her skirt, and
+Robber Mother bent down to her and praised her young. The horned owl,
+who had just begun his night chase, was astonished at the light and went
+back to his ravine to perch for the night. The male cuckoo crowed, and
+his mate stole up to the nests of the little birds with her egg in her
+mouth.
+
+Robber Mother's youngsters let out perfect shrieks of delight. They
+stuffed themselves with wild strawberries that hung on the bushes, large
+as pine cones. One of them played with a litter of young hares; another
+ran a race with some young crows, which had hopped from their nest
+before they were really ready; a third caught up an adder from the
+ground and wound it around his neck and arm.
+
+Robber Father was standing out on a marsh eating raspberries. When he
+glanced up, a big black bear stood beside him. Robber Father broke off
+an osier twig and struck the bear on the nose. "Keep to your own ground,
+you!" he said; "this is my turf." Then the huge bear turned around and
+lumbered off in another direction.
+
+New waves of warmth and light kept coming, and now they brought with
+them seeds from the star-flower. Golden pollen from rye fields fairly
+flew in the air. Then came butterflies, so big that they looked like
+flying lilies. The bee-hive in a hollow oak was already so full of honey
+that it dripped down on the trunk of the tree. Then all the flowers
+whose seeds had been brought from foreign lands began to blossom. The
+loveliest roses climbed up the mountain wall in a race with the
+blackberry vines, and from the forest meadow sprang flowers as large as
+human faces.
+
+Abbot Hans thought of the flower he was to pluck for Bishop Absalon; but
+each new flower that appeared was more beautiful than the others, and he
+wanted to choose the most beautiful of all.
+
+Wave upon wave kept coming until the air was so filled with light that
+it glittered. All the life and beauty and joy of summer smiled on Abbot
+Hans. He felt that earth could bring no greater happiness than that
+which welled up about him, and he said to himself, "I do not know what
+new beauties the next wave that comes can bring with it."
+
+But the light kept streaming in, and now it seemed to Abbot Hans that it
+carried with it something from an infinite distance. He felt a celestial
+atmosphere enfolding him, and tremblingly he began to anticipate, now
+that earth's joys had come, the glories of heaven were approaching.
+
+Then Abbot Hans marked how all grew still; the birds hushed their songs,
+the flowers ceased growing, and the young foxes played no more. The
+glory now nearing was such that the heart wanted to stop beating; the
+eyes wept without one's knowing it; the soul longed to soar away into
+the Eternal. From far in the distance faint harp tones were heard, and
+celestial song, like a soft murmur, reached him.
+
+Abbot Hans clasped his hands and dropped to his knees. His face was
+radiant with bliss. Never had he dreamed that even in this life it
+should be granted him to taste the joys of heaven, and to hear angels
+sing Christmas carols!
+
+But beside Abbot Hans stood the lay brother who had accompanied him. In
+his mind there were dark thoughts. "This cannot be a true miracle," he
+thought, "since it is revealed to malefactors. This does not come from
+God, but has its origin in witchcraft and is sent hither by Satan. It is
+the Evil One's power that is tempting us and compelling us to see that
+which has no real existence."
+
+From afar were heard the sound of angel harps and the tones of a
+Miserere. But the lay brother thought it was the evil spirits of hell
+coming closer. "They would enchant and seduce us," sighed he, "and we
+shall be sold into perdition."
+
+The angel throng was so near now that Abbot Hans saw their bright forms
+through the forest branches. The lay brother saw them, too; but back of
+all this wondrous beauty he saw only some dread evil. For him it was the
+devil who performed these wonders on the anniversary of our Saviour's
+birth. It was done simply for the purpose of more effectually deluding
+poor human beings.
+
+All the while the birds had been circling around the head of Abbot Hans,
+and they let him take them in his hands. But all the animals were afraid
+of the lay brother; no bird perched on his shoulder, no snake played at
+his feet. Then there came a little forest dove. When she marked that the
+angels were nearing, she plucked up courage and flew down on the lay
+brother's shoulder and laid her head against his cheek.
+
+Then it appeared to him as if sorcery were come right upon him, to tempt
+and corrupt him. He struck with his hand at the forest dove and cried in
+such a loud voice that it rang throughout the forest, "Go thou back to
+hell, whence thou art come!"
+
+Just then the angels were so near that Abbot Hans felt the feathery
+touch of their great wings, and he bowed down to earth in reverent
+greeting.
+
+But when the lay brother's words sounded, their song was hushed and the
+holy guests turned in flight. At the same time the light and the mild
+warmth vanished in unspeakable terror for the darkness and cold in a
+human heart. Darkness sank over the earth, like a coverlet; frost came,
+all the growths shrivelled up; the animals and birds hastened away; the
+rushing of streams was hushed; the leaves dropped from the trees,
+rustling like rain.
+
+Abbot Hans felt how his heart, which had but lately swelled with bliss,
+was now contracting with insufferable agony. "I can never outlive this,"
+thought he, "that the angels from heaven had been so close to me and
+were driven away; that they wanted to sing Christmas carols for me and
+were driven to flight."
+
+Then he remembered the flower he had promised Bishop Absalon, and at the
+last moment he fumbled among the leaves and moss to try and find a
+blossom. But he sensed how the ground under his fingers froze and how
+the white snow came gliding over the ground. Then his heart caused him
+even greater anguish. He could not rise, but fell prostrate on the
+ground and lay there.
+
+When the robber folk and the lay brother had groped their way back to
+the cave, they missed Abbot Hans. They took brands with them and went
+out to search for him. They found him dead upon the coverlet of snow.
+
+Then the lay brother began weeping and lamenting, for he understood that
+it was he who had killed Abbot Hans because he had dashed from him the
+cup of happiness which he had been thirsting to drain to its last drop.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Abbot Hans had been carried down to Övid, those who took charge of
+the dead saw that he held his right hand locked tight around something
+which he must have grasped at the moment of death. When they finally got
+his hand open, they found that the thing which he had held in such an
+iron grip was a pair of white root bulbs, which he had torn from among
+the moss and leaves.
+
+When the lay brother who had accompanied Abbot Hans saw the bulbs, he
+took them and planted them in Abbot Hans' herb garden.
+
+He guarded them the whole year to see if any flower would spring from
+them. But in vain he waited through the spring, the summer, and the
+autumn. Finally, when winter had set in and all the leaves and the
+flowers were dead, he ceased caring for them.
+
+But when Christmas Eve came again, he was so strongly reminded of Abbot
+Hans that he wandered out into the garden to think of him. And look! as
+he came to the spot where he had planted the bare root bulbs, he saw
+that from them had sprung flourishing green stalks, which bore beautiful
+flowers with silver white leaves.
+
+He called out all the monks at Övid, and when they saw that this plant
+bloomed on Christmas Eve, when all the other growths were as if dead,
+they understood that this flower had in truth been plucked by Abbot Hans
+from the Christmas garden in Göinge forest. Then the lay brother asked
+the monks if he might take a few blossoms to Bishop Absalon.
+
+And when he appeared before Bishop Absalon, he gave him the flowers and
+said: "Abbot Hans sends you these. They are the flowers he promised to
+pick for you from the garden in Göinge forest."
+
+When Bishop Absalon beheld the flowers, which had sprung from the earth
+in darkest winter, and heard the words, he turned as pale as if he had
+met a ghost. He sat in silence a moment; thereupon he said, "Abbot Hans
+has faithfully kept his word and I shall also keep mine." And he ordered
+that a letter of ransom be drawn up for the wild robber who was outlawed
+and had been forced to live in the forest ever since his youth.
+
+He handed the letter to the lay brother, who departed at once for the
+Robbers' Cave. When he stepped in there on Christmas Day, the robber
+came toward him with axe uplifted. "I'd like to hack you monks into
+bits, as many as you are!" said he. "It must be your fault that Göinge
+forest did not last night dress itself in Christmas bloom."
+
+"The fault is mine alone," said the lay brother, "and I will gladly die
+for it; but first I must deliver a message from Abbot Hans." And he drew
+forth the Bishop's letter and told the man that he was free. "Hereafter
+you and your children shall play in the Christmas straw and celebrate
+your Christmas among people, just as Abbot Hans wished to have it," said
+he.
+
+Then Robber Father stood there pale and speechless, but Robber Mother
+said in his name, "Abbot Hans has indeed kept his word, and Robber
+Father will keep his."
+
+When the robber and his wife left the cave, the lay brother moved in and
+lived all alone in the forest, in constant meditation and prayer that
+his hard-heartedness might be forgiven him.
+
+But Göinge forest never again celebrated the hour of our Saviour's
+birth; and of all its glory, there lives to-day only the plant which
+Abbot Hans had plucked. It has been named CHRISTMAS ROSE. And each year
+at Christmastide she sends forth from the earth her green stalks and
+white blossoms, as if she never could forget that she had once grown in
+the great Christmas garden at Göinge forest.
+
+
+
+
+A Story from Jerusalem
+
+
+In the old and time-honored mosque, El Aksa, in Jerusalem, there is a
+long, winding path leading from the main entrance up to a very deep and
+wide window-niche. In this niche a very old and much worn rug is spread;
+and upon this rug, day in and day out, sits old Mesullam, who is a
+fortune-teller and dream-interpreter, and who for a paltry penny serves
+the visitors to the mosque by prying into their future destinies.
+
+It happened one afternoon, several years ago, that Mesullam, who sat as
+usual in his window, was so ill-natured that he wouldn't even return the
+greetings of the passers-by. No one thought, however, of feeling
+offended at his rudeness, because every one knew that he was grieving
+over a humiliation which had been put upon him that day.
+
+At that time a mighty monarch from the Occident was visiting Jerusalem,
+and in the forenoon the distinguished stranger with his retinue had
+wandered through El Aksa. Before his arrival the superintendent of the
+mosque had commanded the servants to scour and dust all the nooks and
+corners of the old building, at the same time giving orders that
+Mesullam should move out of his accustomed place. He had found that it
+would be simply impossible to let him remain there during the visit of
+the distinguished guest. It was not only that his rug was very ragged,
+or that he had piled up around him a lot of dirty sacks in which he kept
+his belongings, but Mesullam himself was anything but an ornament to the
+mosque! He was, in reality, an inconceivably ugly old negro. His lips
+were enormous, his chin protruded aggressively, his brow was exceedingly
+low, and his nose was almost like a snout; and in addition to these,
+Mesullam had a coarse and wrinkled skin and a clumsy, thick-set body,
+which was carelessly draped in a dirty white shawl. So one can't wonder
+that he was forbidden to show himself in the mosque while the honored
+guest was there!
+
+Poor Mesullam, who knew well enough that, despite his ugliness, he was a
+very wise man, experienced a bitter disappointment in that _he_ was not
+to see the royal traveller. He had hoped that he might give him some
+proofs of the great accomplishments which he possessed in occult things
+and in this way add to his own glory and renown. Since this hope had
+miscarried, he sat hour after hour in a queer position, and mourned,
+with his long arms stretched upward and his head thrown far back, as
+though he were calling upon heaven for justice.
+
+When it drew on toward evening, Mesullam was wakened from his state of
+all-absorbing grief by a cheery voice calling him. It was a Syrian who,
+accompanied by another traveller, had come up to the soothsayer. He told
+him that the stranger whom he was conducting wished for a proof of
+Oriental wisdom, and that he had spoken to him of Mesullam's ability to
+interpret dreams.
+
+Mesullam answered not a word to this, but maintained his former attitude
+rigidly. When the guide asked him again if he would not listen to the
+dreams the stranger wished to relate to him and interpret them, his arms
+dropped and he crossed them on his breast. Assuming the attitude of a
+wronged man, he answered that this evening his soul was so filled with
+his own troubles that he couldn't judge anything clearly which concerned
+another.
+
+But the stranger, who had a buoyant and commanding personality, didn't
+seem to mind his objections. As there was no chair handy, he kicked
+aside the rug and seated himself in the window-niche. Then he began, in
+a clear and vibrant voice, to narrate a few dreams, which later were
+translated for the soothsayer by the guide.
+
+"Tell him," said the traveller, "that a few years ago I was at Cairo, in
+Egypt. Since he is a learned man, naturally he knows there is a mosque
+there, called El Azhar, which is the most celebrated institution of
+learning in the Orient. I went there one day to visit it, and found that
+the whole colossal structure--all its rooms and arcades, all its
+entrances and halls were filled with students. There were old men who
+had devoted their entire lives to the quest for knowledge, and children
+who were just learning to form their letters. There were giantesque
+negroes from the heart of Africa; lithe, handsome youths from India and
+Arabia; far-travelled strangers from Barbary, from Georgia, from every
+land where the natives embrace the doctrines of the Koran. Close to the
+pillars--I was told that in El Azhar there were as many teachers as
+there were pillars--the instructors were squatted on their rugs, while
+their students, who were arranged in a circle around them, eagerly
+followed their lectures, which were accompanied by swaying movements of
+their bodies. And tell him that, although El Azhar is in no way
+comparable to the great Occidental seats of learning, I was nevertheless
+astonished at what I saw there. I remarked to myself: 'Ah, this is
+Islam's great stronghold and defence! From here Mohammed's young
+champions go out. Here, at El Azhar, the potions of wisdom that keep the
+Koran's doctrines healthy and vigorous are blended.'"
+
+All of this the traveller said almost in one breath. Now he made a
+pause, so that the guide would have an opportunity to interpret for the
+soothsayer. Then he continued:
+
+"Now tell him that El Azhar made such a powerful impression upon me that
+on the following night I saw it again in a dream. I saw the white marble
+structure and the many students dressed in white mantles and white
+turbans--as is the custom at El Azhar. I wandered through halls and
+courts and was again astonished at what a splendid fortress and wall of
+protection this was for Mohammedanism. Finally--in the dream--I came to
+the minaret upon which the prayer-crier stands to inform the faithful
+that the hour of prayer has struck. And I saw the stairway which winds
+up to the minaret, and I saw a prayer-crier walking up the steps. He
+wore a black mantle and a white turban, like the others, and as he went
+up the stairs I could not at first see his face, but when he had made a
+few turns on the spiral stairway, he happened to turn his face toward
+me, and then I saw that it was _Christ_."
+
+The speaker made a short pause, and his chest was expanded for a deep
+inhalation. "I shall never forget, although it was only a dream," he
+exclaimed, "what an impression it made upon me to see Christ walking up
+the steps to the minaret in El Azhar! To me it seemed so glorious and
+significant that he had come to this stronghold of Islam to call out the
+hours of prayer that I leaped up in the dream and awaked."
+
+Here the traveller made another pause to let the guide interpret for the
+soothsayer. But this appeared to be well-nigh useless labor. Mesullam
+sat all the while, with his hands on his sides, rocking back and forth,
+and with his eyes half closed. He seemed to want to say: "Inasmuch as I
+cannot escape these importunate people, at least I will let them see
+that I don't care to listen to what they have to say. I'll try and rock
+myself to sleep. It will be the best way to show them how little I care
+about them."
+
+The guide intimated to the traveller that all their trouble would be in
+vain and they wouldn't hear a sensible word from Mesullam while he was
+in this mood. But the European stranger seemed to be entranced by
+Mesullam's indescribable ugliness and extraordinary behavior. He looked
+at him with the pleasure of a child when it is watching a wild animal in
+a menagerie, and he desired to continue the interview.
+
+"Tell him that I wouldn't have troubled him to interpret this dream," he
+said, "had it not, in a certain sense, come to me again. Let him know
+that two weeks ago I visited the Sophia Mosque at Constantinople, and
+that I, after wandering through this magnificent building, stepped up on
+a minaret in order to get a better view of the auditorium. Tell him,
+also, that they allowed me to come into the mosque during a service,
+when it was filled with people. Upon each of the innumerable prayer rugs
+which covered the whole floor of the main hall, a man was standing and
+saying his prayers. All who took part in the service simultaneously made
+the same movements. All fell upon their knees and threw themselves on
+their faces and raised themselves, at the same time whispering their
+prayers very low; but from the almost imperceptible movements of so many
+lips came a mysterious murmur, which rose toward the high arches and
+died away, time and again. Then there came melodious responses from
+remote passages and galleries. It was so strange altogether that one
+wondered if it was not the Spirit of God that poured into the old
+sanctuary."
+
+The traveller made another pause. He observed Mesullam carefully, while
+the guide interpreted his speech. It actually appeared as if he had
+tried to win the negro's approbation with his eloquence. And it seemed,
+too, as though he would succeed, for Mesullam's half-closed eyes flashed
+once, like a coal that is beginning to take fire. But the soothsayer,
+stubborn as a child that will not let itself be amused, dropped his head
+on his breast and began an even more impatient rocking of his body.
+
+"Tell him," resumed the stranger, "tell him that I have never seen
+people pray with such fervor! To me it seemed as if it was the sublime
+beauty of this marvellous structure which created this atmosphere of
+ecstasy. Verily this is still an Islam bulwark! This is the home of
+devoutness! From this great mosque emanate the faith and enthusiasm
+which make Islam a mighty power."
+
+Here he paused again, noting carefully Mesullam's play of features
+during its interpretation. Not a trace of interest was discernible in
+them. But the stranger was evidently a man who liked to hear himself
+talk. His own words intoxicated him; he would have become ill-natured
+had he not been allowed to proceed.
+
+"Well," said he, when it was his turn again to speak, "I cannot rightly
+explain what happened to me. Possibly the faint odor from the hundreds
+of oil lamps, together with the low murmurings of the devotees, lulled
+me into a kind of stupefaction. I could not help but close my eyes as I
+stood leaning against a pillar. Soon sleep, or rather insensibility,
+overcame me. Probably it did not last more than a minute, but during
+this interval I was entirely removed from reality. While in this trance
+I could see the whole Sophia Mosque before me, with all the praying
+people; but now I saw what I had not hitherto observed. Up in the dome
+were scaffoldings, and on these stood a number of workmen with paint
+pots and brushes.
+
+"Tell him, if he does not already know it," continued the narrator,
+"that Sophia Mosque was once a Christian church, and that its arches and
+dome are covered with sacred Christian mosaics, although the Turks have
+painted out all these pictures with plain yellow paint. And it appeared
+to me as if the yellow paint in the dome had peeled off in a couple of
+places and that the painters had clambered up on the scaffolding to
+touch up the picture. But, look! when one of them raised his brush to
+fill in the color, another large piece scaled off, and suddenly one saw
+from behind it a beautiful painting of the _Christ_ emerge. Again the
+painter raised his arm to paint out the picture, but the arm, which
+appeared to be numb and powerless, dropped down before this beautiful
+face; at the same time the paint dropped from the entire dome and arch,
+and Christ was visible there in all his glory, among angels and heavenly
+hosts. Then the painter cried out, and all the worshippers down on the
+floor of the mosque raised their heads. And when they saw the heavenly
+hosts surrounding the Saviour, they sent up a cry of joy, and when I
+witnessed this joy, I was seized with such strong emotion that I waked
+instantly. Then everything was like itself. The mosaics were hidden
+under the yellow paint and the devotees continued all the while to
+invoke Allah."
+
+When the interpreter had translated this, Mesullam opened one eye and
+regarded the stranger. He saw a man who he thought resembled all other
+Occidentals that wandered through the mosque. "I don't believe the
+pale-faced stranger has seen any visions," thought he. "He has not the
+dark eyes that can see what is behind the veil of mystery. I think,
+rather, that he came here to make sport of me. I must beware lest on
+this accursed day I be overtaken by another humiliation."
+
+The stranger spoke anon: "You know, O Dream Interpreter!" turning now
+direct to Mesullam, as if he thought that he could understand him,
+despite his foreign tongue--"you know that a distinguished foreigner is
+visiting Jerusalem at present, and on his account they have talked of
+opening the walled-up gate in Jerusalem's ring-wall--the one they call
+'the Golden' and which is believed to be the gate through which Jesus
+rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. They have actually been thinking of
+doing the distinguished traveller the honor of letting him ride into the
+city through a gate which has been walled up for centuries; but they
+were held back by an old prophecy which foretells that when this gate is
+opened the Occidentals will march in through it to take possession of
+Jerusalem.
+
+"And now you shall hear what happened to me last night. The weather was
+superb; it was glorious moonlight, and I had gone out alone to take a
+quiet promenade around the Holy City. I walked outside the ring-wall on
+the narrow path that extends all round the wall, and my thoughts were
+borne so far back into distant ages that I scarcely remembered where I
+was. All of a sudden I began to feel tired. I wondered if I should not
+soon come to a gate in the wall, through which I might get into the city
+and thus return to my quarters by a shorter road. Well, just as I was
+thinking of this, I saw a man open a large gate in the wall directly in
+front of me. He opened it wide and beckoned to me that I might pass in
+through it. I was absorbed in my dreams and hardly knew how far I had
+been walking. I was somewhat surprised that there was a gate here, but I
+thought no more about the matter and walked through it. As soon as I had
+passed through the deep archway, the gate closed with a sharp clang.
+When I turned round, there was no opening visible, only a walled-up
+gate--the one called the Golden. Before me lay the temple place, the
+broad Haram plateau, in the centre of which Omar's Mosque is enthroned.
+And you know that no gate in the ring-wall leads thither but the Golden,
+which is not only closed but walled up.
+
+"You can understand that I thought I'd gone mad; that I dreamed I had
+tried in vain to find some explanation of this. I looked around for the
+man who had let me in. He had vanished and I could not find him. But, on
+the other hand, I saw him all the plainer in memory--the tall and
+slightly bent figure, the beautiful locks, the mild visage, the parted
+beard. It was _Christ_, soothsayer, _Christ_ once again.
+
+"Tell me now, you who can look into the hidden, what mean my dreams?
+What, more than all, can be the meaning of my having really and truly
+passed through the Golden Gate? Even at this moment I do not know how it
+happened, but I have done so. Tell me, now, what these three things can
+mean!"
+
+The interpreter translated this for Mesullam, but the soothsayer was all
+the while in the same suspicious and crabbed mood. "I am certain that
+this stranger wants to poke fun at me," he thought. "Perchance he would
+provoke me to anger with all this talk about Christ?"
+
+He would have concluded not to answer at all; but when the interpreter
+insisted, he muttered a few words.
+
+"What does he say?" asked the traveller eagerly.
+
+"He says he has nothing to say to you but that dreams are dreams."
+
+"Then tell him from me," retorted the stranger, somewhat exasperated,
+"that this is not always true. It depends entirely upon who dreams
+them."
+
+Before these words had been interpreted to Mesullam, the European had
+arisen and with quick and elastic step had walked toward the long
+passage-way.
+
+But Mesullam sat still and mused over his answer for five minutes. Then
+he fell upon his face, utterly undone. "Allah, Allah! Twice on the same
+day Fortune has passed by me without my having captured her. What hath
+thy servant done to displease thee?"
+
+
+
+
+Why the Pope Lived to be so Old
+
+
+It happened at Rome in the early nineties. Leo XIII was just then at the
+height of his fame and greatness. All true Catholics rejoiced at his
+successes and triumphs, which in truth were sublime. And, even for those
+who could not grasp the great political events, it was plain that the
+power of the Church was again coming to the front. Any one at all could
+see that new cloisters were going up everywhere and that throngs of
+pilgrims were beginning to pour into Italy, as in olden times. In many,
+many places one saw the old, dilapidated churches in process of
+restoration, damaged mosaics being put in order, and the treasure-vaults
+of the churches being filled with golden relic-boxes and jewelled
+exhibits.
+
+Right in the midst of this progressive period the Roman people were
+alarmed by the news that the Pope had been taken ill. He was said to be
+in a very precarious condition; it was even rumored that he was dying.
+
+His condition was, too, in a great degree serious. The Pope's physicians
+issued bulletins which inspired but little hope. It was maintained that
+the Pope's great age--he was then eighty years old--made it seem almost
+incredible that he could survive this attack.
+
+Naturally, the Pope's illness caused great unrest. In all the churches
+in Rome prayers were said for his recovery. The newspapers were filled
+with communications regarding the progress of the illness. The Cardinals
+were beginning to take steps and measures for the new Papal election.
+
+Everywhere they bemoaned the approaching demise of the brilliant leader.
+They feared that the good fortune which had followed the Church's
+standard under Leo XIII might not be faithful to it under the leadership
+of his successor. There were many who had hoped that this Pope would
+succeed in winning back Rome and the Ecclesiastical States. Others,
+again, had dreamed that he would bring back into the bosom of the Church
+some of the large Protestant countries.
+
+For each second that was passing, fear and anxiety grew apace. As night
+came on, in many homes the inmates would not retire. The churches were
+kept open until long past midnight, that the anxious ones might have an
+opportunity to go in and pray.
+
+Among these throngs of devotees there was certainly more than one poor
+soul who cried out: "Dear Lord, take my life instead of his! Let him,
+who has done so much for Thy glory, live, and extinguish instead my
+life-flame, which burns to no one's use!"
+
+But if the Angel of Death had taken one of these devotees at his word
+and had suddenly stepped up to him, with sword raised, to exact the
+fulfilment of his promise, one might wonder somewhat as to how he would
+have behaved. No doubt he would have recalled instantly such a rash
+proffer and begged for the grace of being allowed to live out all the
+years of his allotted time.
+
+At this time there lived an old woman in one of the dingy ramshackle
+houses along the Tiber. She was one of those who have the kind of spirit
+that thanks God every day for life. Every morning she used to sit at the
+market-place and sell garden truck. And this was an occupation that was
+very congenial to her. She thought nothing could be livelier than a
+market of a morning. All tongues were wagging--all were harking their
+commodities, and buyers crowded in front of the stalls, selected and
+bargained, and many a good sally passed between buyer and seller.
+Sometimes the old woman was successful in making a good deal and in
+selling out her entire stock; but even if she couldn't sell so much as a
+radish, she loved to be standing amongst flowers and green things in the
+fresh morning air.
+
+In the evening she had another and an even greater pleasure. Then her
+son came home and visited with her. He was a priest, but he had been
+assigned to a little church in one of the humble quarters. The poor
+priests who served there had not much to live upon, and the mother
+feared that her son was starving. But from this, also, she derived much
+pleasure, for it gave her the opportunity of stuffing him full of
+delicacies when he came to see her. He struggled against it, as he was
+destined for a life of self-denial and strict discipline, but his mother
+became so distressed when he said no that he always had to give in.
+While he was eating she trotted around in the room and chattered about
+all that she had seen in the morning during market hours. These were all
+very worldly matters, and it would occur to her sometimes that her son
+might be offended. Then she would break off in the middle of a sentence
+and begin to talk of spiritual and solemn things, but the priest
+couldn't help laughing. "No, no, mother Concenza!" he said, "continue in
+your usual way. The saints know you already, and they know what you are
+up to."
+
+Then she, too, laughed and said: "You are quite right. It doesn't pay to
+pretend before the good Lord."
+
+When the Pope was taken ill, Signora Concenza must also have a share in
+the general grief. Of her own accord it certainly never would have
+occurred to her to feel troubled about his passing. But when her son
+came home to her, she could neither persuade him to taste of a morsel of
+food nor to give her a smile, although she was simply bubbling over with
+stories and interpolations. Naturally she became alarmed and asked what
+was wrong with him. "The Holy Father is ill," answered the son.
+
+At first she could scarcely believe that this was the cause of his
+downheartedness. Of course it was a sorrow; but she knew, to be sure,
+that if a Pope died, immediately there would come another. She reminded
+her son of the fact that they had also mourned the good Pio Nono. And,
+you see, the one who succeeded him was a still greater Pope. Surely the
+Cardinals would choose for them a ruler who was just as holy and wise as
+this one.
+
+The priest then began telling her about the Pope. He didn't bother to
+initiate her into his system of government, but he told her little
+stories of his childhood and young manhood. And from the days of his
+prelacy there were also things to relate--as, for instance, how he had
+at one time hunted down robbers in southern Italy, how he had made
+himself beloved by the poor and needy during the years when he was a
+bishop in Perugia.
+
+Her eyes filled with tears, and she cried out: "Ah, if he were not so
+old! If he might only be allowed to live many more years, since he is
+such a great and holy man!"
+
+"Ah, if only he were not so old!" sighed the son.
+
+But Signora Concenza had already brushed the tears from her eyes. "You
+really must bear this calmly," said she. "Remember that his years of
+life are simply run out. It is impossible to prevent death from seizing
+him."
+
+The priest was a dreamer. He loved the Church and had dreamed that the
+great Pope would lead her on to important and decisive victories. "I
+would give my life if I could purchase new life for him!" said he.
+
+"What are you saying?" cried his mother. "Do you really love him so
+much? But, in any case, you must not express such dangerous wishes.
+Instead, you should think of living a good long time. Who knows what may
+happen? Why couldn't you, in your turn, become Pope?"
+
+A night and a day passed without any improvement in the Pope's
+condition. When Signora Concenza met her son the following day, he
+looked completely undone. She understood that he had passed the whole
+day in prayer and fasting, and she began to feel deeply grieved. "I
+verily believe that you mean to kill yourself for the sake of that sick
+old man!" said she.
+
+The son was hurt by again finding her without sympathy, and tried to
+persuade her to sympathize a little with his grief. "You, truly, more
+than any one else, ought to wish that the Pope might live," he said. "If
+he may continue to rule, he will name my parish priest for bishop before
+the year shall have passed and, in that event, my fortune is made. He
+will then give me a good place in a cathedral. You shall not see me
+going about any more in a worn-out cassock. I shall have plenty of
+money, and I shall be able to help you and all your poor neighbors."
+
+"But if the Pope dies?" asked Signora Concenza breathlessly.
+
+"If the Pope dies, then no one can know--If my parish priest doesn't
+happen to be in favor with his successor, we must both remain where we
+now are for many years to come."
+
+Signora Concenza came close to her son and regarded him anxiously. She
+looked at his brow, which was covered with wrinkles, and at his hair
+that was just turning gray. He looked tired and worn. It was actually
+imperative that he should have that place at the cathedral right away.
+"To-night I shall go to church and pray for the Pope," thought she. "It
+won't do for him to die."
+
+After supper she bravely conquered her fatigue and went out on the
+streets. Great crowds of people thronged there. Many were only curious
+and had gone out because they wished to catch the news of the death at
+first hand; but many were really distressed and wandered from church to
+church to pray.
+
+As soon as Signora Concenza had come out on the street, she met one of
+her daughters, who was married to a lithographer. "Oh, mother, but you
+do right to come out and pray for him!" exclaimed the daughter. "You
+can't imagine what a misfortune it would be if he were to die! My
+Fabiano was ready to take his own life when he learned that the Pope was
+ill."
+
+She related how her husband, the lithographer, had but just struck off
+hundreds of thousands of the Pope's pictures. Now, if the Pope were to
+die, he wouldn't be able to sell half of them--no, not even a quarter of
+them. He would be ruined. Their entire fortune was at stake.
+
+She rushed on to gather some fresh news, wherewith she might comfort her
+poor husband, who did not dare venture out, but sat at home and brooded
+over his misfortune. Her mother stood still on the street, mumbling to
+herself: "It won't do for him to die. It will never do for him to die!"
+
+She walked into the first church she came to. There she fell upon her
+knees and prayed for the life of the Pope.
+
+As she arose to leave, she happened to lift her eyes to a little votive
+tablet which hung on the wall just above her head. The tablet was a
+representation of Death raising a terrifying two-edged sword to mow down
+a young girl, while her mother, who had cast herself in his path, tries
+in vain to receive the blow in place of her child.
+
+She stood long before the picture, musing. "Signor Death is a careful
+arithmetician," she remarked. "One has never heard of his agreeing to
+exchange an old person for a young one."
+
+She remembered her son's words that he would be willing to die in the
+Pope's stead, and a shudder passed through her whole body. "Think, if
+Death were to take him at his word!"
+
+"No, no, Signor Death!" she whispered. "You mustn't believe him. You
+must understand that he didn't mean what he said. He wants to live. He
+doesn't want to leave his old mother, who loves him."
+
+For the first time the thought struck her that if any one should
+sacrifice himself for the Pope, it were better that she did it--she, who
+was already old and had lived her life.
+
+When she left the church, she happened into the company of some nuns of
+the saintliest and most devout appearance, who lived in the northern
+part of the country. They had travelled down to Rome to obtain a little
+help from the Pope's treasury. "We are actually in the most dire need of
+aid," they told old Concenza. "Only think! our convent was so old and
+dilapidated that it blew down during the severe storm of last winter. We
+may not now present our case to him. If he should die, we must return
+home with an unaccomplished mission. Who can know if his successor will
+be the sort of man who will trouble himself to succor poor nuns?"
+
+It seemed as if all the people were thinking the same thoughts. It was
+very easy to get into converse with any one. Each and all whom Signora
+Concenza approached let her know that the Pope's death would be for them
+a terrible misfortune.
+
+The old woman repeated again and again to herself: "My son is right. It
+will never do for the Pope to die."
+
+A nurse was standing among a group of people, talking in a loud voice.
+She was so affected that the tears streamed down her cheeks. She related
+how five years ago she had been ordered away, to serve at a leper
+hospital on an island at the other end of the globe. Naturally, she had
+to obey orders; but she did so against her wishes. She had felt a
+horrible dread of this mission. Before she left Rome, she was received
+by the Pope, who had given her a special blessing and had also promised
+her that if she came back alive she should have another audience with
+him. And it was upon this that she had lived during the five years she
+had been away--only on the hope that she might see the Holy Father once
+more in this life! This had helped her to go through all the horrors.
+And now, when she had got home at last, she was met by the news that he
+lay upon his death-bed! She could not even see him!
+
+She was in extreme despair, and old Concenza was deeply moved. "It would
+really be much too great a sorrow for every one if the Pope were to
+die," thought she, as she wandered farther up the street.
+
+When she observed that many of the passers-by looked perfectly exhausted
+from weeping, she thought with a sense of relief: "What a joy it would
+be to see everybody's happiness if the Pope should recover!" And she,
+like many others who have a buoyant disposition, was apparently no more
+afraid of dying than of living; so she said to herself: "If I only knew
+how it could be done, I would gladly give the Holy Father the years that
+are left to me of life."
+
+She said this somewhat in jest, but back of the words there was also
+seriousness. She truly wished that she might realize something in that
+way. "An old woman could not wish for a more beautiful death," thought
+she. "I would be helping both my son and my daughter, and, besides, I
+should make great masses of people happy."
+
+Just as this thought stirred within her, she raised the patched curtain
+which hung before the entrance of a gloomy little church. It was one of
+the very old churches--one of those which appear to be gradually sinking
+into the earth because the city's foundation has, in the intervening
+years, raised itself several metres all around them. This church in its
+interior had preserved somewhat of its ancient gloom, which must have
+come down through the dark ages during which it had sprung into
+existence. Involuntarily a shudder passed through one as one stepped in
+under its low arches, which rested upon uncommonly thick pillars, and
+saw the crudely painted saints' pictures that glimpsed down at one from
+walls and altars.
+
+When Signora Concenza came into this old church, which was thronged with
+worshippers, she was seized with a mysterious awe and reverence. She
+felt that in this sanctuary there verily lived a Deity. Beneath the
+massive arches hovered something infinitely mighty and mysterious,
+something which inspired such a sense of annihilating superiority that
+she felt nervous about remaining in there. "Ah, this is no church where
+one goes to hear a mass or to confessional," remarked Signora Concenza
+to herself. "Here one comes when one is in great trouble, when one can
+be helped in no other way than through a miracle."
+
+She lingered down by the door and breathed in this strange air of
+mystery and gloom. "I don't even know to whom this old church is
+dedicated; but I feel that here there must be some one who is able to
+grant us that which we pray for."
+
+She sank down among the kneeling people, who were so many that they
+covered the floor from the altar to the door. All the while that she
+herself was praying, she heard around her sighs and sobs. All this grief
+went to her heart and filled it with greater and greater compassion.
+"Oh, my God, let me do something to save the old man!" she prayed. "In
+the first place, I ought to help my children, and then all the other
+people."
+
+Every once in a while a thin little monk stole in among the praying and
+whispered something in their ears. The one to whom he was speaking
+instantly stood up and followed him into the sacristy.
+
+Signora Concenza soon apprehended what there was in question. "They are
+of the kind who give pledges for the Pope's recovery," thought she.
+
+The next time the little monk made his rounds, she rose up and went with
+him. It was a perfectly involuntary action. She fancied that she was
+being impelled to do this by the power which ruled in the old church.
+
+As soon as she came into the sacristy, which was even more archaic and
+more mystical than the church itself, she regretted it. "What have I to
+do in here?" she asked herself. "What have I to give away? I own nothing
+but a couple of cartloads of garden truck. I certainly can't present the
+saints with a few baskets of artichokes!"
+
+At one side of the room there was a long table at which a priest stood
+recording in a register all that was pledged to the saints. Concenza
+heard how one promised to present the old church with a sum of money,
+while a second promised to give his gold watch, and a third her pearl
+earrings.
+
+Concenza stood all the while down by the door. Her last poor copper had
+been spent to procure a few delicacies for her son. She saw a number of
+persons who appeared to be no richer than herself buying wax candles and
+silver hearts. She turned her skirt pocket inside out, but she could not
+afford even that much.
+
+She stood and waited so long that finally she was the only stranger in
+the sacristy. The priests walking about in there looked at her a little
+astonished. Then she took a step or two forward. She seemed at the start
+uncertain and embarrassed, but after the first move she walked lightly
+and briskly up to the table. "Your Reverence!" she said to the priest,
+"write that Concenza Zamponi, who was sixty last year, on Saint John the
+Baptist's Day, gives all her remaining years to the Pope, that the
+thread of his life may be lengthened!"
+
+The priest had already begun writing. He was probably very tired after
+having worked at this register the whole night, and thought no more
+about the sort of things he was recording. But now he stopped short in
+the middle of a word and looked quizzically at Signora Concenza. She met
+his glance very calmly.
+
+"I am strong and well, your Reverence," said she. "I should probably
+have lived out my allotted seventy years. It is at least ten years that
+I am giving to the Holy Father."
+
+The priest marked her zeal and reverence and offered no objections. "She
+is a poor woman," thought he. "She has nothing else to give."
+
+"It is written, my daughter," he said.
+
+When old Concenza came out from the church, it was so late that the
+commotion had ceased and the streets were absolutely deserted. She found
+herself in a remote part of the city, where the gas lamps were so far
+apart that they dispelled only a very little of the darkness. All the
+same, she walked on briskly. She felt very solemn within and was certain
+that she had done something which would make many people happy.
+
+As she walked up the street, she suddenly got the impression that a live
+being circled above her head. In the darkness, between the tall houses,
+she thought she could distinguish a pair of large wings, and she even
+fancied she heard the sound of their beating.
+
+"What is this?" said she. "Surely it can't be a bird! It is much too big
+for that." All at once she thought she saw a face which was so white
+that it illuminated the darkness. Then an unspeakable terror seized her.
+"It is the Angel of Death hovering over me," thought she. "Ah, what have
+I done? I have placed myself in the dreaded one's power!"
+
+She started to run, but she could hear the rustle of the strong wings
+and was convinced that Death was pursuing her.
+
+She fled with breathless haste through several streets, thinking all the
+while that Death was coming nearer and nearer her. She already felt his
+wings brushing against her shoulder.
+
+Suddenly she heard a whizzing in the air, and something heavy and sharp
+struck her head. Death's two-edged sword had reached her. She sank to
+her knees. She knew that she must lose her life.
+
+A few hours later, old Concenza was found on the street by two workmen.
+She lay there unconscious, stricken with apoplexy. The poor woman was
+immediately removed to a hospital, where they succeeded in bringing her
+to, but it was apparent that she could not live very long.
+
+There was time, at all events, to send for her children. When, in a
+state of despair, they reached her sick-bed, they found her very calm
+and happy. She couldn't speak many words to them, but she lay and
+caressed their hands. "You must be happy," said she, "happy, happy!"
+Evidently she did not like their crying. She also bade the nurses smile
+and show their joy. "Cheerful and happy," said she; "now you must be
+cheerful and happy!" She lay there with hunger in her eyes, waiting to
+see a little joy in their faces.
+
+She grew more and more impatient with her children's tears and with the
+solemn faces of the nurses. She began to utter things which no one could
+comprehend. She said that in case they were not glad she might just as
+well have lived. Those who heard her thought she was raving.
+
+Suddenly the doors opened, and a young physician came into the
+sick-room. He was waving a newspaper and calling in a loud voice: "The
+Pope is better. He will live. A change has taken place in the night."
+
+The nurses silenced him, so that he shouldn't disturb the dying woman,
+but Signora Concenza had already heard him.
+
+She had also marked a spark of joy--a gleam of happiness which could not
+be concealed--pass through those who stood around her bed.
+
+There she lay looking about her, with something far-seeing in her gaze.
+It was as though she were looking out over Rome, where the people were
+now thronging up and down the streets and greeting one another with the
+joyful news.
+
+She raised her head as high as she could and said: "So am I--I am very
+happy. God has allowed me to die that he may live. I don't mind dying
+when I have made so many people happy."
+
+She lay down again, and a few seconds later she was dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But they say in Rome that, after his recovery, the Holy Father
+entertained himself one day by looking through the church records of
+pious pledges which had been offered for his recovery.
+
+Smilingly he read the long lists of little gifts until he came to the
+record where Concenza Zamponi had presented him with her remaining
+years of life. Instantly he became very serious and thoughtful.
+
+He made inquiries about Concenza Zamponi and learned that she had died
+on the night of his recovery. He then bade them call to him her son,
+Dominico, and questioned him minutely as to her last moments.
+
+"My son," said the Pope to him when he had spoken, "your mother has not
+saved my life, as she believed in her last hour; but I am deeply moved
+by her love and self-sacrifice."
+
+He let Dominico kiss his hand, whereupon he dismissed him.
+
+But the Romans assure you that, although the Pope would not admit that
+his span of years had been lengthened by the poor woman's gift, he was
+nevertheless certain of it. "Why else should Father Zamponi have had
+such a meteoric career?" asked the Romans. "He is already a bishop and
+it is whispered that he will soon be a Cardinal."
+
+And in Rome they never feared after that that the Pope would die, not
+even when he was mortally ill. They were prepared to have him live
+longer than other people. His life had of course been lengthened by all
+the years that poor Concenza had given him.
+
+
+
+
+The Story of a Story
+
+
+Once there was a story that wanted to be told and sent out in the world.
+This was very natural, inasmuch as it knew that it was already as good
+as finished. Many, through remarkable deeds and strange events, had
+helped create it; others had added their straws in it by again and again
+relating these things. What it lacked was merely a matter of being
+joined together, so that it could travel comfortably through the
+country. As yet it was only a confused jumble of stories--a big,
+formless cloud of adventures rushing hither and thither like a swarm of
+stray bees on a summer's day, not knowing where they will find some one
+who can gather them into a hive.
+
+The story that wanted to be told had sprung up in Vermland, and you may
+be sure that it circled over many mills and manors, over many parsonages
+and many homes of military officers, in the beautiful province, peering
+through the windows and begging to be cared for. But it was forced to
+make many futile attempts, for everywhere it was turned away. Anything
+else was hardly to be expected. People had many things of much more
+importance to think of.
+
+Finally the story came to an old place called Mårbacka. It was a little
+homestead, with low buildings overshadowed by giant trees. At one time
+it had been a parsonage, and it was as if this had set a certain stamp
+upon the place which it could not lose. They seemed to have a greater
+love for books and reading there than elsewhere, and a certain air of
+restfulness and peace always pervaded it. There rushing with duties and
+bickering with servants were never met with, nor was hatred or
+dissension given house room, either. One who happened to be a guest
+there was not allowed to take life too seriously, but had to feel that
+his first duty was to be light-hearted and believe that for one and all
+who lived on this estate our Lord managed everything for the best.
+
+As I think of the matter now, I apprehend that the story of which I am
+speaking must have lingered thereabouts a great many years during its
+vain longing to be told. It seems to me as though it must have enwrapped
+the place, as a mist shrouds a mountain summit, now and then letting one
+of the adventures of which it consisted rain down upon it.
+
+They came in the form of strange ghost stories about the superintendent
+of the foundries, who always had black bulls hitched to his wagon when
+he drove home at night from a revel. And in his home the Evil One
+himself used to sit in the rocker and rock while the wife sat at the
+piano and played. They came as true stories from the neighboring
+homestead, where crows had persecuted the mistress until she didn't dare
+venture outside the door; from the Captain's house, where they were so
+poor that everything had to be borrowed; from the little cottage down by
+the church, where there lived a lot of young and old girls who had all
+fallen in love with the handsome organ builder.
+
+Sometimes the dear adventures came to the homestead in an even more
+tangible form. Aged and poverty-stricken army officers would drive up to
+the doorstep behind rickety old horses and in rickety carryalls. They
+would stop and visit for weeks, and in the evenings, when the toddy had
+put courage into them, they would talk of the time when they had danced
+in stockingless shoes, so that their feet would look small, of how they
+had curled their hair and dyed their mustaches. One of them told how he
+had tried to take a pretty young girl back to her sweetheart and how he
+had been hunted by wolves on the way; another had been at the Christmas
+feast where an angered guest had flung all the hazel-hens at the wall
+because some one had made him believe they were crows; a third had seen
+the old gentleman who used to sit at a plain board table and play
+Beethoven.
+
+But the story could reveal its presence in still another way. In the
+attic hung the portrait of a lady with powdered hair, and when any one
+walked past it he was reminded that it was a portrait of the beautiful
+daughter of the Count, who had loved her brother's young tutor, and had
+called to see him once when she was an old gray-haired lady and he an
+old married man. In the lumber room were heaped up bundles of documents
+containing deeds of purchase and leases signed by the great lady, who
+once ruled over seven foundries which had been willed to her by her
+lover. If one entered the church, one saw in a dusty little cabinet
+under the pulpit the chest filled with infidel manuscripts, which was
+not to be opened until the beginning of the new century. And not very
+far from the church is the river, at the bottom of which rests a pile of
+sacred images that were not allowed to remain in the pulpit and chancel
+they once had ornamented.
+
+It must have been because so many legends and traditions hovered around
+the farm that one of the children growing up there longed to become a
+narrator. It was not one of the boys. They were not at home very much,
+for they were away at their schools almost the whole year; so the story
+did not get much of a hold upon them. But it was one of the girls--one
+who was delicate and could not romp and play like other children, but
+found her greatest enjoyment in reading and hearing stories about all
+the great and wonderful things which had happened in the world.
+
+However, at the start it was not the girl's intention to write about the
+stories and legends surrounding her. She hadn't the remotest idea that a
+book could be made of these adventures, which she had so often heard
+related that to her they seemed the most commonplace things in the
+world. When she tried to write, she chose material from her books, and
+with fresh courage she strung together stories of the Sultans in
+"Thousand and One Nights," Walter Scott's heroes, and Snorre Sturleson's
+"Kings of Romance."
+
+Surely it is needless to state that what she wrote was the least
+original and the crudest that has ever been put upon paper. But this
+very naturally she herself did not see. She went about at home on the
+quiet farm, filling every scrap of paper she could lay her hands on
+with verse and prose, with plays and romances. When she wasn't writing,
+she sat and waited for success. And success was to consist in this: Some
+stranger who was very learned and influential, through some rare freak
+of fortune, was to come and discover what she had written and find it
+worth printing. After that, all the rest would come of itself.
+
+Meanwhile nothing of the sort happened. And when the girl had passed her
+twentieth year, she began to grow impatient. She wondered why success
+did not come her way. Perhaps she lacked knowledge. She probably needed
+to see a little more of the world than the homestead in Vermland. And
+seeing that it would be a long time before she could earn her livelihood
+as an author, it was necessary for her to learn something--find some
+work in life--that she might have bread while she waited for herself. Or
+maybe it was simply this--that the story had lost patience with her.
+Perhaps it thought thus: "Since this blind person does not see that
+which lies nearest her eyes, let her be forced to go away. Let her tramp
+upon gray stone streets; let her live in cramped city rooms with no
+other outlook than gray stone walls; let her live among people who hide
+everything that is unusual in them and who appear to be all alike. It
+may perchance teach her to see that which is waiting outside the gate of
+her home--all that lives and moves between the stretch of blue hills
+which she has every day before her eyes."
+
+And so, one autumn, when she was two-and-twenty, she travelled up to
+Stockholm to begin preparing herself for the vocation of teacher.
+
+The girl soon became absorbed in her work. She wrote no more, but went
+in for studies and lectures. It actually looked as though the story
+would lose her altogether.
+
+Then something extraordinary happened. This same autumn, after she had
+been living a couple of months amidst gray streets and house walls, she
+was walking one day up Malmskillnad Street with a bundle of books under
+her arm. She had just come from a lecture on the history of literature.
+The lecture must have been about Bellman and Runeberg, because she was
+thinking of them and of the characters that live in their verses. She
+said to herself that Runeberg's jolly warriors and Bellman's
+happy-go-lucky roisterers were the very best material a writer could
+have to work with. And suddenly this thought flashed upon her: Vermland,
+the world in which you have been living, is not less remarkable than
+that of Fredman or Fänrik Stål. If you can only learn how to handle it,
+you will find that your material is quite as good as theirs.
+
+This is how it happened that she caught her first glimpse of the story.
+And the instant she saw it, the ground under her seemed to sway. The
+whole long Malmskillnad Street from Hamn Street Hill to the fire-house
+rose toward the skies and sank again--rose and sank. She stood still a
+long while, until the street had settled itself. She gazed with
+astonishment at the passers-by, who walked calmly along, apparently
+oblivious to the miracle that had taken place.
+
+At that moment the girl determined that she would write the story of
+Vermland's Cavaliers, and never for an instant did she relinquish the
+thought of it; but many and long years elapsed before the determination
+was carried out.
+
+In the first place she had entered upon a new field of labor, and she
+lacked the time needful for the carrying out of a great literary work.
+In the second place she had failed utterly in her first attempts to
+write the story.
+
+During these years many things were constantly happening which helped
+mould it. One morning, on a school holiday, she was sitting at the
+breakfast-table with her father, and the two of them talked of old
+times. Then he began telling of an acquaintance of his youth, whom he
+described as the most fascinating of men. This man brought joy and cheer
+with him wherever he went. He could sing; he composed music; he
+improvised verse. If he struck up a dance, it was not alone the young
+folk who danced, but old men and old women, high and low. If he made a
+speech, one had to laugh or cry, whichever he wished. If he drank
+himself full, he could play and talk better than when he was sober, and
+when he fell in love with a woman, it was impossible for her to resist
+him. If he did foolish things, one forgave him; if he was sad at times,
+one wanted to do anything and everything to see him glad again. But any
+great success in life he had never had, despite his wealth of talents.
+He had lived mostly at the foundries in Vermland as private tutor.
+Finally he was ordained as a minister. This was the highest that he had
+attained.
+
+After this conversation she could see the hero of her story better than
+heretofore, and with this a little life and action came into it. One
+fine day a name was given to the hero and he was called Gösta Berling.
+Whence he got the name she never knew. It was as if he had named
+himself.
+
+Another time, she came home to spend the Christmas holidays. One
+evening the whole family went off to a Christmas party a good distance
+from home in a terrible blizzard. It turned out to be a longer drive
+than one would have thought. The horse ploughed his way ahead at a
+walking pace. For several hours she sat there in the sleigh in the
+blinding snowstorm and thought of the story. When they arrived finally,
+she had thought out her first chapter. It was the one about the
+Christmas night at the smithy.
+
+What a chapter! It was her first and for many years her only one. It was
+first written in verse, for the original plan was that it should be a
+romance cycle, like "Fänrik Stål's Sagas." But by degrees this was
+changed, and for a time the idea was that it should be written as drama.
+Then the Christmas night was worked over to go in as the first act. But
+this attempt did not succeed, either; at last she decided to write the
+story as a novel. Then the chapter was written in prose. It grew
+enormously long, covering forty written pages. The last time it was
+rewritten it took up only nine.
+
+After a few more years came a second chapter. It was the story of the
+Ball at Borg and of the wolves that hunted Gösta Berling and Anna
+Stjernhök.
+
+In the beginning this chapter was not written with the thought that it
+could come into the story, but as a sort of chance composition to be
+read at a small social gathering. The reading, however, was postponed,
+and the novelette was sent to _Dagny_. After a time the story was
+returned as unavailable for the magazine. It was in reality not
+available anywhere. As yet it was altogether lacking in artistic
+smoothness.
+
+Meanwhile the author wondered to what purpose this unluckily born
+novelette could be turned. Should she put it into the story? To be sure,
+it was an adventure by itself--and ended. It would look odd among the
+rest, which were better connected. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad
+idea, she thought then, if all the chapters of the story were like this
+one--almost finished adventures? This would be difficult to carry out,
+but it might possibly be done. There would doubtless be gaps in the
+continuity here and there, but that should give to the book great
+strength and variety.
+
+Now two important matters were settled: The story was to be a novel, and
+each chapter should be complete in itself. But nothing much had been
+gained hereby. She who had been fired with the idea of writing the story
+of Vermland's Cavaliers when she was two-and-twenty, at this stage was
+nearing the thirties and had not been able to write more than two
+chapters. Where had the years gone? She had been graduated from the
+Teachers' College and for several years past had been a teacher at
+Landskrona. She had become interested in much and had been occupied with
+many things, but the story was just as unwritten. A mass of material had
+certainly been collected, but why was it so hard for her to write it
+down? Why did the inspiration never come to her? Why did the pen glide
+so slowly over the paper? She certainly had her dark moments at that
+time! She began to think that she never would finish her novel. She was
+that servant who buried his talent in the ground and never tried to use
+it.
+
+As a matter of fact, all this occurred during the eighties, when stern
+Realism was at its height. She admired the great masters of that time,
+never thinking that one could use any other style in writing than the
+one they employed. For her own part, she liked the Romanticists better,
+but Romanticism was dead, and she was hardly the one to think of
+reviving its form and expression! Although her brain was filled to
+overflowing with stories of ghosts and mad love, of wondrously beautiful
+women and adventure-loving cavaliers, she tried to write about it in
+calm, realistic prose. She was not very clear-visioned. Another would
+have seen that the impossible was impossible.
+
+Once she wrote a couple of chapters in another style. One was a scene
+from Svartsjö churchyard; the other was about the old philosopher, Uncle
+Eberhard, and his infidel manuscripts. She scribbled them mostly in fun,
+with many ohs and ahs in the prose, which made it almost rhythmical. She
+perceived that in this vein she could write. There was inspiration in
+this--she could feel it. But when the two short chapters were finished,
+she laid them aside. They were only written in fun. One could not write
+a whole book in that vein.
+
+But now the story had been waiting long enough. It thought, no doubt, as
+it did at the time when it sent her out in the world: "Again I must send
+this blinded person a great longing which will open her eyes."
+
+The longing came over her in this manner: The homestead where she had
+grown up was sold. She journeyed to the home of her childhood to see it
+once again before strangers should occupy it.
+
+The evening before she left there, perhaps nevermore to see the dear old
+place, she concluded in all meekness and humility to write the book in
+her own way and according to her own poor abilities. It was not going to
+be any great masterwork, as she had hoped. It might be a book at which
+people would laugh, but anyway she would write it--write it for herself,
+to save for herself what she could still save of the home--the dear old
+stories, the sweet peace of the care-free days, and the beautiful
+landscape with the long lakes and the many-hued blue hills.
+
+But for her, who had hoped that she might yet learn to write a book
+people would care to read, it seemed as though she had relinquished the
+very thing in life she had been most eager to win. It was the hardest
+sacrifice she had made thus far.
+
+A few weeks later, she was again at her home in Landskrona, seated at
+her writing-desk. She began writing--she didn't know exactly what it was
+to be--but she was not going to be afraid of the strong words, the
+exclamations, the interrogations, nor would she be afraid to give
+herself with all her childishness and all her dreams! After she had come
+to this decision, the pen began to move almost by itself. This made her
+quite delirious. She was carried away with enthusiasm. Ah, this was
+writing! Unfamiliar thoughts and things, or, rather, things she never
+had surmised were stored away in her brain, crowded down upon the paper.
+The pages were filled with a haste of which she had never dreamed. What
+had hitherto required months--no, years--to work out, was now
+accomplished in a couple of hours. That evening she wrote the story of
+the young countess' tramp over the ice on River Löven, and the flood at
+Ekeby.
+
+The following afternoon she wrote the scene in which the gouty ensign,
+Rutger von Örneclou, tries to raise himself in bed to dance the Cachuca,
+and the evening of the next day appeared the story of the old _Mamsell_
+who went off to visit the parsimonious Broby clergyman.
+
+Now she knew for certain that in this style she could write the book;
+but she was just as certain that no one would have the patience to read
+it through.
+
+However, not many chapters let themselves be written like this--in one
+breath. Most of them required long and arduous labor, and there were
+only little snatches of time in the afternoons which she could devote to
+authorship. When she had been writing about half a year, reckoning from
+the day when she had gone in for romanticism with a vengeance, about a
+dozen chapters were written. At this rate the book would be finished in
+three or four years.
+
+It was in the spring of this year, 1890, that _Idun_ invited prize
+competitors to send in short novelettes of about one hundred printed
+pages. This was an outlet for a story that wanted to be told and sent
+into the world. It must have been the story itself that prompted her
+sister to suggest to her that she make use of this opportunity. Here, at
+last, was a way of finding out if her story was so hopelessly bad! If it
+received the prize, much would be gained; if it didn't, she simply stood
+in exactly the same position as before.
+
+She had nothing against the idea, but she had so little faith in herself
+that she couldn't come to any conclusion.
+
+Finally, just eight days before the time for submitting manuscripts had
+expired, she decided to take from the novel five chapters which were
+sufficiently well connected to pass for a novelette, and chance it with
+these. But the chapters were far from ready. Three of them were loosely
+written, but of the remaining two there was barely an outline. Then the
+whole thing must be legibly copied, of course. To add to this, she was
+not at home just then, but was visiting her sister and brother-in-law,
+who still lived in Vermland. And one who has come to visit with dear
+friends for a short time cannot spend the days at a writing-desk. She
+wrote therefore at night, sitting up the whole week until four in the
+mornings.
+
+Finally there were only twenty-four hours of the precious time left, and
+there were still twenty pages to be written.
+
+On this the last day they were invited out. The whole family were going
+on a little journey to be gone for the night. Naturally, she had to
+accompany the rest. When the party was over and the guests dispersed,
+she sat up all night writing in the strange place.
+
+At times she felt very queer. The place where she was visiting was the
+very estate on which the wicked Sintram had lived. Fate, in a singular
+way, had brought her there on the very night when she must write about
+him who sat in the rocker and rocked.
+
+Now and then she looked up from her work and listened in the direction
+of the drawing-room for the possible sound of a pair of rockers in
+motion. But nothing was heard. When the clock struck six the next
+morning, the five chapters were finished.
+
+Along in the forenoon they travelled home on a little freight steamer.
+There her sister did up the parcel, sealed it with sealing-wax, which
+had been brought from home for this purpose, wrote the address, and sent
+off the novelette.
+
+This happened on one of the last days in July. Toward the end of August
+_Idun_ contained a notice to the effect that something over twenty
+manuscripts had been received by the editors, but that one or two among
+them were so confusedly written they could not be counted in.
+
+Then she gave up waiting for results. She knew, of course, which
+novelette was so confusedly written that it could not be counted in.
+
+One afternoon in November she received a curious telegram. It contained
+simply the words "Hearty Congratulations," and was signed by three of
+her college classmates.
+
+For her it was a terribly long wait until dinner-time of the following
+day, when the Stockholm papers were distributed. When the paper was in
+her hands, she had to search long without finding anything. Finally, on
+the last page she found a little notice in fine print which told that
+the prize had been awarded to her.
+
+To another it might not have meant so much, perhaps, but for her it
+meant that she could devote herself to the calling which all her life
+she had longed to follow.
+
+There is but little to add to this: The story that wanted to be told and
+sent out in the world was now fairly near its destination. Now it was to
+be written, at least, even though it might take a few years more before
+it was finished.
+
+She who was writing it had gone up to Stockholm around Christmas time,
+after she had received the prize.
+
+The editor of _Idun_ volunteered to print the book as soon as it was
+finished.
+
+If she could ever find time to write it!
+
+The evening before she was to return to Landskrona, she spent with her
+loyal friend, Baroness Adlersparre[1], to whom she read a few chapters
+aloud.
+
+[Footnote 1: Baroness Adlersparre--pen name, Esselde--was a noted
+Swedish writer, publisher, and philanthropist, and a contemporary of
+Fredrika Bremer.]
+
+"Esselde" listened, as only she could listen, and she became interested.
+After the reading she sat silently and pondered. "How long will it be
+before all of it is ready?" she asked finally.
+
+"Three or four years."
+
+Then they parted.
+
+The next morning, two hours before she was to leave Stockholm, a message
+came from Esselde bidding her come to her before the departure.
+
+The old Baroness was in her most positive and determined mood. "Now you
+must take a leave of absence for a year and finish the book. I shall
+procure the money."
+
+Fifteen minutes later the girl was on her way to the Principal of the
+Teachers' College to ask her assistance in securing a substitute.
+
+At one o'clock she was happily seated in the railway carriage. But now
+she was going no farther than Sörmland, where she had good friends who
+lived in a charming villa.
+
+And so they--Otto Gumaelius and his wife--gave her the freedom of their
+home--freedom to work, and peace, and the best of care for nearly a
+year, until the book was finished.
+
+Now, at last, she could write from morning till night. It was the
+happiest time of her life.
+
+But when the story was finished at the close of the summer, it looked
+queer. It was wild and disordered, and the connecting threads were so
+loose that all the parts seemed bent upon following their old
+inclination to wander off, each in its own way.
+
+It never became what it should have been. Its misfortune was that it
+had been compelled to wait so long to be told. If it was not properly
+disciplined and restrained, it was mostly because the author was so
+overjoyed in the thought that at last she had been privileged to write
+it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+    JERUSALEM, A Novel
+    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
+
+    CHRIST LEGENDS
+    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
+
+    WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF NILS
+    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
+
+    FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NILS
+    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
+
+    GIRL FROM THE MARSH CROFT
+    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
+
+    LEGEND OF THE SACRED IMAGE
+    (_Trans. from Swedish by Velma Swanston Howard_)
+
+    MIRACLES OF ANTICHRIST
+    (_Trans. from Swedish by Pauline Bancroft Flach_)
+
+    STORY OF GÖSTA BERLING
+    (_Trans. from Swedish by Pauline Bancroft Flach_)
+
+    FROM A SWEDISH HOMESTEAD
+    (_Trans. from Swedish by Jessie Bröchner_)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl From the Marsh Croft, by Selma Lagerlöf
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41414 ***