OLD HOUSES AND OLD PEOPLE

OLD HOUSES AND OLD PEOPLE

I THE STONE HUTS

WHEN Lieutenant Lagerlöf took over Mårbacka the buildings were mostly very old. Oldest, however, were the manservants’ hall and the sheep-cot, though the storehouse on stilts, which served as larder, the stable with the loft balcony, the bath-house, where they used to smoke bacon, and the kiln, where they malted grain, were no newcomers into the world.

The servants’ hall and sheepfold were built of stones which had been picked up on the ground—large and small, round and flat. The walls were two ells in thickness, as if meant to withstand a siege. That style of building was not of last year or the year before, so that in the matter of age those two structures would certainly take precedence.

The first permanent residents of Mårbacka must have come from some village where there were too many occupants in every cottage and not enough land under cultivation to yield bread-food for all. They were no doubt a young couple who wanted to set up a home, and saw no other way than to fare forth into the wilds as settlers. With an eye to the good pasturage below Åsberget, they took possession of the little huts formerly tenanted by the säter lasses. But after a time they perhaps felt unsafe, for they had no neighbours within miles of them. Sometimes the bear paid a visit to the cattle-shed and they themselves received calls from rough gangs of charcoal-burners.

Under such circumstances, naturally they would have put up a couple of stone huts—one for themselves and one for their animals. The building for the animals was the larger; it had no windows, only narrow openings with home-forged iron gratings, through which neither lynx nor bear could squeeze. The floor was just hard, trampled earth, but a partition of rough-hewn beams divided the hut into two rooms. Thus, the animals which do not thrive together could be kept apart. Horses and sheep, which are always friends, were on one side; cows and goats on the other.

The stone hut they built for themselves had only one room, but it had a floor of hand-split boards, two windows, a fireplace, and a chimney. Along the wall opposite the windows, the settler had put up a large bed-cupboard to hold four wide beds—two lower and two upper—in each of which three persons could easily lie side by side. Under the windows was a bench, and before it a large deal table. At the far end of the room, opposite the entrance, was the fireplace.

In Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s time, this which had once been the main building and was now the manservants’ hall, was but little changed. The cubby-beds, the circular open fireplace, and the low, small-paned windows with the iron gratings, were still there; but the long board-bench and table had been replaced by a planing-bench and a chest of tools. There were two small, round, three-legged stools which might well have come down from the time of the first settler, likewise a worn chopping-block that stood on the hearth.

Here lived the stableman and farmboy; here the farm labourers gathered at rest hours to eat and lounge; hither poor belated wayfarers were shown when they came asking for night harbour. Here Bengt, who had been stableman in the time of the Paymaster of the Regiment, stayed on in his old age. He had worked so long on the place that Lieutenant Lagerlöf had recommended him as one worthy the medal for faithful service.

There was another who was to receive this mark of honour—the old housekeeper. She was not nearly so old as Bengt, and was still in active service. She, who was hale and spry, could drive to church in the family carriage and receive her medal at the chancel; while Bengt was confined to his bed that day with the lumbago and pain in the joints. His medal he would get in any case, but it was a grand celebration he would be missing. It had been reported that the Dean of Sunne would come to Ämtervik that Sunday to address the faithful servants, and would himself place the bright silver medal round their necks.

One can understand it was not very pleasant for Bengt to be lying there in pain and torment while the greatest moment life could have held for him passed him by.

Lieutenant Lagerlöf, on arriving at the church, told the Dean why Bengt had not come. Now there was no one the Dean so loved to honour as a faithful servant, one who had been in the same place all his life, and had shared weal and woe with his master and mistress. So, on hearing that Bengt was ill, he said he would drive down to Mårbacka immediately after the service and personally present the medal to Bengt.

The Lieutenant, though pleased, felt a trifle uneasy. He slipped out of the church as soon as he could do so with propriety, and drove home like lightning, so as to be there a little ahead of the Dean.

Bengt was quickly washed and combed and hustled into his Sunday shirt, his bed was spread with clean sheets, and a fancy quilt was substituted for the old sheepskin rug. The floor was swept, the shavings under the planing-bench were carried out, the sooty cobwebs were torn from the ceiling, fresh juniper twigs were strewn over the floor, chopped spruce-fir spread before the door, and a huge bundle of birch and lilac branches was stuck in the fireplace.

The Dean of Sunne at that time was no less a personage than the venerable Anders Fryxell, the distinguished historian and Member of Parliament. Directly he arrived he went in to see Bengt, accompanied by Lieutenant and Fru Lagerlöf, Mamselle Lovisa, the old housekeeper, and all the servants. They quietly and reverently lined themselves along the walls of the servants’ room, expecting, of course, that the Dean would make a little speech in Bengt’s honour.

At first all went as it should go. The Dean read some passages from the Scriptures, and Bengt listened—very still and solemn. Then the Dean said:

“You, Bengt, have been one of those good and faithful servants of whom our Lord speaks.”

“Ay,” says Bengt from his bed, “that’s what I’ve been.”

“You have never considered your own welfare before that of your employer. You have always been mindful of the duties entrusted to you.”

“Ay, ’tis all so true,” says Bengt. “Many thanks to you, Dean, for those words.”

It looked as if these constant interruptions would prove annoying to the Dean, who was a great man, accustomed to the society of grand folk. His was such an impressive personality that one easily became embarrassed in his presence. He was always supreme and always had the last word.

There had been no time for the Dean to prepare a speech, and the address he delivered at the church was hardly suitable for the servants’ hall. He cleared his throat once or twice, and began again.

“Bengt, you have been a good and faithful servant.”

“Indeed I have,” said Bengt.

The blood mounted to the brow of the great and brilliant Dean Fryxell.

“You must be silent, Bengt, when I am speaking,” he said.

“Ay, ay,” the old man replied. “Sure, I’m not contradicting you, Dean. ’Tis all so true what you’re saying.”

The Dean got redder and redder. Again he cleared his throat and made a fresh attempt.

“You, Bengt, have been a good and faithful servant, but you have also had good masters.”

The old man was so elated at this he simply could not keep still.

“You’re right, dear Dean, you’re right! They’ve been grand men, all o’ them—Wennervik and the Paymaster of the Regiment and this here Eric Gustaf.” He reached over and put his hand on the Lieutenant’s shoulder, then stroked him down the arm, his old face ashine with happiness.

Once more the Dean lifted up his voice.

“You must be silent, Bengt, when I’m speaking!”

“Why, of course,” said the old man. “But ’tis so right and true every blessed word you’ve spoken, Dean.”

Now the Dean had to smile. “You’re irrepressible, Bengt. You will not have to listen to any speech. Here is your medal. May you wear it with health and honour for many years to come.”

So saying, the Dean went up to the bedside and laid the medal on the bosom of the old man’s Sunday shirt.

Later, at dinner, the Dean seemed a bit abstracted. “This is the first time in my life I have ever lost myself,” he confessed, “but in this world one must have all sorts of experiences.”

II THE MONEY-CHEST

BENGT, for his part, was perfectly satisfied with the Dean’s speech. Those words about his having been a good and faithful servant, the medal, the august presence of His Reverence in the servants’ hall, and the whole demonstration in his honour, had had the salutary effect of dispelling the ache in his joints and the shooting pains in his back. In the afternoon the old man sat up in bed and related, again and again, to all who would listen, how he had once rescued the money-chest for the Paymaster of the Regiment.

It happened one winter when he and the master were out tax-gathering. They had covered all the eastern districts, and before starting on the western, the Paymaster wanted to go home for a while, as he longed for a sight of his wife and little ones. But that of course he did not mention to Bengt. His excuse was that the horse must be rested a couple of days and the food-box, being empty, needed replenishing. Besides, the money-chest was now so full he thought they’d best drive no further until it had been emptied and the money sent on to Karlstad.

The day they turned their noses toward home there was a big blizzard. The roads were so deep with snow they had to drive at a snail’s pace. When they were crossing Klarälven on the ice it was already dusk. Shortly afterward, on coming to Nordsjö Manor, the Paymaster spoke of turning in there to ask for a night’s shelter. However, he was anxious to get home, and as they were then within thirteen miles of Mårbacka, he and Bengt decided to drive on. Even though it meant being out in the sledge until ten or eleven at night, sleeping in one’s own bed was best.

Coming into the dense forest between Nordsjö and Sandviken, they found the road impassable. The sledge went so heavily the horse had to stop at every step, and neither urging nor coaxing could put life into him.

“This is provoking, Bengt,” said the Paymaster. “But isn’t there a little forest croft somewhere hereabout?”

“Ay, a bit further on is a hut,” Bengt replied; “but you can’t take in there, Master!”

“I know what you’re thinking of, Bengt. That tavern is said to be the haunt of ruffians and vagabonds, decent folk usually fight shy of it. But what else can we do? We’ve been three hours getting from Nordsjö here, and the horse is spent. We must get him under cover, where he can rest for the night.”

“Well, Master, you do as you think best,” said Bengt.

When his man spoke in that manner, the Paymaster knew he had his own good reasons for not wishing to put up at that place. So he decided to make another attempt to go on.

The two then got out of the sledge and began to clear a path for the horse, which slowly followed them. It was a heavy task. Bengt worked hard and his master, who had on great boots that went above his knees, a heavy wolfskin coat and thick muffler, was soon all out of breath.

“No, Bengt, my boy, this won’t do,” said he when they were almost at the forest hut. “Now I’m as used up as the horse is. You’d better go in and ask for house-room.”

There was nothing for Bengt to do but obey, though he thought to himself they might better remain out in the sledge all night than betake themselves, with the Crown’s money, into that robbers’ den. It was plain that this would lead to trouble.

In the hut he found a man and wife sitting quietly by the fire. It cannot be said that they were especially pleased to receive the travellers. They made all sorts of excuses: the guest chamber was cold and they had no bed or bedclothes suitable for a gentleman. All the same they were persuaded. The woman brought in wood and made up a fire in the bedroom, the man took a spade and helped Bengt clear away the snow, so that the horse and sledge could be taken to the shed. When Bengt went back to the sledge he found his master sitting there, sound asleep.

“That one doesn’t guard the Crown’s money any too well, eh?” grinned the crofter.

“Well, so far he’s never lost so much as a shilling of what’s the Crown’s,” Bengt snapped.

Always, when they put up anywhere, the Paymaster would carry in the money-chest and Bengt would follow with the food-box. But now, seeing how tired his master was, Bengt said, as the sledge stood before the wretched shed where the horse was to be stabled:

“Go in to bed, Master, and I’ll be along later with the boxes.”

“You need only bring in the one,” the Paymaster told him.

When Bengt had unharnessed the horse and led it into the shed, he found that his master had already gone inside, and the crofter, too, had disappeared. The strong-box was not in the sledge, and he assumed that the master had taken it in as usual.

The Paymaster of the Regiment sat by the fire in a wretched little room when Bengt came in. He heard him put a box down, but was too dead tired even to turn his head.

“Lock the door, Bengt,” he said, “and take out the key.”

“’Twas not much use bringing in the empty food-box,” Bengt observed.

“That’s what I thought,” said his master. “But we’ll be able to sleep to-night without any supper.”

Then he stretched himself out on a bare bench—great boots, fur coat, and all—slipped a couple of sticks of wood under his head, and was asleep in a second. He never slept later than four or five in the morning, but this time he awoke about two o’clock, quite rested and refreshed.

“Up, Bengt!” he called. “For God’s sake let’s be off at once, so that we can breakfast at Mårbacka.”

There was neither lamp nor candle in the room; but the night was not pitch-dark, and they could see well enough to grope their way out.

“You take the box, Bengt, and hitch up,” said the Paymaster, “while I go in and settle for the lodging.”

In a few moments they drove away. The storm had abated, and though the road was still heavy with snow, they made fair progress, now that the horse was rested.

“After all, it wasn’t such a bad idea our stopping there over night,” the Paymaster remarked.

“It turned out better than I expected,” said Bengt. “But I had such bad dreams all night, and thought I heard a lot of noise. It sounded as if they were pounding and hammering in the crofter’s room. I don’t know yet whether they were up working or whether I was just dreaming.”

“No doubt you dreamt they stole my money-chest,” laughed the Paymaster.

“But, Master—where have you put the box?” the servant burst out, beginning to fumble about under the seat.

“The box?... Why, you brought that out.”

“I?—I carried out the food-box.”

“But I told you last evening to bring in only the strong-box, and leave the other.”

It must have been a terrible moment for Paymaster Lagerlöf when he realized that through a misunderstanding on the part of his man the money-chest had been left out in the sledge. That the crofter had stolen it was plain. But what had he done with it? Could he have opened it? The chest was the regulation bailiff’s strong-box, iron bound, with combination lock. But at that, they might perhaps have pried it open.

They left the horse standing in the road, and ran back to the hut. When they burst into the house they found four rough-looking men sitting by the fire with the crofter and his wife, none of whom showed the least surprise. Bengt knew the men at once for the worst desperadoes in the district.

“Now ’tis just as I said,” the woman began, “that ye’d not be able to get home till the snow-plow’d been run afore ye.”

“Oh, we’ll manage to get home,” said the Paymaster of the Regiment. “But my money-chest is still in your house, and that I must have along with me.”

“Well, well, can it be possible that ye went off and left the money-box!” said the woman. “Then it must be standing in the bedroom. No one’s been in there since ye left.”

“The box was not forgotten,” said the Paymaster, sternly. “So produce it at once! You know what happens to those who steal the Crown’s money.”

“Now where could we hide a big money-chest?” the woman protested blandly. “Ye can see for yerself what’s here, and ye’re welcome to search the house.”

And that Bengt had already done. He had peered and poked into every nook and corner—and had found nothing.

“If you won’t give it up willingly,” said the Paymaster, “I shall have to leave my man here on guard while I go for the bailiff.”

“What, that fellow stay and keep guard over us!” almost laughed the woman.

Nor was it likely that Bengt, single-handed, could have kept six persons quietly seated in the hut while his master went in search of the bailiff. But all this time Bengt had been puzzling over something. He heard a crackling noise coming from the bake-oven, but saw no evidences of dough having been prepared. Without a word, he stole up and flung open the oven door.

“Come here, Master,” he cried, “and see the kind of bread they bake in this here oven.”

In there on a pyre of burning wood stood the money-chest.

The crofter and his wife now sprang at Bengt, but Paymaster Lagerlöf, who was a powerful man, pushed them back. When the other four, who had also begun to bestir themselves, saw the kind of thrusts he could give, they kept out of his reach. Bengt seized the oven rake and quickly pulled the box down onto the hearth. In his eagerness to find out whether the box had been much damaged, he nearly burned his fingers off.

“Ha! it hasn’t been opened,” he cried exultantly.

Though the box showed that the thieves had been filing and hammering at it, the good oaken chest was intact; neither lock nor mountings had given way. As a last resort they had put it on the fire. But, luckily, Bengt had been too quick for them—only a bit of one corner was charred.

III THE LARDER ON STILTS

ALL who had been long on the place thought the building next in age to the stone huts was the old larder that stood on posts. It had not been built by the first settler, but was erected some hundred years after his time, when Mårbacka had become a regular farmstead.

The peasants then living there had hurriedly put up a post-larder, it being the rule that every farm of any pretension must have one. It was a crude structure. The door was so low one had to stoop to enter; but the lock and key were conspicuously large and strong. There were no windows, only small openings, with trap-shutters. In summer there were fly-screens at the openings made of woven splints, through which very little light could penetrate.

The larder had two stories. The upper story being better finished than the lower, it was probably there the peasants stored their valuables.

In Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s time the building was as in olden days. It may have had a new roof, perhaps, but the steps were never changed. They were so narrow and close together one could scarcely get a foothold. Nor was there ever a pane of glass in the old building.

In the autumn the larder was something to behold. On the lower floor there were great bins of newly milled flour, next which stood two huge vats packed to the brim with beef and pork in brine, then came cowls and buckets of beef sausage, pork sausage, and potato sausage—in fact, all sorts of things that had been made up during the autumn slaughter. In one corner stood a barrel of salted herring, a keg of salted whitefish and one of sickling, and generally a firkin of salmon. Besides, there were tins of salted beans, salted spinach, and firkins of green and yellow peas.

On the upper floor there were tubs of butter of the summer’s churning stored for winter use. Long rows of cheeses were arranged on shelves above the openings, and from the ceiling hung year-old hams. The home-raised hops were preserved in a sack the size of a bolster, and the malted grain in a similar one. Here were provisions for a whole year.

It was the housekeeper who ruled over the larder. That was her domain, and the key to it seldom got into another’s hands. Mamselle Lovisa might potter in the pantry or milk-room, but she would hardly have ventured into the larder. The housekeeper was also supreme in the kitchen. Making small cakes or putting up preserves and fruit juices might well be left to Mamselle Lovisa, but when it came to roasting a fowl, making a cheese, or baking knäckebröd, it was the old housekeeper who took charge.

The little Lagerlöf children were very fond of her, and looked up to her as the most important member of the household. They had noticed that whenever relatives came to visit, the first thing they did was to go out to the kitchen and pay their respects to the housekeeper. If anything unusual happened in the family Lieutenant Lagerlöf would always call her in and tell her about it, and when Daniel and Johan were returning to school after the Christmas and summer holidays, they were told to say good-bye to the housekeeper. They had also heard outsiders say that Fru Lagerlöf was in great luck to have such a treasure in her kitchen, that nothing was ever wasted under her watchful eye. They said, moreover, that nowhere else could one get such Christmas ale, such knäckebröd, and such tasty dishes as were set before you at Mårbacka. And it was all due to the old housekeeper, they declared. So it was not strange the children regarded her as the main prop of the home, and firmly believed that were she not there Mårbacka would collapse.

Then, one day, little Anna found out a great secret, which gave her an awful fright, and she confided it to her sister Selma. She had overheard two of the maids talking about the housekeeper; they had said she was married and had a husband.

The distress of the two little girls was indescribable. If the housekeeper were actually married and had a husband they could not be sure of keeping her at Mårbacka. What would their mother do without her? And what would they themselves do who got such nice titbits from her whenever they went into the kitchen? And what would happen to the whole place, they wondered?

It was most imperative, therefore, that they should know how the matter stood; so they asked Nurse Maja if it were true that the housekeeper was married and had a husband.

Oh, yes. Nurse Maja knew the whole story. She had heard it from her mother, who was in service at Mårbacka at the time it all happened.

“It is the truth and no lie,” said she. The housekeeper’s husband was living in Karlstad, and was a boss carpenter. There was no such luck as his being dead!

And this was how it came about: When Lieutenant Lagerlöf and his brother as lads attended school at Karlstad, their mother, the old mistress, had sent her trusted housekeeper along with the boys, to look after them and prepare their meals. While there, she had made the acquaintance of a carpenter, who proposed to her. When on her return to Mårbacka in the spring she announced that she was going to be married, the old mistress was both sad and alarmed at the thought of losing her “greatest treasure.”

“And what sort of fellow are you marrying?” she had asked her. “Do you know whether he is a good man?”

Oh, yes, she was certain of that. He was a boss carpenter, who had his own shop and his own home. The house was in order, so that she might be married at once, and she could never have found a better husband.

“But how can you be content to live the year round in a barren city street—you who have always lived in the country?” the old mistress had then said.

Oh, she had no fears as to that. All would be well for her hereafter. She was to have an easy life—no baking, no brewing; she had only to go to the market and bring home whatever was needed.

When the old mistress heard her housekeeper speak in that manner she knew the woman was bent on marriage, and there was nothing to be done but give her a wedding at Mårbacka.

The bridegroom appeared to be a clever, sensible sort, and the day after the wedding he took his bride to Karlstad.

One evening a fortnight later—no, it was hardly that long—as the old mistress went out to the larder to slice some ham for supper (she could never take up the key to the larder but she thought of Maja Persdotter and wondered how she was getting along), she said to herself: “If I had not sent her to Karlstad she would never have met that carpenter and I should still have my good helper, and wouldn’t have to run out to the larder twenty times a day, as I do now.” Suddenly she saw a figure coming through the birch grove that was the living image of her housekeeper. The nearer the figure approached the more certain was Grandmother Lagerlöf of what she beheld. When Maja Persdotter presently stood before her and said, “Good-evening, Frua,” she had to believe her eyes and ears.

“Well, well, is it you, Maja Persdotter!” she exclaimed. “But what brings you here? Haven’t you got a good husband?”

“All he does is drink,” declared the housekeeper. “He’s been drunk every day since the wedding. It’s the pure alcohol he should be using in his work he guzzles. I can’t put up any longer with such a swine.”

“But I thought you were to go to the market and buy all your provisions, in order to escape hard work?”

“I’ll work my fingers to the bone for Frua and the children if you’ll only take me back!” vowed the housekeeper. “I’ve wished myself back at Mårbacka day and night since I went away.”

“Come in, then, and we’ll talk this over with the Paymaster of the Regiment,” the old mistress said with tears of joy in her eyes. “God willing, we’ll never part again so long as we live,” she added.

Nor did they. The housekeeper’s husband probably knew it would be useless for him to try to get her back. At all events, he never came to fetch her. The wedding ring she removed from her finger and laid away in her trunk. Nothing more was said about that episode in her life.

Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s little daughters should have felt quite easy in their minds on hearing this; but for a long time afterward they were troubled. Since that carpenter was still alive he might come some day and take her away. Whenever they looked down the road they expected to see him coming. Nurse Maja had told them that if he came and demanded the return of his wife, she would have to go with him.

They did not know just how old the housekeeper was. She herself had forgotten the year of her birth, and the date set down in the parish register was said not to be authentic. She must have been over seventy; but for all that, the carpenter might want her back—fine, capable woman that she was.

Then what would happen to Mårbacka!

IV THE MANSERVANTS’ COTTAGE

IN OLDEN times, when the master had to furnish the clothing for all the servants on his place, the womenfolk must have had their hands full of work the year round. Through the long, dark winter mornings and the long, dark winter evenings, they sat at the spinning wheels drawing out the threads for warp and weft. But the weaving itself was not begun until the spring, when the days grew longer; for such work cannot be done in semi-darkness.

In order to get the coarse wadmal and fine woollen cloth, the linen and cotton webs finished by summer, when the parish tailor came, they had to put speed into the looms. But if a loom stood in the kitchen the work did not go very fast. The weavers should have a place to themselves, where they can work without interruptions. Therefore, in former days every well-conducted farmstead had its special loom-room, and, of course, Mårbacka had one also. This was from the time of the clergymen. They had added a story to the manservants’ cottage consisting of two rooms, with clay-coated walls and boarded ceilings; and in each was a tile-stove. The back room was occupied by the farm overseer; and in the front room stood two looms, one at either window.

The loom-room was in use even in Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s time, though it was then no longer the custom to pay one’s serving-folk their earnings in clothing but in money. It was Fru Lagerlöf’s great delight to sit at a loom weaving towelling, bed linen, table linen, floor mats, curtains, furniture coverings, and dress fabrics—in fact, everything of that sort needed in the home. All summer long she had her looms going.

In the autumn, however, the looms were taken out to make room for a long, low table which was well smeared with bezum, and the round, three-legged stools were brought up from the servants’ room. That meant that Soldier Svens, the parish shoemaker, was expected. Soon he and his apprentices came shouldering great knapsacks packed full of awls, hammers, bundles of lasts, wax-ends, eyelets, heel-irons and shoe-pegs, all of which were dumped upon the table.

The cobbler was a tall, gaunt man with a shock of black hair and a full black beard. Seeing him for the first time one thought him a fierce and dangerous fellow, more fit for fighting than for the shoemaker’s bench. But when he spoke, it was in a soft, timorous voice. His eyes were rather small and mild-looking, and his whole bearing was a bit uncertain. He was perhaps not so very dangerous after all.

Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s little children were in high glee when the shoemaker arrived. They bounded up the difficult stairs to the loom-room many times a day. It was not so much for chatter they came—for Soldier Svens was a reticent and diligent man—as to watch the work, to see how a shoe was made, from the stretching of the leather on the last to the cutting out of the bootlaces.

The shoemaker, who usually sat with drooping head, brightened when he heard Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s footstep on the stairs. He and the Lieutenant were old regiment comrades. After they had discussed brogans, sole-leather, and boot-grease a while, they fell to reminiscing about Trossnäs Field, and when they were well warmed up to it, the Lieutenant would coax the shoemaker to sing an old war song which was unlike any other battle hymn in that it began thus: We heroes from Sweden, we do not love to fight. That song the soldiers had made up when they marched down to Denmark in the year 1848 on the expedition known as the “Sandwich War.”

Singularly enough, Shoemaker Svens loved to talk about Tailor Lager, who had sat many a time in that very room in the days of the Paymaster of the Regiment, and who was as merry and full of fun as he was grave and mournful.

“You have probably heard, Lieutenant, how the tailor came to be called Lager,” the shoemaker began.

The Lieutenant knew the story as well as he knew his “Our Father,” but all the same he replied:

“I may have heard it, Svens, but you tell it—in your way.”

“Well, you see, Lager he was a soldier like myself, though he was before my time. They say in the regiment that at first he was called Lars Andersson. Then came orders for the privates to change their names because there were too many Anderssons and Johanssons in the regiment.

“One day at a rally at Trossnäs, the soldiers were called in by your father to say by what name they wished to be known, and to have it set down in the roll.

“Of course Lars Andersson was among them. The Paymaster of the Regiment knew him from of old as a joke-maker, for year after year Lars had sat here at Mårbacka weeks at a stretch, making clothes for the Paymaster and all his folks. From the time he came till he went it was nothing but fun and laughter. He could mimic everybody in the parish and make things disappear like a magician at the fair, and he played on a stick till you thought you heard the whole regiment marching. But he was a bit dangerous, was Lars, for he made up yarns about folk that caused bad feeling among the neighbours.

“‘Well, what shall you call yourself, Lars Andersson?’ the Paymaster asked him, putting on a stern face so that Lars would not dare come with any of his monkey tricks.

“‘Lord preserve the Paymaster of the Regiment!’ says he. ‘May I call myself anything I like?’ He puckered his forehead as if he were trying hard to think of a name.

“‘You may, Lars Andersson.’ The Paymaster, knowing his man, added, ‘But it must be a proper and honourable name, and nothing clownish.’

“You remember, Lieutenant, how your father looked. He was a kind man, but just the sight of him put fear into many a one, for he was a big tall man with bushy black eyebrows.

“But the tailor was not afraid—not he! ‘Then,’ says he, ‘I’ll call myself Lagerlöf, for that is both an honourable and respected name. I know of no other in all Värmland that sounds so sweet.’

“The Paymaster of the Regiment must have got hot in the head when he heard that that buffoon wanted to call himself Lagerlöf.

“‘No, that won’t do,’ he said. ‘We can’t have two with the same name in the regiment.’

“‘But,’ says the tailor, ‘there are at least three Ugglas and four Lilliehööks, and it isn’t likely anyone would mistake me for the Paymaster.’

“‘No. But can’t you see, Lars Andersson, that it would never do,’ protested the Paymaster.

“‘I wouldn’t have chosen that name if you hadn’t given me leave to call myself whatever I wished.’ The tailor made himself appear very humble and serious. ‘I know that when the Paymaster of the Regiment gives you his word you can usually go by it.’

“Then there was a long silence. Paymaster Lagerlöf sat studying how he’d get round this. Aside from the fact that it would make him the butt of the regiment, he didn’t care to have a mountebank like that tailor knocking about under the name of Lagerlöf.

“‘Look here, Lars,’ he finally said, ‘it might do well enough here in the regiment for us two to bear the same name, but home at Mårbacka it would never go. So understand, if you insist on this thing you can’t do any more tailoring there.’

“That must have given the tailor a scare, for the weeks he sat sewing at Mårbacka were to him the best in the whole year. At no other place did he fare so well, and nowhere else did they laugh so heartily at his yarns and pranks.

“‘Perhaps you’d be satisfied to call yourself Lager?’ the Paymaster suggested, seeing the fellow was wavering. The tailor must have agreed to that, for he went by the name of Lager the rest of his life.”

V THE “JUNGFRU”

SHE was an old jungfru who had once been in service in the home of Fru Lagerlöf’s parents, at Filipstad, but lived now, in her old age, at Ämtervik. She had known Fru Lagerlöf as a child, and used to come to Mårbacka two or three times a year to see the folks.

The jungfru was a tall, good-looking woman with white hair. She had a strong nose, a firm mouth, and a grave manner. She liked preachers and missionaries, and ran to prayer-meetings and sewing-circles. One could not talk with her about dancing, or novels, or love affairs; such things were to her an abomination. Nor did one dare speak ill of any one in her presence, or even discuss pretty clothes, and she would not hear about the sinful things that went on in the world.

It was not easy to know just what one should talk about. Outside of cookery and the weather there were few topics of conversation one might safely touch upon. These, to be sure, held out a long while, but even they could become exhausted, for the jungfru was a person of few words, and her answers were short and well posed.

There was a way, however, to loosen the jungfru’s tongue; but it had its drawbacks. She had once on a time been cook at a large deanery. The dean had twenty children, all living and arrived at maturity. That family she continually kept in mind, and her supreme delight was to talk about those people.

The family at Mårbacka were having their usual afternoon coffee in the living room. The coffeepot and tray stood on the big table. Everyone, in turn, went up and poured himself a cup. None took more than one lump of sugar, one wheaten rusk and one of rye, one ring-biscuit, one ginger cookie, and a bit of fresh cake, if there happened to be any. Whereupon each sat down in his accustomed place. Fru Lagerlöf occupied one corner of the sofa, Mamselle Lovisa the other. The Lieutenant always had the rocker, which was his favourite seat. No one else would have ventured to appropriate that. Herr Tyberg, Johan’s tutor, took a cane-bottomed chair, and between these four stood a table made from the root of an alder. At one of the little window-tables sat Johan, at the other Anna, while over in the chimney corner, by the folded card table, sat the two little tots, Selma and Gerda; they were considered too young to have coffee, and had to be content with a glass of milk each.

The jungfru, who had come that day for a visit, was having coffee with the family. She had placed her chair in the middle of the room, where all might see and talk with her. They had run the whole gamut of harmless topics, and were now at a standstill. Lieutenant Lagerlöf, who could not abide a lull in the conversation, began to question her about missions, colporteurs, sewing-circles, and prayer-meetings. Knowing the sort he was and what she was, it was clear that this could not run smoothly.

Fru Lagerlöf tried to change the conversation, Mamselle Lovisa gave her brother a nudge with her elbow, and Herr Tyberg called attention to the excellent quality of the coffee. But the Lieutenant and the jungfru went right on with their discussion, which was getting a bit hot.

Now Fru Lagerlöf knew from of old that if the jungfru took offence at anything the Lieutenant said about the “miss-i-on,” she would not come again for at least a year; and her circumstances were such that she needed to come to Mårbacka occasionally, to get a few good meals, a sack of flour, and something tasty to take home with her. She saw no way out of it but to ask the jungfru what had become of all the dean’s twenty children.

In a twinkling the foreign and home missions, the heathen children, and even the impious Lieutenant were forgotten. She brightened, and promptly started in:

“I’ve never known the like of it in all my life. In that house we’d a wash-day every other week, and at that, the tubs were always full of clothes. You could never sit down to a meal but you must have a child on each side of you. You had to fix its food and help feed it in the bargain. When there was shifts to be made, they had to fetch home whole bolts of linen, and sempstresses and tailors and shoemakers never found time to go to other places in the parish, for they’d enough to do in that one place.”

“But, my dear Jungfru Anna, however could the dean and his wife manage to bring up so many children?” Fru Lagerlöf said to get her well started.

“Ah, but they did, though, and they turned out grand, all of them. You never saw better children. Only think! the oldest daughter, Eve—what a handy one she was at making baby things and tending little ones! And she got married, indeed, at seventeen to Curate Jansson of Skilanda, and when he died she got a dean in Västergötland. She had a lot of children, and after she’d stood a bride the first time she never showed herself again in her father’s house.”

“She probably thought there were enough without her,” observed the Lieutenant, dryly.

The little girls over in the chimney-corner began to giggle; but they got such a sharp look from the jungfru they subsided instantly.

“The next to the oldest was a boy named Adam,” the jungfru continued. “He was the worst child for crying I ever came across. But later on, when he became a priest, he chanted the service so beautiful that he was made Court Chaplain. He could have married any one he liked, but he had no such wish. For some reason he remained a bachelor all his life.”

“Tell us, what was it?” Herr Tyberg struck in.

Again came a titter from the chimney-corner. The jungfru shot the children and Herr Tyberg each a glance that scared them into silence.

“The third was a boy called Noah. And d’you know, Frua, he was so good at fishing, and brought home such big catches that both me and his mother was thankful to him. He became a priest in Halland, and every year he sent his folks a big barrel of salted salmon.”

“Oh, speaking of salmon——” The Lieutenant started to say something about their ordering another firkin of salmon, but couldn’t get a word in for the jungfru.

“The next was a boy named Shem,” she rattled on. “He was as great a hunter as Noah was a fisher. Oh, you’d ought t’ve seen all the grouse and hares he brought home! And he became a priest, too, and got a vicarage down in Skåne; and every winter he sent home a reindeer he’d shot himself.”

After Shem she took breath and looked round. Her hearers sat silent and subdued. None thought of interrupting her.

“The one that came after the three boys was a girl whose name was Sara. And I’d be willing to swear before God and man, that never have I seen any one with such a knack at putting up pickles and making jam and fruit juice. All the same, she didn’t get married; she went to Stockholm and kept house for her brother the Court Chaplain.

“The next was also a girl, and Rebecca was her name. I must say that she was the one who understood me the least. She had such a good head for learning she could have been a priest like her brothers. And the way she could make up poetry was something wonderful! Folks said there was nobody in all Sweden beat her writing cradle songs. Just the same she got married, but ’twas only to a school teacher.”

At that point the jungfru was interrupted by the maid coming in with fresh coffee, and they must all have a second cup.

“I wonder if there was any one in that batch who could make a decent cup of coffee?” Lieutenant Lagerlöf ventured.

“The Lieutenant takes the words out of my mouth!” exclaimed the jungfru. “It may sound queer, but the one who had a real turn for cooking was the fourth boy, Isaac. He was so clever at whipping up a sauce and basting a roast that one could have right good help from him round the stove.”

“He must have excelled, though, at preparing baby-food,” Herr Tyberg observed.

Snickers went up not only from the chimney-corner, but from all parts of the room. Fru Lagerlöf, however, kept a straight face.

“What a wonderful memory Jungfru Anna must have to be able to remember all that!” she said, so as to keep the old girl in good humour.

Ordinarily the jungfru was quick to take offence, but not when she could talk about her dear deanery children. Then she was imperturbable. At all events, Herr Tyberg had helped them away from Isaac. They never learned to what uses he eventually put his talent.

“The two next were twins, and they were called Jacob and Esau. They were as like as two coffee beans. I couldn’t tell one from t’other. I never saw such boys for running and jumping and skating. But they became priests, they, too.”

“I thought they were going to be rope-dancers,” the Lieutenant cut in.

“They became priests, they, too,” the jungfru reiterated, not in the least put out. “Esau went up to Jämtland, where he had to clamber ’mong the fells, and Jacob, he went down to Bohuslän, where he scrambled in and out of boats and ships. They found their right places and turned to use the talents God had given ’em—they, like their brothers and sisters.”

“But what happened to Joseph?” asked the Lieutenant quickly.

“There were two girls before him, Lieutenant, called Rachel and Leah. They were handy in the garden; the one planted and the other weeded. When the bishop paid a visit he declared he’d never tasted such peas and such strawberries. They married, too; each of them got a foundry owner. And now I’m coming to Joseph.”

“He became a squire, I suppose?” said the Lieutenant.

“He became a tenant of his father’s,” the jungfru corrected him. “He looked after the fields and tended the cows and provided food for his parents and his brethren.”

“H’m—that was just what I thought.” So saying, the Lieutenant arose and sidled toward the door, where his hat and cane were hanging, and sneaked out.

“The thirteenth was David,” pursued the jungfru. “He married three times, and had three children by each wife. If it please you, I can tell you the names of all the wives and children.... But maybe ’twould be better to keep to the twenty brethren?”

They all thought that quite the wisest plan. But with these prospects before her, Fru Lagerlöf felt a bit uneasy.

“I’ll run out and fetch something to work on,” she said, “then I’ll be able to follow you better.” But it was a good while before she came back with that work.

“The fourteenth was a girl named Deborah. She was always so nice about giving me a hand with the bread-making. She never got married and never left home, for she had to stay at the deanery and help me and her mother with the little ones. Sometimes she was kind of queer, though, and then she’d say she liked the Catholic religion because it didn’t allow its priests to marry.”

A slight noise was heard down by the door. Herr Tyberg had slipped out so softly no one noticed it till he was gone.

“The fifteenth was a girl, and her name was Martha. She was the greatest beauty you ever set eyes on! But she, too, was a bit queer. When she came seventeen she married a dean who was two-and-sixty, just because she wanted to get away from home.”

Here Anna and Johan stood up. They must go fetch a light, they said. It was some little time before that light was brought.

“The sixteenth was called Mary. She was homely, and she used to say she’d never be able to catch a parson or a gentleman; but she was that eager to leave home she took up with a farm-hand, and went off and got married.”

Mamselle Lovisa remained faithfully at her post, where she had gone sound asleep; but this the jungfru had not noticed.

“The seventeenth was hardly eighteen when she moved away from the deanery. She used to help the missus write letters to all the brothers and sisters; for that was more than any one body could do.”

The door opened ever so little and shut again.

“The eighteenth,” droned the jungfru, “was but fifteen when he declared he was going to America because he couldn’t put up with so many relatives.

“And number nineteen and twenty, they were only fourteen and thirteen when I last saw them.”

At that moment Fru Lagerlöf came in with her knitting, Anna appeared with the lamp, and Mamselle Lovisa awoke.

“Thanks, thanks, dear Jungfru Anna,” said Fru Lagerlöf. “We shall never forget this. It has been so very instructive to me and my children.”

VI THE BRIDAL-CROWN

MAMSELLE LOVISA LAGERLÖF used to dress the brides. Not all the girls in the parish who married came to her to be decked, only the daughters of the best peasant families. Some years there were two or three brides, and some none at all.

Formerly, when Mårbacka was a parsonage, it had been the duty of the pastor’s womenfolk to deck the brides, especially those who were to be married in the church.

Mamselle Lovisa’s mother and maternal grandmother and great-grandmother before her had performed this same service. It was an old custom which had been handed down.

She had inherited all the old bridal trumpery which in the course of time had accumulated at Mårbacka. She had a large old cupboard, in a drawer of which were treasured long strings of glass, coral, and amber beads, a collection of tortoise-shell combs that stood up eight inches from the head, and half-round pasteboard forms, covered either with stiff white satin or hand-painted flowers, in use at the period when coifs were worn. She had also a high pasteboard bridal-crown, the points of which were covered partly with gilt paper and partly with pink-and-green taffeta. There were wreaths of artificial roses and yards on yards of green satin ribbon sewn with flowers of pink satin. In the same drawer there were Jenny-Lind-ringlets, to be fastened on so as to fall against the face, hair pins with dangle-buttons, long ear-pendants of imitation pearls, an assortment of brass brooches, bracelets, and shoe buckles set with glass rubies, amethysts, and sapphires.

In the days when these things were in vogue it was a responsible and laborious task to deck a bride. For days before the wedding the bride dresser had to sit sewing flowered satin bands round the skirt and sleeves of the wedding dress. Sometimes the crown had to have fresh gilt paper and there were paper flowers to be made, and all the brass things had to be polished till they shone like gold.

Though all the gewgaws were shoddy stuff, a peasant-bride with a high crown and a broad flower wreath on her head, with strand on strand of multi-colored beads hanging down from her neck, with flowered satin sash round her waist, with a band of gay ribbon bordering her skirt, with bangled wrists and buckled shoes, must have been the most dazzling sight one could behold.

And it was also the most becoming array for a tall, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked peasant lass, whose figure had been developed by hard toil and whose skin was tanned by sun and wind. Thus arrayed, she carried herself with dignity and pride, as if for a space she were exalted above her kind. To the bridegroom on the wedding day she looked a queen, a veritable goddess of riches. She was the most gorgeous flower in all the meadow, and to his eyes she glittered like a jewelled casket.

When Mamselle Lovisa dressed brides the old frippery was no longer in use. Now it had to be a natty little crown of myrtle, a thin wreath, also of myrtle, and a long white veil. Sometimes she would put a band of red satin ribbon round the waist of a plain black dress, and lend her brides her own gold brooch, gold bracelets, and watch and chain, to relieve at least a little the severity of the attire.

She must indeed have sighed for the olden times, and felt that something was lost by being so sparing with colours and ornaments, by concealing the rugged, and sometimes rather coarse, features of the peasant brides behind a sheer, white veil. That mode suited better the pale delicate city maiden, who wished to appear before the bridegroom as something ethereal and dreamlike. She conceded that this, too, was a pretty fashion; but certainly the peasant brides would have looked much better in the old, characteristic array.

Besides, it was difficult to procure fresh myrtle for the wreath and crown. Mamselle Lovisa tried to raise a little myrtle herself, but somehow it never seemed to grow for her, and the brides rarely had any to help out with.

Once Mamselle Lovisa got into trouble. A middle-aged woman, one Kaisa Nilsdotter, came and asked her if she would not dress her as bride. The woman was of the poorer peasant class, while the prospective husband was a schoolmaster. She felt that since she was making such an advantageous marriage no less a person than Mamselle Lagerlöf should deck her. And Mamselle Lovisa was quite willing. All she asked was that the bride should help her find the myrtle.

“I am nearly out of myrtle,” she said, “and do not know where to procure any.”

The woman agreed to furnish the myrtle for both crown and wreath. The day before the wedding she sent a few twigs with leaves so blackened and damaged they could hardly be used for a bridal-crown.

Here was a dilemma! Mamselle Lovisa stripped her own myrtles of every bit of green; but this did not go very far. The maids ran over to see what they could find on the neighbouring farms, and came back with only a few poor sprigs. All the myrtle seemed to be sick that year; the leaves were black, and dropped off if one but touched them.

It would never do to bind any green but myrtle into a bridal-crown. Nice, fresh whortleberry is very like myrtle; but to wear a bridal-crown of whortleberry green would be a terrible disgrace. The bride might actually think she was not properly married.

Mamselle Lovisa laid the miserable little twigs in water to freshen them a bit, and worked far into the night on the wreath and crown. It looked a hopeless task, but she made the best of it. In the morning she quietly slipped out to the woods, but returned as she had gone—empty handed. Passing through the kitchen to her room she averred that never had she had such difficulty trying to bind a pretty bridal-crown. The maids felt sorry for her, and offered to run to still other cottages to beg myrtle.

“No, thank you,” she said, “it’s too late now. The bride and groom may be here at any moment.”

She went into her room and stuck a few more leaves into the crown and wreath where they were the barest, then showed her work to the housekeeper and the maids.

“How in the world did you do it, Mamselle Lovisa!” one exclaimed. “Why, that wreath and crown are just as pretty as those you usually make, though ’twas mostly bare sprigs and black leaves you had.”

Mamselle Lovisa then explained that she had freshened the leaves in water, it was only smoke and dust that had blackened them.

Shortly afterwards the bridal pair arrived. The bride was decked in Mamselle Lovisa’s room. Though no longer young, the woman had a good and pleasing appearance. When she was all ready Mamselle Lovisa conducted her into the parlour, that she might view herself in the large mirror. And she was delighted.

“I never would have thought I could look that well!” she said. Then she took out a bottle of cologne and a pretty box—gifts from the groom. The box was filled with small candies, loaf-sugar, raisins, and lozenges. These she passed round—first to Mamselle Lovisa, then to the others. All had to dab themselves with a few drops of the cologne and take a piece of candy or a raisin from the box. She looked more pleased and happy than the young brides usually did, and every one complimented her on her appearance.

In a few moments she and the bridegroom drove off to the parsonage to be married, and from there to the bride’s home, to celebrate.

For a time Kaisa Nilsdotter was very happy in her married life. Although her husband was much older than she, her respect for his learning was so great that she took special pride in ministering to his comfort and in making him a pleasant home. Then a rumour got afloat. It must have been started by some person at Mårbacka; but who the author was none could say. At all events, it travelled round the whole parish. At last some kind friend no doubt whispered it into the ear of Kaisa Nilsdotter.

“Mamselle Lovisa Lagerlöf bound your bridal-crown with whortleberry green.”

At first she would not believe it. Such a thing was beyond credence. But after a while she began to think back. Her bridal-crown had been as pretty as anyone else’s. It had looked so fresh and green on her head. She remembered how proud she had been because a fine Mamselle had put it on her. But was the crown not much too green? The spring she was married the myrtle had all been poor, she remembered, for she had tried in vain to find some green sprays. Maybe Mamselle Lovisa had thought it was not necessary to be so very particular with one who came of such humble folk? She would never have dared offer a crown of whortleberry to the daughter of a squire.

She brooded over this and talked with her husband about it. She wondered whether they were really married, in case it was true that her crown had been of whortleberry green.

The husband tried to reason with her, but she wept and was utterly wretched, thinking herself disgraced and humiliated. Mamselle Lovisa had thought she was not fine enough to be dressed by her, so she had made her a crown of whortleberry, and now she and all the parish were laughing at her. Her husband finally advised her to go to Mårbacka and ask Mamselle Lovisa herself about it.

She chanced to come at a most inopportune time. There was a grand party that day at Mårbacka, and when she stepped into the kitchen the maids were too busy to give her more than a short how-do-you-do. She asked for Mamselle Lovisa, who was inside with her guests, and they would not call her out. She would have to excuse them, too, for there was such a lot of company to serve. But, if she liked, she might step into Mamselle Lovisa’s room, and wait there for her; which she did.

It was here the crown had been placed on her head. She remembered how happy she was that day, and now it was hard to believe there had been any deception.

Presently two maids passed through the room, each carrying a tray of filled wine glasses. They left the door ajar so that she could see into the dining room and parlour, which were full of people. It was indeed a big party, she thought. In there were not only the gentry of Ämtervik, but the Dean’s and the Doctor’s folk from Sunne and Pastor Hammargren of Karlstad—the husband of Mamselle Lovisa’s sister. Feeling rather embarrassed, she went to shut the door, when she caught a few words that made her stop and listen.

Lieutenant Lagerlöf, with wine glass in hand, stood in the middle of the floor announcing the betrothal of his sister Lovisa to Pastor Milén, the clergyman at Ämtervik.

Then there was much toasting and congratulating. Everyone looked happy and pleased, which was not surprising. Mamselle Lovisa was a woman of forty, and her relatives had hardly expected that she would marry. Pastor Milén was a widower with four small children who needed a mother’s care. It was all so right and fitting.

Kaisa Nilsdotter had heard that when Mamselle Lovisa was young she would not marry because she had not the heart to leave her parents. But now that they were dead she wanted a home of her own. She had also heard that Mamselle Lovisa did not care to go far from Mårbacka, and, happily, the parsonage was but five minutes’ walk from there.

It sort of cut into Kaisa Nilsdotter that everything should go so well for Mamselle Lovisa—she who had made a whortleberry crown for her. Stepping back from the doorway, she saw the old housekeeper, who had come in to hear the betrothal announcement, standing just behind her. Kaisa Nilsdotter laid a heavy hand on the housekeeper’s shoulder.

“I came here to find out whether Mamselle Lovisa made my bridal-crown of whortleberry green,” she said. “But maybe ’twouldn’t do to ask her about it on a day like this?”

The housekeeper was rather startled, but she was not one to be easily thrown off her guard.

“How can you say anything so idiotic, Kaisa!” she flouted. “Everyone in the house knows what a lot of bother Mamselle Lovisa had with your bridal-crown. We all ran about to every cottage around here, and begged the myrtle.”

Kaisa stared at her as if searching her very soul to get at the truth. “But the whole parish says so,” she declared.

The old housekeeper, whose sole thought was to pacify the woman and get her out of the house, lest she disturb Mamselle Lovisa on this of all days, said:

“But I tell you, Kaisa, that as sure as Mamselle Lovisa’s own bridal-crown will be of myrtle was yours of myrtle, and of nothing else.”

“I’ll bear those words in mind,” said Kaisa. “And when I see what Mamselle Lovisa’s bridal-crown is bound with, then I’ll know how it was with mine.”

“You can rest easy as to that,” the housekeeper assured her.

The two then went into the kitchen, and Kaisa, looking quite calm now, put out her hand in farewell.

“I may as well be going,” she said. “Anyhow, I don’t suppose I could see Mamselle Lovisa to-day to speak to.”

With that she was off. The housekeeper went back to her work, and, in the rush and excitement, forgot about the woman. It was not till a day or two afterward that she told Mamselle Lovisa what Kaisa Nilsdotter had said and what she herself had replied.

Mamselle Lovisa went white as a sheet.

“Oh, Maja!” she cried, “how could you say that! It would have been better to tell her that I put a few little sprays of whortleberry green in her crown.”

“I had to ease her mind to get her to go,” the housekeeper explained.

“And so you said my crown would be of myrtle as surely as hers was. Now you’ll see, Maja, there will be no bridal-crown for me!”

“Oh, you’ll be married right enough, Mamselle Lovisa. Pastor Milén is not the man to jilt you.”

“Who knows? Something else might come up to prevent it.”

Mamselle Lovisa worried over this a few days, and then let it pass out of mind. She had other things to think of. In six months the wedding was to take place, and she must begin at once on the household linens and the trousseau.

She set up looms, sewed, and worked monograms. She finally went to Karlstad to shop, and returned with the fabric for a wedding dress and a little wire frame of a crown, to be bound with myrtle. She did not wish to use the old frame worn by so many brides, but wanted a bridal-crown of her own.

But these purchases had no sooner been made than the unexpected happened. Pastor Milén became ill and was confined to his bed a long time. When he recovered sufficiently to be up and about he seemed strangely changed. People noticed that he did not care to talk with his betrothed, and never went the short distance to Mårbacka to see her. When summer came he went away to a health resort. During his long absence he never once wrote to Mamselle Lovisa. It was a time of anxiety and distress for her. She inferred from his silence that he wished to break with her, and sent him back his ring. The day this happened she said to the old housekeeper:

“Now you see, Maja, that my bridal-crown will not be bound with myrtle, either.”

*****

One day, many years later, one of the young daughters of Lieutenant Lagerlöf asked her Aunt Lovisa to lend her some of the old peasant bridal things to dress up in. Mamselle Lovisa gave her the key to the cupboard where the old treasures were kept and which had long since been removed to the storeroom upstairs.

The young girl unlocked the cupboard and pulled out a drawer. She gazed at the contents in astonishment. Before her lay not the usual gaudy trumpery, but only a parcel of tulle, some coloured satin fabric, and a little wire form of a bridal-crown. She saw at once that she had opened the wrong drawer, the bridal things were in the next one. Just the same, she stood a moment looking into the drawer. It wrung her heart to think that poor, unhappy Aunt Lovisa had never come to use the things lying there. She knew that for years her aunt had grieved in silence, and would not be comforted. Then something came back to memory. One day during the saddest period of her aunt’s unhappiness she had gone into her room and had found her sitting before a heap of whortleberry green, a little wire crown in her hand. Her aunt had cut off a few sprays and was binding them round the crown, when Fru Lagerlöf came in.

“Why, Lovisa, whatever are you doing?” she had asked with a frightened look on her face.

“I was thinking,” Mamselle Lovisa had said, dreamily, “that if I would be content with a crown of whortle—— But that’s stupid!”

Then she had quickly jumped up, brushed aside the crown and the leaves, and cried out: “I know it’s all ended.” Then pacing the floor and wringing her hands the while, she had moaned: “There’s no help for it now.”

“But, my dear Lovisa, it was only on account of his illness,” Fru Lagerlöf had answered.

Mamselle Lovisa had continued to pace up and down, up and down, in anguish and despair.

“If only I hadn’t put whortleberry in Kaisa Nilsdotter’s bridal-crown!” she had wailed.

“Come, come, Lovisa, you mustn’t think that.” Just then Fru Lagerlöf had caught sight of the child standing there, wide-eyed.

“Go into the other room, Selma,” she had said. “Aunt Lovisa has a sorrow, and you children must not come here and disturb her.”

VII “VACKERFELDT” ^[1]

THE tinkle of a silver bell is heard from the road. Colour-Sergeant Karl von Wachenfeldt comes driving....

Colour-Sergeant Karl von Wachenfeldt—was it not he who once on a time was proclaimed the handsomest man in Värmland, if not in all Sweden? Was it not he who was the idol of the Stockholm ladies the winter season of 1820, when he visited the Capital to take some sort of examination in land surveying? Was it not he who made up sleighing parties and led cotillions with a dash that put all the beaux cavaliers of the haute monde into the shade? Was it not he who danced so divinely and conversed so enchantingly that his fine relatives, who at first would not recognize the poor Värmland under-officer, finally sent him letters of invitation, couched in the humblest terms, because the young ladies could have no pleasure at a ball not graced by his presence?

And was it not he who had such astounding luck at the gaming-table it enabled him to live that winter in Stockholm like a Lieutenant of the Guard? Was it not he, by the way, who hobnobbed with counts and barons, and outshone them in gallantry and elegance? Was it not he who at a private theatrical in the home of Admiral Wachtmeister played the leading lover and sang his couplets so passionately that the next morning he found a score of love letters in his post-box? Was not he the first to drive through the streets of Stockholm with harness and trappings adorned with chimes of silver bells? Was it not he who was known to all Stockholm, so that wherever he appeared, whether at the Royal Gardens or the Blue Gate, at the Opera or among the moving throngs in the street, it was whispered: “Look! here comes Vackerfeldt. Oh—oh, see! Here comes Vackerfeldt!”

Was it not he who, after his one and only memorable winter in Stockholm, duplicated his triumphs at Karlstad and wherever else he chanced to be? Was it not he who, with Sergeant Sellblad as companion and Drummer Tyberg as valet, went down to Göteborg, where he passed himself off as a Finnish baron, and for a whole fortnight spoke with a Finnish accent, while running a gaming-house for the benefit of wealthy merchants’ gay young sons? Was not he the only under-officer that had ever got to dance with the haughty Countess of Apertin? And was it not he who became so enamoured of the beautiful Mamselle Widerström, when she sang in La Preciosa at the Karlstad theatre, that he abducted her and would have got over into Norway with her, had not her manager happily overtaken them at Arvika? And, finally, was it not he who came to Captain Wästfelt at Angersby as Adjutant something or other, and put life into the young folk in Fryksdalen? Were ever such grand fair balls, such merry Christmas feasts, such jolly crayfish parties, and such delightful wanderings to picturesque places of interest! The romantic wife of the Captain who lay on a couch all day reading novels, did she not find in him the embodiment of her heroes of romance! And her young daughters, were not their first love dreams of him?

On the neighbouring place, Mårbacka, where there was a houseful of pretty daughters—what happened there? Could they resist a beau cavalier who manipulated the curling-tongs as skilfully as he did the guitar, and had the nimbus of Amor shining above his fair, curled hair?

*****

Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt comes driving down the rocky road, while the lone silver bell tinkles feebly and almost mournfully. In the days of his power and glory the sixty silver bells which hung from the harness and trappings jingled right merrily. They had, so to speak, rung in his triumphs, had heralded the coming of a conqueror. But now when there is only one solitary bell, it seems merely to announce the approach of a man whose day of fortune and happiness is over.

The Colour-Sergeant rides behind his old horse, Kalle, which is so noticeably small that everyone he meets in the road turns to look after it. But, on the other hand, no one turns to look at the horse’s owner.

Driving past Gunnarsby Inn, he sees two young girls standing at the well. He salutes them with a flourish of his whip, and from force of habit gives them one of his most seductive smiles, but receives in return an indifferent glance. The girls do not drop the well bucket in wonder, or stand rapt with cheeks aglow, to gaze after him.

Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt gives his horse a lash of the whip. He is no fool. He knows that his hair is gray and his face full of wrinkles, that his moustache is thin and faded, that one eye is filmed with a gray cataract, while the other, having been operated upon, is distorted by a magnifying monocle. He knows that he is old and nothing to look at now; yet he feels that people should not entirely forget what he once was. True, he has no better home nowadays than two hired rooms at a farmhouse in Stor Kil Parish. His only possessions are a horse, a carriole, a sleigh, and a few pieces of furniture, and his only subordinate is a crotchety old serving woman. For all that, he thinks it should not be completely forgotten that once he was Vackerfeldt, the celebrated Vackerfeldt.

He sits there in a mangy old fur coat and a still shabbier seal-skin cap. He wears thick lynx mittens to protect his gouty hands, but the distorted joints are noticeable even through the thick mittens. Nevertheless it is he, Wachenfeldt—he who has held so many beautiful women in his arms! The memory of that none can take from him. Who else in these parts has lived such a life and been so adored?

Pressing his lips together he tells himself he has nothing to regret. If he could live his life over again he would have it the same. All that youth and health and good looks can give a man he has enjoyed—love and adventure in fullest measure.

One thing perhaps Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt wishes he had left undone. He should not have married Anna Lagerlöf, the noblest woman he had ever known. He had loved her madly, but he never should have espoused her.

Was it fitting that a Vackerfeldt should settle down to the prudent management of a farm and not try to harvest gold in some easier and pleasanter way? If his wife was adorable, must he needs think her the only adorable one? Could he change his nature by marrying? Was it not through his success as gambler and lover he had won his fame?

Yes, he regrets his marriage. His wife was not suited to him, but he concedes that she was too good for him. She had wanted orderliness, industry, tranquillity, and comfort, and had worn herself out trying to make a home for them, such as she had had at Mårbacka.

Others might think he should not so much regret having married as having caused his wife grief and humiliation. After seventeen years of domestic infelicity, when Anna von Wachenfeldt could endure no more, she died. Then misfortunes of all sorts befell him. The creditors showed no further indulgence, but took away his home. He had to give up gambling, for now he lost as soon as he touched a card. The gout had also come, and the gray cataract. Before he had reached sixty he was white-haired, stiff-jointed, half-blind, helpless, and poverty-stricken. It would have been no small comfort to him now to have had his good, loving wife still with him.

Since her death he had been cut off from all social intercourse. No one cared whether he lived or died. None invited him to their homes. It looked as if people had merely tolerated him for his wife’s sake. When he yearns for laughter and merriment, when he would like to sit down to a well-served dinner and talk with cultured people, he has no place to go. When the holidays come round, with their long leisure hours, when he would like to escape from the deadly monotony of the farmhouse, he does not know what to do with himself.

There is just one place in the world where he can go for a bit of a taste of the old life, and that place is Mårbacka, whence he had brought his wife. He knows what they think and feel there—that he had made her life very unhappy. They actually believe that he tormented her to death. Nevertheless, he journeys thither thrice a year for the great holiday festivities. But for these visits to Mårbacka his life would be intolerable.

The silver bell rings out a loud plaint. The Colour-Sergeant has just dealt his little horse a stinging blow. Life has many bitter fruits, which one must take. It seems quite proper that the horse should share the pain of his master.

*****

If the little Mårbacka children had not known by any other signs that Christmas was at hand, they would have guessed it when Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt appeared.

They were overjoyed when they saw his horse and cutter coming up the driveway. They raced through the house shouting the glad tidings, and rushed out on the steps to greet him, crying Good-day and Welcome. They fetched bread for his horse and carried his lean carpet-bag, embroidered in cross-stitched leaves and flowers, down to the Lieutenant’s office, which the Sergeant was to occupy.

It was remarkable that the children were always so glad to see Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt, for he never brought them any goodies or presents. But they must have thought him a part of Christmas, which no doubt accounted for their joy. Anyhow, it was well they were friendly, for the grown folk made no ado over him. Fru Lagerlöf and Mamselle Lovisa did not go out to receive the guest, and it was with rather a heavy sigh the Lieutenant put down his Värmland News, and arose from his rocker to go and meet him.

“Well, well, so you’re here again, Wachenfeldt!” he said, as he stood on the steps. After putting a few queries as to the state of the roads and the journey, he conducted his brother-in-law to his room, where he cleared out a drawer of his chiffonier and made place in the wardrobe; then he went off with his children, leaving the guest to himself.

With each visit of the Colour-Sergeant memories of the Lieutenant’s dead sister became more and more poignant. She was the eldest child; she had cared for him when he was a little chap, had dressed and undressed him, and coddled him. He had loved her best of all his sisters, had been more proud of her than of the others. And then she had to go and fall in love with a worthless fellow like this Wachenfeldt! She was both beautiful and noble, and as good and true as she looked. She had always been sunny, and had brightened the lives of those about her. She had striven to the last breath to keep her home; the husband had only wasted and squandered. She would not let her family know how hard she had it, lest they should come to her aid. So she broke under the strain when she was barely forty.

It was a sad and distressing tale, and the Lieutenant, while this was seething in him, could not be cordial to Von Wachenfeldt; he had therefore to take a long walk to let his indignation cool a bit.

Fru Lagerlöf and Mamselle Lovisa felt much as he did. Anna Wachenfeldt had been the favourite sister-in-law of Fru Lagerlöf, who had looked up to her with genuine admiration. Anna had been the one to welcome her most heartily into the family, and she could never forgive Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt for making this beloved woman unhappy.

Mamselle Lovisa, as a child, had made long visits at Valsäter, the home of the Wachenfeldts, and knew more about her sister’s troubles than any of them. She could never hear the name Wachenfeldt without thinking of a certain morning when a couple of strange men came to Valsäter and led from the barn the two best cows. Her sister had run out and asked them what they were doing there, and they had coolly answered that the Sergeant the night before had staked the cows in a game with their master, and lost. Mamselle Lovisa saw her sister as it were before her, and remembered how distressed she had been over this. “He will never come to his senses,” she had said, “until he has made an end of me.”

However, Mamselle Lovisa was the first to think of her duties as hostess. She got up from the sewing table, where she had been embroidering and betimes taking little peeps into a novel that lay open in her sewing basket, and went to the kitchen door.

“Maja dear,” she called to the housekeeper, apologetically, “now we have Wachenfeldt here again!”

“I can’t understand why that fellow, who was so mean to his wife, is allowed to come here at every holiday time,” the housekeeper retorted with considerable asperity.

“But one can’t very well drive him away,” pleaded Mamselle Lovisa. “And now, Maja, please put the coffeepot on, so that he’ll have something to warm him a bit after his long, cold drive.”

“Why must he always come just when you’ve all had your coffee and the fire’s gone dead in the stove!” The housekeeper looked as if she were not going to make a move.

But the coffeepot must have got on somehow, for shortly afterward the housemaid went down to the office and bade Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt come to the living room for coffee.

In crossing the yard to the house, he walked with the aid of a cane, which he put by in the outer hall, and carried himself fairly well as he came into the room. Mamselle Lovisa, who stood there to receive him, noticed all the same that he had difficulty in walking. When she took his hands she felt how swollen they were, and when she looked up into his face, his distorted eye stared at her horribly. Then a good part of her resentment vanished. She thought to herself that he had already received his punishment, and she was not going to add woe to woe.

“It was nice that Wachenfeldt could come to us again this Christmas,” she forced herself to say. Whereupon she poured him some coffee and he went over to his accustomed place, between the porcelain stove and the folded card table. It was a modest corner, and also the warmest in the room. The Colour-Sergeant knew what he was about when he chose that seat.

He at once began telling Mamselle Lovisa about his servant, Inga, and her constant quarrels and fights with the peasants who owned the farm where he lived. He knew that such petty gossip amused his sister-in-law, and did not fail to observe that she presently poured herself a cup of coffee so as to keep him company.

Dusk had fallen while they chatted over their coffee cups, a light was brought and placed on the round table over by the sofa, soon after which Fru Lagerlöf appeared.

She had not conquered her feeling of aversion, and it was a cool reception the Colour-Sergeant got from her; she barely touched his hand, but did not speak, and then sat down to her work.

The Colour-Sergeant, who calmly went on talking to Mamselle Lovisa, quickly changed the topic of conversation. He told about some strange cases of sickness among the people and the animals on the farm, which he had succeeded in curing.

Here was something that interested Fru Lagerlöf; it was in her line. Before she knew it, she had been drawn into the conversation.

Finally the Lieutenant came in and sank into his rocker. At first he was silent and depressed. But now, without anyone’s quite knowing how it came about, the conversation drifted in another direction. It carried back to old Karlstad, where the Colour-Sergeant was born and the Lieutenant went to school, and of which the latter loved to talk. Then it swung up to Stockholm, and took in Emilie Högquist, Jenny Lind, and much else of a by-gone day that was beautiful and memorable. At last they fell to telling old Värmland tales, and the evening passed so quickly they were all astonished when the maid came in to lay the table for supper.

The amazing thing about it all was that when Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt related any of his personal experiences he invariably stood out as the wisest and most prudent man one could wish to meet. That he had taken part in many adventures and exploits was true enough, but he had always played the rôle of the counselling friend who helped stupid folk out of their scrapes.

Just to mention the Wästfelts of Angersby: what a staff he had been to these nice, childish persons! Particularly at the time when the son’s intended threw him over and announced her engagement to another. No man ever spoke with greater veneration of his mother or his wife. Such a model son and devoted husband all might wish to have. He had always talked sensibly to young women, smoothed out lovers’ quarrels, and welded together marriage bonds that threatened to break asunder. All the unhappy ones had made a confidant of him, and he had never betrayed them. He had even saved men seized with the gambling fever, had talked them to rights and reminded them of their duties.

After supper, when Von Wachenfeldt had limped down to his room, Lieutenant Lagerlöf, his wife and sister sat staring at each other—dumbfounded.

“Oh, that Wachenfeldt!” the Lieutenant exclaimed. “He’s a wonder; he knows more than all of us put together.”

“It is always a pleasure to talk with Wachenfeldt,” said Mamselle Lovisa.

“If it is true that he has been so helpful to others, then how does it happen that he has managed his own affairs so badly?” queried Fru Lagerlöf, dryly.

“Some folks are like that,” the Lieutenant averred.

*****

Thenceforth, Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt “feasted right royally,” as is said in Fritiof’s Saga—throughout the Christmas holidays, playing the wise and all-knowing old man. One could get his advice on almost everything. He could prescribe for pimples and the snuffles, give counsel in matters of dress, write recipes for cooking and dyeing, give instruction in agriculture, and offer the best and cleverest judgments of people. They appealed to him to settle knotty problems.

“Doesn’t Wachenfeldt think it strange these children cannot be induced to eat carrots?” Mamselle Lovisa once put to him.

Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt rose to the occasion.

“Wake me in the middle of the night and offer me carrots, and I’ll eat.”

It was positively unnatural his being so reasonable and practical. The dashing cavalier of old, the conquering hero with the sixty silver bells, was apparently no more.

Then it happened that Lieutenant Lagerlöf during one of Wachenfeldt’s visits got into an argument with the ladies about a young girl in the district. Fru Lagerlöf and Mamselle Lovisa both thought her sweet and winsome, while the Lieutenant declared that no man could ever fall in love with her. He appealed the case in point to Wachenfeldt, as was the custom in the family.

“Tell me, Wachenfeldt, you who are a judge of women—would you kiss such a little Miss Snippit?”

Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt, old as he was, flushed. He struck the table with his fist, half-rose from his seat, and thundered:

“Don’t ask me such a thing! I have never kissed a homely woman.”

The ungodly persons round him broke into hilarious shrieks. Here he had been acting the part of the sage and the plain man of common sense, yet a simple little query like that had unmasked him. The old beau cavalier still survived in him. Sick and wretched, old and dilapidated as he was, let none think or assume that he would kiss a plain woman.

O Vackerfeldt! Vackerfeldt!

VIII THE ORCHESTRA

IT WAS an impromptu orchestra that played that day at Mårbacka. There was Major Ehrencrona, a Finn by birth, who in former days had lived in a palatial home and been a grand seigneur, but who now in his old age occupied a rented room at a farmhouse, where he led a dull and monotonous existence, much like that of Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt. He was reputed to be a master of the French horn; but since he had become poor and lonely he had not been heard to play.

And there was Herr Tyberg, who began life as drummer-boy with the Värmland Regiment and who surely would have killed himself with drink, had not the Lieutenant at Mårbacka, by a mere chance, discovered the man’s special aptitude for teaching small children, and engaged him as tutor for his own little ones, and later found him a position as teacher in the elementary school at East Ämtervik.

Then, there was Jan Asker, who had also been in the regiment band, but who was now church-beadle and grave-digger at East Ämtervik. He came of an old family of musicians, and used to play the clarinet at all the peasant weddings and dances. His was an embittered and restless spirit. The only thing that reconciled him to life was music.

And there was the foundry bookkeeper, Geijer, who lived in the attic of the school building, and kept house for himself. He was passionately fond of music, but being too poor to provide himself with any sort of instrument, he had painted a keyboard on a common deal table, at which he sat and “played.”

Then, too, there was Sexton Melanoz, who had received instruction from Dean Fryxell himself, and could scribble verse, cobble shoes, mend furniture, and run a farm. He was the star entertainer at all the weddings and wakes, and was moreover the best schoolmaster in the whole of Fryksdalen. Every Sunday morning he had to play the wheezy organ at the Ämtervik church, which he never could have endured if he’d not had his violin to console him on Sunday afternoons, for he was a musical soul.

These five had arranged to meet at Mårbacka on a certain day during the Christmas season, while there was still something left of the Christmas ale, the Christmas ham, and spiced bread.

The first to arrive did not go straight to the house, but waited till all were there. Whereupon they fell into line, the Major in the lead, and marched up to the front porch singing Portugal, Spanjen, Stora Britanjen.

Lieutenant Lagerlöf had perhaps some notion as to what was in the air, but he had remained inside so as not to spoil the fun for the guests. But on hearing that song, he jumped up and ran out to greet them. Nor was Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt, who was still at Mårbacka, long to follow.

When the visitors had gone down to the farm-office to remove their pelts and leggings, the Lieutenant sent his two boys, Daniel and Johan, up to the attic to fetch the guitar, the French horn, the flute, and the triangle, while he himself rushed into the bedroom and pulled his violin from under the bed; placing it on a chair, he unlocked the case and reverently uncovered the violin, which lay wrapped in a red silk handkerchief.

Though the Lieutenant himself never smoked or permitted others to smoke in the house, he sent the boys down to the office to fetch the old long-stemmed pipe, which had been there since Pastor Wennervik’s time, and also a little square box filled with tobacco, so that Major Ehrencrona might have his usual smoke, to keep him in good humour.

When the five guests, the Colour-Sergeant, and the Lieutenant went into the living room, when the toddy-tray had been brought, and hot drinks made for all—except Herr Tyberg, of course, who had sworn off for good—and when the major had finally got his pipe to draw, they decided it was not worth while to pass the evening at card-playing or in small-talk, but they would have some music.

It was this the Lieutenant had anticipated; so now he went for the instruments he had hurriedly assembled. His violin he offered to Sexton Melanoz, who most humbly protested that there were those in the room far more worthy than he to handle this, the greatest of all musical instruments. But when none claimed the distinction, he was as pleased as if he had suddenly come into a fortune, and at once proceeded to tune up.

The flute went to Herr Tyberg, of course. It had been his instrument in the regiment, when he had outgrown the drum. He was well acquainted with the old flute at Mårbacka, and knew it to be always dry and leaky. So he ran out to the kitchen to dip the flute in pale beer and bind it round with tow, to make it hold together.

The guitar was handed to Bookkeeper Geijer, who had a long thin face, a long slender neck, limpid blue eyes, and long slim fingers. There was a certain wistfulness about him, a sort of languishing grace. With a little girlish laugh, he strung the guitar-ribbon round his neck and tenderly pressed the instrument to his heart, as if embracing a sweetheart. The guitar had only three strings, but they were enough for him who was wont to perform on nothing better than a deal table.

Church-beadle Asker had had the foresight to bring his own clarinet. It was in the back pocket of his greatcoat, so that he had only to go down to the office and fetch it.

Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt, sitting in his usual corner by the fire, tried to put on a good face, though he could not perform on any musical instrument with his gout-stiffened fingers. But the Lieutenant now went over to him with the triangle, which he could manage with ease. So the Colour-Sergeant, too, was happy.

Major Ehrencrona sat blowing smoke through his big white moustache. He saw how one after another had been provided with an instrument, but feigned indifference.

“Just give me a couple of pot-lids,” he said to the Lieutenant, “so that I may at least join in the noise-making. I know, of course, that the instrument I play is not to be found in this house.”

Like a streak, the Lieutenant darted into the parlour and came back with a brilliantly polished French horn, with green silk cord and tassel, he had managed to procure for the Major.