THE NEW MÅRBACKA

THE NEW MÅRBACKA

I THE SEVENTEEN CATS

THERE was a cow-girl at Mårbacka named Britta Lambert, who had been on the place from the time of the Paymaster of the Regiment. She was little and ugly, with a face like old parchment, and she had only one eye. In the company of humans she was crabbed and surly, but she loved animals. If a cow was expected to calve in the night, she would make up a bed in the barn and sleep there. Every day she would heat water in the brew house and carry great bucketfuls down to the barn, so that the cows might have warm mash. When the hay ran low in the cow-house, along in April, and the cows had to chew on rye-straw, she was not above sneaking over to the stable and stealing hay from the horses.

The barn in which she ruled was very old and so dark you could scarcely see your hand before you; the passageways were narrow, the floor was worn full of holes, and the cows stood in cramped little stalls, which Britta did not think to keep clean. Nevertheless, steady contentment reigned in the old cow-house. There was no fear of a cow’s overfeeding, or getting anything sharp in her fodder, or that aught would go wrong with the calving. There were lots of calves and plenty of milk. The mistress at Mårbacka never had any anxiety concerning the cow-house.

But there was one species of animal Britta Lambert loved even better than she loved the cow, and that was the cat. She believed that cats had some sort of supernatural power to protect her and her cattle. The worst thing one could ask of her was to drown a kitten now and then, lest there should be more cats than cows to care for. When anyone stepped inside the dark cow-house he was met on all sides by the uncanny gleam of green cat-eyes. The cats got under his feet and sprang on to his shoulders—for that Britta had got them into the habit of doing.

When Lieutenant Lagerlöf took over Mårbacka, on the death of his father, there were no less than seventeen cats in the barn. They were all of the tortoise-shell variety, with not a black or white or gray one among them. For Britta Lambert believed it was only the red cats that brought luck.

Now the Lieutenant was a great lover of animals, and he had no antipathy whatever to cats; but to feed and house seventeen of them in the barn—that, he thought, was a bit too much. The cats, to be sure, were vigilant hunters of rats and field-mice, but they also pursued little birds; there was hardly so much as a sparrow left at Mårbacka. Besides, the milk they consumed would have fed three calves.

Anyway, it’s a sorry business having to do away with cats. So the Lieutenant, rather than distress Britta Lambert and the other womenfolk, said nothing to them about a certain plan he had in mind. He merely gave the wink to old Bengt, the former stableman, who still pottered round the place at this and that.

Then, in some mysterious way the cats began to disappear—not all at once, but by gradual elimination. Britta Lambert thought she noticed that one and another of her precious tabbies was missing, yet she was not quite sure about it, since the cats were all so much alike in colour and markings. She attempted to count them as they came up for their milk, but that was not so easy, for they pushed and crowded each other at the milk-trough. Then, too, it was almost pitch-dark in the barn. She complained to the old housekeeper and the young mistress.

“You see,” she said, “’tis this I fear me, that if you do away with the red cats, you’ll do away with the luck in the cow-house. No good can come to folks as begins by being ungrateful to them that’s helped us all up to now.”

Fru Lagerlöf and the housekeeper both assured her they had no evil designs upon her cats. They thought she would soon have them back again—the whole seventeen.

All the same, Britta noted that the cats were becoming fewer and fewer. She suspected this one and that one, but none would confess to guilt. The only one of whom she could never have believed anything so sinful as that he would harm a cat, was the Lieutenant. She knew that his mother had taught him better.

“This’ll never do, Master,” she said to the Lieutenant every time he came into the barn. “You don’t know how worried I am! The cats are leaving me.”

“I don’t see but they’re running in front of my feet the same as usual,” the Lieutenant replied.

“If there be thirteen left, ’tis all and no more,” wailed the cow-girl. “I’d hate to be standing in the shoes of the one that’s doing this! And worst of all, the farm’ll suffer for it.”

Now in those days the Lieutenant was a strong young man and an ambitious, enterprising farmer. He had big plans for Mårbacka. The estate was not extensive, but the soil was rich and the fields, spreading in one continuous stretch of expanse, were level and clear of stones. It would be no fault of his if the farm did not some day become the finest in the whole Fryken Valley. He had money at his command, for his father-in-law, Squire Wallroth, who was a man of means, admired his son-in-law’s initiative and enterprise, and gave him the support he needed.

The Lieutenant set about reparcelling the land for rotation of crops. He dug ditches a fathom deep for drainage, and sowed timothy and clover in the meadows, so that they would produce something besides wild flowers; he bought a threshing machine, which did away with their having to stand in a barn all winter beating out the grain with flails, and he also procured some tall, fine-bred cattle from the manors down by the Ness. He did not let the cows wander in the woods from spring to autumn, and half-starve, but sent them to pasture in the open meadow. Everything that could be thought of to enhance the value of the farm was done: he carried on protracted negotiations with the peasants on the west side of the dale for the purchase of lands adjoining his; he built cottages for his workmen, that they might have decent homes, with outbuildings and a bit of ground where they could keep a cow and a pig.

Nor were his labours in vain. Within a year the farm paid back all he had laid out on it. There was such a harvest of hay he hardly knew where to store it all for the winter. For every bushel of peas sown he got twenty bushels in return, and when he planted turnips the ground gave forth such a blessed abundance it was more than his own folk could gather in. So he sent word to the neighbours to come with horse and cart, and take home all the turnips they could dig.

However, there was one serious obstacle to this work of improving the farm, and that was the little river Ämtan, which meandered in all sorts of graceful bends and curves down in the dale, where his fields lay. Ordinarily, the stream was not much bigger than a forest brook, but as soon as there came a good fall of rain it overflowed its banks, converting his clover meadows and oat fields into little lakes.

The Lieutenant decided that something must be done about the river. Where it flowed through his own property he deepened its bed and straightened its course. But little good came of that, for the peasants who owned the land below Mårbacka let the river run on in its old tortuous, sluggish way. Whenever there was a heavy rain it flooded their acres as well as his.

What was the good of all his labour with the soil, if Ämtan could at any time wash away his haystacks and rye-shooks? He would never be able to develop his property as he wished until the river was mastered.

He talked with the neighbours, and they seemed to be in favour of having the river properly dredged. A surveyor was consulted, who drew, measured, and made calculations; after which the Lieutenant convened a meeting of all interested parties at the parish public room.

More than a few obstacles had been surmounted by the time he had got thus far along with the project. The morning he was to drive to the meeting he felt quite happy, thinking that now the most difficult part of the work had been accomplished. But as he was getting into his carriole, right in the middle of the seat sat one of the red barn cats staring blankly at him.

There was nothing strange in that, however. The barn cats all loved to ride. Britta Lambert had trundled them in her wheel-barrow from the time they were tiny kittens, and in that way they had become as fond of riding as children, and would jump into all the farm vehicles. But they were not in the habit of venturing into the family carriages.

“So you’d like to come along to the meeting, would you?” said the Lieutenant. “Scat!”

The cat deigned to take itself off, but not before it had given the Lieutenant a sardonic look that made him feel positively uncomfortable.

Between the stable and the road the Lieutenant had to pass through three gates. On each of the gateposts sat a red barn cat. Nor was there anything strange in that. Cats like to sit on gateposts to sun themselves and watch everything that moves on the ground below. But that morning the Lieutenant thought the cats all had a sinister look; they blinked at him as if they knew what would come of his trip. He was beginning to think Britta Lambert was right—that they were little witches and goblins in the guise of cats.

Now it is not a good omen to meet a lot of cats when one sets out on a journey, so the Lieutenant spat three times for each cat, as his mother had taught him to do, and thought no more about them during the drive. He went over in his mind the whole plan of the ditching and prepared himself to lay the proposition before the meeting clearly and convincingly.

But instantly the Lieutenant stepped inside the parish room, an unmistakable air of wariness and opposition assailed him. The peasants sat there immovable, with tight-shut faces. He began to surmise that they had changed their minds, which proved to be the case. All his arguments were overruled.

“We understand, of course, that this ditching would be a good thing for Mårbacka,” said their spokesman, “but it’s of no importance to us.”

When he came back from the meeting he felt rather depressed. The matter of the dredging was settled for some time to come. The river could go on creating havoc. If a stray herd of cattle trampled his fields he could drive them out, but the river must be left free to choke and destroy all in its path.

In the midst of these broodings on his frustrated hopes, he got up and went over to the servants’ hall to see Bengt.

“It didn’t go through, Bengt, that about the river,” he said.

“That’s too bad, Lieutenant!” the old man sympathized. “The Paymaster of the Regiment always said the farm would be worth twice as much if it wasn’t for Ämtan.”

“I say, Bengt”—the Lieutenant lowered his voice—“there aren’t so many cats in the barn now, eh?... Perhaps we’d better let Britta keep what’s left of them.”

“Just as you wish, Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant lowered his voice a bit more, as if fearful lest the walls of the old manservants’ room might hear what he said.

“Where did you drown them, Bengt?”

“I took ’em down to the river. I was afraid they’d come floating up and be seen, if I drowned them here in the duck pond.”

“H’m, in the river—I thought so!” The Lieutenant stood reflecting a long while. Suddenly he burst out: “There’s a lot that’s queer in this world!”

“Ay, there is that,” old Bengt agreed.

As long as Lieutenant Lagerlöf lived he had to let the river do as it would with his fine fields. Year after year he saw it overflow its banks and spread out in innumerable lake-like ponds, from Mårbacka down through the whole dale. And every time it occurred he would tell about the red cats that sat on the gateposts the morning he drove down to the meeting. Could it be possible that they knew how badly things would go for him? And was it true that one who did violence to a cat was punished? He wondered about that to the end of his days.

II THE NEW BARN

LIEUTENANT LAGERLÖF wanted to have Mårbacka not only a productive and well-cared-for farm, but a beautiful place, with stately avenues of approach and extensive gardens of flowers and shrubbery on all sides of the dwelling house.

Not far from the house stood the wretched old cow-barn, with its thatched roof, its small window-openings, and its weather-beaten timber walls. To be sure, there was a row of century-old sycamores, with yellow, lichen-clad trunks and a wealth of foliage, which concealed the building from view, so that the place was perhaps not so very ugly after all. Still, the Lieutenant declared he could never make Mårbacka look like a manor until that cow-house was torn down.

The first few years he had been wholly occupied with the cultivation of the soil; it was not till after the Strömstad visit and the death of Grandmother Lagerlöf that he set about building the new barn, which had to be finished before the old one could be pulled down. That the new barn might not be easily seen from the house, he decided to build it on the level meadow just below the sand-hill, where the other outhouses stood. When the womenfolk heard of this, a wail went up. Think of their having to go that long distance to tend the cows! And think how hard it would be on the cow-girl and the dairy-maid to have to carry the milk three times a day up the steep hill to the dairy! The Lieutenant turned a deaf ear. He was going to remove all the outbuildings and have everything of the sort, including the dairy, centred in the one place, thereby making it much easier for both serving-folk and animals.

The barn, though it would lie in an out-of-the-way spot, was going to be the finest in the whole district. It was to be built in the form of a cross, and of brick all the way up to the eaves-course, and would house at least fifty cows. It would only be lacking a spire to look like a church.

The Lieutenant discussed his building project with his father-in-law, Squire Wallroth, who had seen enough of the old cow-house to know that a new one was badly needed. He gave the Lieutenant quite a large sum of money for building purposes, and the latter immediately went ahead with the preliminary work. For two consecutive winters he quarried stone at Åsberget for the foundation; for two whole summers he had a clay-mill standing down by the duck pond, where the bricks were made and left to dry and harden in the sun; and for two autumns he had men at work in his own woodlands, cutting timber, that he might have proper material for cross-beams and rafters.

At last he was ready to stake out the ground and start digging for the foundation. It was a great moment for him when the workmen put their spades to the ground to clear away the first layer of earth. They began the digging and foundation-laying on the east side, which was nearest the house. There all went well; the ground was firm and the stones stayed where they were put. But when they came to lay the stones on the west side, which gave on the field, they found that there had been a terrible miscalculation. They had not gone very deep before they came upon soft blue-clay, into which the stones sank and disappeared. The Lieutenant had made the grave mistake of not having the ground tested. But now that the foundation had been laid on one side, he thought it best to go on with the building in the place he had staked out. An old mason advised him to put the barn farther up toward the hill, as blue clay was treacherous stuff to build on. The Lieutenant would not hear of that. It would be all right, he said, to lay the foundation on blue clay; there must be a bottom even to that. As for stone to fill it in, well—there was the whole mountain range to take from.

Load after load of stone was dumped on to the clay and before long he had a wide stone dam there—solid and steady as could be—on which it seemed safe enough to lay a foundation. Then, one day, came a couple of heavy showers, and all at once cracks appeared in the dam. The next morning it began to sink, and in a few hours it was completely swallowed up.

But all summer the Lieutenant went on dumping stone into the clay, and when by autumn it was still uncertain whether the foundation would hold, he decided to put off the masonry work till the following year, in order to see how the blue clay would behave in the spring, when the frost was out of the ground.

As soon as the snow was gone, the Lieutenant went down to have a look at his wall. Yes, it was still there, no cracks in it. But then the regular spring thaw had not begun.

Every day, and many times a day, he went down to see how things were going. The wall remained intact, and the ground seemed now to be free of frost, so he ventured to send word to the master mason to come with his journeymen, and begin work.

They put up the walls on the north and east sides first, so as to give the insecure foundation on the west side time to settle. The latter part of June they began work on the doubtful side, and by the middle of July, when they had got almost up to the coping, they noticed some cracks in the wall. Then, all at once, the wall began to sag, and several layers of brick had to be torn down quickly, lest the whole wall give way.

Now things began to look serious for Lieutenant Lagerlöf. What to do next he did not know. By that time the money he had received from his father-in-law was used up. But Squire Wallroth, who was both open-handed and reasonable, would no doubt have let him have an additional sum, had he written and explained why the building would cost more than he had estimated. But after this fresh cave-in he felt loath to write. He would have to confess that as yet the barn had neither roof nor floor, that the walls were not even finished and that he must start laying a new foundation. His father-in-law would surely think he had shown poor judgment, and lose confidence in him.

The Lieutenant almost felt like giving up the whole building scheme—yet, somehow, the mere thought of it went against him. So many of his projects had come to naught, and, besides, the old cow-house was beyond repair.

Of course he should have started building on another spot long ago. But how could he do so now, when the walls were half-finished? It was a question which would entail the lesser outlay—to start building in a new place or continue at the old one.

At East Ämtervik lies a small foundry estate known as Gårdsjö, which is about three English miles from Mårbacka. Living there at that time was a brother of Fru Lagerlöf, Iron Master Karl Wallroth, a wise and prudent man on whose judgment the Lieutenant relied implicitly. To him he went for advice. Iron Master Wallroth counselled him by all means to dismiss the whole matter from his mind.

“It would be foolish to ask Father for more money to put into your building scheme,” he said. “He’s always ready to give one a lift, but he wants to see the money used to good advantage. And to put a mortgage on the estate in order to finish your barn would not be advisable. No telling how many times the work will have to be done over. You might lose all you have by it.”

Afterward, the Lieutenant sat talking the whole evening with the brother-in-law and his wife, who insisted on his staying for supper. He tried to be his usual jolly self, and entertain them with amusing stories; but his spirit was as if paralyzed. He knew the brother-in-law was right, and therefore felt no resentment, though it was such a crushing blow to his pride not to be able to complete a work begun.

On the way home strange, gloomy thoughts arose in him; he wondered if he were not one whose every undertaking was doomed to failure. There was a time when he thought himself a veritable Fortune’s Favourite. That was when he had captured his wife and taken over Mårbacka. But later on he had had a lot of ill-luck. For one thing, he had asked for his discharge from the military service merely because of a slight reprimand from his captain. He had been overhasty, but he did not worry about that. What did rankle in him, though, was that he had not been appointed Paymaster of the Regiment, to succeed his father. The office had been abolished, and the duties pertaining to it had been divided between four muster-clerks, of whom he was one. But the work was unimportant and the remuneration small. Then there was the attempt to have the river dredged—it, too, had failed.

Midway between Gårdsjö and Mårbacka lies As Springs, an old health resort he had once undertaken to modernize. He had built a fine new bath house and engaged a corps of male and female attendants, with the hope that health-seekers would flock to the place. That was also a failure. Now and again an invalid came, but it hardly paid to keep the resort open.

And to cap it all, his barn-building was a lamentable failure! There must be something lacking in him, he thought; he was perhaps less capable than other men. The best thing he could do was to give up his plans, settle down in his rocker, read his newspaper, and let things run on in the old ruts.

Coming home he found his wife seated on the front steps awaiting him. She was very like her brother at Gårdsjö; she had the same intelligent face, the same clear head, the same serious turn of mind, the same love of work and indifference to pleasure, and the same dislike of all that was uncertain and venturesome.

The Lieutenant was very fond of his wife and moreover respected her judgment as he did her brother’s. But that evening he would rather she had not sat up for him. She, too, was against him in this building project.

“What did Kalle say?” Fru Lagerlöf asked him, as they went to their room.

“He thinks like you and the rest, that I should give up the work.”

Fru Lagerlöf made no reply. She had dropped into her usual place, by the sewing table, and sat looking out into the light summer night, with no thought, apparently, of retiring.

The Lieutenant had already flung off his coat. “Aren’t you going to bed?” he asked. His rasping tones betrayed his irritation and despondency.

“I think,” said the wife in a low, even voice—still gazing into the night—“I think you should finish it.”

“What are you saying?” the Lieutenant queried impatiently. He had heard what she said, but thought he must have misunderstood.

“I think,” she repeated, “that you ought to go on with it.”

“Is it the barn you’re speaking of?” he asked, going up to her. Her words had awakened a little hope in him, yet he was not certain that he had understood her aright.

Fru Lagerlöf had been turning this matter over in her mind the whole evening; she had said to herself that it would not be well for her husband to go short in yet another undertaking. It might be more expedient perhaps to give over the building scheme; but that would go too hard with him. This was something which her father or her brother could not understand; but she—his wife—understood.

To read the hearts of those she loved—that was as easy to Fru Lagerlöf as reading a book; but to put her own thoughts into words in a moment of deep feeling she could no more do than she could interpret Hebrew.

“I don’t think as Kalle does,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” The Lieutenant was almost trembling with suspense. He dared not believe even now that she had come to his way of thinking

Seeing how agitated he was, she did her utmost to make him understand.

“I don’t agree with Kalle,” she said. “I think you should finish building the barn, and that it should stand where you want to have it. And I think we ought to put a mortgage on the estate so that we can get along without having to ask Father for more money.”

Now at last the Lieutenant understood. A great light broke in upon him. If the wife and he were of one mind there were no difficulties ahead. The foundation was solid and the walls rose firmly.

“God bless you, Louise!” he said.

After that they seemed to be more closely drawn to each other than ever, held by new bonds of sympathy and tenderness. And the wife was consulted at every step in the building work.

When at last the doors of the new barn were thrown open, and the cows were ceremoniously led in and tied to their cribs; when the chickens and geese, the turkeys and ducks were driven into their cages and the calves into the stalls; when light streamed in through the large windows and they themselves walked in clean, smooth passageways, they felt that a good work had been done, and were glad they had both had a share in it.

III THE GARDEN

MAMSELLE LOVISA certainly loved and admired her brother the Lieutenant, but she did not see why he need introduce so many changes and newfangled things. She thought Mårbacka might better be left as it was in their parents’ time. What went against her most was his wanting to lay out gardens on all sides of the dwelling house.

She had been quite worried when he talked of deepening the river-bed, and felt relieved when his plan miscarried. It was such a pretty sight, when Ämtan overflowed and formed a lot of little shimmering lakes down in the meadows! And she wailed a good deal when her brother cleared away the field flowers. It had been a veritable feast for the eyes when one field was white with daisies, another violet with heart’s-ease, and a third yellow with buttercups. And it was a great pity the cows were no longer sent to pasture in the woods. Everybody knew that such thick cream and such yellow butter as one got when they wandered in the forest were never seen when they grazed in the meadow.

In her father’s time, and for hundreds of years before, it had been the custom to cut down the saplings, leave them on the ground to dry, then burn them where they lay. The following year the ashes were sown with rye, and, later, these burn-beaten clearings were covered with wild strawberries and raspberries. Mamselle Lovisa naturally took it to heart when her brother no longer burned such “falls.”

“Mark my words,” she said to him, “there’ll soon be an end to the wild berries. Where will they grow if the woods are not burn-beaten? If all were to do as you are doing, we’d never again be able to sit of a summer’s evening and watch the pretty fires round the wooded hills.”

And she was not pleased with the new barn, either. Of course she did not know very much, she said, but she had been told there was never any comfort in a stone barn.

When the new barn was finished and the old one torn down, and the Lieutenant talked of laying out a new garden, Mamselle Lovisa was beside herself.

“I trust you know what you’re about,” she said. “A large garden requires constant care, so you will have to figure on keeping a gardener. Unless a garden is properly tended and kept clear of weeds, one might better have none at all.”

The Lieutenant let her admonitions go into one ear and out of the other. In the autumn he began tearing down the fences, which had been there since Pastor Wennervik’s time—those enclosing the kitchen garden and rose garden and those surrounding the front and back yards.

“Well, this is the end of all comfort and joy in this place!” sighed Mamselle Lovisa. “Think how secure one felt when once inside all the white fences! And what fun it was for the children to run out and open the gates when company came!”

“It was less fun, though, for the one who had to keep so many fences and gates in repair,” the Lieutenant replied.

He went right on with his work. When the fences were down he ploughed up the old kitchen garden and the little rose garden, the old trampled sward, the ground where the old barn had stood, and the calf ward, so as to have the grounds cleared for the laying of the garden in the spring.

“Is it true that you’re going to remove the kitchen garden?” said Mamselle Lovisa. “To be sure I don’t know anything, but I have heard folks say that when the apple trees are allowed to grow in the herb beds they bear well, but if one plants sod round them one can’t expect much fruit.”

“But dear little Lovisa, I thought you would be glad to have a real garden!”

“Glad! Should I be glad that you are destroying the old Mårbacka? Soon we won’t know the place at all.”

The Lieutenant thought his sister unusually contentious in this instance, which was the more surprising because she had always loved flowers and cared for all the house plants. But at that time, which was shortly after her engagement had been broken and she was still suffering from the disappointment, he could not say a harsh word to her. All day long she paced the floor of her room and he could hear her restless steps when he sat in the living room reading. He understood that she was not just then quite mistress of herself, and thought it a favourable sign that she took an interest in something outside her own unhappiness. It was better that she should disapprove of his garden than be continually brooding on whether she had been too hasty in sending back the betrothal ring, or whether her fiancé had turned against her because she had put a few leaves of whortleberry in Kaisa Nilsdotter’s bridal-crown.

In those days there was an old landscape gardener living in Fryksdalen who in his prime had been head gardener on various large estates. He had the name of being a veritable wizard at garden making, and when anyone contemplated laying out a new garden his advice and assistance were sought.

The Lieutenant had asked him to come to Mårbacka, and in the spring, as soon as the frost was out of the ground, the old man appeared with his drawings and prints. A large corps of workmen was placed at his command; quantities of bushes and trees ordered from the Göteborg nurseries had come, and the big work was now started.

When the ground had been levelled the gardener and the Lieutenant went about all day staking out grass plots and gravel walks. The old man informed the Lieutenant that it was no longer the custom to follow the severely regular French style. Now the paths must all be winding and the borders and flower beds in easy, graceful lines. What he had in mind for Mårbacka he called the English style; but the Lieutenant rather suspected that the style was the old man’s own and not of foreign origin.

In front they laid out a big circular lawn, on one side of which they set out shrubbery in the shape of an egg, and on the other shrubbery in the form of a horn of plenty, while in the middle of the round they planted a weeping ash. Up toward the veranda they staked out a star-shaped flower bed, placing as a guard about it four provence-rose bushes—each on its own little round spot.

On the old sand-plot just below the kitchen windows they staked out a large triangle and filled it with rich soil, in which they transplanted the rose bushes from the old rose garden. For of roses they could never have enough. Along the front of the house they set out a low hedge of primroses, and two white-brier-rose bushes were given the places of honour, the one before the parlour window, the other before the front bedroom window.

The Lieutenant took such keen delight in this work that he went about with the gardener all day, and Fru Lagerlöf would snatch long moments from her sewing to go out and have a look at the garden; but Mamselle Lovisa persistently kept to her room. This delightful spring work only tended to increase her sadness. She would rather have had the old trampled sward, with its one little tangle of snowberry bushes. All these innovations seemed to her so unnecessary. But what she thought or said was immaterial; just the same, folk had managed to live at Mårbacka before. All these modern improvements only meant a lot of bother and needless expense.

But the work went on despite her disapproval. Round the stable the gardener planted a hedge of lilacs, also on three sides of the dwelling house, while along the wing he set out a hedge of spiræas. That done, the Lieutenant and the gardener went at the old Wennervik kitchen garden. The fine apple trees they let stand where they were, but the ground about them was laid out in the old man’s “English” style, with winding gravel paths and grass plots arranged in various designs. With much skill and calculation each grass plot was embellished with round, oblong, or triangular beds and planted with perennials. Yellow cowslips bordered blue iris, orange crown-imperials edged purple hyssop, and encircling the red carnations was a wreath of pink bellis.

The flower beds of course were up round the dwelling house. Farther back, on both the north and south sides, place was made for gooseberry and currant bushes, for strawberry patches, for plum trees, pear trees, and ever so many cherry trees. At the far southern end, quite a distance away and well out of sight, lay the new kitchen garden, while at the north end was a little birch grove, bordered by mountain ash and bird-cherry trees. This grove the gardener included in his design, in order to create at least the suggestion of a park. He intersected the grove with many narrow winding gravel walks. In three places he cleared away the trees to make room for tables and seats. The first open space was an oblong spot with settees on all sides. Here the lady of the house was to receive her guests, and it was to be called the Tea Corner. The second was a square, with four seats round a table. That was for the master and his company, and the old man jokingly dubbed it the Toddy Corner. The third space had only a long, narrow bench. That was the children’s domain, and was to be known as the Kiddies’ Corner.

But all this planting left Mamselle Lovisa indifferent. It may almost be said that she scorned and detested it. She had not yet set foot in the new garden.

Soon pale-green sprouts sprang up in the sod, the newly planted bushes sent forth tender, shy little leaves, the perennial plants pushed through the soil of the garden beds; oaks, chestnuts, and Lombardy poplars, which had been planted in the old barn lot, began to bud and show that they were alive.

In the midst of this busy time an unexpected difficulty arose. The old gardener was obliged to go home for a few days, to see to his own garden. That would not have mattered much but for the hot-bed he had made in order to coax up some asters and gilly-flowers for the beds in the front yard.

“Who is going to tend the hot-bed while I’m away?” said the old gardener. “You know, Lieutenant, a hot-bed needs constant watching.”

“I’ll do it myself,” the Lieutenant replied; for by that time he thought himself almost a master gardener. He let the old man show him how to air and water the plants.

The morning the gardener left there was bright, strong sunshine. Along in the forenoon the Lieutenant in alarm went up to the house to find his wife. As she was nowhere about he rushed into his sister’s room.

“You’ll have to come and help me with the hot-bed, Lovisa,” he said. Then, remembering that Mamselle Lovisa would not even look at his garden and took no interest whatever in his work, he thought: “Oh, well, it’s said now, and she can’t do more than refuse.”

But instead she eagerly got up and went out with him. Instantly she saw the little plants, which were wilted and drooping, she exclaimed:

“The sun is too strong on them, they must be shaded.” Then she found something with which to protect them, and the plants were saved.

The next day the Lieutenant had to attend a school examination. When well on his way he suddenly remembered the hot-bed. There was the same scorching heat that day as on the previous one. Now the little plants would surely be burnt up, he thought.

The moment he got home he hurried over to the hot-bed. To his surprise and delight all was well; the plants stood up, erect and sturdy. His sister had thought of the poor little things which he had neglected. He promptly decided not to forget to water and close the hot-bed that evening. Sometime after supper he sprang up in alarm.

“Why, I’m forgetting the hot-bed! It should have been closed this long while.”

Mamselle Lovisa said nothing, but let him go see for himself. He found the glass lids down and the covers spread over them.

The following day the Lieutenant did not look at the hot-bed or give it a thought. All the same, the little plants fared well. Mamselle Lovisa weeded and loosened the soil round them, watered and tended them in every way. It seemed rather strange that only she should think of the hot-bed; but for her everything sown there would have died. Of course she wished the old gardener would return and relieve her of the work; but while he was away she had to go on with it.

He was gone longer than expected. In the meantime the plants were growing almost too large for transplanting. There was no other course than for Mamselle Lovisa to set them out in the flower beds herself. When that much had been done, what could she do but go on weeding and watering them all summer, until the gilly, petunia, aster, and snap-dragon plants were in bloom!

And when the perfectly formed star before the front steps at Mårbacka appeared resplendent with bright colours, then in some mysterious way the pain was gone from Mamselle Lovisa’s wounded heart. The little plants had requited the loving care she had bestowed upon them. They had given her a new interest in life, a new field of activity.

Lieutenant Lagerlöf did not have to engage a head gardener for Mårbacka; Mamselle Lovisa had inherited the old Wennervik bent, and it was she who took care of the garden. The flowers were her faithful friends; they loved her as she loved them. People wondered how she could get them to bloom and glow as in no other garden. They did not know that the flowers had caught colour and sweetness from her vanished dream of happiness.

IV THE ROOF TRUSSES

WHEN Lieutenant Lagerlöf and his little daughters walked in the garden or out in the fields they often talked of what they would do if the King came to Mårbacka.

In those days the King used to drive through Värmland several times a year on his way to and from Norway, and he had to stop somewhere for refreshment and rest. Most frequently he stayed over in Karlstad, at the Governor’s house, and it was also his wont to honour with a royal visit the great manors which lay along his route, and where they could conveniently entertain him.

Of course there was not the least likelihood that the King would come to a little unknown place like Mårbacka, which, to boot, lay far from the great highway. But that did not trouble the Lieutenant and his little girls. It would not have been such fun perhaps to talk about this had there been any chance of the King’s really coming. Now it was only a pleasure to build in fancy a triumphal arch for His Majesty, and strew flowers in his way as he drove up. The little girls wondered if they should dress in white when the King came and the Lieutenant generously promised them new white frocks made by the best sempstress in East Ämtervik for the grand occasion.

The Lieutenant and the children pictured to themselves how the King, when nearing Mårbacka, would suddenly shade his eyes with his hand so as to see better.

“What is that great white building over there in the meadow?” he would ask. “Have they two churches in this parish?”

“No, your Majesty,” the Lieutenant would then reply (for of course he was to ride with the King), “that white building is not a church, it is my cow-barn.”

Then the King would look at him in wide-eyed wonder, and say:

“By Jove! You must be a deucedly clever fellow, Eric Gustaf, to have built yourself a barn like that!”

How they were to house the King and all his retinue in the little one-story dwelling—that was an almost unsolvable problem. The Lieutenant had often talked of building another story, and they were all agreed that when that was finished it would be an easy matter to entertain the King. Even then they probably would be a bit cramped for space. The Lieutenant and his wife might have to spend the night in the hay-loft, and the children—well, they could sleep in the rabbit hutch.

Now that about the rabbit hutch tickled the little girls immensely. And they wondered what the King would say about the garden. Of course he would marvel to find away back here in the farming country a garden laid out in the true English manner. At that, the Lieutenant would immediately send word to the old gardener and hearten him with the good news that the King had praised his flower beds and gravel paths.

And then when the King was leaving Mårbacka he would present Fru Lagerlöf with a gold brooch and Mamselle Lovisa with a gold bracelet, and the old housekeeper would receive a large shawl-pin of silver. Before stepping into his carriage, His Majesty would shake hands with the Lieutenant, and say:

“Thanks and honour to you, Eric Gustaf Lagerlöf! It is but a modest bit of my realm that is in your keeping, but I see that you take good care of it.”

Those words the Lieutenant would remember with joy as long as he lived. He and his children had right merry times on these little excursions into the land of make-believe. It was a pity, though, that the royal visit could not really and truly come about until the Lieutenant had built a second story.

Then, lo and behold, at the close of the eighteen-sixties, when the Lieutenant had finished with everything else, he was ready to start remodelling the house. The royal visit apart, they were rather closely housed in the old one-story dwelling. The Lieutenant had already made some alterations. Eight or ten years back he had cut out larger window openings and had done away with the small-paned sashes. He had also put up new tile-stoves, papered the walls of the parlour and living room, and built a large veranda in place of the old porch.

Now there were to be still further improvements. The whole roof was to be torn off, the trusses raised, and the timber walls heightened. The year before he had had a couple of good carpenters at work on the place preparing the new roof trusses, so that the roof could be raised and covered as quickly as possible. The workmen had but just finished the trusses when the Lieutenant got word that his father-in-law had passed away. This was a sad loss and a heavy blow as well. The Lieutenant had lost his main prop and stay. Hereafter he would have no one but himself to depend on. Now out of his estate he must pay all contracted debts. His sons were then nearly grown and must soon be sent to the University of Upsala; therefore he thought it best to postpone the building work for a year or so.

But what one puts off is likely to be left undone. Fresh obstacles continually loomed in the way of this work. One year the Lieutenant was ill, and the next he had to help a brother-in-law who had once been well-to-do but must now have a yearly stipend. While the Lieutenant had been labouring to build up his property the years had passed without his noting them. He was now a man of fifty, and the old daring spirit of enterprise had perhaps slipped away from him.

It was with no light heart he relinquished his cherished plan of rebuilding the house. That was to have been his crowning work. All his life he had dreamed of erecting a fine manor-house on his beloved Mårbacka.

The great piles of timber and the finished roof trusses lay in the backyard for many years. Whenever the Lieutenant walked past them he turned his head away; he could not bear to look at them. His little daughters had been so very happy when he started on the roof trusses, and not altogether on account of the “royal visit.” It was perhaps of more importance to them that they should have a real salon to dance in, and that the house should have two stories, and be as grand as Iron-Master Wallroth’s Gårdsjö or Engineer Noreen’s country seat. They grew uneasy over the delay, year after year, and one of the girls finally mustered the courage to ask her father when he was going to put up those roof trusses.

“I’m afraid never, my child!” When he said this his face twitched and there was a strange catch in his voice. Then, quickly recovering himself, he added, banteringly:

“But it doesn’t matter now, my girl. They are building a railway to Norway, and hereafter the King won’t come asking for a night’s lodging, either at Mårbacka or any other manor in Värmland.”