THE OLD HOUSEKEEPER’S TALES

THE OLD HOUSEKEEPER’S TALES

I GRANDMOTHER

THE year after the Strömstad visit the little Mårbacka children had a great sorrow. They lost their dear grandmother.

Almost up to the very last they had sat with her on the corner sofa in the bedroom and listened to her stories and songs. They could not remember a time when their grandmother had not sung and narrated to them. It had been a glorious life. Never were children so favoured.

Where their grandmother had learned her stories and ballads they did not know, but she herself believed every word of them. When she had told something very wonderful, she would look deep into the eyes of the little children and say, with the utmost conviction: “All this is as true as that I see you and you see me.”

One morning when the children came down to breakfast they were not allowed to go into the kitchen-bedroom as usual to say good-morning to grandmother, because she was ill. All that day the corner sofa stood empty and it seemed as if the long storyless hours would never end.

A few days later the children were told their grandmother was dead, and when she lay shrouded they were brought in to kiss her hand. But they were afraid. Then some one said it was the last time they might thank Grandmother for all the pleasure she had given them. And then came the day when the stories and songs were borne away, shut up in a long black box, never to come again.

It was a sad loss to the little ones. It seemed as if the door to a beautiful, enchanted world, where they had freely passed in and out, had been closed. Now there was no one who knew how to open that door.

But after a while they learned to play with dolls and toys like other children, and then it may have appeared as if they no longer missed their grandmother or remembered her. But indeed she lived on in their hearts. They never tired of listening to the stories of her the old housekeeper told; they prized them as treasures they wanted to keep always.

II THE GHOST OF VILARSTENSBACKEN

THE old housekeeper used to say it could not have been so very long ago that Mårbacka was first laid under the plow and became a regular homestead. In the old mistress’s youth it was still within man’s memory that the place had been a summer säter belonging to one of the old peasant farms to the west of the dale, nearer the Fryken.

But when in the world it was that the first herd of cattle grazed there and the first cattle-sheds were built, who could say? Herdsmen can hold to a place for thousands of years without leaving a trace after them. And indeed there was not much here at Mårbacka that had come down from their time.

The name Mårbacka, the old mistress believed, one of the herdsmen had given to the hilly moors below Åsberget, where they drove their horses and cattle to grass. She also thought they and their animals had beaten the roads.

That the herdsmen had broken the south road, along Åsberget, was clear, because from that direction they would have had to come with their cattle. The steep road to the east, which went straight down the mountain, was probably their work. By that they must have gone when they wished to visit säter folk on the other side of the mountain. The wretched road running northwest, toward Sunne, must once have been an old goat-path, and westward they could hardly have had any passage at all. To the west lay swampy bottomlands, through which ran a tortuous river. When the shepherdess stood upon the flat stone outside her säter cabin, she could see her home-farm on the other side of the dale; but to get there, she had to go a long way round, to north or southward.

The herdsmen must have wandered up from the south mostly, for Vilarsten, or Resting-stone, where they were wont to rest after their long tramp, still lay at the roadside, just south of the farm. But there was something about that road that made people afraid to venture out on it after dark.

At the time that Mårbacka was a summer säter there lived in the parish of Sunne a priest who was so harsh and exacting that a man who had been a servant in his home a few months went and hanged himself. The priest, when he learned what had happened, without stopping to think, cut the body down and carried it out into the yard. Then, because he had touched a suicide, and for no other reason, he was regarded as polluted and disgraced. The people of Sunne would not allow him to set foot in the church, which remained closed until another clergyman was called.

The Sunne priest used also to officiate at Ämtervik, where they had a church and a little parish house but no resident clergyman. He probably thought that in an out-of-the-way place like Ämtervik no one would know of his being “unclean”; there, surely, he might celebrate the Mass, as usual. So he rode down to Ämtervik. But the evil report was there before him. As he stood at the altar intoning the Mass, murmurs ran through the congregation; the people thought him unworthy to stand in the House of God. Nor did it end there. The Ämtervik peasants felt that he had shown them great disrespect. They were as good men as the Sunne folk, they said, and would not have a priest others had repudiated.

A few among the younger peasants got together and planned to give him something to remember. But knowing it was dangerous to lay violent hands on a priest, they decided to wait till he set out for home. He rode alone, and there were many lonely spots along the bridle-paths between Ämtervik and Sunne where the men could lie in wait for him.

The priest must have sensed danger, for instead of taking the usual road to Sunne to the west of the dale, he took the säter paths to eastward past Mårbacka—thinking to find his way home.

The men, ambushed at the roadside, seeing no sign of the priest, knew of course that he had eluded them, and thought they would have to go home without carrying out their purpose. But it happened that one of the men was a brother to the servant who had taken his own life on account of the priest and he was not going to let him escape so easily. He seized a long stackpole which had been left standing in the field since haying time, and set off toward the marshes; the others did likewise—running and leaping across the bogs. Just below Mårbacka-säter they touched firm ground; then, hurrying southward to intercept the priest, they came upon him in the road near the Resting-stone.

It may have been their intention merely to give him a sound thrashing; but, unluckily, there was the man who had a brother to avenge. He had a sword concealed under his cloak, and when the others had pulled the priest off the horse and thrown him to the ground, the man drew his sword and cut off the priest’s head.

The moment the deed was done they were filled with terror of discovery, and thought only of escape. They let the horse run loose and left the corpse lying at the roadside, to make it appear that the murder had been committed by wild robbers. Running for home by the way they had come, over the bogs, they hoped no one had seen them. They had not been on any passable road, and their venturing across the marshes would not have aroused suspicion.

Things went better than they expected. Inasmuch as the priest had been at odds with his parishioners, there was no eager search for him. When at last his body was found the crime was attributed to robbers and outlaws. Even in death he was regarded as unclean. No one would touch the body. Since the people deemed him unfit to rest in consecrated ground, they let him lie where he was, merely covering him with sod, over which they built a cairn of large stones to prevent wild beasts digging him out.

But the priest could not find rest in the grave thus prepared for him. On moonlight nights he would appear in the road near the Resting-stone in his long cassock, holding his head between his hands. Horses saw him plainer than humans did, and would shy and rear so that riders were frequently obliged to make a long detour through the wild forest.

So long as there were only cowherds and shepherds at Mårbacka, these ghostly appearances meant very little. It was quite another matter when Mårbacka became a regular farmstead. How to lay the ghost none knew, and year after year folk had to take care not to be out on the road near the Resting-stone along about midnight.

The old mistress, however, had assured the housekeeper that nowadays none need fear the headless priest. A housewife at Mårbacka—a strong-minded, determined woman, who knew a little more than the common run of folk—had laid the ghost.

That farm mistress happened to be out riding late one evening along Vilarstensbacken when—just as she expected—the ghost appeared in the road near the cairn, and made as if to bar her way.

The woman was neither awed nor frightened and her horse was as calm and fearless as herself. She rode right up to the “spook,” and began to admonish it.

“Why can’t you stay where you belong!” she said. “You know well enough that no better grave awaits you. So don’t imagine you will be allowed to lie in churchyard mould—you who were so corrupt when you died.”

This was spoken with firm conviction, for she knew, of course, that he had been a hard man, and really considered him unworthy a decent burial.

“You have no cause to rise out of your grave and demand vengeance,” she went on, “for you only got what you deserved.”

When she said this, the ghost seemed to grow darker and more distinct; it looked as if ready to fall upon her. Quite undaunted, she addressed it again, determined to put an end to that nuisance.

“If you will lie still in your grave I promise you that my eldest son shall take up your calling, and become a priest. He is a good lad and I know that he will be one of those servants of our Lord who turn people’s hearts toward God, and not away from Him.”

She had barely uttered the first words, when the ghost began to fade in the moonlight till there was nothing left of it but a faint outline; and before she had finished speaking, even that had vanished.

The Ghost of Vilarstensbacken never appeared again.

That torment luckily ended, there was increasing peace and comfort at Mårbacka. The place became as fine a farm as any in the parish, and the owners thrived and prospered.

All this, the old mistress had said, was undoubtedly true, for some years later, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, a youth from Mårbacka was sent to a theological seminary, where he studied for the ministry and was finally ordained.

He called himself Morell, after his ancestral home, and in due time was made curate at Ämtervik. He settled on his family estate (Mårbacka), and was the first clergyman to reside within the parish—his predecessors having all lived at Sunne and come down to Ämtervik only on specified Sundays.

The peasants of Ämtervik were very glad to have their own pastor, especially one who had a home of his own so that they did not have to provide him with a living. To be sure, Mårbacka was a good distance away from the church, but that disadvantage was more than made up for by the priest’s being a man of independent means.

The parson’s pay was small, and of that little the lion’s share went to the Dean of Sunne, so that the priest would have been as poor as the proverbial church mouse but for Mårbacka.

In order that this arrangement, which was for the good of both pastor and parishioners, might be perpetuated, the first clergyman at Mårbacka gave one of his daughters in marriage to a priest by the name of Lyselius, whom he made his heir to the estate and the office.

Lyselius, in his turn, did likewise: he married one of his daughters to Pastor Eric Wennervik, who later came into the property and the office.

The old mistress had said that everyone seemed to think this an excellent custom which should be kept up; even the clergymen’s daughters, she thought, had been content to have it so.

III PASTOR WENNERVIK

THE old mistress had also said it was the three clergymen, Morell, Lyselius, and Wennervik, who built up Mårbacka.

Before their time the place was just a peasant farm, which, though large and flourishing, looked like any other farmstead. If there were a barn for ten cows and a stable for two horses, it was about all that could be expected. The main house had perhaps but one large room, where the entire household lived day and night, and a little pitch-dark kitchen called the kåve. There were many other buildings, of course—a larder, a bath house, a rye-loft and other sheds, a kiln, and a smithy; but they must have been rather small, as the farm at that time was not nearly so extensive as it is now. Only the nearest fields were then under cultivation.

The old mistress used to wonder how the three clergymen had managed to build a stable for ten horses and a cow-house for thirty cows, besides all the big granaries, storehouses, and sheds which they seemed to have required. The brew house with an adjoining room, which was used for a farm-office, were also from their time, likewise the milk-room, loom-room, and bailiff’s lodge.

Finally, along in the seventeen-nineties the old mistress’s father, Pastor Wennervik, built a new dwelling which was planned on a more modest scale than the other buildings. He was satisfied with a one-story house of four rooms and kitchen, and an attic with two gable chambers. But all the rooms, including the kitchen, were large and light, and so admirably adapted to living purposes that hominess, so to speak, met one with open arms at the threshold.

Pastor Wennervik had also laid out the kitchen garden with its aromatic herb-beds and fruit trees, and the little rose garden. He was the son of a master gardener, and was himself quite clever at gardening. Many little rose bushes and grafted apple trees still growing on the farms round Ämtervik he had helped set out.

In his youth he had been tutor at a great manor, where he conceived a fancy for fences and gates. Round the kitchen garden at Mårbacka he put a pretty white paling, with ornamental gates, and another round the rose garden. If one wished to drive in from the road, one had first to open a great gate, then pass range on range of out-buildings, with fences and gates at several points. It was the same with the front yard.

The children loved to hear about their great-grandfather, Pastor Wennervik. They had found in a corner cupboard of the farm-office some old books in Greek and Latin which bore his signature, also a number of poems by Bellman and Leopold copied in his hand. They knew that the harpsichord and guitar had come to Mårbacka in his time, and they created in fancy a beautiful image of him. It was not only from the old housekeeper they had heard anecdotes of him, but also from their father and their father’s sisters. He was a charming gentleman of fine taste, who always liked to wear good clothes and who loved flowers and apples. He must have been a bird-lover, too, for it was he who put up the octangular dove-cote that stood on the green outside the kitchen window. He had planned and worked to make Mårbacka a beautiful home. The clergymen who dwelt there before him must have lived mostly in the peasant manner, while he had softened the old severe simplicity by introducing some of the manners and customs of gentlefolk, thus rendering life there richer and easier.

There was an old oil painting at Mårbacka from the time of Pastor Wennervik. It was a portrait of his early love—a rich and high-born young lady of the Province of Västergötland. He had been tutor to her brother, and being no doubt the best looking and most charming young man she had met up to then, she fell in love with him, and he with her. The lovers had their trysting places in the bowers of the manor park, where they spoke of their love and pledged eternal fidelity. But one day they were discovered, and the young tutor was promptly dismissed.

All that was left to him of love’s young dream was this counterfeit presentment of his sweetheart. The young lady’s portrait had not been done by a skilled artist; the face on the canvas under the powdered hair was set and expressionless; it looked more like a pretty doll than the likeness of a human countenance. However, the features were of delicate mould, and to him who had seen her eyes sparkle and her lips curve in a smile, the portrait was beautiful enough. Pastor Wennervik perhaps felt some of the old glow of youth in his heart when his gaze rested on the picture.

Mayhap ’twas the portrait which inspired the obscure country parson to surround himself with flowers and birds, to enhance the beauty of life with music and poetry.

IV THE GANDER

THERE was only one thing the children had against Pastor Wennervik—that in his late years he had married Jungfru Raklitz, the dreadful old housekeeper-person who had gone from manor to manor and been harassed and tormented by hard mistresses, until she, in her turn, became a plague and a torment.

If Pastor Wennervik must needs have married again he should at least have thought to protect his dear daughter against the stepmother. That she was allowed to treat the girl as she saw fit, to scold and chastise her and put upon her an unreasonable amount of work—that, the children could never forgive him.

How they loved the billy-goat that got drunk on dregs and butted into old Raklitz, upsetting both her and her brandy cruse. They also sided with the market folk at the Ombergshed Fair who stole her apples and shouted back to her that the Mårbacka parson was too good a man to take money from poor folk for his apples. And they gloried in the bold thief who broke into her larder after she’d had a new lock put on the door which was so big and strong it might have done for a prison gate. And they were ready to burst into tears at the thought of the poor goosey-gander!

One fine April day, in the time of Fru Raklitz, all the Mårbacka geese had been let out in the farmyard. Suddenly some wild geese came flying high above them, honking and shrieking as usual. The tame geese flapped their wings and squawked back—the way they do every spring.

As flock after flock of wild geese flew over, the tame geese grew more and more restless, and before any one knew what was up, a big gander darted into the air and joined the wild geese in their flight.

Everyone expected that he would soon turn back; but indeed he did nothing of the sort. When he was not there by the next morning, they thought they’d never lay eyes on him again. He must have fallen prey to the fox or the eagle, they said, if he had not actually become winded and dropped dead from exhaustion. It was inconceivable that a tame goose could fly with wild geese to the far north.

Nothing was seen or heard of the gander the whole summer. But when autumn came, and the wild geese flew southward, shrieking and calling as always, the tame geese again lifted their wings and answered them.

Fru Raklitz, seeing how excited the geese were, and being more wary this time than the last, told her stepdaughter, Lisa Maja, to run out and drive the geese into the barn.

Lisa Maja had no sooner stepped into the barnyard than she heard a loud rustling noise just over her head, and almost before she had time to blink, a flock of wild geese alighted on the ground right in front of her. A big fine white gander was the leader; behind him walked a gray mother goose, trailed by nine speckled goslings. The girl hardly dared move lest she frighten them away. Very cautiously she opened the barn door and concealed herself behind it.

The goosey-gander made straight for the barn, his family following him. When they were all inside, Lisa Maja stole softly after to see where they had gone. Well, the big goosey-gander had walked right into the goose pen, and was calling and coaxing till those with him went in, too. Then he led them up to the trough, which was full of oats and water, and fell to feeding.

“See, this is what I’m used to,” he seemed to be saying to his family. “This is how I have always lived ... No food worries, only to step up to a full trough.”

Lisa Maja quietly slipped out, shutting the door after her, and hurried back to Fru Raklitz.

“Mother dear, do come see!” she said. “The gander who flew away in the spring has come back with a wild goose and nine little goslings.”

All her life she regretted having shut in the goosey-gander and told of his return. Fru Raklitz, without saying a word, hunted up the little knife which was used for killing geese, and before sundown the fine white goosey-gander, the nice gray mother goose, and all the pretty goslings were dead and plucked.

“It was a poor reward you gave our goosey-gander, Mother, for coming back to us with so many nice geese,” was all she dared say.

“’Twas enough at least to make all the geese on this place understand what happens to those who defy me and try to run away,” Fru Raklitz retorted, a malicious smile playing round her hard mouth.

V THE LEMMINGS

FRU RAKLITZ had been hard enough on Lisa Maja while the father was alive; but when he died, in the year 1801, and she was in full control, she became even more harsh and exacting. The stepdaughter was now wholly at her mercy, without support or protection from any quarter. The girl was but seventeen—too young and inexperienced to hold her own with a canny old woman. She had a brother, to be sure, but he was at Upsala University studying, so that she could not look to him for any help.

The stepmother and she were soon at daggers’ points. Fru Raklitz wanted her to marry the clergyman who had succeeded her father, but Lisa Maja would not agree to that. She opposed all the arguments of the stepmother and the parish folk, who thought the old order such an excellent thing. The clergyman’s daughter had her own ideas about marriage. She would not marry a man merely because he happened to be the priest at Ämtervik; he must also be the sort she could love.

The new pastor was anxious to put the matter through. He had got into the good graces of the stepmother, who tried to help him by any and every means. As the girl continued to say No, Fru Raklitz one day drove down to Öjervik to see Judge Sandelin, who was Lisa Maja’s guardian, and have a talk with him.

It was clear that she would have the support of both the Judge and his wife. They knew Fru Raklitz well; she had been housekeeper at Öjervik for many years and they had always known her to be a wise and prudent woman. Without doubt she was right, they said; the Mårbacka clergyman’s daughter should marry the curate. Anything else was out of the question.

Fru Raklitz was invited to stay for supper, and after the meal she and the Judge’s wife sat talking till late in the evening. It was eleven o’clock before she finally set off for home. But the sky was clear and there was a moon, so that it looked as if she would have no difficulty.

And now as the chaise moved rapidly along the shore road toward Sunne, Fru Raklitz sat thinking how she would worry and torment the poor stepdaughter in order to break her will. Of course it was only for the girl’s own good, she flattered herself so that she need have no conscience in the matter.

Then, all at once, Svarten, the horse, shied with a jerk that nearly upset the chaise. He acted as if he had the staggers; he dashed off the road, across the ditch, and was down in a field before Long-Bengt, the driver, could check him. When the horse was finally under control he was all a-tremble. Without moving from the spot where he stood he lifted his feet, one at a time, then suddenly gave a shriek such as is seldom heard from a horse—and leaped into the air. Back on to the road he would not go. When Long-Bengt tried to urge him on, he reared and came near kicking the chaise to pieces.

“What is it, Bengt, what is it?” gasped Fru Raklitz, clutching the man’s arm in her fright. “Has the horse gone mad?”

“That horse has more sense than Frua and me both,” answered Long-Bengt. “He’s not mad, he sees something we ain’t got eyes for to see.”

Svarten nosed the ground, snorted, and backed, regardless of the chaise and those in it. Luckily, they were in a field where the summer’s rye had been cut, so that the ground was quite smooth and even. They noticed that they were backing toward a broad, deep ditch; but when the vehicle was at the very edge, the horse stopped; he probably thought he had got past the worst danger. Though still nosing the ground and snorting, he made no more leaps.

“You’d better get out, Frua,” said Long-Bengt, “while I try to urge him past whatever ’tis he sees.”

Fru Raklitz unbuttoned the carriage apron and was about to set foot to the ground, when she drew back with a cry.

“I can’t step down, Bengt,” she said.... “It’s moving!”

“I believe Frua’s as daft as the horse,” laughed Long-Bengt. “What’s moving?”

“The ground under us is moving, the whole field is moving.” Her voice shook and she felt a lump in her throat.

“Asch!” said Long-Bengt, and jumped out. He thought it was a ghost that had frightened the horse. But ghosts were supposed to come out of the air; he had never heard of their creeping along the ground.

And now he wasn’t long getting back into the chaise himself, nor did he venture out of it again. What the mistress had said was true—the ground certainly appeared to be moving. It did not tremble as in an earthquake, nor glide away as in a landslide; but it was as if every clod of earth in the field had taken feet and was running toward the lake.

The two in the chaise sat gazing at the ground—and at last they saw what it was that moved: the field was over-run by hordes of little animals; but they were none the less frightened, the two of them. It couldn’t be anything real or natural, they thought. Where had they come from—all those creatures? Every spot in the field was alive with them!

The animals—or whatever they were—scurried across the ditch up on to the road and then went rushing down an incline into the lake. Now what sort of creatures could they be, to behave in that way? Had they been of God’s creation there would surely have been some end to them; but these kept coming in limitless numbers.

The horse had now become fairly calm. Only when the little animals ran between his feet he would snort and draw back. Fru Raklitz, meanwhile, was far from calm. Her teeth chattered from fright, and she mumbled and talked to herself. However, she sat still as long as they were in the field. But the horse was not going to stand out there the whole night. He began to move on his own accord; he walked slowly, lifting his feet and putting them down very carefully; but at least he went forward and not backward.

The strange little animals got into the way of the horse and wagon, and there was a grinding, crunching noise as the wheels passed over the tiny bodies.

When Fru Raklitz heard that grinding she jumped to her feet, and began to shriek wildly. Long-Bengt quickly caught her round the waist, to prevent her throwing herself out of the chaise.

“They’re after me! They’re after me!” she cried. “They’re on the wheels—they’re on the step—they’re in the wagon!”

The horse increased his speed. The chaise moved joltingly as the wheels went over the little animals.

“They’re in the chaise, they’re in the chaise!” screamed Fru Raklitz, springing up on to the seat. “They’re pulling at my skirt—they mean to drag me to the lake!”

Now Long-Bengt had to stand up to hold her back. “By rights, I ought to let you tumble into the road for your meanness,” he muttered. All the same he kept his arm round her.

They were at last back on the road and had driven over great swarms of the roving animals, when Svarten suddenly stopped and neighed contentedly.

“It’s all over now,” said Long-Bengt. “Sit down, Frua.”

But Fru Raklitz went on shrieking, “They’re in the chaise; they’re pulling at my skirt; they’ll drag me to the lake.” Long-Bengt had to pull her down by main force and set her on the seat. She struggled so hard he dared not let go of her.

“Go on, Svarten!” he said. “You’ll have to find the way without me holding the reins.”

The horse set off at a trot, while Fru Raklitz, shaking and blubbering, rambled on about their climbing the wheels and trying to get into the chaise.

“You’ll have to run, Svarten,” said Long-Bengt, “or she’ll go clean off her head before we get her home.”

Svarten perhaps understood. Anyhow, he must have wanted to get home to his crib, for he took the hills up and down at top speed.

Long-Bengt sat there with beads of cold sweat standing on his forehead; he tried to assure Fru Raklitz that the trouble was over, but she would not believe him.

“You are very kind, Bengt,” she whimpered; “but don’t tell me we are safe; I hear them, I see them, they are after us, and mean to drive me into the lake.”

When they finally stopped before the front porch at Mårbacka and a maid came out to receive her mistress, she was afraid to step down.

“No, no, not you!” she cried. “You have no power, you can’t save me from them.”

The maid drew back in alarm. She had never heard her mistress speak like that before.

“Go fetch the priest’s daughter,” said Fru Raklitz—“go fetch Lisa Maja! She is the only one here who has power over the evil ones.”

“Mamselle Lisa Maja has gone to bed,” said the girl.

“Go ask her to come down as quick as she can,” Long-Bengt put in. “Tell her Frua got a fright on the way.”

Fru Raklitz sat shaking and gibbering until her stepdaughter appeared.

“Ah, God bless you!” cried the woman, holding out her arms to the girl. “Come help me! Don’t be angry with me! I’ll never be mean to you again.”

“What’s the matter, Mother dear?” said the girl as she stood by the carriage.

“Come, give me your hand,” begged the stepmother. “Dear heart, hold them back while I get down. Don’t let them take me! They can’t harm you who have power over them.”

When she was out of the chaise she fell on the stepdaughter’s neck, and sobbed: “Don’t ever leave me! Don’t be angry with me! You shall marry whomever you will, and I’ll not say a word.”

“She saw something coming home,” Long-Bengt explained. “She saw all the little imps of hell let loose, and she thinks they’re after her and will drag her into the Fryken.”

The priest’s daughter put her arm round the stepmother, and said: “Come in, Mother dear! You are at Mårbacka now. Here none of the evil ones can touch you, darling Mother.”

Fru Raklitz was so shaken from fright that Lisa Maja had to talk to her as to a little child, to get her to her room and to bed. She would not let her go; so the girl had to sit there holding her hand, and listen to her ravings until daybreak.

From that time forth Fru Raklitz never dared be cruel to her stepdaughter; nor was she ever again her old ruthless self. She kept to her room mostly, and let Lisa Maja run the house. She would lend a hand when there was extra cleaning and furbishing to be done—as before a great holiday or a party—but only in the house, never outside it. Thus she lived until 1835. Whether she had ever any real affection for the stepdaughter is doubtful. But when Lisa Maja was married, and the little ones came, she grew very fond of them. Every day the children would go in to see Granny. She was also very fond of her coffee, and always had a fire going in the tile-stove of her room, so that she could make coffee for herself. She would often treat the children. But their mother thought coffee was not good for little folk, and told them one day they must never drink any of Granny’s coffee.

The next day, when the two youngest, Nana and Lovisa, came out of the grandmother’s room, there was a strong odour of coffee about them.

“What did you have at Granny’s to-day?” their mother asked them.

“Gruel, Mummie dear,” said the two of them as with one mouth.

“What was that gruel made in?” questioned the mother.

“In the coffeepot, Mummie dear,” they answered as if they were speaking a piece.

They said it so nicely and they were so little and naïve, that the mother had to laugh in spite of herself.

VI THE NECKAN

IN THE southern part of the parish there are tracts where the landscape is more variform and far more beautiful than up north, round Mårbacka. There the Fryken cuts into the land in deep bays—the one after the other—along each of which lie shore-meadows, bordered by leafy woods, and three or four fine old peasant homesteads. Jutting out between the bays are rocky, wood-grown headlands so wild and inhospitable that no one would think of clearing or building there.

One summer’s day Lisa Maja Wennervik had ridden down to Bössviken, which is the most southerly bay, to order some of the fine pears ripening there under the protecting hills. The Bössvik folk were very friendly, and she had dropped in at several cottages, so that it was rather late when she left for home.

But the girl was not afraid to ride back alone in the light summer evening. She went slowly, that she might enjoy to the full the beauty of the night; now riding up among the hills through dense woods, where she fancied robbers or bears might spring out at any moment and tear her off her horse; and now down dales of dewy fields, pretty birch groves and light, shimmering streams. There was still a pale rosy glow in the sky, which was reflected in the lake. She had never seen anything lovelier than that night!

All at once she saw a large, beautiful stallion grazing in the shore-meadow of a bay. His coat was a dapple gray, his mane so long it swept the ground, and his tail, which was thick as a rye-sheaf, also reached to the ground. The horse was broad across the hindquarters and high at the withers; he had a small head, with fine, clear eyes, his legs were slender, his hoofs a silvery white that glistened like polished metal as he lifted them in the grass. His body bore no marks of harness or saddle.

Lisa Maja had just walked her horse, Svarten, down a hillside, and was now going at the same slow pace toward the meadow where the stallion grazed. She went so close to him there was but the fence between them; by putting out her hand she could have stroked his haunches.

The stallion seemed not to have noticed them before; but now he raised his head and looked up at the young girl. And Lisa Maja was so pretty that the young swains would drop axe, or scythe, or whatever they had in hand, when she came riding, and hurry down to the roadside to hang over the fence till she had gone by.

Fancy! When the beautiful stallion raised his eyes to her, there was the same look of admiration in his gaze that the peasant lads sent her from the roadside.

For a moment he stood regarding her, then quickly turned and galloped off—his mane waving in the breeze, his tail standing straight out. Like a streak, he darted across the meadow and down the bay. Near the shore the bay was shallow and shelving, and as he dashed through the shallows the water splashed round him in clouds of foam. Then, all of a sudden, he disappeared.

Lisa Maja thought the horse in his wild flight had gone beyond his depth, and was drowning. She hoped for a second that he would come swimming to the surface again; but no, he did not reappear. And there was not a ripple on the water where he had gone down.

Then Lisa Maja felt a wild desire to ride to the rescue. She could not bear the thought of letting that glorious creature drown without making some effort to save it. With a sharp pull at the bridle, she swung her horse round toward the fence and gave him a dig with her spurs to make him jump it. But Svarten being the kind of horse that knows more than most humans, instead of taking the hurdle, turned and made for home at full gallop. The young girl from her high mount in the side-saddle had not much control over her determined steed; she soon realized that this time it was useless to try to make him obey. Besides, Svarten probably knew what sort of horse it was the girl wished to rescue from the water. By the time Lisa Maja had come to the top of the next hill and found herself in the darkness of a dense pine wood, she, too, knew what it was she had seen.

The silver-gray stallion with the unshodden hoofs and trailing mane she had often heard tell of. He was none other than the Neckan—the River-god—himself.

When the girl came home to Mårbacka and told the serving-folk of her adventure, they all thought as she did—that she had seen the Neckan and that herself and all on her place had best be careful, or before very long one among them would surely be drowned.

But there is no lake near Mårbacka and the old bottom lands to the west of the estate were by then so well dried out that not a trace of swamp or quagmire remained. Even the river, which had once been broad and treacherous, was now so diminished that in summertime, at least, it was scarcely more than a shallow creek.

However, in the month of August, when the days grew shorter and the mists hovered over river and meadow, it happened that an old man from Mårbacka was walking homeward one evening across the western meadows; what he may have seen or encountered down among the mists no one ever knew—but he did not return that night. The next morning his body was found in the little river, which was so shallow the water scarcely covered him. He had been a crabbed old man and there was perhaps no great mourning for him; but they were all very certain now it was the Neckan Lisa Maja had seen that time; had she followed him into the lake he surely would have drawn her down to his Blue Mansions in the deep.

VII THE PAYMASTER OF THE REGIMENT

FRU RAKLITZ’S reformation may not have been so complete after all, for the old housekeeper could never sufficiently impress upon the little Lagerlöf children what a fortunate thing it was for Mamselle Lisa Maja that she got so good a husband as Paymaster Daniel Lagerlöf. He was no rich man; but wise, and kindly, and honourable he had always been. In him she had found just the protector she needed.

To be sure he was no priest, but his father and grandfather, his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather had all been clergymen and married to daughters of clergymen, so that he could claim kinship with all the old clerical families of Värmland. Any preaching or speech-making gift he had not inherited from his forebears, but the tendency to guide and govern a whole community was in his blood. The Ämtervik peasants, who at first thought ill of him because he had married the Mårbacka parson’s daughter—thereby upsetting the old order—soon grew accustomed to having him run the important affairs of the parish.

The children were astonished to hear the housekeeper speak in that way of their grandfather. They had heard stories of him which were common among the people. He was said to have been a great violinist, and in his youth, at least, was so moody and high-strung that the humdrum of home life wore on him and he had to go his own ways.

But that the old housekeeper denied most emphatically. No, indeed, there was nothing queer about the Paymaster of the Regiment. She could not imagine who had put such ideas into the children’s heads. It was merely that his official duties forced him to live away on journeys most of the time. As Paymaster of the Regiment once a year he had to travel through the whole of Värmland, to collect the war tax. And not only was he Paymaster of the Regiment, but Manager of the Kymsberg Iron Works, far up by the Norwegian boundary; and all at once he had to be up and off for there. Then, too, he had such a good name that people were always asking him to serve as executor and administrator. Most bothersome of all had been his trusteeship for Judge Sandelin’s wife, who had inherited seven foundries from Iron Master Antonsson. He had to spend months on end at these various foundries, straightening out the tangled affairs.

But as soon as ever he could get away he hurried back to Mårbacka. If he chanced to come home some morning, unobserved, he would hunt up his violin and stand outside the bedroom window, and awaken his wife with music.

Now that much may have been true, perhaps; but that he ran away from home and was gone for long periods without letting anyone know his whereabouts—that was just something folks imagined, because ’twas always the wife who ruled at Mårbacka.

The children were very sorry to hear that their grandfather had been such a sober, serious, matter-of-fact person. And of course they had to believe what the old housekeeper told them.

Then, one evening, when their parents had gone to a party, the housemaid, who was to sit up for them, had persuaded Maja, the new nurse, who succeeded Back-Kaisa, to keep her company. They made a fire in the tile-stove of the nursery, drew up the children’s little red chairs, and sat talking in whispers so as not to disturb the three little girls, who had gone to bed.

By and by the door creaked and in walked the old housekeeper. She had been wondering where the housemaid had betaken herself, and had been all through the house looking for her. She, too, drew up a chair. Anyway, she declared she’d not be able to sleep till she knew the master and mistress were safely home.

Now that the three of them were seated by the open fire so cosy and intimate-like, the two maids seized the opportunity to ask the old housekeeper’s advice in a weighty matter.

“We were just saying, Lina and I, that we ought to make dream-porridge,” said Nurse Maja; “but we don’t know as ’twould do any good.”

In that way they tempted the old housekeeper to tell what had happened when Lisa Maja Wennervik made a dream-pancake.

On New Year’s Eve of the last Christmas Week that Pastor Wennervik was alive Mamselle Lisa Maja, for fun, made a dream-pancake. She had just turned seventeen, and ’twas time for her to be thinking of marriage. So she measured out three spoonfuls of water, three spoonfuls of meal, and three spoonfuls of salt, and stirred them together, then she poured the mixture on a hot griddle, ate as much of the pancake as she could get down, and went right to bed. She must have had some difficulty getting to sleep, though, for the salty pancake had given her an awful thirst; and to drink anything before sleeping would break the spell.

In the morning she couldn’t remember whether she had dreamt anything. But later in the day, on going out on the front porch, she stopped in amazement. All at once she remembered having dreamed in the night of standing on that very spot. Two strange men—one old, one young—had come up to her. The older man had said he was Dean Lagerlöf of Arvika, and that he had come with his son to ask her if she were not thirsty and would like a drink of water. With that, the younger man had immediately stepped forward and offered her a glass of water. And she was very glad when she saw the clear, fresh water, for even in her sleep her throat felt parched.

There the dream ended. But from that moment she knew who was to be her husband; for the one who comes in the dream and offers you water when you have eaten dream-pancake, he is the one you will marry.

Mamselle Lisa Maja wondered how this could come about, for at that time she did not know any one by the name of Lagerlöf. But one day, soon after New Year’s, as she was standing at the window, a sledge came up the driveway. Suddenly she gave a cry and nipped the housekeeper by the sleeve.

“Here comes the one I saw in the dream,” she said. “You’ll find that his name is Lagerlöf.”

And ’twas just as she had said. The man in the sledge was Daniel Lagerlöf, manager of the Kymsberg Iron Works, who had come to buy hay.

The first sight of him must have been a disappointment. He was not handsome and he looked so sombre she did not see how she could ever like him.

He stayed the night at Mårbacka. In the morning the stableboy came in and said that a fox and two wolves had fallen into the fox-pit. None of the men on the place seemed to know what to do to get the trapped animals out, but the Kymsberg manager jumped into the pit with no weapon but a knotted stick. He dealt the wolves a couple of blows on the head, stunning them, then slipped a noose round their necks by which to draw them up.

Mamselle Lisa Maja was so taken by the courage of the man, she quite lost her heart to him. She vowed to herself, then and there, that him and none other would she have for a husband.

He, on his part, had fallen in love with her at this their first meeting, though he would not let on. He had once been engaged, it seemed, and although the betrothed was now dead, he felt that he must be true to her memory, and have no thought for another.

At all events, he came to Mårbacka for hay several times that winter. He soon saw that Lisa Maja had none too easy a time of it with that stepmother of hers. He felt sorry for her and wanted to help her. But Lord o’ mercy! he couldn’t court her himself on account of the dear departed. But there was his brother Elof, who was a priest somewhere up in the Finn-forests; now he might marry her, he thought.

He brought about a meeting between his brother and Lisa Maja—which was the worst thing he could have done. The brother fell desperately in love with the girl, and could think of none but her for the rest of his life; while she loved the Kymsberg manager and had no eyes for his brother.

Pastor Lagerlöf, however, never got so far as to propose. He was commanded by his bishop to marry a person who had lived in his home several years, and to whom he had promised marriage. Fru Raklitz had played a hand in that game, which ended only in misery. For when Pastor Lagerlöf could not have Lisa Maja he took to drink, and finally became as dissolute and worthless as he had once been noble and high-minded.

Now Daniel Lagerlöf had no one to put forward as substitute. If he meant to help the Mårbacka parson’s daughter he must come to the scratch himself. Besides, he probably felt now it was better to think of the living than to mourn for the dead. So he actually plucked up courage enough to propose.

Mamselle Lisa Maja was very happy, and thought her troubles would soon be over. But before very long her betrothed began to act strangely, as if he wished to avoid her. He seldom appeared at Mårbacka now, and when he was there he would sit silent for hours and only gaze at her, or he would take out his violin and play from the time he came until he left. At last a whole year went by without her seeing him.

If she asked him when they were to be married he put her off with excuses. Once he said they must wait until he had earned enough to buy out the other heirs to Mårbacka. Another time he had to help put his brothers through college; and again, he thought they had better wait and see whether he’d succeed in getting the post of Paymaster of the Regiment.

He kept postponing and postponing. Now he had too much writing to do, and now too much travelling—till at last no one except Mamselle Lisa Maja herself believed they would ever be married. That made it all the harder for her. Eligible young gentlemen from Sunne—from Ämtervik—now came a-courting. She let them all understand they had their trouble for nothing. But some were so persistent they came again and again, and if she forbade them the house they would lie in wait for her at the edge of the woods, and pop out when she appeared in the road.

All the mean things they could say of Daniel Lagerlöf they took pains to tell her. One time she heard that he consorted with the disreputable, besotten cavaliers who drove about the countryside harrying homesteads, and were the terror of all decent folk; another time she was told that he ran about in the woods like a wild animal. Some chaffed her, saying he had now got the post of Paymaster of the Regiment and could jolly well marry her, unless he’d grown tired of his bargain. Others tried to weaken her by hinting that he was after the daughter of Finn-Eric, who was reputed to be the richest man in the country.

None of that had any effect upon Lisa Maja; she was as happy and confident as ever that it would be as foretold in the dream.

Then one day a rumour reached her ears to the effect that her betrothed had said if he were only released from his engagement he would go abroad, and learn to play the violin properly.

That impressed her as nothing else had. She went down to the stable at once to find Long-Bengt.

She said: “Now, Bengt, you must get out the chaise and drive up to Kymsberg, to fetch the Paymaster of the Regiment; for I wish to speak with him.”

“Ay, be sure I’ll try, Mamselle,” said Long-Bengt. “But what shall I do if he won’t come along willingly?”

“Tell him you dare not return without him,” she said.

And Long-Bengt went.

It was a day’s journey to Kymsberg, and Long-Bengt did not get back until the evening of the second day; but in the chaise with him was the Paymaster of the Regiment.

Mamselle Lisa Maja received him cordially, as usual. She asked him into the living room, and bade him sit down and rest a bit after his long journey. They would hurry with the supper, she said, as he must be hungry.

He paced up and down the room impatiently; he seemed only to be waiting for the moment when he could be off.

When they were seated at table—just they two—Lisa Maja turned to him when the housekeeper came in with the food—as if she’d only been waiting for her—and asked him whether it was true that he wanted to break off with her.

“Oh, yes,” he answered, looking solemn as an owl. Such was his wish, of course; she should have guessed that long ago.

The blood rushed to her face. If she had not questioned him about this before, she said, it was because she firmly believed they were destined for each other. Then, with a forced laugh, he asked her what she meant by that. She flushed crimson. Now she told him in a few words about the dream-pancake, of how in a dream she had seen him and his father, and what the father had said to her.

He put down his knife and fork, and stared in amazement.

“This must be something you have just made up,” he said.

“You can ask Maja Persdotter if I did not recognize you and say who you were before you were out of the sledge, the first time you came to buy hay,” said Mamselle Lisa Maja, turning to the housekeeper, who was then passing round the food.

“But why haven’t you spoken of this before?” he questioned her.

“That, I think, you must understand,” she answered. “I did not wish to hold you by any bond but your own desire.”

For a long moment he sat silent—evidently much impressed by what he had heard. Presently he asked:

“Can you tell me how the man looked who said he was Dean Lagerlöf of Arvika?”

“Yes,” said she, and went on to describe him. Her description of the father must have been accurate, feature for feature, for the son was so startled he involuntarily jumped up from the table.

“But my father died the year I was born,” he said. “You may have heard people speak of him, perhaps?”

“I had never seen a Lagerlöf nor heard of either you or your father before I met you in a dream. Ask Maja Persdotter standing there beside you if she hasn’t heard me describe your father many, many times.”

He went up close to her. “If only I dared believe this!” He walked round the room and back to her.... “Why—then you were the one my dear father meant for me, and not——”

What Mamselle Lisa Maja replied the old housekeeper never heard, for she saw ’twas time for her to be going.

The young lovers sat talking together till far into the night, and—well—that autumn they were married.

Mamselle Lisa Maja afterwards told the old housekeeper it was only his morbid conscience that had stood in the way. He had felt he would be wronging the dead sweetheart, and he had brooded over his brother Elof, and thought he had no right to happiness when the brother was so unhappy—and all on account of him.

But in her dream he had found something to hold to, something to be guided by, which gave him the courage to do what he wished above everything.

From the day of his marriage he was a changed man, though during the first years the old despondency came over him at times; but later he was as tranquil and even-tempered as could be. A year after the wedding at Mårbacka his brother was drowned, and then for a while it was pretty hard; but that, too, passed over.

The old mistress and he were married six-and-forty years, and the last thirty years of their union all was serene; there was no happier couple in the world.

*****

The little children lay in their beds listening and delighting. Until then their grandfather had been to them no more than a wooden image, and now all at once he had come alive.

VIII THE MILITIA-MEN

IT HAPPENED in the year 1810, when Grandmother Lagerlöf was a young wife and the mother of two little children. She sat one evening by the east window of the kitchen-bedroom; dusk had fallen and ’twas too dark to see to sew. Being well on in March the tallow dips were about used up, so she had taken up her knitting, for her knitting needles she could ply in the deepest darkness.

All at once something made her look out. She could hardly believe her eyes! But a little while before it had been fine clear weather, and now there was a blinding snowstorm. The air was so thick with snow she could barely distinguish the firelight from the window of the manservants’ hall directly opposite. The lashing wind swished the snow against the house, and in just the short time she had been sitting there the drifts had piled so high that bushes and fences were buried under them.

Darkness had descended quickly with the coming of the storm, yet she descried several large animals stalking through the drifts toward the farmyard. “I hope the maids will be mindful, and not go out for firewood,” she said to herself, “for the graylegs are out to-night.”

Shortly afterwards she heard a piercing cry and saw a wolf lumber past her window with something in its mouth that struggled and fought. She thought it looked like a child. But whose child could it be? Her own little ones were right beside her, and there were no other children on the farm. Close behind the first wolf came another; it, too, had a child in its gape.

Grandmother couldn’t sit still any longer. She jumped up so suddenly she knocked over the chair, and rushed through the kitchen out into the yard.... Then she stood stock still. Before her was the calm, beautiful spring evening; not a sign of snow—not a wolf in sight.

She must have fallen asleep over her knitting, she thought, and been dreaming. Yet she felt that back of it all lay something serious.

“We’ll have to take precious good care of the little ones,” she said to the maids. “That was no dream, it was a warning.”

However, the children thrived and waxed fat and rosy. The dream, or vision, or whatever it was, soon passed out of mind, like much else of the same sort.

Along in August a company of poor soldiers came to Mårbacka. The men were ragged, famished, and ill. Their bodies were nothing but skin-and-bone and in their eyes was the look of the ravening wolf. The mark of death was on them all.

They were from Fryksände and other parishes in the northern part of Fryksdalen, they said. But now that they were nearing home they feared their own people would not recognize them. Only two years before they had gone forth as well, strong men. What would the folks at home think of getting them back in such a state they were only fit to be put in the ground. They had not been on the battle field, they had only marched to and fro in cold and hunger. Their fight had been with disease and neglect.

They were many thousand strong when they marched away, but one thousand after another had succumbed. Great numbers had been sent out in open barges on the raging sea in midwinter. How it had gone with those voyagers none knew; but when the boats drifted ashore the crews sat at their oars dead and literally encased in ice. These surviving militia-men, now returning on their own, had often been stoned away from farms and villages on their homeward tramp. What seemed to prey upon them most was that they had not been sent into battle and shot to death, but must still drag on in ceaseless misery. They knew the sort they were—covered with vermin, reeking with filth, and horrible to behold. They did not ask for a bed to lie on or the shelter of a roof; they only begged a few armfuls of straw and a dry mound to rest on.

At Mårbacka the poor soldiers were not greeted with stones. The Paymaster of the Regiment was away, but his wife gave them permission to camp in the backyard, just inside the gates. Huge kettles of porridge and gruel were prepared for the men, and all the clothing that could be spared was turned over to them. The servants continually gathered round their camp to listen to their tales of what they had passed through. Not all could talk, however. Some were too listless to answer when spoken to; they seemed hardly to know who they were or where they were going.

There was great consternation and wonder over these men who had become so changed. Reports of them spread far and wide, and people came long distances to see them.

“That one, they tell me, is the son of Göran Persa,” said a stranger who had stood a long while regarding the poor wretches. “But I knew Göran Persa’s son; he was a fine lad; there’s not a feature the same.”

One day a poor widow came wandering to Mårbacka. She was from a little backwoods croft away up north, where, in a perpetual struggle with hunger and want, she managed to sustain life in her body.

“Is there any one among ye by the name of Börje Knutsson?” she inquired, gazing anxiously at the sick yeomen.

No one answered. The men sat on the ground with their legs drawn up, their chins resting on their knees. They would sit like that for hours without moving.

“If there’s any one here named Börje Knutsson he must make himself known,” said the widow, “for he’s my son.”

None moved or said a word, none so much as raised his eyes.

“I have wept for the lad every day since he went away,” continued the poor woman. “If he’s there among ye why doesn’t he stand up and say so, for I shouldn’t know him again.”

Silence.

The woman slowly went her way. To the first person she met afterwards she related her experience.

“I thought until now I’d go out of my mind if my son did not come back,” she said, “but now I thank my God that he’s not among those skeletons!”

The militia-men rested a week at Mårbacka, and then went on, somewhat strengthened.

But they had left the bloody flux in their wake. Everyone on the place became desperately ill. All recovered save Grandmother’s two little children, who were of too tender an age to resist the virulence of the sickness.

When the two children lay in their coffins, Grandmother said to herself: “If I had done like the others, if instead of harbouring those men I had driven them away with stones, my little ones would have been alive now.”

But as that thought crossed her mind, she remembered her vision of that evening in the spring wherein the wolves carried off the children. “Our Lord is not to blame,” she said. “He forewarned me.” The loss of the children was not due to her act of mercy, but rather to her thoughtlessness in not having taken proper precautions to guard them against contagion.

When she realized that after all it was her own fault the children were gone, her grief was overwhelming. “I shall never get over it,” she said. “I can never be the same again.”

Her despair was increased by her fears for the husband—how would he take the loss of their children? He had not been at home in several months. The old despondency had perhaps come over him again, so that he dared not come home. Where he was then she did not know; so could not even send him word of what had happened. Anyway, he would surely regard the death of his children as a visitation from God for his marrying her, and never come back. She was not so certain but he would be right in this. It were best perhaps they never met again.

All on the place were much concerned about her. What to do to help her they did not know. But Long-Bengt, who was the oldest of the servitors, was not afraid to act sometimes on his own responsibility. He set off for Kymsberg one morning in quest of the master. This time he was not two whole days getting back. He actually found the Paymaster of the Regiment and stated his errand. The words were hardly out of his mouth before the master ordered a fresh horse put to the chaise. They drove all night without a stop, and reached Mårbacka in the morning.

Now the husband was not glum and difficult when he came. He took his wife tenderly in his arms, dried her tears, and spoke loving words of comfort to her. It seemed as if then for the first time, when seeing her so crushed and sorrowful, was he able to reveal the full depth of his love.

“And I thought I should lose you, too!” she said.

“I’m not one that grief can drive away,” said he. “Did you think I would desert you because of your great compassion?”

In that moment she understood his heart as never before. She knew that in peaceful and happy days she must rely on herself—which she was well able to do; but in sorrow and suffering and times of stress he would always be by her side—her stay and comfort.