One cold winter day Eric of Falla and Jan were up in the forest
cutting down trees. They had just sawed through the trunk of a big
spruce, and stepped aside so as not to be caught under its branches
when it came crashing to the ground.
"Look out, Boss!" warned Jan. "It's coming your way."
There was plenty of time for Eric to have escaped while the spruce
still swayed; but he had felled so many trees in his lifetime that
he thought he ought to know more about this than Jan did, and stood
still. The next moment he lay upon the ground with the tree on top
of him. He had not uttered a sound when the tree caught him and now
he was completely hidden by the thick spruce branches.
Jan stood looking round not knowing what had become of his
employer. Presently he heard the old familiar voice he had always
obeyed; but it sounded so feeble he could hardly make out what it
was saying.
"Go get a team and some men to take me home," said the voice.
"Shan't I help you from under first?" asked Jan.
"Do as I tell you!" said Eric of Falla.
Jan, knowing his employer to be a man who always demanded prompt
obedience, said nothing further but hurried back to Falla as fast
as he could. The farm was some distance away, so that it took time
to get there.
On arriving, the first person Jan came upon was Lars Gunnarson, the
husband of Eric's eldest daughter and prospective master of Falla,
which he was destined to take over upon the decease of the present
owner.
When Lars Gunnarson had received his instructions he ordered Jan to
go straight to the house and tell the mistress of what had
occurred; then he was to call the hired boy. Meantime Lars himself
would run down to the barn and harness a horse.
"Perhaps I needn't be so very particular about telling the
womenfolk just yet?" said Jan. "For if they once start crying and
fretting it will only mean delay. Eric's voice sounded so weak from
where he lay that I think we'd best hurry along."
But Lars Gunnarson, since coming to the farm, had made it a point
to assert his authority. He would no more take back an order once
given than would his father-in-law.
"Go into mother at once!" he commanded. "Can't you understand that
she must get the bed ready so we'll have some place to put him when
we come back with him?"
Then of course Jan was obliged to go inside and notify the
mistress. Try as he would to make short work of it, it took time to
relate what had happened and how it had happened.
When Jan returned to the yard he heard Lars thundering and swearing
in the stable. Lars was a poor hand with animals. The horses would
kick if he went anywhere near them and he had not been able to get
one of the beasts out of its stall the whole time that Jan had been
inside talking with the housewife.
It would not have been well for Jan had he offered to help Lars.
Knowing this he went immediately on his other errand, and fetched
the hired boy. He thought it mighty strange that Lars had not told
him to speak to Börje, who was threshing in the barn close by,
instead of sending him after the hired boy, who was at work out in
the birch-grove, a good way from the farmyard.
And while Jan ran these needless errands, the faint voice under the
spruce branches rang in his ears. The voice was not so imperative
now, but it begged and implored him to hasten. "I'm coming, I'm
coming!" Jan whispered back. He had the sensation of one in a
nightmare who tries to run but who cannot take a step.
Lars had at last managed to get a horse into the shafts. Then the
womenfolk came and told him to be sure to take along straw and
blankets. This was all very well, but it meant still further delay.
Finally Lars and Jan and the hired boy drove away from the farm.
But they had got no farther than to the edge of the forest, when
Lars stopped the horse.
"One gets sort of rattled when one receives news of this kind,"
said he. "I never thought of it till just now--but Börje is back at
the barn."
"It would have been well to have taken him along," said Jan, "for
he's twice as strong as any of us."
Then Lars sent the hired boy back to the farm to get Börje; which
meant a long wait.
While Jan sat in the sledge, powerless to act, he felt as though
within him opened a big, empty ice-cold void. It was the awful
certainty that they would be too late!
Then at last came Börje and the boy, all out of breath from
running, and now they drove on into the woods. They went very
slowly, though, for Lars had harnessed the old spavined bay to the
sledge. What he had said about his being rattled must have been
true, for all at once he wanted to turn in on the wrong road.
"If you go in that direction, we'll come to Great Peak," Jan told
him; "and we must get to the woods beyond Loby."
"Yes, I know," returned Lars, "but farther up there's a crossroad
where it's better driving."
"What road might that be? I've never seen it."
"Wait, and I'll show you," said Lars, determined to continue up the
mountain.
Now Börje sided with Jan, so Lars had to give in of course; but
precious time had been consumed while they argued with him, and Jan
felt as if all the life had gone out of his body.
"Nothing matters now," thought he. "Eric of Falla will be beyond
our help when we arrive."
The old bay jogged along the forest road as well as it could, but
it had not the strength for a heavy pull like this. It was poorly
shod, and stumbled time after time. When going uphill the men had
to get down from the sledge and walk, and when they came upon
trackless unbeaten ground in the thick of the forest the horse was
almost more of a hindrance than a help.
At all events they got there finally. Strange to say, they found
Eric of Falla in fairly good condition; he was not much hurt and no
bones were broken. One of his thighs had been lacerated by a
branch, and there he had an ugly wound; still it was nothing but
what he could recover from.
When Jan went back to his work the next morning he learned that
Eric had a high fever and was suffering intense pain. While lying
on the frozen ground he had caught a severe cold, which developed
into pneumonia, and within a fortnight he was dead.