Erik was standing on the front steps, with stooping shoulders and face
half turned toward the wall. He stationed himself there every morning
at about four, and waited for the bailiff to come down. It was now six,
and had just begun to grow light.
Lasse and Pelle had finished cleaning out the cow-stable and
distributing the first feed, and they were hungry. They were standing
at the door of the stable, waiting for the breakfast-bell to ring; and
at the doors of the horse-stables, the men were doing the same. At a
quarter-past the hour they went toward the basement, with Karl Johan at
their head, and Lasse and Pelle also turned out and hurried to the
servants’ room, with every sign of a good appetite.
“Now, Erik, we’re going down to breakfast!” shouted Karl Johan as they
passed, and Erik came out of his corner by the steps, and shuffled
along after them. There was nothing the matter with his digestive
powers at any rate.
They ate their herring in silence; the food stopped their mouths
completely. When they had finished, the head man knocked on the table
with the handle of his knife, and Karna came in with two dishes of
porridge and a pile of bread-and-dripping.
“Where’s Bodil to-day?” asked Gustav.
“How should I know? Her bed was standing untouched this morning,”
answered Karna, with an exulting look.
“It’s a lie!” cried Gustav, bringing down his spoon with a bang upon
the table.
“You can go into her room and see for yourself; you know the way!” said
Karna tartly.
“And what’s become of the pupil to-day, as he hasn’t rung?” said Karl
Johan. “Have any of you girls seen him?”
“No, I expect he’s overslept himself,” cried Bengta from the
wash-house. “And so he may! _I_ don’t want to run up and shake life
into him every morning!”
“Don’t you think you’d better go up and wake him, Gustav?” said Anders
with a wink. “You might see something funny.” The others laughed a
little.
“If I wake him, it’ll be with this rabbit-skinner,” answered Gustav,
exhibiting a large knife. “For then I think I should put him out of
harm’s way.”
At this point the farmer himself came down. He held a piece of paper in
his hand, and appeared to be in high good humor. “Have you heard the
latest news, good people? At dead of night Hans Peter has eloped with
Bodil!”
“My word! Are the babes and sucklings beginning now?” exclaimed Lasse
with self-assurance. “I shall have to look after Pelle there, and see
that he doesn’t run away with Karna. She’s fond of young people.” Lasse
felt himself to be the man of the company, and was not afraid of giving
a hit at any one.
“Hans Peter is fifteen,” said Kongstrup reprovingly, “and passion rages
in his heart.” He said this with such comical gravity that they all
burst into laughter, except Gustav, who sat blinking his eyes and
nodding his head like a drunken man.
“You shall hear what he says. This lay upon his bed.” Kongstrup held
the paper out in a theatrical attitude and read:
“When you read this, I shall have gone forever. Bodil and I have agreed
to run away to-night. My stern father will never give his consent to
our union, and therefore we will enjoy the happiness of our love in a
secret place where no one can find us. It will be doing a great wrong
to look for us, for we have determined to die together rather than fall
into the wicked hands of our enemies. I wet this paper with Bodil’s and
my own tears. But you must not condemn me for my last desperate step,
as I can do nothing else for the sake of my great love.
“HANS PETER.”
“That fellow reads story-books,” said Karl Johan. “He’ll do great
things some day.”
“Yes, he knows exactly what’s required for an elopement,” answered
Kongstrup merrily. “Even to a ladder, which he’s dragged up to the
girl’s window, although it’s on a level with the ground. I wish he were
only half as thorough in his agriculture.”
“What’s to be done now? I suppose they must be searched for?” asked the
head man.
“Well, I don’t know. It’s almost a shame to disturb their young
happiness. They’ll come of their own accord when they get hungry. What
do you think, Gustav? Shall we organize a battue?”
Gustav made no answer, but rose abruptly and went across to the men’s
rooms. When the others followed him, they found him in bed.
All day he lay there and never uttered a syllable when any one came in
to him. Meanwhile the work suffered, and the bailiff was angry. He did
not at all like the new way Kongstrup was introducing—with liberty for
every one to say and do exactly as they liked.
“Go in and pull Gustav out of bed!” he said, in the afternoon, when
they were in the threshing-barn, winnowing grain. “And if he won’t put
his own clothes on, dress him by force.”
But Kongstrup, who was there himself, entering the weight, interfered.
“No, if he’s ill he must be allowed to keep his bed,” he said. “But
it’s our duty to do something to cure him.”
“How about a mustard-plaster?” suggested Mons, with a defiant glance at
the bailiff.
Kongstrup rubbed his hands with delight. “Yes, that’ll be splendid!” he
said. “Go you across, Mons, and get the girls to make a mustard-
plaster that we can stick on the pit of his stomach; that’s where the
pain is.”
When Mons came back with the plaster, they went up in a procession to
put it on, the farmer himself leading. Kongstrup was well aware of the
bailiff’s angry looks, which plainly said, “Another waste of work for
the sake of a foolish prank!” But he was inclined for a little fun, and
the work would get done somehow.
Gustav had smelt a rat, for when they arrived he was dressed. For the
rest of the day he did his work, but nothing could draw a smile out of
him. He was like a man moonstruck.
A few days later a cart drove up to Stone Farm. In the driving-seat sat
a broad-shouldered farmer in a fur coat, and beside him, wrapped up
from head to foot, sat Hans Peter, while at the back, on the floor of
the cart, lay the pretty Bodil on a little hay, shivering with cold. It
was the pupil’s father who had brought back the two fugitives, whom he
had found in lodgings in the town.
Up in the office Hans Peter received a thrashing that could be heard,
and was then let out into the yard, where he wandered about crying and
ashamed, until he began to play with Pelle behind the cow-stable.
Bodil was treated more severely. It must have been the strange farmer
who required that she should be instantly dismissed, for Kongstrup was
not usually a hard man. She had to pack her things, and after dinner
was driven away. She looked good and gentle as she always did; one
would have thought she was a perfect angel—if one had not known better.
Next morning Gustav’s bed was empty. He had vanished completely, with
chest, wooden shoes and everything.
Lasse looked on at all this with a man’s indulgent smile—children’s
tricks! All that was wanting now was that Karna should squeeze her fat
body through the basement window one night, and she too disappear like
smoke—on the hunt for Gustav.
This did not happen, however; and she became kindly disposed toward
Lasse again, saw after his and Pelle’s clothes, and tried to make them
comfortable.
Lasse was not blind; he saw very well which way the wind blew, and
enjoyed the consciousness of his power. There were now two that he
could have whenever he pleased; he only had to stretch out his hand,
and the women-folk snatched at it. He went about all day in a state of
joyful intoxication, and there were days in which he was in such an
elevated condition of mind that he had inward promptings to make use of
his opportunity. He had always trodden his path in this world so
sedately, done his duty and lived his life in such unwavering decency.
Why should not he too for once let things go, and try to leap through
the fiery hoops? There was a tempting development of power in the
thought.
But the uprightness in him triumphed. He had always kept to the one, as
the Scriptures commanded, and he would continue to do so. The other
thing was only for the great—Abraham, of whom Pelle had begun to tell
him, and Kongstrup. Pelle, too, must never be able to say anything
against his father in that way; he must be clean in his child’s eyes,
and be able to look him in the face without shrinking. And then—well,
the thought of how the two women would take it in the event of its
being discovered, simply made Lasse blink his red eyes and hang his
head.
Towards the middle of March, Fru Kongstrup returned unexpectedly. The
farmer was getting along very comfortably without her, and her coming
took him rather by surprise. Fair Maria was instantly turned out and
sent down to the wash-house. Her not being sent away altogether was due
to the fact that there was a shortage of maids at the farm now that
Bodil had left. The mistress had brought a young relative with her, who
was to keep her company and help her in the house.
They appeared to get on very well together. Kongstrup stayed at home
upon the farm and was steady. The three drove out together, and the
mistress was always hanging on his arm when they went about showing the
place to the young lady. It was easy to see why she had come home; she
could not live without him!
But Kongstrup did not seem to be nearly so pleased about it. He had put
away his high spirits and retired into his shell once more. When he was
going about like this, he often looked as if there was something
invisible lying in ambush for him and he was afraid of being taken
unawares.
This invisible something reached out after the others, too. Fru
Kongstrup never interfered unkindly in anything, either directly or in
a roundabout way; and yet everything became stricter. People no longer
moved freely about the yard, but glanced up at the tall windows and
hurried past. The atmosphere had once more that oppression about it
that made one feel slack and upset and depressed.
Mystery once again hung heavy over the roof of Stone Farm. To many
generations it had stood for prosperity or misfortune—these had been
its foundations, and still it drew to itself the constant thoughts of
many people. Dark things—terror, dreariness, vague suspicions of evil
powers—gathered there naturally as in a churchyard.
And now it all centered round this woman, whose shadow was so heavy
that everything brightened when she went away. Her unceasing, wailing
protest against her wrongs spread darkness around and brought weariness
with it. It was not even with the idea of submitting to the inevitable
that she came back, but only to go on as before, with renewed strength.
She could not do without him, but neither could she offer him anything
good; she was like those beings who can live and breathe only in fire,
and yet cry out when burnt. She writhed in the flames, and yet she
herself fed them. Fair Maria was her own doing, and now she had brought
this new relative into the house. Thus she herself made easy the path
of his infidelity, and then shook the house above him with her
complaining.
An affection such as this was not God’s work; powers of evil had their
abode in her.