A man came walking down the sandy, grass-bordered road.
He walked mechanically, like a machine set to go, and going without
consciousness or effort--without a question or a thought, without a
glance to either side--on and on.
He reached the top of a rise from which the road sloped down to the
valley. And here he stopped, as if set to go no farther.
Before him spread the landscape of the valley; green woods encircled
it on every hand, like a protecting fence about a pleasure-garden.
Within the area enclosed were mounds and hilly fields, stretches of
meadow, farmsteads, rows of corn-sheaves and haystacks, patches of
stubble, a tiny stream with a bridge and a fall, and mills on either
bank.
A thrill of emotion seized the wanderer at sight of it all; one
glance let loose a flood of memories and thoughts of things long since
forgotten.
All seemed as before. He looked at the stream, and followed the line
of its course with his eye. The mills stared at one another from bank
to bank, as they had always done since the beginning of time. But the
mills themselves had changed. The old wooden structures were gone, and
in place of them stood modern stone-walled buildings.
A lightning thought came into his mind: was there _anything_ that was
unchanged, though the setting seemed as it had been? What might not
have happened in the little place during those years?
The wanderer felt uneasy at the thought. Here he was--but who could
say what he would find here, now he had come?
Slowly, with heavy steps, he took his way down towards the village.
And ever as he neared it, his uneasiness increased.
* * * * *
He came to a turn in the way. From just beyond came the tinkle of a
bell, and, as he rounded the bend, he saw a flock of sheep grazing,
and a fair-haired lad watching the flock.
The sight gladdened his heart--the sheep and the shepherd lad at least
were as he had hoped to find them.
"Good-day!" he said heartily. "And whose lad are you, little man?"
"Just Stina's boy," answered the young herdsman easily, from his seat
by the wayside.
"Ho, are you? ... yes." The wanderer stepped across the ditch, sat
down by the wayside, and lit his pipe.
"And what's the news in the place? I've been here before, d'ye see,
and used to know it well. But 'tis long since I heard anything from
these parts."
"News?... H'm." The lad felt a pleasant sense of importance at being
thus asked, and stepped down from his seat. "Well, you've heard,
maybe, 'twas Mattila's Tytto won the first prize at the cattle show?"
"You don't say so? Mattila's Tytto?" echoed the stranger, with a
laugh. "And what else?"
"Why, there's no more that I know of--let me see...." The wise little
eyes grew thoughtful. "Oh, I forgot. Yes, Maya, she's married,
and they're building a bit of a place over by the clearing there.
Shoemaker, he was, and a good match, they say."
"I see. That'll be the place. Looks as good as could be."
"'Tis a fine place. Going to have a real stove, with a baking oven and
all.... Then there's been another wedding besides, at Niemi--Annikki's
it was. Only just married--though there's been plenty that asked her
these years past, and rich men some of them too."
"Yes...." The wanderer felt as if something had struck him in the
breast. Impatiently he went on:
"And how's things at Koskela?"
"Koskela--well, old man there he died last spring, and they say...."
"Died?" A heavier stroke this; it seemed to paralyse him.
"Yes--and two horses to the funeral, with white covers and all. And
silver stars all over the coffin--like the sky it was."
The wanderer felt himself gazing helplessly into a darkness where
hosts of silver stars danced before his eyes.
"You knew him, maybe?" asked the lad, watching the man's face.
"Ay, I knew him," came the answer in a stifled voice.
"And his wife's like to follow him soon," went on the boy. "She's at
the last gasp now, they say."
The wanderer felt as if something were tightening about his heart.
"So there's neither man nor wife, so to speak, at Koskela now."
The wanderer would have risen, but his limbs seemed numbed.
"There was a son, they say, was to have taken over the place, but he
went away somewhere long ago, and never came back."
The wanderer rose to his feet. "Thanks, little man." And he strode
off.
The lad stared wonderingly at the retreating figure, whose heavy steps
sounded like sighs of pain from the breast of the trodden road.