_Wednesday, March thirtieth_.
It was the first rainy day of the trip. As long as the wild geese had
remained in the vicinity of Vomb Lake, they had had beautiful weather;
but on the day when they set out to travel farther north, it began to
rain, and for several hours the boy had to sit on the goose-back,
soaking wet, and shivering with the cold.
In the morning when they started, it had been clear and mild. The wild
geese had flown high up in the air--evenly, and without haste--with Akka
at the head maintaining strict discipline, and the rest in two oblique
lines back of her. They had not taken the time to shout any witty
sarcasms to the animals on the ground; but, as it was simply impossible
for them to keep perfectly silent, they sang out continually--in rhythm
with the wing-strokes--their usual coaxing call: "Where are you? Here
am I. Where are you? Here am I."
They all took part in this persistent calling, and only stopped, now and
then, to show the goosey-gander the landmarks they were travelling over.
The places on this route included Linderödsosen's dry hills, Ovesholm's
manor, Christianstad's church steeple, Bäckaskog's royal castle on the
narrow isthmus between Oppmann's lake and Ivö's lake, Ryss mountain's
steep precipice.
It had been a monotonous trip, and when the rain-clouds made their
appearance the boy thought it was a real diversion. In the old days,
when he had only seen a rain-cloud from below, he had imagined that they
were gray and disagreeable; but it was a very different thing to be up
amongst them. Now he saw distinctly that the clouds were enormous carts,
which drove through the heavens with sky-high loads. Some of them were
piled up with huge, gray sacks, some with barrels; some were so large
that they could hold a whole lake; and a few were filled with big
utensils and bottles which were piled up to an immense height. And when
so many of them had driven forward that they filled the whole sky, it
appeared as though someone had given a signal, for all at once, water
commenced to pour down over the earth, from utensils, barrels, bottles
and sacks.
Just as the first spring-showers pattered against the ground, there
arose such shouts of joy from all the small birds in groves and
pastures, that the whole air rang with them and the boy leaped high
where he sat. "Now we'll have rain. Rain gives us spring; spring gives
us flowers and green leaves; green leaves and flowers give us worms and
insects; worms and insects give us food; and plentiful and good food is
the best thing there is," sang the birds.
The wild geese, too, were glad of the rain which came to awaken the
growing things from their long sleep, and to drive holes in the
ice-roofs on the lakes. They were not able to keep up that seriousness
any longer, but began to send merry calls over the neighbourhood.
When they flew over the big potato patches, which are so plentiful in
the country around Christianstad--and which still lay bare and
black--they screamed: "Wake up and be useful! Here comes something that
will awaken you. You have idled long enough now."
When they saw people who hurried to get out of the rain, they reproved
them saying: "What are you in such a hurry about? Can't you see that
it's raining rye-loaves and cookies?"
It was a big, thick mist that moved northward briskly, and followed
close upon the geese. They seemed to think that they dragged the mist
along with them; and, just now, when they saw great orchards beneath
them, they called out proudly: "Here we come with anemones; here we come
with roses; here we come with apple blossoms and cherry buds; here we
come with peas and beans and turnips and cabbages. He who wills can take
them. He who wills can take them."
Thus it had sounded while the first showers fell, and when all were
still glad of the rain. But when it continued to fall the whole
afternoon, the wild geese grew impatient, and cried to the thirsty
forests around Ivös lake: "Haven't you got enough yet? Haven't you got
enough yet?"
The heavens were growing grayer and grayer and the sun hid itself so
well that one couldn't imagine where it was. The rain fell faster and
faster, and beat harder and harder against the wings, as it tried to
find its way between the oily outside feathers, into their skins. The
earth was hidden by fogs; lakes, mountains, and woods floated together
in an indistinct maze, and the landmarks could not be distinguished. The
flight became slower and slower; the joyful cries were hushed; and the
boy felt the cold more and more keenly.
But still he had kept up his courage as long as he had ridden through
the air. And in the afternoon, when they had lighted under a little
stunted pine, in the middle of a large morass, where all was wet, and
all was cold; where some knolls were covered with snow, and others stood
up naked in a puddle of half-melted ice-water, even then, he had not
felt discouraged, but ran about in fine spirits, and hunted for
cranberries and frozen whortleberries. But then came evening, and
darkness sank down on them so close, that not even such eyes as the
boy's could see through it; and all the wilderness became so strangely
grim and awful. The boy lay tucked in under the goosey-gander's wing,
but could not sleep because he was cold and wet. He heard such a lot of
rustling and rattling and stealthy steps and menacing voices, that he
was terror-stricken and didn't know where he should go. He must go
somewhere, where there was light and heat, if he wasn't going to be
entirely scared to death.
"If I should venture where there are human beings, just for this night?"
thought the boy. "Only so I could sit by a fire for a moment, and get a
little food. I could go back to the wild geese before sunrise."
He crept from under the wing and slid down to the ground. He didn't
awaken either the goosey-gander or any of the other geese, but stole,
silently and unobserved, through the morass.
He didn't know exactly where on earth he was: if he was in Skåne, in
Småland, or in Blekinge. But just before he had gotten down in the
morass, he had caught a glimpse of a large village, and thither he
directed his steps. It wasn't long, either, before he discovered a road;
and soon he was on the village street, which was long, and had planted
trees on both sides, and was bordered with garden after garden.
The boy had come to one of the big cathedral towns, which are so common
on the uplands, but can hardly be seen at all down in the plain.
The houses were of wood, and very prettily constructed. Most of them had
gables and fronts, edged with carved mouldings, and glass doors, with
here and there a coloured pane, opening on verandas. The walls were
painted in light oil-colours; the doors and window-frames shone in blues
and greens, and even in reds. While the boy walked about and viewed the
houses, he could hear, all the way out to the road, how the people who
sat in the warm cottages chattered and laughed. The words he could not
distinguish, but he thought it was just lovely to hear human voices. "I
wonder what they would say if I knocked and begged to be let in,"
thought he.
This was, of course, what he had intended to do all along, but now that
he saw the lighted windows, his fear of the darkness was gone. Instead,
he felt again that shyness which always came over him now when he was
near human beings. "I'll take a look around the town for a while
longer," thought he, "before I ask anyone to take me in."
On one house there was a balcony. And just as the boy walked by, the
doors were thrown open, and a yellow light streamed through the fine,
sheer curtains. Then a pretty young fru came out on the balcony and
leaned over the railing. "It's raining; now we shall soon have spring,"
said she. When the boy saw her he felt a strange anxiety. It was as
though he wanted to weep. For the first time he was a bit uneasy because
he had shut himself out from the human kind.
Shortly after that he walked by a shop. Outside the shop stood a red
corn-drill. He stopped and looked at it; and finally crawled up to the
driver's place, and seated himself. When he had got there, he smacked
with his lips and pretended that he sat and drove. He thought what fun
it would be to be permitted to drive such a pretty machine over a
grainfield. For a moment he forgot what he was like now; then he
remembered it, and jumped down quickly from the machine. Then a greater
unrest came over him. After all, human beings were very wonderful and
clever.
He walked by the post-office, and then he thought of all the newspapers
which came every day, with news from all the four corners of the earth.
He saw the apothecary's shop and the doctor's home, and he thought about
the power of human beings, which was so great that they were able to
battle with sickness and death. He came to the church. Then he thought
how human beings had built it, that they might hear about another world
than the one in which they lived, of God and the resurrection and
eternal life. And the longer he walked there, the better he liked human
beings.
It is so with children that they never think any farther ahead than the
length of their noses. That which lies nearest them, they want
promptly, without caring what it may cost them. Nils Holgersson had not
understood what he was losing when he chose to remain an elf; but now he
began to be dreadfully afraid that, perhaps, he should never again get
back to his right form.
How in all the world should he go to work in order to become human? This
he wanted, oh! so much, to know.
He crawled up on a doorstep, and seated himself in the pouring rain and
meditated. He sat there one whole hour--two whole hours, and he thought
so hard that his forehead lay in furrows; but he was none the wiser. It
seemed as though the thoughts only rolled round and round in his head.
The longer he sat there, the more impossible it seemed to him to find
any solution.
"This thing is certainly much too difficult for one who has learned as
little as I have," he thought at last. "It will probably wind up by my
having to go back among human beings after all. I must ask the minister
and the doctor and the schoolmaster and others who are learned, and may
know a cure for such things."
This he concluded that he would do at once, and shook himself--for he
was as wet as a dog that has been in a water-pool.
Just about then he saw that a big owl came flying along, and alighted on
one of the trees that bordered the village street. The next instant a
lady owl, who sat under the cornice of the house, began to call out:
"Kivitt, Kivitt! Are you at home again, Mr. Gray Owl? What kind of a
time did you have abroad?"
"Thank you, Lady Brown Owl. I had a very comfortable time," said the
gray owl. "Has anything out of the ordinary happened here at home during
my absence?"
"Not here in Blekinge, Mr. Gray Owl; but in Skåne a marvellous thing has
happened! A boy has been transformed by an elf into a goblin no bigger
than a squirrel; and since then he has gone to Lapland with a tame
goose."
"That's a remarkable bit of news, a remarkable bit of news. Can he never
be human again, Lady Brown Owl? Can he never be human again?"
"That's a secret, Mr. Gray Owl; but you shall hear it just the same.
The elf has said that if the boy watches over the goosey-gander, so that
he comes home safe and sound, and--"
"What more, Lady Brown Owl? What more? What more?"
"Fly with me up to the church tower, Mr. Gray Owl, and you shall hear
the whole story! I fear there may be someone listening down here in the
street." With that, the owls flew their way; but the boy flung his cap
in the air, and shouted: "If I only watch over the goosey-gander, so
that he gets back safe and sound, then I shall become a human being
again. Hurrah! Hurrah! Then I shall become a human being again!"
He shouted "hurrah" until it was strange that they did not hear him in
the houses--but they didn't, and he hurried back to the wild geese, out
in the wet morass, as fast as his legs could carry him.