I.
FOR a full quarter of an hour some one had been knocking and ringing at the outside door of the gothic manor of Stollborg; but thebourrasquewas blowing so very furiously, and old Stenson was so extremely deaf! The old man’s nephew, Ulphilas, a colossal blond who assisted him in his duties, heard somewhat better, but he believed in ghosts, and was not at all anxious to open the door to them. M. Stenson, former steward of the Baron de Waldemora, was an invalid, and a man of melancholy character; he was at present the overseer of Stollborg; and he lived in one of the pavilions of this old, battered, and abandoned chateau. It really seemed to him that some one was knocking at the door of the court, but Ulphilas judiciously called his attention to the fact that the goblins andtrollsof the lake were in the habit of playing just such tricks. Stenson, with a sigh, began to read his old Bible again, and in a very few moments went to bed.
At last, the persons outside became so impatient that they forced the lock of the door, introduced themselves into the court, and, following a narrow gallery on the ground-floor, entered, with their ass, the very room that we have just described, which was called the bear-room, from the crowned animal carved on the armorial shield above the outside window.
The door of this room was usually fastened, and its being open to-day was due to an unusual circumstance, about which, however, the strangers did not trouble themselves at all.
Rather strange-looking individuals were these unexpected visitors of Stollborg! One of them was wrapped up in a sheepskin, and looked like one of those ugly scarecrows that are used in gardens and hemp-fields to frighten birds; the other, who was tall and well made, resembled a good-natured Italian brigand.
The ass was a fine ass: strong, and carrying a load that wouldhave been sufficient for an ox; he was so accustomed to travelling adventures, that he made no sort of objection to going up several steps, and showed no surprise when he found himself treading upon a pine floor instead of the straw of a stable. The poor ass was ill, however, and the taller of the two travellers who was leading him, looked after his comfort before attending to anything else.
“Puffo,” he said, placing his lantern on a large table in the middle of the room, “Jean has a cold; he is coughing as if he would split his lungs.”
“Parbleu, I am no better off myself!” replied Puffo in Italian, the same language which his companion had employed; “do you suppose, master, that it makes a fellow fresh and jolly to drag him about in this devil of a country?”
“I too am cold and tired,” replied the master, as Puffo called him; “but there is no use in complaining. Here we are, and we must not allow ourselves to die of cold. Look and see whether this is really the bear-room that we were told about.”
“How shall I recognize it?”
“By those maps, and a staircase which leads nowhere. Was not that what they told us at the farm?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” replied Puffo. “I can’t understand their beastly patois.”
As he spoke, he took the lantern, and holding it higher than his head, said:
“What do I know about geography?”
His master looked up and exclaimed:
“This is the very room. There are the maps; and here,” he added, running lightly up the wooden staircase, and lifting the map that hung over the wall at the top of it, “is the place walled up. It’s all right, Puffo, we need not distress ourselves any longer. The room is perfectly tight, and we can sleep here like princes.”
“However, I don’t see—Oh yes! there is a bed, but there are neither mattresses nor coverlids, and they told us there were two good beds.”
“You are quite a Sybarite! Do you require a bed wherever you go, mygood fellow? Look and see if there is any wood in the stove, and light the fire.”
“There’s no wood at all; nothing but coal.”
“That is still better. Light the fire, my lad, light it. As for me, I am going to attend to this poor Jean.”
Taking a piece of carpet that lay before the stove, the young man began to rub the ass so vigorously, that in a few moments he himself was all in a glow.
“I was fairly warned,” he said to Puffo, who was lighting the fire, “that the ass would suffer from the cold beyond the fifty-second degree of north latitude; but I did not believe it. The ass is not so delicate as the horse, which lives in Lapland; and besides, this one of ours is so healthy and good-natured! We can only hope that he will be as lucky as ourselves, and will keep alive for several days. He has not refused to work yet, and the poor beast carries with perfect docility a larger load than two horses would probably take, at least without being very much urged.”
“No matter for that!” replied Puffo, kneeling before the stove, which was beginning to roar and sputter as if it were going to burn well; “you ought to have sold him in Stockholm, where so many people wanted him.”
“Sell Jean! Sell him to be stuffed for a museum? Never, so help me heaven! He has worked well for me for a whole year; and, for my part, I love this faithful servant. Who knows, Puffo, whether I shall be able to say as much for you a year hence?”
“Pshaw, Master Cristiano! I don’t care. Sentiment is not in my line; and I should trouble myself very little about the ass, if I could only find something to eat and drink.”
“There is something in that, I confess. Sentiment does not take away the appetite, and I am as hungry as all the devils. Come, Puffo, let us be sensible, and go over what we have heard. They said at the new chateau—‘We have no room for you here. Even if you should come in the name of the king, we could not find you a corner as large as your hand. Go and lodge at the farm.’ At the farm they said about the same thing; but they gave us a lantern, and showing us a road cut out overthe ice of the lake, advised us to go to the old chateau. The road is not agreeable, I acknowledge, amid these whirlwinds of snow, but the distance is short. You can return in ten minutes, at the outside, and my opinion is that you will have to make up your mind to do this, if you want any supper.”
“But what if they turn us away from the farm as they did from the new chateau? They will say, perhaps, that they have already too much company to provide for, and that they have not a scrap of bread left for vagrants like us.”
“The fact is, that our appearance is not prepossessing. That is what makes me afraid that this worthy M. Stenson, the old overseer who lives somewhere about the building, and who is very ill-tempered, they say, will drive us off the premises. But listen, Puffo: either the good man must be fast asleep, since we have succeeded in breaking open the door of the court and reaching this room without hindrance, or the noise of the wind drowns every other sound. Now what we have to do is to steal quietly into the kitchen, and the devil is to pay if we cannot find anything there.”
“Much obliged to you,” said Puffo; “I prefer recrossing the lake and going to the farm. There the people, although busy, were very polite, while old Stenson, it seems, is wicked, and a sort of monomaniac.”
“Just as you choose, my good Puffo; off with you! Bring something back, if it is a possible thing, to warm us up a little. One word more, my sublime companion;—listen once for all.”
“What is the matter now?” said Puffo, who was already tying the strings of his sheepskin in preparation for his departure.
“In the first place,” replied Cristiano, “you must give me time to light one of the candles of this chandelier before carrying off the lantern.”
“How can you reach them? I don’t see any great supply of ladders in this damned bear-room.”
“Stand there, I am going to climb on your shoulders. Are you firm?”
“Go on, you are not very heavy!”
“Now comrade,” said the young man, planting his feet upon Puffo’s broad shoulders, and seizing one of the branches of the chandelier with one hand, while with the other he tried to snatch a candle from its socket, without bringing down the dusty spiders’ webs into his eyes; “listen to me! I have not precisely the honor of knowing you. For three months we have been travelling companions, and aside from the fact that you are rather too fond of taverns, you seem to me to be not a bad fellow; but you may be a great rogue for all that, and I am not sorry to have an opportunity of telling you—”
“Say what you are going to, and have done with it, will you?” replied Puffo, shaking himself a little. “I wish you would make haste up there, instead of lecturing. You are not so light as I thought.”
“I have done,” replied Cristiano, leaping nimbly to the earth, for he imagined that his companion was a little inclined to let him fall; “I have got my candle, and will continue my discourse. We are, for the moment, two Bohemians, Puffo—two poor adventurers; but I am in the habit of behaving like a sensible man, while you sometimes take pleasure in conducting yourself like a beast. Now, I want you to understand that the greatest folly, the meanest and flattest thing that a man can be guilty of in my eyes, is to follow the trade of a thief.”
“Where did you ever see me stealing?” said Puffo, gloomily.
“If I had seen you stealing in my company I should have broken your back, my friend; that is why it is only fair that I should let you know what my views on the subject are. I told you just now to try and obtain some supper by persuasion or cunning. So far we have a right to go. We were invited into this snow paradise to employ our talents for the entertainment of a large party of distinguished persons. We were provided with money to pay the expenses of the journey, and it is not our fault that it was lost. We are promised a sufficient amount, of which I intend to give you a handsome share, although you are only the apprentice, while I am the master. We have no reason to complain,therefore, but always on condition that we are not left to die of cold and hunger. Now we happen to arrive at our employer’s chateau at night, just as his illustrious guests have gone to supper, when his highly respectable lackeys are in a great hurry to get their supper, and when belated travellers have no right to be hungry. Consequently it is a matter of necessity for us to get our own supper to-night in some way or other, so that we may be in condition to fulfil our engagements to-morrow. We shall neither offend heaven nor our host by laying hands upon a few good dishes and some bottles of wine; but, to slip silver into our pockets and hide linen under the pack-saddle of our ass, would be an asinine proceeding, since silver is not good to eat, and since it ruins linen to be stowed away under a saddle. Do you understand, Puffo? We are perfectly authorized in taking food, but no stealing, or a hundred lashes on your back. That is what I intended to tell you.”
“All right!” replied Puffo, shrugging his shoulders; “you have been a long time coming to the point. You are a dreadful chatterbox.”
Puffo went off with the lantern in a state of considerable discontent with his patron, who had, in fact, good reasons for suspecting his honesty, having several times discovered among his professional apparatus sundry objects whose sudden acquisition Puffo had been unable to explain in a satisfactory manner.
It was not without reason, upon the other hand, that Puffo accused Cristiano of being a chatterbox. He was, at all events, a great talker, as all men endowed with strong intellectual and physical vitality are apt to be. Puffo, with his mere rude glibness of speech and his vulgar instincts, felt the ascendency of a mind and character infinitely superior to his own. He, however, was the stronger of the two, and when the tall and slender Cristiano threatened this thick-set and muscular Livornese, it was his moral influence or his agility that he relied upon, rather than physical strength, to enforce his authority.
When Cristiano was left alone, he abandoned himself to his innocent affection for his ass. He had relieved him from his baggage as soonas they entered the bear-room. This baggage, consisting of two large boxes, a bundle of light poles of white wood with their cross-pieces taken apart, and finally a package of curtains and tapestries which were still quite fresh, carefully rolled in a leather case, he arranged in a corner. All this was his artistic apparatus,—the tools of his trade, his livelihood. As for his wardrobe, it gave him no sort of trouble. It consisted merely of a little bundle of linen tied up in a handkerchief, and a cloak of coarse cloth, which made a good covering for Jean when it left the back of its owner. The rest of his effects he wore—to wit, a Venetian cape a good deal defaced, small-clothes of some stout material, and three pair of woollen stockings, one over the other.
His cape, his woollen cap, and his broad-brimmed hat, Cristiano had taken off, so as to be more at his ease in setting things to rights. He was a tall, slender fellow, with a remarkably handsome face, shaded by a profusion of black hair in great disorder.
The warmth of the stove began to make itself felt, and besides, the young man was too vigorous to be sensitive to the cold. He went about the room, therefore, in his shirt-sleeves, and made arrangements to pass the night as comfortably as possible. It was not the absence of the beds they had been told about that troubled him, but the fear that he would not be able to find Jean anything to eat and drink.
“I was very foolish,” he said to himself, “not to think about that as I passed the new chateau and the farm; but how can one think of anything with the wind blowing ice-needles into his eyes? They told us at the farm (and I remember now that they said so in a very sarcastic way) that we would find an abundance of everything at the old chateau, if old Stenson would be good enough to let us in; now as we were obliged to break the door open, it seems that he was not good enough. Well, whether or no, I must find out how the Cerberus of this old ruin will take our being here. After all, I have my contract in my pocket, and, if they try to turn me out here too, I will show my teeth.”
Thereupon Cristiano placed Jean, together with his baggage, in the recess under the staircase, and as he was seeking, candle in hand, for a nail or peg to which to tie the ass, he saw that there was a door in the wainscot just at the farthest part of this recess, and in the defective angle of the room.
As he had not noticed the irregularity in the plan of the room, he could not tell whether the passage-way into which the door opened was in a thick wall, or between two walls joined above. He pushed the secret door—for it was one—without expecting that it would open, and, seeing that it was not fastened in any way, he cautiously went forward to see what he could find. He had not gone three steps when the candle went out. Luckily the fire was burning, and he was able to light it again, while listening with a certain pleasure to the sharp and melancholy whistling of the wind in the secret passage.
Cristiano had a romantic disposition, and was in the habit of indulging in poetic fancies. It seemed to him that the spirits so long imprisoned in this abandoned hall were complaining at being disturbed in their mysteries; and as he was afraid, moreover, that the cold would increase poor Jean’s cough, he took pains, when he went out again, to shut the door after him; he had noticed, beforehand, that there were strong bolts on the outside, but that its own weight was sufficient to keep it in its place.
We will leave him for the present to proceed on his expedition, and introduce another traveller into the bear-room.
This also is an unexpected visitor, but he is accompanied by Ulphilas, who lights him with respect, while they are followed by a shivering little serving-lad, dressed in a full suit of red. These three persons are talking Dalecarlian, and they are still in the court, Ulphilas with a terrified expression, and the two others looking very impatient.
“Come, Ulph, come, my lad,” said the stranger, “don’t be so formal; light us to this famous room, and attend to my horse at once. He is all in a sweat with dragging the sleigh up your little rock. Good horse! I would not lose him for ten thousand rix dollars.”
The person who addressed Ulphilas thus was the senior advocate of the city of Gevala, Doctor of Laws of the Faculty of Lund.
“What, Monsieur Goefle,[1]do you want to stay here all night? Do you really mean so?”
“Hush, hush! I know it will annoy honest Sten; but, when I am once installed, he will have to make up his mind to it. Take the horse, I tell you—I know the way.”
“What, Monsieur Advocate, you come here all alone in the night with your grandson?”
“You rascal! you know very well that I have no children. Here, little Nils, come and help me unharness poor Loki. You see that it is the fashion here to talk, and do nothing else. Come, rouse yourself; are you frozen with a trip of three or four hours at nightfall?”
“Leave him alone, Monsieur Goefle, he is too little,” said Ulphilas, feeling the lawyer’s reproach. “Take the first door to the right, and get under shelter; I will answer for the horse.”
“Nonsense, it has stopped snowing! This little flurry has only made the weather milder,” resumed M. Goefle, who, both by profession and taste, was no less of a talker than Cristiano. “I have not been cold at all, and shall do capitally if I eat a good plate of porridge, and smoke a good pipe, before going to bed. Come, Nils, carry one of these bundles into the room yonder; it will be something for you to do, and will warm you. Are you asleep already? It is not more than seven o’clock.”
“Oh, Monsieur Goefle,” said the little lad, with his teeth chattering, “it has been night for a long time, and I am always so afraid in the night.”
“Afraid? Of what, pray? Well, console yourself; at this season the days are getting a minute and a half longer daily.”
Talking away after this fashion, M. Goefle, who was a man of about sixty, dry, active and cheerful, himself put the horse into the stable, while Ulphilas drew the sleigh into the coach-house, and hung up the harness and bells. In the meanwhile, little Nils still sat shivering on the luggage which was under the wooden gallery around the court.
When M. Goefle was satisfied that his beloved Loki, the handsome and generous little horse whom he had named for the Prometheus of the Scandinavian mythology, would want for nothing, he turned, and with his firm step proceeded towards the bear-room.
“Wait, wait, Monsieur Advocate,” said Ulphilas, “that is not the way. The double-bedded room that we call the guard-room—”
“Parbleu!I know all about it,” replied M. Goefle. “I have slept in it before now.”
“Perhaps so, but that was a long time ago. It is so out of repair now—”
“Well, if it is out of repair you can make me up a bed in the bear-room.”
“In the—”
Ulph dared not finish, so monstrous did M. Goefle’s suggestions seem. Taking courage after a pause, he resumed:—
“No, M. Goefle, no! That is impossible; you are joking! I will go and look for the key of the other room, which perhaps is in a better state than I thought (my uncle sometimes goes there), and since there is a second door to the gallery, you won’t have the annoyance of going through, you know.”
“What! Has not that poor bear-room lost its bad reputation since the staircase door was walled up? Nonsense, Ulph, my lad, you are old enough to know better. I insist upon your opening the door immediately. It is too cold to wait here while you go in search of other keys, and since you have it about you—”
“I haven’t got it!” cried Ulphilas. “I swear to you, M. Goefle, that I haven’t got the key of thebearany more than that of theguard.”
While discussing thus, M. Goefle, accompanied by Ulphilas, who lighted him very unwillingly, and Nils, who followed close at his heels, reached the second door of the donjon, upon the ground-floor of which the bear-room was situated. As this door was only fastened by an outside bolt, the advocate entered the inner court without difficulty, and going up three steps, pushed the door of the bear-room, which, yielding to his impatient hand, opened wide with such a plaintive squeak, that Nils started back in terror.
“Open! It was open!” cried Ulphilas, turning as pale as his red and shining face was capable of becoming.
“Well, suppose it was?” said M. Goefle. “Stenson, no doubt, has been through this way.”
“He never comes here, Monsieur Goefle. Oh, there’s no danger of that!”
“So much the better, then. I can get settled without troubling him, and without his knowing anything about it. But what have you been telling me? Some one must have been here, for there is a fire in the stove! I see how it is, Monsieur Ulphilas Stenson! You have let or promised this room to some one whom you are waiting for. The deuce! so much the worse for them. There is no room at the new chateau, and you must make room for me here. But never mind, my poor fellow, I will pay you as well as any one. Light these candles; that is to say, go and get something to trim them with, and then bring bed-clothes, warming-pans, whatever we may need; and, above all things, don’t forget the supper. Nils will help you; he is very quick, very skilful, and very obliging. Come, Nils, exert yourself: find our bed-room, the guard-room, as Ulphilas calls it, all alone; I know where it is, but I won’t tell you. Look for it; show us how bright you are, Master Nils.”
Good Monsieur Goefle might as well have been talking in a desert. Ulphilas was standing petrified in the middle of the room, Nils was warming his hands at the stove, and the doctor was left to get settled as he best could.
At last Ulph heaved a sigh that might have turned a mill-wheel, and said in an emphatic voice,—
“Upon my honor, Monsieur Goefle, upon my eternal salvation, I have neither let nor promised this room to any one. How can you think such a thing when you know what has happened here, and what goes on even now. Oh! nothing would induce my uncle Stenson to let you stop here. I will inform him of your arrival, and since they were not able to accommodate you at the new chateau, he will give you up his own room.”
“I will not allow anything of the kind,” replied M. Goefle; “you must not even tell him that I have come. He will learn to-morrow that I am here, and am very comfortable. The guard-room is rather small, but it will do very well for sleeping, and this shall be my drawing-room and office. It is not particularly cheerful; but for two or three days I shall be quiet, at least.”
“Quiet!” cried Ulphilas. “Quiet in a room haunted by the devil?”
“What makes you think that, friend Ulph?” said the doctor of laws, smiling, while little Nils began to shiver again, from fear quite as much as the wintry cold.
“I think so for three reasons,” replied Ulph, with gloomy solemnity. “In the first place, you found the door of the court open, although I had locked it after sunset; in the second place, the door of this room was also open, a thing that has not happened since I came here five years ago to take care of my uncle and wait upon him. The third and most incredible thing of all is, that there is a fire lighted, and that the stove is warm, although no fire has been made here for twenty years, and perhaps more. Lastly—hold, Monsieur Doctor, look!—there is some wax freshly spilled on the floor, and yet—”
“You spilled it yourself, you idiot; you are holding your lantern upside-down.”
“Oh, no, Monsieur Goefle! mine is a tallow candle, and that under the chandelier—wait!”
Ulph looked up and uttered a cry of horror on seeing that there wereonly ten candles and a half in the chandelier, instead of eleven and a half.
The lawyer was naturally kind and good-natured. Instead of allowing the preoccupation of Ulphilas, and the terror of Nils, to make him angry, he only thought of amusing himself at their expense.
“Well, God be praised!” he said, very seriously, “that proves that there are kobolds here; and if they will only be so good as to appear to me (I have wanted to become acquainted with them all my life, without ever seeing a single one), I shall congratulate myself all the more upon coming to this room, where I can sleep under their kind protection.”
“No, no, Monsieur Doctor,” replied Ulphilas, “there are no kobolds here! This is a melancholy and accursed place, as you know; a place where the trolls of the lake come to disturb and spoil everything, like wicked spirits as they are, while the little kobolds are friendly to man, and only think of doing him good. The kobolds save, and do not waste. They never carry anything away—”
“On the contrary, they bring! I know all about that, Master Ulph; but how do you know that I have not a kobold of my own who came on here before me? Very likely he took the candle to light the fire, so that I might find a warm place on my arrival; and, knowing that you were a great coward, who would keep me waiting a long time, opened the doors beforehand. Now, he is all ready, no doubt, to help you about my supper, if you will only be as good as to attend to it, for you know kobolds don’t like lazy folks, and only wait upon those who show a disposition to help others.”
This explanation soothed, in a measure, the fears of his two auditors. Nils ventured to turn his great blue eyes upon the gloomy walls of the apartment, and Ulph, after giving the lawyer a key to the closet of the guard-room, went to prepare their supper.
“Well, Nils,” said the lawyer to his little servant, “we can scarcely see at all with this abominable lantern. You can make up the beds later; in the meanwhile, go and unpack my trunk. Put it on the table.”
“But, Monsieur Doctor,” said the child, “I cannot so much as lift it; it is heavy.”
“True,” replied the lawyer; “it is full of papers, and is very heavy.”
He himself took the trunk, and with a slight effort placed it upon a chair, adding,—
“At any rate, take the valise with my clothes. I have only brought what was necessary, and it is very light.”
Nils obeyed, but he could not open the padlock.
“I thought you were more skilful than that,” said the lawyer, becoming a little impatient; “your aunt told me—I am afraid my good Gertrude praised you rather too highly.”
“Oh,” replied the child, “I can open trunks very well when they are not locked. But tell me, Monsieur Goefle, is it true that you have a kobold to wait upon you?”
“What, a kobold? Oh yes! I was thinking of something else. Do you believe in kobolds, my boy?”
“Yes, if there are any. Aren’t they wicked sometimes?”
“Never; especially as they do not exist.”
“Oh, but you said just now—”
“I only said that to laugh at that blockhead. As for you, Nils, I don’t want you to believe in any such nonsense. You know that I intend to make you something more than a mere servant; to educate you a little, and make you sensible, if I can.”
“But, Monsieur Goefle, my aunt Gertrude believes in them. She believes in good and bad spirits.”
“My housekeeper? She takes good care not to acknowledge it before me. She pretends to be strong-minded, when I have time to talk to her. No, no, you are mistaken; she doesn’t believe anything of the kind. She only says so to amuse you.”
“But it doesn’t amuse me at all; it makes me afraid, and keeps me awake all night.”
“In that case she is wrong. But what are you about? Is that the way that you unpack a trunk, throwing everything on the floor? Was it so that the pastor of Falun taught you to wait on him?”
“I did not wait upon the pastor, Monsieur Goefle. He only took me to play with his little boy, who was ill, and we had such a good time! We used to make little paper boats, and little bread sleighs, all day long.”
“Oh, ho! that is worth knowing!” said the doctor of laws, angrily; “and Gertrude told me that you were so useful in that house.”
“I was very useful, Monsieur Goefle!”
“Yes, making paper boats and bread sleighs! That assuredly is a very useful employment! But let me tell you that if you can’t do anything else, at your age—”
“I know as much as other children ten years old, Monsieur Goefle.”
“The devil! ten years old? Are you only ten years old? Your aunt said that you were thirteen or fourteen. Well, brat, what is the matter? What are you crying about?”
“Why, Monsieur Doctor, you are scolding me; it is not my fault if I am only ten years old.”
“Correct! That is the first sensible remark you have made since I was so fortunate as to take you into my service this morning. Come, dry your eyes and wipe your nose. I am not angry. You are large and strong for your age, at all events; and what you don’t know, you will learn. What do you say?”
“Oh yes, Monsieur Goefle! that is just what I should like.”
“But will you learn quickly? I am very impatient, I can tell you!”
“Yes indeed, monsieur, I will learn everything right off.”
“Do you know how to make a bed?”
“I think so. At the pastor’s I always used to make mine all by myself.”
“Or you did not make it at all! Never mind, we shall soon see.”
“But, Monsieur Goefle, when my aunt came to Falun this morning to see me off on my journey, she told me that I wouldn’t have to work. She said: ‘You won’t have anything to do at the chateau where you are going with your master. In the chateau of the Baron de—de—’”
“De Waldemora?”
“Yes, that’s it!—‘there are beautiful rooms always in order, and plenty of servants to do everything. What Monsieur Goefle wants is, that you should always be on hand to give orders in his place. He don’t wish to take François, because François would never stay in his room. He was always drinking, and amusing himself with the other servants, and monsieur would have to run and hunt him up to get what he wanted. That put him out, and he did not like it at all. Now you must be very good, and never leave him; do you hear? You must see that he is well waited upon, and then you will be waited upon too.’”
“So,” said the doctor, “that is what you expect!”
“I am sure I am very good, Monsieur Goefle. I don’t leave you; I am not running about with the tall servants at the chateau.”
“Would to heaven you were! I defy you to do anything of the kind, however, in our present quarters.”
“Why? Is the road over the lake the only way to the new chateau?”
“The only way; otherwise, I see plainly that you would already be with the tall valets in livery.”
“Oh no, Monsieur Goefle, since you wouldn’t like it! But how beautiful it was over there!”
“Where, at Waldemora?”
“Yes, that’s the name of the new chateau. Oh, Monsieur Goefle, it was a great deal prettier than it is here! And there were so many people I didn’t feel at all afraid.”
“Very good, Master Nils! That magnificent palace, with its splendid company, its turmoil, torches, feasting and revelry, has turned your head for you, I’m afraid. For my part, it doesn’t suit my taste to spend the night at a ball, and wait until day for the chance of sharing a room with four or five young fools, intoxicated, and perhaps quarrelsome. I like to eat little, but often and quietly, to sleep only a few hours, but without being disturbed. Besides, I did not come here to amuse myself. I have important business to transact for thebaron, and I must have my room, my table, my writing-desk, and a little silence. The baron is to blame, I must say, for allowing himself to forget, amid his festivities and entertainments, that I am no longer a young student, eager for music and dancing. He ought to have had this room prepared for me, or some other, in a quiet place, out of the reach of importunate visitors. When I saw the amazement of the servants at my arrival, and their inability to provide me with suitable quarters, it would have taken very little to make me return to Falun. But I was afraid of the snow-storm, and then Loki was too warm; I remembered, happily, that there was a haunted room at old Stollborg that every one was afraid of, and which, consequently, was never used. Here we are, and we are very well off. To-morrow, Nils, you must give a thorough dusting. I like neatness, for my part.”
“Yes, Monsieur Goefle, I will tell Ulph. I am not tall enough to reach so high.”
“So I see. Well, we will tell Ulph.”
“Why do they call this the bear-room, Monsieur Goefle?”
“It is a name like any other,” replied the lawyer, who was arranging his papers in the drawer of the table, and who did not think it worth while to explain the shield to master Nils.
Soon, however, he noticed that the child’s terror had redoubled.
“What is the matter?” he said impatiently. “You do nothing but follow me about, and don’t give me the least assistance.”
“I am afraid of the bear,” replied the courageous Nils. “At Falun you were speaking with the pastor about the great bear. I could understand.”
“I was speaking about the great bear! What do you mean? Oh yes, you are right! The pastor is something of an astronomer, and we were saying—take courage, my brave youth—we were talking about the great bear up in the sky.”
“Oh! the great bear is up in the sky!” cried Nils, recovering hisspirits. “Then it is not here? It will not come into this room?”
“No,” said the lawyer, laughing; “it is too far away, too high up! If it should try to come down it would break its paws. Now, then, you are no longer afraid?”
“Oh no! I am not afraid now! But what if it should tumble down?”
“Bah! It is fastened firmly by seven large diamond nails!”
“Was it the good God who nailed it up there because it was so wicked?”
“Probably! Are you quite sure now that you are not afraid?”
“Oh yes!” said Nils, with a gesture of profound incredulity.
“Go and look for Ulph, then, and tell him—”
“But, M. Goefle, you spoke also about the Snow Man!”
“So we did! You listen to everything that is said, it seems. That is very agreeable.”
“Oh yes, monsieur!” replied Nils, ingenuously; “I listen to everything.”
“And what is the Snow Man, in your opinion?”
“I don’t know. The pastor whispered to you, laughing: ‘So you are going to see the Snow Man?’”
“He was talking, I suppose, about some mountain that has that name.”
“Oh, no indeed! For you said: ‘Does he walk as straight as ever?’ and the pastor said: ‘He is always hunting on his lake.’ Oh, I understand Swedish just as well as Dalecarlian!”
“And what do you think from that?”
“Oh, that there is a great tall snow man who walks on the lake we have just come over.”
“Exactly! And who is always followed by a great bear! You have some imagination, child! Is the bear white, or black?”
“I don’t know, Monsieur Goefle.”
“We ought to know about that, though, before deciding to take supperin this room. What if they should come and sit down at the table with us?”
Nils saw plainly that M. Goefle was joking, and he began to laugh. The lawyer was congratulating himself upon his method of curing children of fear, when the little fellow, who had suddenly become serious again, said:
“Monsieur Goefle, let us go away from here. This is a very ugly place.”
“This is too much!” cried the lawyer, pettishly. “What plagues children are! I am good enough to explain to my young gentleman that the bear is a constellation, and he is more frightened then ever.”
Nils, seeing that his master was angry, began to cry. He was a spoiled child, yet timid. M. Goefle, who was thoroughly good-hearted, imagined, and took pleasure in saying, that he did not like children, and that if anything could console him for not having married at a proper age, it was the intellectual freedom that is enjoyed by those who have no children to take care of and be responsible for. The keen sensibility with which he was endowed, however, which his stirring and active professional life had developed without his knowledge, made it impossible for him to endure the tears and complaints of the weak. Accordingly he tried to console and encourage his little valet, at the very same time that he was grumbling at his folly, and while persisting in his passion for intellectual and subtle discussions, a style of argument that gains cases when you are trying to persuade men, but which is almost sure to lose them when you are dealing with children. He even went so far as to promise that he would run the great bear through the body with his sword, if it should come to the door of the room, rather than allow it to enter.
M. Goefle excused himself the more readily for his absurd condescension, as he called it, because he found that a witty account of his evening at Stollborg, with which he proposed to entertain his friends at Gevala, was involuntarily taking form in his mind.
In the meanwhile Ulph did not return. That he would require some timeto get up a supper in M. Stenson’s modest establishment, the lawyer was prepared to anticipate; but he did not bring back the light, and this was an unpardonable piece of forgetfulness.
The end of the candle was going out in the lantern, and the lawyer, who prided himself upon his white hands and irreproachable ruffles, dared not touch this villanous utensil to light himself about the room. He was obliged to submit to this disagreeable necessity, however, in order to go into the adjoining apartment; he wanted to search the closet, whose key Ulph had given him, and which he hoped might contain some provisions or pieces of candle. Nils followed, holding him softly by the flap of the coat.
These two rooms which M. Goefle proposed to occupy, were separated from each other by an unusually thick wall, and two solid doors. The lawyer was well acquainted with the locality, but it was so long since his business had required him to visit the interior of the building, that he had some difficulty in finding the first of the two doors. He looked for it opposite the outer entrance, and he was right; but instead of being on a straight line with it, it was a little to the left. Like the secret door that Cristiano had accidentally discovered under the staircase, and whose existence had never been suspected either by the doctor or Ulphilas, it was entirely concealed in the wainscot. There was no affectation of mystery, however, in this style of door, closing perfectly without any visible lock; this peculiarity was merely the result of very careful joinery work, which becomes almost an art in cold countries.
M. Goefle did not find it necessary to look into the closet, after he had once taken possession of the double-bedded room. Glancing at the mantle-piece, he saw a pair of heavy candlesticks with three branches, each of them holding three wax candles. It was time; the end of the candle was expiring in the lantern.
“Since there is no danger of our being left in the dark,” said M. Goefle to the child, “we may as well make our arrangements here at once. Light the fire, and I will take the bed-clothes from the closet.”
The bed-clothes were laid upon the beds before Nils had succeeded in doing anything more than fill the room with smoke. When it was time to make the beds, which were enormous, he could think of nothing better than climbing up on top of them, so as to reach the middle of the bolster. M. Goefle was very much inclined to get angry, but since this would only have been a signal for tears, he resigned himself to his fate, and made not only his own bed, but that also of his little valet.
Although he had never done any work of the kind, he was succeeding very creditably, when a fearful noise in the bear-room (the doors between the two rooms had been left open) interrupted him. It was a sort of wild, unearthly, and yet absurd yell. Nils tumbled down on his hands and knees, and considered it prudent to hide under the bed, while M. Goefle, with staring eyes and open mouth, asked himself, without any alarm, but with great surprise, what could be the meaning of such a serenade.
“If, as I firmly believe,” he thought, “it is some practical joker who wants to frighten me, he imitates the growling of the bear in a singular manner. The voice of the ass he really does reproduce, and with remarkable skill; but does he take me for a Laplander, and imagine that I have never heard an ass bray? Come, come, Nils,” he continued, looking for his little valet, “there is no magic here; let us go and see what the matter is.”
Nils would have perished rather than stir, or even answer; and M. Goefle, not knowing what had become of him, went in alone to reconnoitre.
He was not a little surprised to find himself, in the middle of the bear-room, face to face with a veritable ass, and a fine one too (he had never seen its equal in Sweden), with such an honest countenance, that it was impossible to give him an unkind reception, or to take his visit in bad part.
“Well, my poor friend,” said Monsieur Goefle, laughing, “where do you come from? What are you doing in this country, and what request did you just make of me?”
If Jean had had the gift of human speech, he would have replied that he had taken a good nap, while confidently awaiting his master’s return, in his hiding-place under the staircase, where no one had thought of looking; but that, finding that his master did not return, and beginning to feel very hungry, he had lost patience, and, undoing the rope, which was not well tied, had come to ask M. Goefle for some supper.
The latter easily guessed what he wanted, but he could not understand why Ulph, whom he supposed intrusted with the care of this ass, should have given him the haunted chamber of Stollborg for a stable. He thought of a world of things. As this animal is a great rarity in cold countries, the baron, who had a team of reindeer as well (another rarity in this region, too cold for the ass and not cold enough for the reindeer), probably valued him very highly, and had ordered the overseer of the old chateau to take care of him, and keep him in a warm place.
“That accounts for the fire in the stove,” said M. Goefle to himself; “but I can’t understand why Ulph, instead of telling the simple truth, should have pretended to believe the room haunted. Perhaps he was ordered to fit up one of the stables for the occasion, and not having done so, wished to conceal his negligence; he hoped, no doubt, that I would be disgusted with the room, or would not notice the presence of this strange companion. Anyhow,” M. Goefle added, turning gayly to Jean, whose face amused him, “I beg your pardon, my poor ass, but I don’t feel inclined to keep you so near me. You have a remarkably good voice, and I don’t sleep soundly. I am going to take you to Loki, who will be a warm, comfortable companion; and, for to-night, you will have to share his supper and straw. Come, Nils, come, my child; you must light me to the stable.”
Receiving no reply, M. Goefle was obliged to return to the guard-room and find the child’s hiding-place; pulling him out by one leg, he carried him back and seated him, whether he would or not, upon the back of the ass. At first, Master Nils, thinking that he was astride theimaginary bear, uttered piercing cries. He had never seen an ass, and was as much alarmed by Jean’s long ears as he would have been by the horns of the devil; but gradually the tranquillity and gentleness of the poor beast restored his courage. M. Goefle gave him the candlestick with three branches; he himself led the ass by the halter, and, leaving the tower, they all three turned into the wooden gallery, with its mossy shed, that surrounded the snow-covered court, and proceeded towards the stable.
At this very moment, Ulph came out of the pavilion in which his uncle lived, and proceeded towards the tower, with a lantern in one hand, and in the other a large basket-full of articles for setting the lawyer’s table. Ulph now was as eager to return to the bear-room as, a little while before, he had been unwilling to enter it. This is what had happened to him.
Like a true Swede, Ulph was all kindness and hospitality; but since he had been living in the gloomy chateau of Stollborg, with his deaf and melancholy uncle, the poor fellow had become so superstitious and cowardly that he never failed to lock himself up in his room as soon as the sun went down, with the firm resolution of not admitting any suspicious characters after that hour, but of leaving them rather to perish in the ice and snow. If the outer door of the chateau had not been broken open by Puffo’s vigorous fist, and if Ulph had not recognized the lawyer’s voice in the court, the respectable doctor of laws would certainly have been obliged to return to the new chateau, in spite of his dread of its noise and confusion.
After introducing him into the tower, Ulph became a little more tranquil. He even said to himself that it was all for the best. If M. Goefle wanted to defy the devil it was his own business, and it was far better to have to admit him than to be obliged to reconduct him to the new chateau; an order that would have entailed upon the unfortunate guide the terrible necessity of returning alone over a lake peopled with frightful goblins. The old overseer of Stollborg was delicate, chilly, and accustomed to retire early. Happily, he had already shuthimself up in his pavilion, which stood at the end of a small inner court, and which had no view of the outer court, as all its windows overlooked the lake. Whether asleep or not, therefore, it was not at all likely that he would suspect the presence of his guest before the next morning. After reflecting deeply, Ulph resolved not to disturb him, and to do his best to prepare M. Goefle a good supper. Sten himself was very frugal, but he was treated with great consideration by his master, the Baron de Waldemora (proprietor both of the new chateau and the old tower), who, once for all, had given his new steward the strictest orders to provide liberally for this old and faithful servant of his house.
Ulph loved good living, and seeing that his uncle sent back, out of prudence and economy, the superfluous provisions brought from the new chateau, he made arrangements, without telling him anything about it, to receive everything himself. He concealed his gastronomic wealth in a certain mysterious corner of the kitchen, and kept his bottles of old wine, which must have been exceedingly valuable in a country where the vine is a hot-house plant, piled up behind a row of empty hogsheads, in a certain little cellar in the rock, very cool in summer and very warm in winter.
Ulph was not covetous; he was an honest fellow, who would not upon any account have made money out of the baron’s presents. He was good-hearted too, and, whenever he could keep a friend with him, he invited him in a mysterious manner to share his precious bottles; drinking alone is sad, and he was only too happy to be able to enjoy them in company. But it was so well established that the chateau was haunted, not by a bear, as Nils imagined, but by an unhappy ghost, that poor Ulph could not persuade a single boon companion to stop with him a moment after sunset. To keep up his courage, he was obliged to finish his bottles himself; and it was at such times that he beheld the wickedtrollsandstroemkarls, who try to lead their victims to waterfalls, and throw them in. It was probably to avoid being tempted to follow them, that the judicious Ulphilas drank until he hadentirely lost the use of his legs. There were a number of free-thinkers and cosmopolites who did not believe in anything, among the baron’s numerous suite of servants, but Stenson hated them all more or less, and his nephew Ulphilas shared his antipathies.
Ulphilas Stenson, therefore, had plenty of materials for the doctor’s supper, and he was not a bad hand at frying and roasting. After all, the lawyer’s gayety had inspirited him a little, and he was looking forward to having a pleasant chat while waiting on the table, when his cheerful ideas were suddenly disturbed by strange sounds. He imagined that he heard a stealthy rustling in the thick walls, a creaking in the wainscots! Twenty times the frying-pan fell from his hand, and at one moment he was so sure that his sighs of terror were repeated behind him by a mocking echo, that he remained for three good minutes without daring to breathe, and far less to turn around.
This was what made him so slow in preparing this much-desired repast. At last, when he had finished his work after a fashion, he went down into the cellar to get some wine. There new agonies awaited him. Just as he was about leaving this sanctuary with a sufficient load, a tall black figure glided before him. His lantern went out, and the same mysterious steps that had already frightened him almost out of his wits, went rapidly up the cellar stairs. Ulph came very near fainting; but, recovering his courage, he returned to the kitchen, and leaving his saucepans simmering on the stove, resolved, under the pretence of setting the table, to go and see whether M. Goefle would not cure him of his terror.
It was at this very moment, as he was coming along the wooden gallery with his useful load, that he met face to face a whimsical apparition. There before him he beheld the doctor of laws in his night-cap, leading by the halter a strange, monstrous animal (like a true Dalecarlian peasant of those days, Ulph had never seen the ass, and perhaps had never heard of it), while upon this animal, whose long ears cast gigantic shadows along the gallery, rode a little red devil bearing atriple flame; the very imp whom M. Goefle had wished to pass off as his valet, but who could only be the kobold in person, the familiar demon whom he had boasted of having in his service.
This was too much for poor Ulph. He respected kobolds, but he did not want to see them. His grasp failed; he set his basket on the ground, and, turning short round, fled, and shut himself up in his room, swearing by his eternal salvation that he would not come out again that night, even although the lawyer should die of hunger and the devil should eat up his supper.
It was all in vain that M. Goefle called. He received no reply, and after conducting the ass to the stable, he took up the abandoned basket and returned to set the table, with Nils’s help, in the bear-room.
“Well,” he said, “travellers must be philosophical. Here are glasses, dishes and napkins, so we will hope that that lunatic will provide us with some food as well. We shall have to wait his good pleasure, since there is no means of doing otherwise; and, in the meanwhile, we can open these bottles, which look promising.”
Nils set the table quite neatly, the fire blazed merrily in the stove, and Monsieur Goefle had quite recovered his natural good-humor, when the child began tumbling about in a languid, helpless way, which showed that he had suddenly become sleepy.
“Look out there!” cried the lawyer; “wake up! You have to eat yet; you must be hungry.”
“Oh yes! Monsieur Goefle,” replied the child; “but I want to sleep so much! I can never wait all the while until your supper is brought and you have done eating. Give me a little of this bread and blackberry jam; then I will be stronger, and will wait upon you.”
M. Goefle himself opened the pot of sweetmeats, and Nils seated himself unceremoniously in the place intended for his master, while the latter warmed his feet, which had been chilled by their expedition to the stable. M. Goefle was as active in imagination as fluent in speech. When there was no opportunity for talking, his mind kept busily atwork, or he abandoned himself to agreeable reveries. In a little while he began to feel the pangs of hunger again, and turned to see whether Ulph had returned, at last, with some more solid dish than sweetmeats; but he only saw little Nils fast asleep, with his head on the table and his nose in the plate.
“Come, come!” he said, shaking him; “now that you have had something to eat, you must keep awake. I want you to wait upon me. Go and see whether Ulph—”
It was useless for M. Goefle to finish. Nils was overcome by the irresistible sleep of childhood. He got up, but his eyes were vacant, and he staggered like a drunken man. The lawyer really pitied him.
“Well, go to bed,” he said, “since you are good for nothing.”
Nils turned to go to the guard-room, but stopped at the door, and, leaning against it, fell fast asleep standing. He had to be carried to bed. Then there was another trouble. The little man really could not take off his gaiters. M. Goefle had to take off his valet’s gaiters, and this was not an easy task, for the shoes were tight, and the child’s legs were swollen with fatigue.
When he was going to hoist him into his bed, he saw that the little rogue had already crept in, all dressed.
“The devil take you!” he said; “do you suppose I gave you those beautiful new clothes to sleep in? Get up and undress yourself; it is the least you can do.”
He pulled him out of bed, whether he wished it or not, but the child made useless efforts to unbutton himself. Aunt Gertrude, delighted to have full swing in dressing him up like a little valet before introducing him to his master, had had his elk-skin small-clothes and his red cloth vest made so tight, that they fitted him like wax. M. Goefle himself could scarcely pull them off. While thus engaged, he had to take him upon his knees before the fire, for the child was shivering with cold. It was useless for him to get angry, and curse Gertrude for giving him such a servant; he could not be so inhuman as to let him freeze. And then Nils disarmed him by his pretty ways. At every wordof reproach, he would reply artlessly:
“You will see to-morrow, Monsieur Goefle: I will do all that you tell me, and then I will love you so much!”
“That will always be the way,” replied the good lawyer, shaking him a little. “I prefer to be rather less loved and a little better waited on.”
At last Nils was in bed, and M. Goefle turned to go in quest of his problematical supper, when the child called him back unceremoniously, and said in a reproachful voice:
“Wait, monsieur; you are not going to leave me all alone!”
“What more?” cried the doctor of laws. “Do you want company to sleep?”
“But, Monsieur Goefle, I never slept alone in my room at the pastor’s house; and here, above all, where I am so afraid. Oh! stop—stop; if you are going to leave me, I had rather sleep on the floor in the room where you are.”
Wide awake now as a cat, Nils jumped out of bed, and started to follow his master into the bear-room, in his shirt. M. Goefle lost all patience. He scolded; Nils took to crying again. He was going to shut him up. Nils began to howl. The doctor of laws formed an heroic determination.
“Since I have been so foolish,” he said, “as to suppose that a child ten years old was fourteen, and to imagine that Gertrude had a grain of common sense in her brain, I must pay the penalty. Five minutes’ patience and this young rogue will be fast asleep; while if I excite him by my opposition, God only knows how long I shall have to hear him groaning or braying.”
He went into the bear-room to get one of his bundles of papers, not without cursing the child, who followed with naked feet, and would scarcely give him time to find his spectacles; and then sat down before the fire in the guard-room, with the doors shut, as it was not very warm. After asking Nils ironically whether he did not want to be sung to sleep, he buried himself in his dusty papers, and forgot all aboutthe supper, which did not arrive, and the child, who was snoring with all his might.