XIII.
WHILE this despatch is speeding after the baron, we shall take the liberty of proceeding ourselves to Bœtsoi’s chalet, where the brave danneman wanted to carry Christian off with him with no other arms than a cord and an iron-shod stick.
“Wait!” cried the major; “our friend must be equipped and armed. Your boar-spear is not to be despised, Master Joë, but a good Norwegian cutlass will do more execution, and a good gun will not be superfluous.”
Yielding to the entreaties of the major and the lieutenant, Christian put on a reindeer skin coat and felt boots, the latter without either soles or seams, and having the advantage of never slipping on the ice, and of being impenetrable to the cold. Then, after arming and supplying him with powder and balls, Christian’s friends put a fur cap on his head, and proceeded to draw lots for their places in the hunt.
“I have number 1!” cried the major, in great exultation; “so it is I who am to yield my place to Christian, and to take my stand a hundred steps behind him; the lieutenant will be on my left, and the corporal on my right, at a distance, also, of a hundred steps on each side. Now then, start, and count your steps; when you have counted a hundred, make us a sign, and we will follow.”
Everything being thus regulated, the danneman and Christian began the march, and the others followed, observing the distances agreed upon. Christian was astonished to see them adopt this order of battle from the very moment of departure.
“Is the bear so near,” he asked of his guide, “that we should not have time enough ten times over to take our proper positions on approaching his den?”
“Thewicked oneis very near,” replied the danneman. “No one of them has ever taken up his winter quarters before, so near my house. I was so far from suspecting his presence, that I have passed a dozen times almost over his hole, without supposing that I had such a handsome neighbor.”
“Our bear is handsome, then?”
“He is one of the largest I have ever seen. But begin and talk low; he has very good ears, and, in less than a quarter of an hour, he will hear every word we say.”
“Were not your daughters alarmed at having such a neighbor?” said Christian, approaching the danneman, and lowering his voice to please him, though his apprehensions seemed to him exaggerated.
At this question, Joë Bœtsoi drew himself up stiffly, straightened his large head between his shoulders, and looked at Christian askance.
“HerrChristian, my daughters are honest girls,” he said, dryly.
“Pray have I intimated anything to the contrary,HerrBœtsoi?” said Christian, feeling very much surprised.
“Don’t you know,” replied the danneman, making an effort to pronounce the name which he disliked so much, “don’t you know that thebearcan do no harm to a virgin, and that consequently an honest girl can go and snatch her kid or her lamb from his very claws, without any danger?”
“Pardon, Monsieur Danneman, I did not know it; I am a stranger, and I see that we can learn something new every day. But are you quite sure that the bear has such a respect for chastity? Would you allow one ofyour daughters to accompany you at this moment?”
“No! women can’t keep their tongues from wagging, and their chattering gives notice to the game. That is why neither girls nor women should ever go to a hunt.”
“And if you should happen to see the bear pursuing your daughters would you not be alarmed? Would you not shoot it?”
“I would shoot it for the sake of getting its skin, but I should not be uneasy about my daughters. I tell you I am sure of their conduct.”
“But your sister, the sibyl, she, without doubt, has been married?”
“Married?” said the danneman, throwing back his head disdainfully.
He resumed, with a sigh:
“Whether married or not, Karine is not afraid of wicked tongues.”
“Do wicked tongues come to torment you even here, Master Joë? I should have thought, in this wilderness—”
The danneman shrugged his shoulders, and looked discontented, but did not reply.
“Have I displeased you again without knowing it?” asked Christian, after a few seconds.
“Yes,” replied the danneman, “and, as it is not well to go together where we are going with something on your heart, I will speak out. Why did you ask me whether Karine was afraid of the bear? I will not take another step until I know whether you are thinking anything evil either of her or of me.”
Christian found it difficult to reply to this direct appeal to his sincerity, made, as it was, with a sort of grand simplicity, recalling the manners of early ages. The feeling of curiosity which had led him to question Bœtsoi about Karine had its origin in mysterious causes in his own heart, which it was impossible for him to explain. He thought to make matters right by correcting Bœtsoi’s error as to the facts of the case.
“Master Joë,” he said, “I did not ask whether your sister was afraidof the bear, but whether she had been married, and I do not see anything offensive in my question.”
The peasant looked at him again, and with such a keen, searching glance, that he felt quite confused.
“Your question does not offend me,” he said, “if you can swear that you did not listen to any wicked gossip about my family before coming to my house.”
Christian, remembering what the major had said, hesitated to reply, and Bœtsoi resumed:
“Come, come! why should you lie? You have no reasons for being my enemy, and you can tell me freely all you have heard about the child of the lake.”
“The child of the lake?” cried Christian. “Who is the child of the lake?”
“If you do not know, I have nothing to tell you.”
“Yes, yes!” Christian rejoined; “I know—I think I know. Speak to me as to a friend, Master Joë. Is the child of the lake Karine’s son?”
“No,” replied the danneman, his face lighting up with a singular expression of enthusiasm; “it belonged to her, indeed, but it was not conceived and born like other children. Karine was unfortunate, as happens to girls who learn things above their condition, and who read in the books of a religion that we ought no longer to understand; but she was not wicked, as people say. I was deceived about it myself as well as the rest, I who am speaking to you! There was a time—I was still very young in those days—when I wanted to put a bullet through the head of a man of whom Karine talked too much in her dreams; but she swore to our mother and to me that she hated that man. She swore it on the Bible, and we could not doubt her word after that. The child was suckled on the mountain by a tame doe, that followed Karine like a kid. She lived alone with him for more than a year, in a different house from ours, much higher than the one you have seen. When the child was weaned we took him into our house, and loved him. He was growing up, he talked, and he was beautiful; but, one day, he departed as he had come, and Karine wept so much that her mind flew away after him, andnever returned. There is a great mystery in all this. Don’t every one know that there are women who bring children into the world merely by uttering some form of speech, just as they conceive them by breathing the air of the lakes when the trolls have set it in motion? Karine lived too much down yonder, and every one knows that there are wicked spirits in the lake of Waldemora. Enough said. It is the secret of God and of the waters. No one must think evil of Karine. She does no work, she renders no service that is seen or is useful in a house; but she is one of those who, by their learning and their songs, bring happiness to families. She sees what others do not see, and what she announces happens in one way or another. That is enough, I tell you, for here we are close to thewicked one’sden, and now we must think of nothing but him. Listen to what I say, and then not a word more, not a single one, for your life.”
“Even if it should cost me my life,” said Christian, agitated and struck by the mysterious narrative of the danneman, “you must tell me more about that child which was brought up in your house. Did he not have something peculiar about his fingers?”
The danneman’s face turned a fiery red, in spite of the cold.
“I have told you,” he replied, in an irritated tone, “all that I intend to. If it is to insult me, and to defame the honor of my family, that you have come to eat my bread and kill my game, look out for yourself, or give up going to the hunt, Herr Christian; for, as true as my name is Bœtsoi, I will leave you alone with thewicked one.”
“Master Bœtsoi,” replied Christian, calmly, “I am not so much alarmed by your threat, as grieved at the idea of having wounded you. You can leave me alone with thewicked one, if you choose. I will try to be more wicked than he; but do not, I implore you, carry away a bad opinion of me. We will resume this conversation, I hope, and you will acknowledge then, that the thought of outraging the honor of yourfamily could never have entered my mind.”
“Very good,” replied the danneman, “let us talk, then, of thewicked one. Either he will fly with all speed before we have reached his den, and in that case you must fire upon him, or he will make up his mind to fight, and will rise on his hind legs. You know where the place is for the heart; and, if you do not reach it with this good knife, it can only be because your hand trembles. There is only one thing to be careful about: do not let him disarm your right hand before seizing your left arm, for he can see weapons plainly enough, and he has more sense than you suppose. Go up to him, then, coolly and quietly, without being in any hurry. As long as thewicked oneis not wounded, he is not insolent, and he don’t well know what he wants to do. For my part, I usually talk to him, and promise that I will not do him any harm; to lie to a beast is not to lie. I advise you, then, to talk to him pleasantly. He has sense enough to see that he is being flattered, but not enough to see that he is being deceived. And now, wait until I see whether those gentlemen have posted themselves as they ought around the den, for, if the beast escapes us, he must not escape them. I will return in five minutes.”
Christian remained alone in a strange scene. Since leaving the chalet, he had come with his guide through the depths of a magnificent forest, covering with its great green waves the flanks of the mountain. The profusion of fine trees in these regions, and the difficulty of transporting them elsewhere for manufacturing purposes, have occasioned the contemptuous, and one might almost say impious, prodigality with which the inhabitants of the country treat these noble children of the wilderness. To make the smallest tool, the most insignificant plaything (the Dalecarlian herdsman, like the Swiss, is very skilful in cutting and carving resinous wood), they sacrifice without regret a giant of verdure, and often, to save themselves the trouble of felling it, set fire to the roots; so much the worse for them, if the flames spread and devour whole forests! In many places battalions ofblack monsters can be seen rising over the snow, or, in summer, over plains of cinders. These are the charred trunks that no longer afford a refuge to any animal, and which are the abode of silence and of the immobility of death.[6]Hunters in Russia are shocked to find, in the splendid forests of that country, the same recklessness and the same profanations.
The forest in which Christian now was, had neither been burned nor felled, and it was not so painful, therefore, to mark its decay. What you beheld was a grand desolation, a sublime destruction, due exclusively to natural causes: the old age of the trees, the sinking of the ground, the passage of storms. It was like some primeval forest caught between the wandering ice-fields of polar seas. Great pines, shattered and withered, rested upon their neighbors, still green and erect, but whose tops or principal branches they had broken by their fall. Enormous rocks had rolled over declivities, dragging with them innumerable plants, that had either continued to live, broken and twisted as they were, or had been replaced by a new growth springing up over the ruin beneath. Several years must have elapsed since this catastrophe, the result of some deluge, for young birch-trees were growing upon heights which were nothing more than masses of debris and land-slips. With the slightest breath of wind, these trees, which were already beautiful, balanced to and fro the icicles suspended from their light and pendant branches, with a quick, clicking sound, like that of water flowing over pebbles.
This savage region was sublime. A thousand feet beneath him, Christian beheld the torrent of the abyss (theeïf, orstrœm, as all streams of water are called), and was astonished to find that it had precisely the same colors and the same undulations as if it had not been frozen. At this distance it would have been impossible for a deaf man to know that it was not dashing forward, roaring and tumultuous; the eye was completely deceived by its dark metallic tint, coveredwith enormous eddies, that looked like foam. But for Christian, whose ear would have caught the slightest sound ascending from the ravine, nothing could have seemed stranger than the contrast between the apparent agitation of this impetuous torrent and its absolute silence. Nothing in the world resembles death so much as a world thus petrified by winter. Hence, the slightest sign of life in this motionless picture, a footprint upon the snow, the short and stealthy flight of a little bird, is greeted with surprise, and this surprise becomes almost terror when an elk or doe flees before you, with rapid, resounding steps, suddenly awakening the sleeping echoes of the solitude.
However, Christian was thinking just now, not of admiring nature, but of preparing for his fight with thewicked one. His soul was oppressed by a most sad and terrible thought. The danneman’s strange narrative, which he had found almost incomprehensible at first, thanks to his incorrect language and superstitious ideas, was beginning to acquire a painful significance. This rustic sibyl, seduced by the troll of the lake, this mysterious child brought up in the danneman’s chalet, and which had disappeared when three or four years old, those inexplicable intuitions that had come to him during the morning meal, and which, perhaps, were merely reminiscences suddenly awakened—
“Yes,” he said, “now again, the recollection, or the delusion, returns to me. The three lost cows—twenty years ago—the gun-shot that stopped the fourth. It seems to me that I can hear now that fatal shot; it seems to me that I can see the poor beast fall, and that I feel again the sensation of grief and regret which I then experienced, and which was perhaps my first emotion, the awakening within me of the life of sentiment. Great God! I feel as if a whole forgotten world were reanimated, and rising before me. Was it not yonder, at the turn of that rock, at the edge of that red-colored precipice, that the scene passed? It must have been there. Has my soul visited this place in some anterior existence, or have I myself been here? And, in thelatter case, who can my father be? Who is that man, whom the danneman came near killing before his suspicions had been lulled to sleep by superstition? Why did the sibyl—my mother, perhaps—why did she shudder when she touched my fingers? She was in a sort of trance, she had not looked into my face; but she said I was the baron! And just now, when I asked the danneman if the child had not some peculiar mark about his hands, did not his anger and grief prove that he had observed and understood this hereditary sign, more apparent, probably, in the child than it now is in the man?
“Besides, even if he had noticed it in me to-day, he would have been far enough from drawing any comparison. The idea of trying to recognize me did not even occur to him. In his eyes, I was merely a curious and jeering stranger, questioning him about the secret of his family, and that secret is his shame. He prefers to turn it into a legend, a fairy story. He is offended if you doubt the marvels he describes; he gets angry if you suggest that the child’s fingers were like those of Baron Olaus. It is only the truth, they say, that offends, and that truth I have divined. Poor Karine, how terrified she was when she took me for her seducer!
“Her seducer! who knows? This man, hated and despised by all, may have done her violence. She would naturally have concealed her misfortune, she would have made the most of the belief of her family in evil spirits, to prevent her young brother, the danneman, from exposing himself to danger, by seeking to revenge her upon a too powerful enemy. Poor woman! Yes, certainly, she hates him, she fears him still! She has become a seeress since her disaster—that is, mad! She must have received a sort of education, since she knows by heart the ancient poems of her country, and in her exaltation she draws from her confused recollection of these tragic songs, gloomy threats and words of hatred. At any rate, whether I am deceiving myself, or am drawing a logical deduction from facts, I believe it is the hand of God that has led me back to the hut from which I was carried off—why, and by whom?Was it the danneman, the intrepid traveller, who bore me far away, to remove from his sister’s eyes the living image of her remorse, or from his family the sign of their shame? Or should I rather believe in the jealousy of the wife of Olaus, according to the major’s theory?”
All these thoughts rushed through Christian’s mind, overwhelming him with grief and agony. The idea of being the son of Baron Olaus only redoubled his aversion for him. Under such circumstances he could only regard him as the enemy of his mother’s honor and repose.
“Or again,” he continued, “who knows if it was not he himself who had me kidnapped, to avoid fulfilling some promise made to his victim, some engagement contracted towards her? Ah! if it were so, I should remain in this country. Without seeking to make myself known, I would go into service with the danneman; by my industry, my devotion, I would certainly gain his respect, and perhaps the love of this family to which I belong, and then I could try and bring back this poor seeress, if not to her right mind, at least to a state of tranquillity, as I succeeded formerly in calming the frenzy of my dear Sophia Goffredi. What a strange destiny is mine! To be thus condemned to have two mothers driven mad by despair! No matter; undeserved as this punishment is, it gives me a duty to perform, and, in fulfilling it, I may be led to some mysterious recompense. I accept the obligation imposed upon me. Karine Bœtsoi may not remember that she has lost her child, but she shall receive, from this time, the care and protection of a son.”
At this moment Christian thought he heard some one call. He looked around, and on every side, but saw no one. The danneman had told him to wait; he was to return for him: Christian hesitated, but, after a second, a cry of distress made him start up, seize his weapons, and rush forward in the direction of the voice.
Scaling with wonderful agility the overthrown trees and fragments of debris hardened by the ice and interlocked by enormous roots, Christian, without knowing it, came out at twenty steps from the bear’s den. The terrible animal was on the ground between him and this cave,licking up the blood which stained the snow around her bleeding flanks. The danneman was at the opening of the den, pale, his hair blown by the wind and as it were standing on end, and without any weapon at all in his hands. His boar-spear, broken in the side of the bear, was lying near the animal, and, instead of thinking of taking his gun from his shoulder-belt to finish his work, Bœtsoi seemed fascinated by some mysterious terror, or enchained by some inexplicable prudence.
As soon as he saw Christian he made signs to him, which the latter did not comprehend; he guessed, however, that he was not to speak, and took aim at the bear. Luckily, before pulling the trigger, he looked again at Joë Bœtsoi, who ordered him, with a despairing gesture, to stop. Christian, imitating his pantomime, asked whether he was to cut the creature’s throat, in silence; and, on receiving a sign in the affirmative, he marched straight up to the bear, who, upon her side, arose erect and growling, to receive him.
“Quick! quick! or we are lost!” cried the danneman, who had taken the gun, and seemed to be watching some invisible object at the bottom of the den.
Christian did not wait to be told twice. Presenting his left arm, wrapped in a cord, to the rather feeble embrace of the wounded bear, he ripped her open in proper style, but without thinking that she might fall forward, and that he ought to jump quickly aside, to give her room. Luckily, the bear fell to one side, dragging Christian with her to the ground; but her formidable claws, contracted in the death agony, could do nothing now but clutch at the skirt of his coat. Buried in the snow, and nailed down, as it were, by the weight and claws of thewicked one, laid upon and thrust into the edge of his garment, Christian had some difficulty in getting free, and he left behind him a considerable portion of the major’s reindeer-skin coat, but he scarcely thought of that now. The danneman was struggling with other enemies. He had just fired into the dark cave, and another bear, black, and of quite a good size, although young, had come forward to meet him, with a threatening air; while two cubs, about the size of two strongwhelps, threw themselves between his legs, with no other intention, it is true, than that of flying, but in such a way as to make it difficult for him to maintain his equilibrium. The danneman, resolved to perish rather than make room for his triple prey to pass, supported himself against the trees, whose trunks formed a sort of naturally arched entrance to the cave, and awaited the attack of the young bear, who had been wounded by his shot; but, shaken in spite of himself by the young ones, he had just fallen, and the wounded and furious animal was throwing himself upon him, when Christian, sure of his eye and his coolness, put a ball into the animal’s head, at a foot above that of the man.
“Very well done!” said the danneman, springing up with agility.
In the meanwhile the cubs had run over his body, and, for the moment, his only thought was to prevent them from escaping.
“Stay! stay!” said Christian, following the two fugitives with his eye; “see what they are about!”
In fact the two cubs had rushed up to their dead mother, and had glided, cowering, under her bleeding sides.
“It is only fair,” said the danneman, rubbing his arm, which the black bear had bruised through the cord, “it is not our place to kill them. We have each of us secured a prize. Call your comrades; for my part, I am too much blown, and then I have had a fine fright, I confess. That was a narrow escape; and without you—. But call them, I say. I will talk about that another time.”
Christian shouted with all the strength of his lungs; and the danneman, still trembling a little, but as attentive as ever, reloaded his gun quickly, so as to have it in readiness in case the cubs should abandon their mother’s body, and attempt to fly before the arrival of the other hunters.
The firing had already notified the latter of the combat, and they soon appeared, coming from three directions. Larrson, who was first, shouted victory when he saw the enormous bear lying at Christian’s feet.
“Look out! stop!” cried Christian. “Our bear was a mother; she had twofine young ones. I intercede for these poor orphans. Take them living.”
“Certainly,” replied Larrson. “To the rescue, comrades! here are some pupils for us to bring up.”
They surrounded the corpse of the she-bear, and raised it cautiously; for even when this animal seems to be dead it is necessary to be on your guard, lest it should be feigning. They had some difficulty in capturing the cubs, who already showed their claws and teeth, but they were secured, at last, and carefully bound and muzzled. This accomplished, they had leisure to admire the ample booty which the den had concealed, and regrets were half expressed, which the danneman hastened to anticipate.
“You must pardon me for what I have done,” he said to the two young officers. “I had strong suspicions that that great spotted creature was a mother; did I tell you she was spotted? Oh, I saw her plainly, but I could not get a good look at the young ones, and, as for thefriend, I had not seen him at all. I have often been told that the mother brings into her winter’s refuge a youngwicked one, who is neither the father of her little ones, nor even a relative of the family, to defend and bring up her children, in case she should be killed. Never having seen this, I hadn’t much faith in it; now, having seen it, I believe it. If I had known as much before, I should have brought two of you, so that each might have killed a fine animal; but who could have expected such a thing? Not thinking to shoot, I only took my gun by way of precaution, in case the Herr I was going with should miss fire, and find himself in danger. As for the iron-shod boar-spear, I had so little idea of using it, that I did not even look to see whether the one I took was in good condition. Well then,” continued the danneman, addressing Christian, “this is what happened. I told you that I would return for you as soon as I had posted the others, and as soon as this was done I intended to go straight back where I had left you. But some beast must have disturbed the marks I made last night; for, without getting lost exactly, I passed directly before the den, and did not recognize where I was, until it was too late to draw back. Thewicked oneheard me, and she cameagainst me, because she had young ones. I tried to frighten her by waving my arm, so as to make her return to her house, but she would not be frightened, she rose on her hind legs. I ripped her open; I had to do it, and at the same time I called twice. At the sound of my voice thefriendcame to the door of the house, and, to keep him from escaping, I ran and stood before it, without remembering that my boar-spear was lying broken by the mother. I thought she was dead, but after I was standing there she rose up, fell down, and rose up again, twice. Then, Herr Christian, the time seemed very long to me before you arrived; for, on the one side I had the mother, who, at any moment, might recover strength enough to throw herself upon me, and, on the other, thefriend, who was only waiting for this reinforcement to begin a quarrel with me himself, without counting the two young ones, who I knew very well would be between my legs as soon as the fight should be begun. Against all that I had only one gun-shot, and that was not enough! I did not even dare take aim; for, at the sight of a weapon aimed, thewicked onescome to the point more quickly. I was frightened; I can acknowledge it now without shame, since I did not stir a foot, and since the four creatures are in our hands. I waited for you—it seemed to me that I waited a year—and yet I believe you came very quickly, Herr Christian, since all has turned out so well—yes, very well indeed, I declare, and you are a brave man! I am sorry there should have been any angry words between us beforehand. But it is all forgotten; it is not my life only that I owe you, but my heart, just as much. Come and embrace me, and remember that I look upon you as my son.”
Christian embraced the Dalecarlian with deep emotion, and the latter related to the rest of the party how, after quickly despatching the she-bear, body to body, the young man had killed thefriendvery opportunely, by lodging a ball in his head, at only two inches from his, Bœtsoi’s, face. Christian objected modestly to the danneman’s exaggeration upon this latter point; but as Bœtsoi, in his enthusiasm,would not abate a jot from his statement, and as there were no means of proving the facts, the exploit of the young adventurer assumed colossal proportions in the imagination of Larrson and his friends. Their esteem for him increased accordingly, and this is not at all surprising. Presence of mind is the highest faculty of true courage. We pity those who fail, but we admire those who succeed. Without being betrayed into self-admiration, Christian felt a deep satisfaction at having acquired a claim to the friendship of the danneman, whom he persisted henceforth in regarding as his near relative; but he was very careful not to return to his imprudent questions. He resolved to seek the truth elsewhere, even if it should require a great deal of time and patience to arrive at it.
The weight of the two dead bears, especially that of the female, was enormous; together, they weighed more than four hundred pounds. To drag them over that rough country, where it was with difficulty that you could make your own way, seemed impossible. Even horses could not have accomplished it. As the day had reached its meridian, and as the young officers wanted to join the baron’s hunt, they found themselves embarrassed with too much riches. Even the cubs, who refused to walk, were very much in the way.
“Go along with you,” said the danneman; “with my children I will soon fell two or three young trees, and build a hurdle; we will put the bears on that, and slide it along to my house. From there, I will send them to you by my sleigh and horse; they shall be at your bostoelle in two hours, so that you can show them to your friends.”
“And we will return the dead animals to you to-morrow,” said Larrson, “for we would not trust any one else to skin and prepare them. Is not that your wish, Christian?”
“Whatever pleases you is agreeable to me,” replied Christian.
“Not at all!” the major rejoined; “the bear we purchased from the danneman is the one you have just killed. It belongs to you, as theone he shot belongs to him, unless he is willing to sell it.”
“He killed them both,” said Christian; “I did nothing but finish his work; I have no right to anything.”
An animated discussion followed, in which the danneman vied with his guests in delicacy, and showed that he was as scrupulously honest as themselves. At last Christian was obliged to yield, and to accept the she-bear as his prize. The two cubs were purchased from the danneman at the price of one bear, and he was obliged to accept, as exclusively his own, the friend of Madame Bear. Matters being thus arranged, the major and his friends wanted to carry Christian away with them, but he declined.
“I have no wish to go to the baron’s hunt,” he said; “you yourselves told me that it is not at all interesting in comparison with this one, and, besides, I have no time. Remember that for two days more I am bound by contract to keep on with my present business. I will remain here and help the danneman carry away thewicked ones, after which I will avail myself of his sleigh, to return as far as the lake. Do not forget that you have promised M. Goefle and myself to come and see us at Stollborg.”
“We will go after supper, when the comedy is over,” replied the major; “you can rely upon us.”
“And I,” said the danneman to Christian, “will guarantee that you shall reach the lake before night.”
They had not much time to lose. The officers returned to their country sleighs, and the danneman, assisted by Christian, and also by his son Olof, and his eldest daughter, who now joined them, proceeded, with great skill and quickness, to the building of his hand-sledge. When completed, and loaded with the game, they slid it along without difficulty, some drawing, and the others pushing or holding it back, until they reached the chalet.
As soon as they arrived, Christian looked for the seeress. The curtain of the bed was drawn and motionless. Was she still there? He longed to see this mysterious woman again, and to try and talk to her, but he dared not approach her bed. He imagined that the danneman kept hiseye upon him, and that he would have been greatly displeased by any appearance of curiosity.
The youngest of the danneman’s daughters brought some brandy, made in the house; that famous corn-brandy, whose manufacture Gustavus III. afterwards made a state monopoly, thus burdening his subjects with a heavy and vexatious tax, that robbed him of all his popularity, and reduced to their former poverty the very people whom he had freed from the tyranny of the nobles. Is the frequent use of brandy really a necessity in these rigorous climates? Christian thought not, and his opinion was strengthened by the fact that this special beverage, which the danneman had made with his own hands, and of which he was very proud, was so strong as literally to take the skin off the throat. The worthy man urged his guest to drink copiously; he could not understand that he should not feel the necessity of getting a little intoxicated, after killing two bears. But Christian could not carry his good-nature so far as that. He would have been very well pleased to have had strength and coolness enough to get Bœtsoi drunk, without losing his own head; but, as it was, he confined himself to drinking some tea, left for him by the major, and served hot, in a wooden cup, very tastefully cut and carved by the youthful Olof.
The young man was a little mortified at having enjoyed the royal pleasure of killing a bear at the expense of his friends; for, in a word, this bear was the property of the danneman, as all game belongs, without question, to the person who finds it on his lands. They had made Christian a present of his prize; that is, they had purchased it for him. He learned with pleasure from the danneman that it was not yet paid for. The major and his friends, not foreseeing that the hunt would be so successful, had not brought money enough. Christian inquired the price of the animal.
“That depends upon circumstances,” said the danneman, proudly; “if you leave me the beast, as is sometimes done, it is simply a ‘thank you,’ which I owe the person who helped me slay him; but, no doubt, HerrChristian, you will want the skin, the claws, the fat, and the legs.”
“I don’t want any of them at all,” said Christian, laughing. “Good heavens! what should I do with them? I beg you to keep the whole animal, Herr Bœtsoi, and, as I presume you have the right to sell rather dearer to those who have enjoyed the privilege of hunting on your land than you would do to customers purchasing plainly and simply a commodity, I beg you to accept thirty dalers that I have about me—”
Christian finished his sentence mentally:
“And which is all that I possess.”
“Thirty dalers!” cried the danneman, “that is a great deal. You are very rich, then?”
“I am rich enough to beg you to accept them.”
The danneman took the money, looked at it, and then looked at Christian’s hands, but without noticing anything but their whiteness.
“Your gold is good,” he said, “and your hand is white. You are not a laborer, and yet you eat kakebroe like a Dalecarlian. Your face belongs to this country, and your speech does not,—the clothes you had on when you came here, were no better than mine. I can see one thing, anyhow, and that is that you are proud; you don’t wish your friends, who gave up, for your sake, the pleasure of killing the bear, to spend their money for you.”
“Precisely, Herr Bœtsoi, you are right.”
“Have no fear. Joë Bœtsoi is an honest man; he will not take anything from your friends, since you leave him the game. As to accepting a reward from you—that depends. Can you swear to me, on your honor, that you are a rich young man, the child of a noble family?”
“What difference does it make?” said Christian.
“No, no,” resumed the danneman, “you have saved my life; I don’t say much about that, for I would have done as much for you; but you are a skilful marksman, and still more, you are a man who can listen to another. When I made you a sign over yonder, if you had not been willing to do what I wished, we should both of us have been in a badway—and I especially, without my boar-spear, and with my arm not well wrapped up. I am very much pleased with you, and I only wish that my son was like you in looks and character, for you are both brave and gentle. So, if you are not rich, don’t pretend to me that you are. Why should you? I am not poor myself. In my plain house, such as it is, I want for nothing; and if you are in any need you can apply to Joë Bœtsoi. He would have no trouble at all in finding thirty dalers, or even a hundred, to render a service to a friend.”
“I am sure of it, Herr Bœtsoi,” said Christian, “and I may possibly return to you (and if I do it will be with entire confidence), not to ask you for a hundred or for thirty dalers, but to beg you to give me employment. I don’t say this is certain, but it may happen, and in that case I should come to you with much more pleasure if I pay you now what I owe you, and what a rich man would pay you. I did not come here in the character of a poor man; you do not owe me anything.”
“I don’t want any payment,” said the danneman; “take back your money, and come to me when you choose. What can you do?”
“Whatever you will teach me, I will do quickly.”
The danneman smiled.
“That is to say,” he said, “that you don’t know how to do anything.”
“I can kill bears, at any rate.”
“Yes, and very well too. You know how to handle an axe also, and to cut wood; I saw that. But would you be able to travel?”
“That is what I can do best of all.”
“Can you sleep on a bench?”
“Yes, or on a stone.”
“Can you speak Laplandish, Samoïede, Russian?”
“No, I can speak Italian, Spanish, French, German and English.”
“That would do me no good, but it shows me that you can learn to speak in various tongues. Very well, come when you choose, before the end of the month ofThor(January), and, if you would like to goto Drontheim, or even farther, I shall be very glad not to travel alone; or, if I should take Olof with me, for he is tormenting me to let him begin to travel, you can look after my house. My two daughters are betrothed, I give you fair warning. Avoid giving their lovers any occasion for jealousy; it would be at your own risk. Take care of Aunt Karine; she is gentle, but she must not be contradicted: I have forbidden it once for all.”
“I will care for her as if she were my mother,” replied Christian, deeply moved; “but tell me, is she ill or infirm? Why?—”
“They will tell you that, if you come to the house. What wages do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“How, nothing?”
“Bread and shelter; is not that enough?”
“Herr Christian,” said the danneman, frowning, “you are then either lazy or a bad fellow, since you do not think of the future.”
Christian saw, that by being too disinterested, he had caused the danneman to distrust him.
“Do you know M. Goefle?” he said.
“The lawyer? Yes, very well; it was I who sold him his horse. He is a good horse, and the lawyer is an honest man!”
“Very good; he will answer for me. Will that be satisfactory?”
“Yes, it is settled. Take back your money.”
“Suppose I should ask you to keep it for me?”
“Why so, is it stolen money?” cried the danneman, becoming suspicious again.
Christian began to laugh, and was obliged to confess that he was a very poor diplomat.
“Believe me,” he said to the danneman, “I am straightforward and sincere. Every one gives me the credit of having an honest face, and I am not accustomed, therefore, to having my word doubted. If you don’t take my thirty dalers to-day, the major will give them to you to-morrow, and that would annoy me.”
“The major will not give me anything, for I will not accept anything,” replied the danneman, with energy. “It is you, now, who are doubting me.”
Christian was obliged to resign the satisfaction of leaving his small fortune in this house, which was perhaps his mother’s refuge. The discussion, though honorable in itself, might have degenerated into a quarrel, for the danneman was feeding his ingenuous pride as a free peasant with rather too plentiful potations of brandy. Besides, the sleigh was ready, and Christian had to start. Nothing would have induced him to fail in either of his two performances, for which he was to receive a hundred dalers; a sum that would enable him to begin the new life he was dreaming about, without being indebted to anybody.
He thought the danneman intended to accompany him; but, instead of getting into the sleigh, he gave the reins to his son, enjoining him at the same time to drive carefully, and to return early.
“I hoped to have the pleasure of your company as far as Waldemora,” said Christian to the danneman.
“No!” replied the latter, “I never go to Waldemora, for my part. I should have to be carried there by force. Farewell, until we meet again.”
There was so much haughtiness and disdain in the danneman’s tone when he spoke of Waldemora, that Christian, as he shook hands with him, felt afraid that he would notice the conformation of his fingers, and that their resemblance to the baron’s, whether accidental or inherited, would destroy all their friendship; but the deformity was so slight that the danneman, with his rough hand, did not notice it at all, and several times, as his guest was driving away, he sent after him a cordial farewell.
In spite of his father’s recommendations, Olof drove his little horse to the bottom of the valley at a full gallop, while he himself stood up on the front seat of the vehicle with the reins twisted round his arms, at the risk of being hurled to a distance in case of an upset, and of having his wrists dislocated, at the very least.
[6]It is only very lately that the government in Sweden has taken measures—too late, perhaps—to check these devastations.
[6]It is only very lately that the government in Sweden has taken measures—too late, perhaps—to check these devastations.
[6]It is only very lately that the government in Sweden has taken measures—too late, perhaps—to check these devastations.