Ekeby

“ Is there a shoal in the Klar River or a reef in the Väner which they do not know?
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If they love anything in the world, it is the iron on those barges. They treat it like the most delicate glass, they spread cloths over it. Not a bit may lie bare. It it those heavy, gray bars which are going to retrieve the honor of Ekeby. No stranger may cast indifferent glances on them.
None of the pensioners have remained at home. Uncle Eberhard has left his desk, and Cousin Christopher has come out of his corner. No one can hold back when it is a question of the honor of Ekeby. ”

“ Is Ekeby no longer the chief of Värmland’s iron works? Does no one watch over the honor of the old estate? Like ashes for the wind it is left in the hands of shiftless pensioners.
Well, but if the Ekeby hammers have rested, they must have worked at our six other estates. There must be there enough and more than enough iron. ”

“ Many are the pensioners who have lived and died [115] at Ekeby. Their names are forgotten on the earth, and they have no longer a place in men’s hearts; but the major’s wife has kept the vehicles in which they came to Ekeby, she has collected them all in the old carriage-house. ”

“ They wish to throw themselves on their knees in those fields, which once boasted of rich harvests, and beg them not to blame them for the disgrace which befalls them. And they turn away from the poor old horses; they have not courage to meet their glance. And they dare not stand by the gate and see the cattle come home from pasture. There is no spot on earth so sad to visit as an old home in ruin.
When I think what that proud Ekeby must have suffered under the pensioners’ rule, I wish that the plan of the major’s wife had been fulfilled, and that Ekeby had been taken from them. ”

“ Great wonder seizes upon the pensioners.
A harsh and capable woman is she, the major’s wife at Ekeby. She can lift a barrel of flour on her broad shoulders. She follows the loads of ore from the Bergslagen mines, on the long road to Ekeby. [43] She sleeps like a waggoner on the stable floor, with a meal-bag under her head. In the winter she will watch by a charcoal kiln, in the summer follow a timber-raft down to the Löfven. She is a powerful woman. She swears like a trooper, and rules over her seven estates like a king; rules her own parish and all the neighboring parishes ”

“ Is every one dead at Ekeby?
No, there are people enough there,—a wild, perplexed, helpless crowd of people. The night is dark, they cannot see one another, nor see where they are going. Loud roars the falls, terrible is the din of the breaking ice and the pounding logs; they cannot hear their own voices. They have not a thought nor an idea. They feel that the end is coming. The dam is trembling, the smithy is in danger, the mill is in danger, and their own poor houses beloved in all their lowliness.
Message after message is sent up to the house to the pensioners. ”

“ Only the coach-box is left. The cushion is thin and worn, its moss stuffing coming through, the leather is red with age. High as a house is the old wreck. Prop it up, prop it up, or down it will come!
Hurrah! Hurrah! It is Christmas eve at Ekeby.
Behind the broad bed’s silken curtains sleep the major and the major’s wife, sleep and believe that the bachelors’ wing sleeps. The men-servants and maids can sleep, heavy with feasting and the bitter Christmas ale; but not their masters in the bachelors’ wing. ”

“ Pensioners, do you remember the spring-flood?
A cottager who is ploughing in a pasture at the edge of the wood hears the people’s mad cries. He throws himself on one of his horses and gallops down to Ekeby.
“Disaster is coming!” he cries; “the bears are coming, the wolves are coming, the goblins are coming to take Ekeby!”
He rides about the whole estate, wild with terror.
“All the devils in the forest are let loose!” he cries. “They are coming to take Ekeby! Save yourselves who can! The devils are coming to burn the house and to kill the pensioners!” ”

“ At their side the waves are rushing against all Ekeby’s honor and glory. The people have no leader, no one to instill courage and hope into their hearts; the dam gives way, the waves close over it, and then rush triumphant forward to the point where [266] the mill and smithy stand. No one tries any longer to resist the waves; no one thinks of anything but of saving life and property.
It seems quite natural to both the young people that Gösta should escort the countess home; he cannot leave her alone in this dark night, nor let her again wander alone over the melting ice. ”

“ He only went in to the bears, put muzzles on them, led them out, and hurried away to Ekeby.
Marianne followed him at a distance. She was dropping with fatigue, but then she saw a bright light of fire in the sky and was frightened nearly to death.
What a night it was! A man beats his wife and leaves his child to freeze to death outside his door. Did a woman now mean to burn up her enemies; did the old major mean to let loose the bears on his own people?
She conquered her weariness, hurried past the major, and ran madly up to Ekeby. ”

“ There she is whom they had found in poverty and in sickness, and to whom they had now given all the glory of the world, just as the king in the fairy tale did to the beautiful beggar girl he found in the forest. It is for her that the horn and violin now sound at Ekeby,—for her everything moves, breathes, works on the great estate.
She is well again, although still very weak. Time goes slowly for her alone in the big house, and, as she knows that the pensioners are away, she wishes to see what it looks like in the pensioners’ wing, that notorious room. ”

“ Out on the ice the young Countess Dohna is wandering a terrible, perilous way in order to whisper a word of warning to Gösta Berling. Down at the waterfall the waves are storming the honor and might of Ekeby, but in the wide halls only joy and eager expectation reign, wax-candles are shining, wine is flowing; no one thinks of what is happening in the dark, stormy spring night. ”

“ I only know that that night a beautiful young woman risked her life, her honor, her reputation, her health, to bring back a poor wretch to the right way. I only know that that night Gösta Berling left the beloved Ekeby fall to follow her who for his sake had conquered the fear of death, the fear of shame, the fear of punishment. ”

“ The Ekeby pensioners are working. The Broby clergyman’s money is found in the Bro church-tower. There is so much that the glory and power of Ekeby can be restored with it. There is enough too to get bread for the hungry. ”

“ No mother’s darlings, no sleepy masters on their own estates. Wayfaring men, cheerful men, knights of a hundred adventures.
Now for many years the bachelors’ wing has stood empty. Ekeby is no longer the chosen refuge of homeless gentlemen. Pensioned officers and impoverished noblemen no longer drive about Värmland in shaky one-horse vehicles. But let the dead live, let them rise up in their glad, careless, eternal youth! ”

“ At Ekeby every year, a man dies, one of the guests in the bachelors’ wing dies, one of the glad, the careless, the ever young dies. What of that?—gentlemen may not be old! If their trembling fingers cannot lift the glass, if their dulled eyes cannot see the cards, what has life for them, and what are they to life? Butterflies should know how to die while the sun is shining. ”

“ One Thursday evening, when the moon, just two fingers wide, lingers above the horizon an hour or two after the sun has gone down, Major Fuchs betakes himself from Ekeby without telling any one where he means to go. He has flint and steel and a bullet-mould in his hunting-bag, and his gun on his back, and goes up towards the church at Bro to see what luck there may be for an honest man. ”

“ Where are the pensioners? Where are they who on the black floor of the smithy, out of the polished copper kettle, drank a toast to the new masters of Ekeby?
In the corner by the stove the pensioners are sitting at a separate table; to-day there is no room for them at the big table. To them the food comes late, the wine sparingly; to them are sent no glances from beautiful women, no one listens to Gösta’s jokes.
But the pensioners are like tamed birds, like satiated wild beasts. ”

“ Cousin Christopher is burrowing deep down to the bottom of his chest. He drags out the carefully laid [250] away gold-laced uniform and dresses himself in it. He presses the plumed hat on his head and he is soon hastening away from Ekeby, riding his excellent white horse.
This is another life than to sit shivering by the fire; he too now sees that spring has come.
He straightens himself up in his saddle and sets off at a gallop. The fur-lined dolman flutters. The plumes on his hat wave. The man has grown young like the earth itself. He has awaked from a long winter. ”

“ But now in this February night the major’s wife has the door opened to the carriage-house, and with lanterns and torches she seeks out the vehicles which belong to Ekeby’s present pensioners,—Beerencreutz’s old gig, and Örneclou’s coach, painted with coat of arms, and the narrow cutter which had brought Cousin Christopher.
She does not care if the vehicles are for summer or winter, she only sees that each one gets his own. ”

“ At Ekeby there was not more than fifty tons of iron, at the six other mines there was no iron at all. How is it possible that full-loaded barges shall now carry such an enormous amount of iron to the scales at Karlstad? Yes, one may well ask the pensioners.
The pensioners are themselves on board the heavy, ugly vessels; they mean to escort the iron from Ekeby to Gothenburg. They are going to do everything for their dear iron and not forsake it until it is unloaded on the wharf in Gothenburg. ”

“ I arrange all the work at Ekeby, and he sits the whole day long and feeds his bears. Help me, good friends and neighbors! There will be a boundless misery if I am no longer here. The peasant gets his living by cutting my wood and carting my iron. The charcoal burner lives by getting me charcoal, the lumber man by bringing down my timber. It is I who give out the work which brings prosperity. Smiths, mechanics, and carpenters live by serving me. Do you think that man can keep my work going? ”

“ If what rumor says is true, that the pensioners that time had more sand than iron on their barges, if it is true that they kept bringing up and down the same bars to the weighing-office at Kanike point, until the many hundred tons were weighed; if it is true that all that could happen because the keeper of the public scales and his men were so well entertained out of the hampers and wine cases brought from Ekeby, one must know that they had to be gay on the iron barges. ”

“ Let us get them food first! Then you can kill us. We will not run away. The attic is full of apples. Let us go after apples for the children!”
An hour later the feasting is in full swing at Ekeby. The biggest feast the big house has ever seen is celebrated there that autumn night under the shining full moon.
Woodpiles have been lighted; the whole estate flames with bonfires. The people sit about in groups, enjoying warmth and rest, while all the good things of the earth are scattered over them.
Resolute men have gone to the farmyard and taken what was needed. ”

“ But in his madness he had burned down Ekeby. No one was hurt. Still, it was a great sorrow to the pensioners that the hospitable home, where they had enjoyed so many good things, should suffer such injury in their time.
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CHAPTER XXI
BROBY FAIR
On the first Friday in October the big Broby Fair begins, and lasts one week. It is the festival of the autumn. There is slaughtering and baking in every house; the new winter clothes are then worn for the first time; the brandy rations are doubled; work rests. There is feasting on all the estates. ”

“ When Jean returned to the room she found Souter and Eppy there gayly chatting with the Duke and Lady Nancy, who were evidently much surprised to find their old friend Eppy at last married.
“I am so glad to see you here, Lady Nancy,” gushed Eppy effusively. “You must come and see us before you return to Edinburgh. I live on the estate adjoining this farm.” He drew the smiling girl to the window and pointed out the beauties of MacDougall House. “He is poor,” she whispered, “but he is of noble birth, a MacDougall of Lorne. Souter!” ”

“ And Helge-Hal in the Blue Hill turned his three heads around in order to see the beautiful maiden, too. Then the sun rose, and the troll stiffened into stone. Now Ebe obtained all the riches that the troll had possessed, the sheep and goats, the cows and all the spirited horses, and the handsome golden castle, and some big bags of money besides.
“Here come the king and all his court,” said the cat. “Just go out before the door and receive them!” So Ebe got up and went to meet them.
“You are indeed a very distinguished lord!” said the king to him. ”

“ Ito Ichiro, an old and lifelong friend of mine, who, also, counted net-fishing among his favorite sports, I told him all about the burning of Mr. Takabe's nets; and he, too, did me the favor of following the example set by my Tokyo friends. Then I called on Mr. Watanabe Ichibei at Osaka. He is, as he has always been, a very wealthy man, now dealing chiefly in stocks and trade with Korea. His former business was that of a poultry-man, not in the sense of one who raises fowls, etc., but of one who keeps an establishment where people go to have a poultry dinner. His business throve wonderfully ”

“ The dancer turned her big black eyes full on Desmond as she held out her hand to him.
“Old friends, new friends,” she cried, clapping, her hands like a child, “I love friends. Captaine, here is a very old friend,” she said to Strangwise as Mr. Mackwayte and Barbara came into the rooms, “Monsieur Arthur Mackwayte and ’is daughter. I ’ave know Monsieur Arthur almos’ all my life. And, Mademoiselle, permit me? I introduce le Captaine Strangwise and ’is friend... what is the name? Ah, Major Okewood!”
Nur-el-Din sank into a bergère chair beside her great mirror. ”