""Kaisa!" she called, "have you been up at Bergskog lately?"
""I was there day before yesterday," I replied.
""Gracious me! were you there day before yesterday? And I feel as if I hadn"t been at home in years!" It wasn"t easy to know just what to say to her, for she looked as if she couldn"t bear the least little thing and would be ready to cry at whatever I might say. "You can surely go home for a visit?" I said. "No; I don"t think I shall ever go home again." "Oh, do go," I urged. "It"s beautiful up there now; the woods are full of berries; the bushes are thick with red whortleberries." "Dear me!" she said, her eyes growing big with surprise, "are there whortleberries already?"
"Yes, indeed. Surely you can get off a day, just to go home and eat your fill of berries?" "No, I hardly think I want to," she said.
"My going home would make it all the harder to come back to this place." "I"ve always heard that the Ingmars are the best kind of folks to be with," I told her. "They are honest people." "Oh, yes,"
she said, "they are good in their way." "They are the best people in the parish," I said, "and so fair-minded." "It is not considered unfair then to take a wife by force." "They are also very wise."
"But they keep all they know to themselves." "Do they never say anything?" "No one ever says a word more than what is absolutely necessary."
"I was just about to go my way, when it came to me to ask her where the wedding was going to be held--here or at her home. "We"re thinking of having it here, where there is plenty of room." "Then see to it that the wedding day isn"t put off too long," I warned.
"We are to be married in a month," she answered.
"But before Brita and I parted company, it struck me that the Ingmarssons had had a poor harvest, so I said it was not likely that they would have a wedding that year. "In that case I shall have to jump into the river," she declared.
"A month later I was told that the wedding had been put off and, fearing that this would not end well, I went straight to Bergskog and had a talk with Brita"s mother. "They are certainly making a stupid blunder down at the Ingmar Farm," I told her. "We are satisfied with their way of doing things," she said. "Every day we thank G.o.d that our daughter has been so well provided for.""
"Mother needn"t have given herself all this bother," Ingmar was thinking, "for no one from this farm is going to fetch Brita. There was no reason for her being so upset at the sight of the arch: that is only one of those things a man does so that he can turn to our Lord and say: "I wanted to do it. Surely you must see that I meant to do it." But doing it is another matter."
"The last time I saw Brita," Kaisa vent on, "was in the middle of the winter after a big snowfall. I had come to a narrow path in the wild forest, where it was heavy walking. Soon I came upon some one who was sitting in the snow, resting. It was Brita. "Are you all by yourself up here?" I asked. "Yes, I"m out for a walk." she said. I stood stockstill and stared at her; I couldn"t imagine what she was doing there. "I"m looking round to see if there are any steep hills hereabout," she then said. "Dear heart! are you thinking of casting yourself from a cliff?" I gasped, for she looked as if she was tired of life.
""Yes," she said. "If I could only find a hill that was high and steep I"d certainly throw myself down." "You ought to be ashamed to talk like that, and you so well cared for." "You see, Kaisa, I"m a bad lot." "I"m afraid you are." "I am likely to do something dreadful, therefore I might better be dead." "That"s only silly gabble, child." "I turned bad as soon as I went to live with those people." Then, coming quite close to me, with the wildest look in her eyes, she shrieked: "All they think about is how they can torture me, and I think only of how I can torture them in return."
"No, no, Brita; they are good people." "All they care about is to bring shame upon me." "Have you said so to them?" "I never speak to them. I only think and wonder how I"m going to get even with them.
I"m thinking of setting fire to the farm, for I know he loves it.
How I"d like to poison the cows! they are so old and ugly and white around the eyes that one would think they were related to him."
"Barking dogs never bite," I said. "I"ve got to do something to him, or I"ll never have any peace of mind." "You don"t know what you are saying, child," I protested. "What you are thinking of doing would forever destroy your peace of mind."
"All at once she began to cry. Then, after a little, she became very meek and said that she had suffered so from the bad thoughts that came to her. I then walked home with her and, as we parted company, she promised me that she would do nothing rash if I would only keep a close mouth.
"Still I couldn"t help thinking that I ought to talk to some one about this," said Kaisa. "But to whom? I felt kind of backward about going to big folk like yourselves--"
Just then the bell above the stable rang. The midday rest was over.
Mother Martha suddenly interrupted the old woman: "I say, Kaisa, do you think things can ever be right again between Ingmar and Brita?"
"What?" gasped the old woman in astonishment.
"I mean, if by chance she were not going to America, do you suppose she would have him?"
"Well, I should say not!"
"Then you are quite sure she would give him no for an answer."
"Of course she would."
Ingmar sat on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling over the side.
"Now you got just what you needed, Ingmar," he thought; "and now I guess you"ll take that journey to-morrow," he said, pounding the edge of the bed with his fist. "How can mother think she"ll get me to stay at home by showing me that Brita doesn"t like me!"
He kept pounding the side of the bed, as if in thought he were knocking down something that was resisting him.
"Anyway, I"m going to chance it once more," he decided. "We Ingmars begin all over again when things go wrong. No man that is a man can sit back calmly and let a woman fret herself insane over his conduct."
Never had he felt so keenly his utter defeat, and he was determined to put himself right.
"I"d be a h.e.l.l of a man if I couldn"t make Brita happy here!" he said.
He dealt the bedpost a last blow before getting up to go back to his work.
"As sure as you"re born it was Big Ingmar that sent old Kaisa here, in order to make me tale that trip to the city."
IV
Ingmar Ingmarsson had arrived in the city, and was walking slowly toward the big prison house, which was beautifully situated on the crest of a hill overlooking the public park. He did not glance about him, but went with eyes downcast, dragging himself along with as much difficulty as though he were some feeble old man. He had left off his usual picturesque peasant garb on this occasion, and was wearing a black cloth suit and a starched shirt which he had already crumpled. He felt very solemn, yet all the while he was anxious and reluctant.
On coming to the gravelled yard in front of the jail he saw a guard on duty and asked him if this was not the day that Brita Ericsson was to be discharged.
"Yes, I think there is a woman coming out to-day," the guard answered.
"One who has been in for infanticide," Ingmar explained.
"Oh, that one! Yes, she"ll be out this forenoon."
Ingmar stationed himself under a tree, to wait. Not for a second did he take his eyes off the prison gate. "I dare say there are some among those who have gone in there that haven"t fared any too well," he thought. "I don"t want to brag, but maybe there"s many a one on the inside that has suffered less than I who am outside.
Well, I declare, Big Ingmar has brought me here to fetch my bride from the prison house," he remarked to himself. "But I can"t say that little Ingmar is overpleased at the thought; he would have liked seeing her pa.s.s through a gate of honour instead, with her mother standing by her side, to give her to the bridegroom. And then they should have driven to the church in a flower-trimmed chaise, followed by a big bridal procession, and she should have sat beside him dressed as a bride, and smiling under her bridal crown."
The gate opened several times. First, a chaplain come out, then it was the wife of the governor of the prison, and then some servants who were going to town. Finally Brita came. When the gate opened he felt a cramp at the heart. "It is she," he thought. His eyes dropped. He was as if paralyzed, and could not move. When he had recovered himself, he looked up; she was then standing on the steps outside the gate.
She stood there a moment, quite still; she had pushed back her headshawl and, with eyes that were clear and open, she looked out across the landscape. The prison stood on high ground, and beyond the town and the stretches of forest she could see her native hills.
Suddenly she seemed to be shaken by some unseen force; she covered her face with her hands and sank down upon the stone step. Ingmar could hear her sobs from where he stood.
Presently he went over to her, and waited. She was crying so hard that she seemed deaf to every other sound; and he had to stand there a long time. At last he said:
"Don"t cry like that, Brita!"
She looked up. "O G.o.d in Heaven!" she exclaimed, "are you here?"
Instantly all that she had done to him flashed across her mind--and what it must have cost him to come. With a cry of joy she threw her arms around his neck and began to sob again.
"How I have longed that you might come!" she said.
Ingmar"s heart began to beat faster at the thought of her being so pleased with him. "Why, Brita, have you really been longing for me?" he said, quite moved.
"I have wanted so much to ask your forgiveness."
Ingmar drew himself up to his full height and said very coldly: