A few days before Christmas the major’s wife started on her journey down to the L?fsj? district; but it was not till Christmas Eve that she came to Ekeby. During the whole journey she was ill. Yet, in spite of cold and fever, people had never seen her in better spirits nor heard her speak more friendly words.

The Broby clergyman’s daughter, who had been with her in the ?lfdal forests ever since October, sat by her side in the sledge and wished to hasten the journey; but she could not prevent the old woman from stopping the horses and calling every wayfarer up to her to ask for news.

“How is it with you all here in L?fsj??” she asked.

“All is well,” was the answer. “Better times are coming. The mad priest there at Ekeby and his wife help us all.”

“A good time has come,” answered another. “Sintram is gone. 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.”

“Our old dean has waked to new life and strength,” said a third. “Every Sunday he speaks to us of the coming of the Kingdom of God.”

[457]

And the major’s wife drove slowly on, asking every one she met: “How is it here? Do you not suffer from want here?”

And the fever and the stabbing pain in her breast were assuaged, when they answered her: “There are two good and rich women here, Marianne Sinclair and Anna Stj?rnh?k. They help G?sta Berling to go from house to house and see that no one is starving. And no more brandy is made now.”

It was as if the major’s wife had sat in the sledge and listened to a long divine service. She had come to a blessed land. She saw old, furrowed faces brighten, when they spoke of the time which had come. The sick forgot their pains to tell of the day of joy.

“We all want to be like the good Captain Lennart,” they said. “We all want to be good. We want to believe good of every one. We will not injure any one. It shall hasten the coming of God’s Kingdom.”

She found them all filled with the same spirit. On the larger estates free dinners were given to those who were in greatest need. All who had work to be done had it done now.

She had never felt in better health than when she sat there and let the cold air stream into her aching breast. She could not drive by a single house without stopping and asking.

“Everything is well,” they all said. “There was great distress, but the good gentlemen from Ekeby help us. You will be surprised at everything which has been done there. The mill is almost ready, and the smithy is at work, and the burned-down house ready for the roof.”

Ah, it would only last a short time! But still it[458] was good to return to a land where they all helped one another and all wished to do good. The major’s wife felt that she could now forgive the pensioners, and she thanked God for it.

“Anna Lisa,” she said, “I feel as if I had already come into the heaven of the blessed.”

When she at last reached Ekeby, and the pensioners hurried to help her out of the sledge, they could hardly recognize her, for she was as kind and gentle as their own young countess. The older ones, who had seen her as a young girl, whispered to one another: “It is not the major’s wife at Ekeby; it is Margareta Celsing who has come back.”

Great was the pensioners’ joy to see her come so kind and so free from all thoughts of revenge; but it was soon changed to grief when they found how ill she was. She had to be carried immediately into the guest-room in the wing, and put to bed. But on the threshold she turned and spoke to them.

“It has been God’s storm,” she said,—“God’s storm. I know now that it has all been for the best!”

Then the door to the sick-room closed, and they never saw her again.

There is so much to say to one who is dying. The words throng to the lips when one knows that in the next room lies one whose ears will soon be closed for always. “Ah, my friend, my friend,” one wants to say, “can you forgive? Can you believe that I have loved you in spite of everything! Ah, my friend, thanks for all the joy you have given me!”

That will one say and so much, much more.

But the major’s wife lay in a burning fever, and[459] the voices of the pensioners could not reach her. Would she never know how they had worked, how they had taken up her work?

After a little while the pensioners went down to the smithy. There all work was stopped; but they threw new coal and new ore into the furnace, and made ready to smelt. They did not call the smith, who had gone home to celebrate Christmas, but worked themselves at the forge. If the major’s wife could only live until the hammer got going, it would tell her their story.

Evening came and then night, while they worked. Several of them thought, how strange it was that they should again celebrate the night before Christmas in the smithy.

Kevenhüller, who had been the architect of the mill and the smithy, and Christian Bergh stood by the forge and attended to the melting iron. G?sta and Julius were the stokers. Some of the others sat on the anvil under the raised hammer, and others sat on coal-carts and piles of pig-iron. L?wenborg was talking to Eberhard, the philosopher, who sat beside him on the anvil.

“Sintram dies to-night,” he said.

“Why just to-night?” asked Eberhard.

“You know that we made an agreement last year. Now we have done nothing which has been ungentlemanly, and therefore he has lost.”

“You who believe in such things know very well that we have done a great deal which has been ungentlemanly. First, we did not help the major’s wife; second, we began to work; third, it was not quite right that G?sta Berling did not kill himself, when he had promised.”

[460]

“I have thought of that too,” answered L?wenborg; “but my opinion is, that you do not rightly comprehend the matter. To act with the thought of our own mean advantage was forbidden us; but not to act as love or honor or our own salvation demanded. I think that Sintram has lost.”

“Perhaps you are right.”

“I tell you that I know it. I have heard his sleigh-bells the whole evening, but they are not real bells. We shall soon have him here.”

And the little old man sat and stared through the smithy door, which stood open, out at the bit of blue sky studded with stars which showed through it.

After a little while he started up.

“Do you see him?” he whispered. “There he comes creeping. Do you not see him in the doorway?”

“I see nothing,” replied Eberhard. “You are sleepy, that is the whole story.”

“I saw him so distinctly against the sky. He had on his long wolfskin coat and fur cap. Now he is over there in the dark, and I cannot see him. Look, now he is up by the furnace. He is standing close to Christian Bergh; but Christian seems not to see him. Now he is bending down and is throwing something into the fire. Oh, how wicked he looks! Take care, friends, take care!”

As he spoke, a tongue of flame burst out of the furnace, and covered the smiths and their assistants with cinders and sparks. No one, however, was injured.

“He wants to be revenged,” whispered L?wenborg.

“You too are mad!” cried Eberhard. “You ought to have had enough of such things.”

[461]

“Do you not see how he is standing there by the prop and grinning at us? But, verily, I believe that he has unfastened the hammer.”

He started up and dragged Eberhard with him. The second after the hammer fell thundering down onto the anvil. It was only a clamp which had given way; but Eberhard and L?wenborg had narrowly escaped death.

“You see that he has no power over us,” said L?wenborg, triumphantly. “But it is plain that he wants to be revenged.”

And he called G?sta Berling to him.

“Go up to the women, G?sta. Perhaps he will show himself to them too. They are not so used as I to seeing such things. They may be frightened. And take care of yourself, G?sta, for he has a special grudge against you, and perhaps he has power over you on account of that promise.”

Afterwards they heard that L?wenborg had been right, and that Sintram had died that night. Some said that he had hanged himself in his cell. Others believed that the servants of justice secretly had him killed, for the trial seemed to be going well for him, and it would never do to let him out again among the people in L?fsj?. Still others thought that a dark visitor had driven up in a black carriage, drawn by black horses, and had taken him out of prison. And L?wenborg was not the only one who saw him that night. He was also seen at Fors and in Ulrika Dillner’s dreams. Many told how he had shown himself to them, until Ulrika Dillner moved his body to the Bro churchyard. She also had the evil servants sent away from Fors and introduced there good order. After that it was no longer haunted.

[462]

It is said that before G?sta Berling reached the house, a stranger had come to the wing and had left a letter for the major’s wife. No one knew the messenger, but the letter was carried in and laid on the table beside the sick woman. Soon after she became unexpectedly better; the fever decreased, the pain abated, and she was able to read the letter.

The old people believe that her improvement depended on the influence of the powers of darkness. Sintram and his friends would profit by the reading of that letter.

It was a contract written in blood on black paper. The pensioners would have recognized it. It was composed on the last Christmas Eve in the smithy at Ekeby.

And the major’s wife lay there now and read that since she had been a witch, and had sent pensioners’ souls to hell, she was condemned to lose Ekeby. That and other similar absurdities she read. She examined the date and signatures, and found the following note beside G?sta’s name: “Because the major’s wife has taken advantage of my weakness to tempt me away from honest work, and to keep me as pensioner at Ekeby, because she has made me Ebba Dohna’s murderer by betraying to her that I am a dismissed priest, I sign my name.”

The major’s wife slowly folded the paper and put it in its envelope. Then she lay still and thought over what she had learned. She understood with bitter pain that such was the people’s thought of her. She was a witch and a sorceress to all those whom she had served, to whom she had given work and bread. This was her reward. They could not believe anything better of an adulteress.

[463]

Her thoughts flew. Wild anger and a longing for revenge flamed up in her fever-burning brain. She had Anna Lisa, who with Countess Elizabeth tended her, send a message to Hogfors to the manager and overseer. She wished to make her will.

Again she lay thinking. Her eyebrows were drawn together, her features were terribly distorted by suffering.

“You are very ill,” said the countess, softly.

“Yes, more ill than ever before.”

There was silence again, but then the major’s wife spoke in a hard, harsh voice:—

“It is strange to think that you, too, countess, you whom every one loves, are an adulteress.”

The young woman started.

“Yes, if not in deed, yet in thoughts and desire, and that makes no difference. I who lie here feel that it makes no difference.”

“I know it!”

“And yet you are happy now. You may possess him you loved without sin. That black spectre does not stand between you when you meet. You may belong to one another before the world, love one another, go side by side through life.”

“Oh, madame, madame!”

“How can you dare to stay with him?” cried the old woman, with increasing violence. “Repent, repent in time! Go home to your father and mother, before they come and curse you. Do you dare to consider G?sta Berling your husband? Leave him! I shall give him Ekeby. I shall give him power and glory. Do you dare to share that with him? Do you dare to accept happiness and honor? I did not dare to. Do you remember what happened to me?[464] Do you remember the Christmas dinner at Ekeby? Do you remember the cell in the bailiff’s house?”

“Oh, madame, we sinners go here side by side without happiness. I am here to see that no joy shall find a home by our hearth. Do you think I do not long for my home? Oh, bitterly do I long for the protection and support of home; but I shall never again enjoy them. Here I shall live in fear and trembling, knowing that everything I do leads to sin and sorrow, knowing that if I help one, I ruin another. Too weak and foolish for the life here, and yet forced to live it, bound by an everlasting penance.”

“With such thoughts we deceive our hearts,” cried the major’s wife; “but it is weakness. You will not leave him, that is the only reason.”

Before the countess could answer, G?sta Berling came into the room.

“Come here, G?sta,” said the major’s wife instantly, and her voice grew still sharper and harder. “Come here, you whom everybody praises. You shall now hear what has happened to your old friend whom you allowed to wander about the country, despised and forsaken.

“I will first tell you what happened last spring, when I came home to my mother, for you ought to know the end of that story.

“In March I reached the iron-works in the ?lfdal forest, G?sta. Little better than a beggar I looked. They told me that my mother was in the dairy. So I went there, and stood for a long while silent at the d............