togetherin an indistinct maze, and the landmarks could not be distinguished. Theflight became slower and slower; the joyful cries were hushed; and theboy felt the cold more and more keenly.
But still he had kept up his courage as long as he had ridden throughthe air. And in the afternoon, when they had lighted under a littlestunted pine, in the middle of a large morass, where all was wet, andall was cold; where some knolls were covered with snow, and others stoodup naked in a puddle of half-melted ice-water, even then, he had notfelt discouraged, but ran about in fine spirits, and hunted forcranberries and frozen whortleberries. But then came evening, anddarkness sank down on them so close, that not even such eyes as theboy's could see through it; and all the wilderness became so strangelygrim and awful. The boy lay tucked in under the goosey-gander's wing,but could not sleep because he was cold and wet. He heard such a lot ofrustling and rattling and stealthy steps and menacing voices, that hewas terror-stricken and didn't know where he should go. He must gosomewhere, where there was light and heat, if he wasn't going to beentirely scared to death.
"If I should venture where there are human beings, just for this night?"thought the boy. "Only so I could sit by a fire for a moment, and get alittle food. I could go back to the wild geese before sunrise."
He crept from under the wing and slid down to the ground. He didn'tawaken either the goosey-gander or any of the other geese, but stole,silently and unobserved, through the morass.
He didn't know exactly where on earth he was: if he was in Skane, inSmaland, or in Blekinge. But just before he had gotten down in themorass, he had caught a glimpse of a large village, and thither hedirected his steps. It wasn't long, either, before he discovered a road;and soon he was on the village street, which was long, and had plantedtrees on both sides, and was bordered with garden after garden.
The boy had come to one of the big cathedral towns, which are so commonon the uplands, but can hardly be seen at all down in the plain.
The houses were of wood, and very prettily constructed. Most of them hadgables and fronts, edged with carved mouldings, and glass doors, withhere and there a coloured pane, opening on verandas. The walls werepainted in light oil-colours; the doors and window-frames shone in bluesand greens, and even in reds. While the boy walked about and viewed thehouses, he could hear, all the way out to the road, how the people whosat in the warm cottages chattered and laughed. The words he could notdistinguish, but he thought it was just lovely to hear human voices. "Iwonder what they would say if I knocked and begged to be let in,"thought he.
This was, of course, what he had intended to do all along, but now thathe saw the lighted windows, his fear of the darkness was gone. Instead,he felt again that shyness which always came over him now when he wasnear human beings. "I'll take a look around the town for a whilelonger," thought he, "before I ask anyone to take me in."
On one house there was a balcony. And just as the boy walked by, thedoors were thrown open, and a yellow light streamed through the fine,sheer curtains. Then a pretty young fru came out on the balcony andleaned over the railing. "It's raining; now we shall soon have spring,"said she. When the boy saw her he felt a strange anxiety. It was asthough he wanted to weep. For the first time he was a bit uneasy becausehe had shut himself out from the human kind.
Shortly after that he walked by a shop. Outside the shop stood a redcorn-drill. He stopped and looked at it; and finally crawled up to thedriver's place, and seated himself. When he had got there, he smackedwith his lips and pretended that he sat and drove. He thought what funit would be to be permitted to drive such a pretty machine over agrainfield. For a moment he forgot what he was like now; then heremembered it, and jumped down quickly from the machine. Then a greaterunrest came over him. After all, human beings were very wonderful andclever.
He walked by the post-office, and then he thought of all the newspaperswhich came every day, with news from all the four corners of the earth.He saw the apothecary's shop and the doctor's home, and he thought aboutthe power of human beings, which was so great that they were able tobattle with sickness and death. He came to the church. Then he thoughthow human beings had built it, that they might hear about another worldthan the one in which they lived, of God and the resurrection andeternal life. And the longer he walked there, the better he liked humanbeings.
It is so with children that they never think any farther ahead than thelength of their noses. That which lies nearest them, they wantpromptly, without caring what it may cost them. Nils Holgersson had notunderstood what he was losing when he chose to remain an elf; but now hebegan to be dreadfully afraid that, perhaps, he should never again getback to his right form.
How in all the world should he go to work in order to become human? Thishe wanted, oh! so much, to know.
He crawled up on a doorstep, and seated himself in the pouring rain andmeditated. He sat there one whole hour--two whole hours, and he thoughtso hard that his forehead lay in furrows; but he was none the wiser. Itseemed as though the thoughts only rolled round and round in his head.The longer he sat there, the more impossible it seemed to him to findany solution.
"This thing is certainly much too difficult for one who has learned aslittle as I have," he thought at last. "It will probably wind up by myhaving to go back among human beings after all. I must ask the ministerand the doctor and the schoolmaster and others who are learned, and mayknow a cure for such things."
This he concluded that he would do at once, and shook himself--for hewas as wet as a dog that has been in a water-pool.
Just about then he saw that a big owl came flying along, and alighted onone of the trees that bordered the village street. The next instant alady owl, who sat under the cornice of the house, began to call out:"Kivitt, Kivitt! Are you at home again, Mr. Gray Owl? What kind of atime did you have abroad?"
"Thank you, Lady Brown Owl. I had a very comfortable time," said thegray owl. "Has anything out of the ordinary happened here at home duringmy absence?"
"Not here in Blekinge, Mr. Gray Owl; but in Skane a marvellous thing hashappened! A boy has been transformed by an elf into a goblin no biggerthan a squirrel; and since then he has gone to Lapland with a tamegoose."
"That's a remarkable bit of news, a remarkable bit of news. Can he neverbe human again, Lady Brown Owl? Can he never be human again?"
"That's a secret, Mr. Gray Owl; but you shall hear it just the same.The elf has said that if the boy watches over the goosey-gander, so thathe comes home safe and sound, and--"
"What more, Lady Brown Owl? What more? What more?"
"Fly with me up to the church tower, Mr. Gray Owl, and you shall hearthe whole story! I fear there may be someone listening down here in thestreet." With that, the owls flew their way; but the boy flung his capin the air, and shouted: "If I only watch over the goosey-gander, sothat he gets back safe and sound, then I shall become a human beingagain. Hurrah! Hurrah! Then I shall become a human being again!"
He shouted "hurrah" until it was strange that they did not hear him inthe houses--but they didn't, and he hurried back to the wild geese, outin the wet morass, as fast as his legs could carry him.
THE STAIRWAY WITH THE THREE STEPS
_Thursday, March thirty-first_.
The following day the wild geese intended to travel northward throughAllbo district, in Smaland. They sent Iksi and Kaksi to spy out theland. But when they returned, they said that all the water was frozen,and all the land was snow-covered. "We may as well remain where we are,"said the wild geese. "We cannot travel over a country where there isneither water nor food." "If we remain where we are, we may have to waithere until the next moon," said Akka. "It is better to go eastward,through Blekinge, and see if we can't get to Smaland by way of Moere,which lies near the coast, and has an early spring."
Thus the boy came to ride over Blekinge the next day. Now, that it waslight again, he was in a merry mood once more, and could not comprehendwhat had come over him the night before. He certainly didn't want togive up the journey and the outdoor life
now.
There lay a thick fog over Blekinge. The boy couldn't see how it lookedout there. "I wonder if it is a good, or a poor country that I'm ridingover," thought he, and tried to search his memory for the things whichhe had heard about the country at school. But at the same time he knewwell enough that this was useless, as he had never been in the habit ofstudying his lessons.
At once the boy saw the whole school before him. The children sat by thelittle desks and raised their hands; the teacher sat in the lectern andlooked displeased; and he himself stood before the map and should answersome question about Blekinge, but he hadn't a word to say. Theschoolmaster's face grew darker and darker for every second that passed,and the boy thought the teacher was more particular that they
Nils Holgerssons underbara resa. English Page 18