Nils Holgerssons underbara resa. English
Page 65
would know their forefathers had been a good and wisefolk and they would remember them with reverence and gratitude.
A DAY IN HAeLSINGLAND
A LARGE GREEN LEAF
_Thursday, June sixteenth_.
The following day the boy travelled over Haelsingland. It spread beneathhim with new, pale-green shoots on the pine trees, new birch leaves inthe groves, new green grass in the meadows, and sprouting grain in thefields. It was a mountainous country, but directly through it ran abroad, light valley from either side of which branched othervalleys--some short and narrow, some broad and long.
"This land resembles a leaf," thought the boy, "for it's as green as aleaf, and the valleys subdivide it in about the same way as the veins ofa leaf are foliated."
The branch valleys, like the main one, were filled with lakes, rivers,farms, and villages. They snuggled, light and smiling, between the darkmountains until they were gradually squeezed together by the hills.There they were so narrow that they could not hold more than a littlebrook.
On the high land between the valleys there were pine forests which hadno even ground to grow upon. There were mountains standing all about,and the forest covered the whole, like a woolly hide stretched over abony body.
It was a picturesque country to look down upon, and the boy saw a gooddeal of it, because the eagle was trying to find the old fiddler,Clement Larsson, and flew from ravine to ravine looking for him.
A little later in the morning there was life and movement on every farm.The doors of the cattle sheds were thrown wide open and the cows werelet out. They were prettily coloured, small, supple and sprightly, andso sure-footed that they made the most comic leaps and bounds. Afterthem came the calves and sheep, and it was plainly to be seen that they,too, were in the best of spirits.
It grew livelier every moment in the farm yards. A couple of young girlswith knapsacks on their backs walked among the cattle; a boy with a longswitch kept the sheep together, and a little dog ran in and out amongthe cows, barking at the ones that tried to gore him. The farmer hitcheda horse to a cart loaded with tubs of butter, boxes of cheese, and allkinds of eatables. The people laughed and chattered. They and the beastswere alike merry--as if looking forward to a day of real pleasure.
A moment later all were on their way to the forest. One of the girlswalked in the lead and coaxed the cattle with pretty, musical calls. Theanimals followed in a long line. The shepherd boy and the sheep-dog ranhither and thither, to see that no creature turned from the rightcourse; and last came the farmer and his hired man. They walked besidethe cart to prevent its being upset, for the road they followed was anarrow, stony forest path.
It may have been the custom for all the peasants in Haelsingland to sendtheir cattle into the forests on the same day--or perhaps it onlyhappened so that year; at any rate the boy saw how processions of happypeople and cattle wandered out from every valley and every farm andrushed into the lonely forest, filling it with life. From the depths ofthe dense woods the boy heard the shepherd maidens' songs and the tinkleof the cow bells. Many of the processions had long and difficult roadsto travel; and the boy saw how they tramped through marshes, how theyhad to take roundabout ways to get past windfalls, and how, time andagain, the carts bumped against stones and turned over with all theircontents. But the people met all the obstacles with jokes and laughter.
In the afternoon they came to a cleared space where cattle sheds and acouple of rude cabins had been built. The cows mooed with delight asthey tramped on the luscious green grass in the yards between thecabins, and at once began grazing. The peasants, with merry chatter andbanter, carried water and wood and all that had been brought in thecarts into the larger cabin. Presently smoke rose from the chimney andthen the dairymaids, the shepherd boy, and the men squatted upon a flatrock and ate their supper.
Gorgo, the eagle, was certain that he should find Clement Larsson amongthose who were off for the forest. Whenever he saw a stock farmprocession, he sank down and scrutinized it with his sharp eyes; buthour after hour passed without his finding the one he sought.
After much circling around, toward evening they came to a stony anddesolate tract east of the great main valley. There the boy saw anotheroutlying stock farm under him. The people and the cattle had arrived.The men were splitting wood, and the dairymaids were milking the cows.
"Look there!" said Gorgo. "I think we've got him."
He sank, and, to his great astonishment, the boy saw that the eagle wasright. There indeed stood little Clement Larsson chopping wood.
Gorgo alighted on a pine tree in the thick woods a little away from thehouse.
"I have fulfilled my obligation," said the eagle, with a proud toss ofhis head. "Now you must try and have a word with the man. I'll perchhere at the top of the thick pine and wait for you."
THE ANIMALS' NEW YEAR'S EVE
The day's work was done at the forest ranches, supper was over, and thepeasants sat about and chatted. It was a long time since they had beenin the forest of a summer's night, and they seemed reluctant to go tobed and sleep. It was as light as day, and the dairymaids were busy withtheir needle-work. Ever and anon they raised their heads, looked towardthe forest and smiled. "Now we are here again!" they said. The town,with its unrest, faded from their minds, and the forest, with itspeaceful stillness, enfolded them. When at home they had wondered howthey should ever be able to endure the loneliness of the woods; butonce there, they felt that they were having their best time.
Many of the young girls and young men from neighbouring ranches had cometo call upon them, so that there were quite a lot of folk seated on thegrass before the cabins, but they did not find it easy to startconversation. The men were going home the next day, so the dairymaidsgave them little commissions and bade them take greetings to theirfriends in the village. This was nearly all that had been said.
Suddenly the eldest of the dairy girls looked up from her work and saidlaughingly:
"There's no need of our sitting here so silent to-night, for we have twostory-tellers with us. One is Clement Larsson, who sits beside me, andthe other is Bernhard from Sunnasjoe, who stands back there gazing towardBlack's Ridge. I think that we should ask each of them to tell us astory. To the one who entertains us the better I shall give the mufflerI am knitting."
This proposal won hearty applause. The two competitors offered lameexcuses, naturally, but were quickly persuaded. Clement asked Bernhardto begin, and he did not object. He knew little of Clement Larsson, butassumed that he would come out with some story about ghosts and trolls.As he knew that people liked to listen to such things, he thought itbest to choose something of the same sort.
"Some centuries ago," he began, "a dean here in Delsbo township wasriding through the dense forest on a New Year's Eve. He was onhorseback, dressed in fur coat and cap. On the pommel of his saddle hunga satchel in which he kept the communion service, the Prayer-book, andthe clerical robe. He had been summoned on a parochial errand to aremote forest settlement, where he had talked with a sick person untillate in the evening. Now he was on his way home, but feared that heshould not get back to the rectory until after midnight.
"As he had to sit in the saddle when he should have been at home in hisbed, he was glad it was not a rough night. The weather was mild, the airstill and the skies overcast. Behind the clouds hung a full round moonwhich gave some light, although it was out of sight. But for that faintlight it would have been impossible for him to distinguish paths fromfields, for that was a snowless winter, and all things had the samegrayish-brown colour.
"The horse the dean rode was one he prized very highly. He was strongand sturdy, and quite as wise as a human being. He could find his wayhome from any place in the township. The dean had observed this onseveral occasions, and he relied upon it with such a sense of securitythat he never troubled himself to think where he was going when he rodethat horse. So he came along now in the gray night, through thebewildering forest, with the reins dangling and his thoughts far away.
"
He was thinking of the sermon he had to preach on the morrow, and ofmuch else besides, and it was a long time before it occurred to him tonotice how far along he was on his homeward way. When he did glance up,he saw that the forest was as dense about him as at the beginning, andhe was somewhat surprised, for he had ridden so long that he should havecome to the inhabited portion of the township.
"Delsbo was about the same then as now. The church and parsonage and allthe large farms and villages were at the northern end of the township,while at the southern part there were only forests and mountains. Thedean saw that he was still in the unpopulated district and knew that hewas in the southern part and must ride to the north to get home. Therewere no stars, nor was there a moon to guide him; but he was a man whohad the four cardinal points in his head. He had the positive feelingthat he was travelling southward, or possibly eastward.
"He intended to turn the