One day the wife tried to speak to her husband of his trouble.
“Ever since you went to the war,” she said, “you have been so changed. What did they do to you there?”
Then he rose up, and was ready to strike her; and so it was every time she spoke of the war, he became mad with rage. From no one could he bear to hear the word war, and it soon became known. So people were careful of that subject.
But none of his brothers in arms could say that he had done more harm than others. He had fought like a good soldier. It was only all the dreadful things he had seen which had frightened him so that since then he saw nothing but evil. All his trouble came from the war. He thought that all nature hated him, because he had had a share in such things. They who knew more could console themselves that they had fought for fatherland and honor. What did he know of such things? He only felt that everything hated him because he had shed blood and done much injury.
When the major’s wife was driven from Ekeby, he lived alone in his cottage. His wife was dead and his sons away. During the fairs his house was always full of guests. Black-haired, swarthy gypsies put up there. They like those best whom others avoid. Small, long-haired horses climbed up the wood path, dragging carts loaded with children and bundles of rags. Women, prematurely old, with features swollen by smoking and drinking, and men with pale, sharp faces and sinewy bodies followed the carts. When the gypsies came to the forest cottage, there was a merry life there. Brandy and cards and loud talking followed with them. They had much to tell of thefts and horse-dealing and bloody fights.
The Broby Fair began on a Friday, and then Captain Lennart was killed. Big Mons, who gave the deathblow, was son to the old man in the forest cottage. When the gypsies on Sunday afternoon sat together there, they handed old Jan Hök the brandy bottle oftener than usual, and talked to him of prison life and prison fare and trials; for they had often tried such things.
The old man sat on the chopping-block in the corner and said little. His big lacklustre eyes stared at the crowd which filled the room. It was dusk, but the wood-fire lighted the room.
The door was softly opened and two women entered. It was the young Countess Elizabeth followed by the daughter of the Broby clergyman. Lovely and glowing, she came into the circle of light. She told them that Gösta Berling had not been seen at Ekeby since Captain Lennart died. She and her servant had searched for him in the wood the whole afternoon. Now she saw that there were men here who had much wandered, and knew all the paths. Had they seen him? She had come in to rest, and to ask if they had seen him.
It was a useless question. None of them had seen him.
They gave her a chair. She sank down on it, and sat silent for a while. There was no sound in the room. All looked at her and wondered at her. At last she grew frightened at the silence, started, and tried to speak of indifferent things. She turned to the old man in the corner, “I think I have heard that you have been a soldier,” she said. “Tell me something of the war!”
The silence grew still deeper. The old man sat as if he had not heard.
“It would be very interesting to hear about the war from someone who had been there himself,” continued the countess; but she stopped short, for the Broby clergyman’s daughter shook her head at her. She must have said something forbidden. Everybody was looking at her as if she had offended against the simplest rule of propriety. Suddenly a gypsy woman raised her sharp voice and asked: “Are you not she who has been countess at Borg?”
“Yes, I am.”
“That was another thing than running about the wood after a mad priest.”
The countess rose and said farewell. She was quite rested. The woman who had spoken followed her out through the door.
“You understand, countess,” she said, “I had to say something; for it does not do to speak to the old man of war. He can’t bear to hear the word. I meant well.”
Countess Elizabeth hurried away, but she soon stopped. She saw the threatening wood, the dark mountain, and the reeking swamp. It must be terrible to live here for one whose soul is filled with evil memories. She felt compassion for the old man who had sat there with the dark gypsies for company.
“Anna Lisa,” she said, “let us turn back! They were kind to us, but I behaved badly. I want to talk to the old man about pleasanter things.”
And happy to have found someone to comfort, she went back to the cottage.
“I think,” she said, “that Gösta Berling is wandering here in the wood, and means to take his own life. It is therefore important that he be soon found and prevented. I and my maid, Anna Lisa, thought we saw him sometimes, but then he disappeared. He keeps to that part of the mountain where the broom-girl was killed. I happened to think that I do not need to go way down to Ekeby to get help. Here sit many active men who easily could catch him.”
“Go along, boys!” cried the gypsy woman. “When the countess does not hold herself too good to ask a service of the forest people, you must go at once.”
The men rose immediately and went out to search.
Old Jan Hök sat still and
