Suddenly the rain stopped pattering on the roof. Silently the shadows crept on in the dust under the heavy beams. It was as if the silence and the emptiness of the big gloomy house had stealthily crept up among these mourners. They really felt the emptiness after their mother’s death, after her dainties and her scolding—perhaps most after her scolding. Yes, formerly when Mamma was in the kitchen scolding, they heard it up in the attic. But with old Kristin it was different. She kept on worrying them the whole time—and they got tired of it—
And then there was something funny about father. Since Mamma died he was always in town, and when sometimes he came home he looked so dull-eyed and shabby, almost as if he was drunk. And then they felt still lonelier. Stellan had overheard Kristin say to the gardener that the master was drinking himself to death—but Stellan could not understand how that could happen. Surely one did not die from being drunk?
Alas, how gloomy and empty it was up there in the big attic! Herman began to long for his home at Ekbacken where it was not at all strange as it was here.
But the Selambshof children felt they must fight against the silence with shouts and noise and quarrelling.
“Let us play drunkards,” shouted Peter and began to slouch and reel and push the others about in his clumsy way.
But Stellan knew better. Both Peter and Herman were stronger than Stellan, but all the same it was usually he who was leader. If a lot of dogs play about on a lawn you will in nine cases out of ten find that there is a small one taking the lead in the game.
“No, let us get out on the roof and play robbers,” he shouted.
With the help of Peter and Herman he managed to open the big trap door and they tumbled out on the roof, which sloped gently and had strong iron bars between the battlements. Selambshof was an old manor house which had been rebuilt, during a period of bad taste, in the gloomy style of a fortress castle, with narrow windows, towers, gables and battlements.
They were on forbidden ground. Hedvig stopped half inside and half outside the trap—she was like that. “Take care you people on the roof,” she whimpered repeatedly to the others, but they took no notice of her.
It was awfully cold up there. And it gave you a queer feeling in the pit of the stomach to be so high over the wet glistening tops of the trees in the park. And she had never seen such a big black cloud as the one which was just passing over the town. Beneath was the black smoke and through the smoke the windows flashed like a shot. But opposite the sky was as green as ice, except in the furthest distance over the dark and ragged edge of the forest, where it was yellow. And the lake looked like a piece of mirror of the sky which had fallen down among the trees. It was quite unbroken except between Kolsnäs and Stonehill, where the steamer was passing and shattered it.
Stellan was the first to reach the railing. Oh, how cold he felt about the forehead. But giddiness changed to recklessness—wild shouting recklessness. How small everything down there looked! Just look at Anders at the corner of the stable! Wasn’t he a mere spot. And Kristin—what did he care about Kristin? No, now they would have some fun!
“Selambshof is a robbers’ stronghold!” he shouted—quite pale with excitement. “We are wild highwaymen! We care for nothing—we just kill and take what we want.”
This seemed to appeal to Peter. He took aim at Ekbacken and pulled the trigger—that is to say he levelled his finger and said: “Bang, I shot Ekbacken! Ekbacken is mine.”
Herman protested: “No—Ekbacken belongs to my father.”
He was severely snubbed: “Blockhead! are we robbers or are we not?”
And then Stellan mercilessly shot to pieces Kolsnäs, the white walls of which peeped out behind the trees on the other side of the lake. Peter reloaded and took aim and shot at Trefvinge, which was the finest place within sight, a real big castle with four copper towers far away beyond the edge of the forest. Things were now getting exciting, for Peter and Stellan and Herman were all aiming at the town itself with all its church towers and chimneys! Bang, Bang, Bang, the shots were fired almost simultaneously.
“The town is mine,” cried Herman. “I shot first.”
“No, I shot first,” lied Peter confidently.
“No, mine was the only one that hit,” cried Stellan stamping on the roof. “Now both Kolsnäs and the town are mine.”
“That’s not fair,” insisted Herman, “I ought to have something, and I shot first.”
“That’s a lie,” insisted Peter quietly, but menacingly.
Stellan was already furious: “Whose idea was it that we should play robbers—eh? I am the chief of the robbers. And now I have taken the town and am king of the castle.”
But Herman would not give way, as he knew that his was the first shot.
“It’s not fair. It’s beastly unfair. I won’t play robbers with you if you are unfair.”
It looked like a fight.
Laura had been watching with her teeth chattering and trying to hide her little fat fingers in the sleeves of her frock. Now she jumped excitedly down towards the infuriated robbers. Unobserved, even Hedvig left her spy hole in the trap.
Stellan and Herman had already come to grips and scratched and tore at each other in the artless way of children. At last they began to wrestle and Stellan, who was the shorter of the two, was underneath.
“You see that I did shoot first,” panted Herman.
Then Peter with his cool cheek
