Ml 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 WEDISH 
 
 BARON 
 
 \\ j V-T^^^i^^ >^-<4 r^ 
 
 j ^.z^ ^ 
 

Will yoti will you forgive me ? " 
 
THE 
 
 - Lady Mary saw him start across 
 T/ie Precipice. " 
 
 T. KET.SON <fc SONS 
 
THE LITTLE 
 SWEDISH BARON 
 
 By the Author of 
 THE SWEDISH TWINS" 
 
 What hast thou that thou didst not receive ? ; 
 i COR. iv. 7, 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS 
 
 London, Edinburgh, and New York 
 1894 
 
I. THE LITTLE BARON, ... ... ... 9 
 
 II. HOME AND MOTHER, ... ... ... 14 
 
 III. AN ENCOUNTER, ... ... ... 25 
 
 IV. LOOKING BACKWARD, ... ... ... 30 
 
 V. ARVID S SECRET, ... ... ... 4G 
 
 VI. THE OLD CHURCH, ... ... ... 54 
 
 VII. AN INTRUDER, ... ... ... ... GG 
 
 v"!!!. EAVESDROPPING, ... ... ... 71 
 
 IX. A SOLITARY HOUR, ... ... 73 
 
 X. EMMA, ... ... ... 84 
 
 XI. A SURPRISE, ... ... ... ... gi 
 
 XII. CARL-DAY, ... ... ... ... 93 
 
 XIII. THE ENGLISH COUSIN, ... ... ... 107 
 
 XIV. NEW PLANS, ... ... ... ... H3 
 
 XV. THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK, ... ... 118 
 
 XVI. A SURGICAL OPERATION, 124 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 XVII. AN ENGLISH TALK, ... ... ... 129 
 
 XVIII. AN EVENTFUL DRIVE, ... ... ... 133 
 
 XIX. DISCLOSURES, ... ... ... ... 138 
 
 XX. "THE PRECIPICE," ... ... ... 149 
 
 XXI. A JOURNEY, ... ... ... ... 15G 
 
 XXII. BOYS, ... ... ... ... ... 1G2 
 
 XXIII. HOGNAS, ... ... ... ... 1G9 
 
 XXIV. WHITE CAPS, ... ... 177 
 
THE 
 
 LITTLE SWEDISH BARON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE LITTLE BARON. 
 
 T^HE tutor sat in the library at the castle of 
 Hognas. His bedroom it was too, though it 
 did not look like it, nor did it ever bear that name. 
 That broad crimson couch, nine feet long, and with 
 cushions enough at the back to satisfy the most 
 luxurious, was far more than a man of his simple 
 habits needed by day or by night. The candidate 
 (for so the tutor was called at the castle) was a little 
 man ; but there was nothing insignificant about him. 
 He was too vigorous in mind and body for that. 
 His quick military way and his sharp glance com 
 manded respect. Respect he had always had at 
 Hognas. That was established as law at the castle 
 
10 THE LITTLE BARON. 
 
 when he appeared there fresh from the university, 
 long, long years ago. 
 
 The large, old-fashioned library was walled round 
 with bookcases, built in in the good old times. The 
 shelves were for the most part empty now, but green 
 cambric curtains hid the deficiencies, and the scholarly- 
 looking volumes in the case near the broad writing- 
 table made one wonder what treasures of knowledge 
 were modestly hiding behind those green veils. 
 
 The tutor s black eyes were microscopic. They 
 could see what was hidden from most men s vision. 
 He saw what others perhaps would not have wished 
 to see, even if they had had the privilege. 
 
 The candidate was a kind of hereditary tutor at 
 the castle. He had taught the father, and now he 
 was in the midst of a lesson with the son. 
 
 The teacher was a little impatient. Under an old 
 cut-glass cover beside him on the table he had an 
 uncommonly large spider, whose peculiarities he was 
 eager to examine. Spiders were the candidate s 
 specialty. 
 
 This had been an unfortunate morning for the 
 pupil, Carl Blankasvard. His lessons had all gone 
 wrong. His slate lay on the table with two broad 
 disapproving lines drawn across a whole row of sums ; 
 
THE LITTLE BARON. 11 
 
 and as for his recitation in the German grammar, it 
 had been positively abominable. Perhaps the stam 
 mering scholar s mind had wandered during the lesson 
 to the captive under the glass cover, who seemed to 
 be pointing one long hairy leg at the boy in silent 
 derision. Carl hated spiders. He was really afraid 
 of them, though he was ashamed to own it. 
 
 Carl was tall for his age. He had just passed his 
 twelfth birthday. His fair face was pleasant to look 
 at, and his large blue eyes were generally full of a 
 mild light. Now they stared gloomily at the teacher, 
 and his lower lip dropped drearily, and showed a row 
 of large, well-formed white teeth in excellent order; 
 for Carl was a bit of a dandy in his way, and scrupu 
 lously neat in his person. 
 
 " If you continue to have such lessons as these, 
 Carl, what do you expect to be when you get to be a 
 man ? " said the candidate slowly and severely, while 
 he fixed his sharp eyes on the boy as if he could look 
 through him into the far future of his worthless 
 manhood. 
 
 " I shall be a baron ! " said Carl, and he drew him 
 self to his full height and left the room hastily, not, 
 however, without a hurried bow to his teacher. 
 
 Carl shut the door, but not with a bang he was 
 
12 THE LITTLE BARON. 
 
 too gentlemanly for that and the tutor was left 
 alone. 
 
 " If I had been as strict with his father, perhaps he 
 would have turned out better," said the candidate to 
 himself with a half -sorrowful, half-satisfied air. " The 
 boy has not his father s brains. What a head he had 
 for figures ! That did not keep him straight though. 
 Carl recites like a regular dull-head. I should like 
 to shake him ! " 
 
 Carl did not hear these uncomplimentary remarks. 
 He was no boy to be listening at door-cracks. He 
 had, besides, just now another business on hand. He 
 had stopped in the long corridor to wipe away the 
 hot tears that had gushed to his eyes as soon as 
 he was alone. He had been afraid he could not 
 keep them back until he was out of his tutor s 
 sight. Those tears were Carl s torment. They would 
 come just when he least wished them. He despised 
 them ; he hated them almost as much as he hated 
 spiders. 
 
 The corridor on which Carl had entered was paved 
 with stone, and his steps sounded out more and more 
 firmly as he walked on. When he had passed down 
 the stone staircase, and was fairly in the open air, he 
 was himself again. He felt hastily in his inner coat 
 
THE LITTLE BARON. 13 
 
 pocket. Yes ; what he wanted was there. Sure of 
 this fact, he made his way to his favourite retreat. 
 
 Behind the castle there was an immense half -circle 
 rounding out from the great building, and hedged 
 about with nothing more grand than a dense thicket 
 of old-fashioned lilac bushes, that now, in their vener 
 able age, could almost claim to be accounted as trees. 
 
 Leading down from the side of the half-circle 
 opposite the castle was a long flight of wide steps, 
 at whose feet a fine avenue swept away into the far 
 distance. The grass grew here and there in the cracks 
 where the great granite blocks had parted company, 
 proving that they were no parvenu affairs, but dated 
 back to the time when " the old nobility " passed that 
 way in merry mood and grand array. 
 
 Here Carl now established himself, having taken 
 from his pocket a little black book which was one of 
 his special treasures. He liked to sit alone, half way 
 down the stone stairway, where he could not be seen 
 from above, while he mused and dreamed of the time 
 when the first of the Blankasvards came into posses 
 sion of Hognas. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 HOME AND MOTHER. 
 
 THE castle of Hognas stood high, as the name 
 indicates (High-point). From its upper win 
 dows the winding blue inlet that half bounded the 
 domain could be followed in its bright, ever-broaden 
 ing curves almost until it was lost in the distant 
 Baltic. There was nothing gloomy about the castle 
 its white colour forbade that. But only a corner of 
 the great building was really in use ; for the family 
 consisted only of the baroness, her son, and the " per 
 petual tutor," and the few servants that were neces 
 sary for their limited style of living. 
 
 Hognas was not beautiful. It was a huge four 
 square mass of masonry, without special ornamenta 
 tion, but imposing from its size, and pleasing from its 
 agreeable proportions. Over the wide front doorway 
 there was no porch to shelter spying lurkers or open 
 enemies. Whoever stood on the broad platform above 
 
HOME AND MOTHER. 15 
 
 the low flight of steps that led to the main entrance 
 might be exposed to a hot fire from any or all of the 
 three rows of great windows that cheerfully broke 
 the facade. 
 
 Above the doorway a bare arm grasping a broken 
 sword, the cognizance of the Blankasvards, stood 
 boldly out, as if to say, " Enter here, an unwelcome 
 guest, at your peril." In winter the castle towered, 
 in its whiteness, like the palace of the ice-king ; while 
 the pines and the lindens and the birches in their 
 frost drapery stood off respectfully, to let the great 
 building cast its shadow unbroken on the open sweep 
 about it. No stranger could come within a stone s- 
 throw of this old northern home without the bark 
 of Hollo, the big watch-dog, to tell of his approach 
 and call some eager face to the window. 
 
 Within, it was very still in the castle, but not- 
 dreary. The stone stairs, corridors, and landings 
 were all in bright gray. The white walls of the 
 huge dining-room were bare of curtains or tapestry ; 
 but they were adorned \vith old portraits of " folk 
 of high degree," groups of battered armour, a couple 
 of pairs of splendid elk horns, and some banners that 
 had, no doubt, stirring stories of the past hidden in 
 their soft, graceful folds. There was little furniture 
 
16 HOME AND MOTHER. 
 
 in the room : all that could be sold had been sold. 
 The massive oak sideboard was brightened by no 
 sparkling silver or glass. The old array had been in 
 a kind of elegant pawn for many a day. In its place 
 there stood, in a polished corselet, a large tasteful 
 bouquet of grasses and grains, enlivened by such 
 gay berries as were warranted to keep their red 
 cheeks when cut off from the fresh air. Two heavy, 
 carved presses, that had served for stores of fine 
 damask linen and countless piles of the best home 
 spun, were almost empty. In one was a scanty sup 
 ply of coarser fabrics for household use. The other 
 held what Carl called his cabinet (curiosities of his 
 own collecting), and the few books he liked to have 
 at hand for a winter evening or a rainy day. In the 
 centre of the white ceiling was a great oval frame, 
 moulded in plaster, within which, in high relief, was 
 represented the adored king of the Swedes, Gustavus 
 Adolphus, with his peaked beard thrust towards the 
 beholder, like a sharp spear-head. The "golden- 
 haired monarch " was presenting the title-deeds of 
 " Hognas, and all lands theretill pertaining," to the 
 great ancestor of the Blankasvards, who had been 
 to him a true and faithful follower, and had been 
 sorely mutilated while defending the person of his 
 
 (430) 
 
HOME AND MOTHER. 17 
 
 royal master. The gallant Blankasvard knelt to 
 receive in his left hand the reward vouchsafed him, 
 while his mantle was gracefully thrown over his right 
 side, veiling the fact that his valiant right arm had 
 been cut away to the shoulder in defence of his king. 
 That arm, thrust forward to take the place of the 
 broken sword, was evermore to stand in the coat of 
 arms of the now ennobled Blankasvards, with the 
 legend " Freely Given " as its proud device. 
 
 The great windows of the dining-hall were bordered 
 with deep-blue cotton shades, generally pushed aside 
 on their loose rings, to border the glad daylight, as 
 the clouds of the winter horizon frame in the sunny 
 sky. There was no glare in the cheerful room ; one 
 had rather the feeling of being in the free open air. 
 The grand high old trees gave a stretch of greenness 
 for the eye to rest upon by day, and the friendly 
 moon and stars could not be forgotten in their faith 
 ful w r atch by night. In a corner of this bright room 
 the candidate and Carl had their meals in the sum 
 mer, where they were as solemnly served with their 
 simple fare as if they were feasted on numberless 
 courses of dainties. 
 
 In the winter a gay-coloured screen shut in a sweep 
 by the broad white porcelain stove that towered to 
 
 (430) 2 
 
18 HOME AND MOTHER. 
 
 the ceiling, and where a bright fire always glowed as 
 the twilight came on. Here it was warm and pleasant 
 round the dining-table, and during the long winter 
 evenings ; and here Carl and his tutor were often 
 many hours of the day together, sometimes without 
 speaking a word. Carl was habitually silent. He 
 hardly knew himself what it was that sealed his lips. 
 It might have been diffidence, or a kind of difficulty in 
 saying what he really felt or thought, and at the same 
 time an unwillingness to be anything but true and 
 open when he did speak. 
 
 As for the candidate, he was always making 
 memoranda about spiders, and occasionally taking 
 a sketched portrait of a rare specimen, the model 
 being, when in confinement, very fond of attitud 
 inizing. Of course, it was promptly released when 
 the sketch was completed, and then it proved it could 
 run like a race-horse determined to win the day. 
 
 The castle was specially adapted to the candidate s 
 scientific investigations, for into the wide dark cel 
 lars, the spacious garret, and the many uninhabited 
 rooms, the spider family had come, like an irruption 
 of northern barbarians into old Italy, to conquer and 
 stay. 
 
 Carl was not fond of hunting in any form, and in 
 
HOME AND MOTHER. 19 
 
 the tutor s domestic " sport " he never joined. They, 
 however, often went out together to the fields and 
 woods, and while the black microscopic eyes found 
 wonderful tiny creatures of every hue of the rainbow, 
 Carl got specimens for his herbarium, which was his 
 special hobby. 
 
 They were good friends, Carl and the candidate. 
 They each had the other s respect, for widely different 
 reasons, and each had his own manner of showing it. 
 
 They had not parted in a particularly friendly way 
 that morning of the unusually unsatisfactory lessons, 
 and Carl looked up from his little black book as this 
 remembrance struck him as he sat there on the old 
 stairway. As he did so he saw the subject of his 
 thoughts approaching him. 
 
 He was going to make an excuse for his abrupt 
 departure, but his words were as usual slow in com 
 ing, and the candidate spoke first. 
 
 " I have just met Arvid looking for you," said the 
 tutor in clear sharp tones. " You must go at once to 
 your mother. You neglected your duty after you 
 went out in hot haste from the library." 
 
 Carl flushed crimson as he got up suddenly. " I 
 forgot ! " was all he could manage to say. He could 
 not add that he had been so moved that he had been 
 
20 HOME AND MOTHER. 
 
 quite thrown off his balance, both in the room and 
 outside of it. 
 
 " I forgot is no excuse for a soldier. It is no 
 excuse for a boy where his duty is concerned," was 
 the serious reply. 
 
 Carl walked off with much the air of a soldier, 
 though he had not acquitted himself in accordance 
 with the almost martial law of the castle. His back 
 always grew particularly straight under rebuke, in 
 stead of bowing itself in apparent submission. 
 
 Carl moved more quickly as soon as he had passed 
 the corner of the house and was out of sight of the 
 tutor. He fairly sprang up the stone staircase, and 
 hurried to his mother s door. He knocked as usual, 
 and as usual an uncommonly sweet voice said, " Come 
 in ! " 
 
 He bowed low as soon as he had entered the door, 
 bowed again in the middle of the room, and then 
 drawing near to the couch where his mother half 
 reclined, he bent down his head and kissed her hand, 
 like a courtier of old. 
 
 The baroness was still a young woman, but little 
 past thirty years of age. Her tall figure was slight 
 and very delicate. She was not thin, but exceedingly 
 pale, and looked the more so for the bands of soft 
 
HOME AND MOTHER. 21 
 
 black hair that lay along* 1 her high forehead and were 
 coiled on the top of her head. She wore deep mourn 
 ing. She had never changed her sad dress since she 
 was left alone with her little boy in the great castle, 
 ten years before. She had been essentially a nun, in 
 voluntary confinement, living in retired sorrow, ever 
 since the hopes of her youth were shattered. Much 
 had come to her knowledge after her husband s 
 departure that she had never suspected before. A 
 wild, reckless youth, self-indulgence and thoughtless 
 extravagance, had involved the fine old estate in a 
 dreary complication of debt and a tangled confusion 
 of badly-kept accounts. Thronging creditors would 
 have their demands promptly met. The severe old 
 cousin who had still the charge of the property 
 spoke of her husband in terms it was hard for her 
 to bear. 
 
 To pay the debts on the estate, and to have her 
 child grow up in ignorance of his father s misdoings 
 and mismanagement, were the ruling motives of her 
 new life. 
 
 The baron had been beloved by his dependants in 
 spite of his faults, for he had been an indulgent 
 master, and frank and friendly with all. The few 
 servants that the baroness desired to keep were 
 
22 HOME AND MOTHER. 
 
 willing to promise to help her in every way to carry 
 out her plans for herself, her home, and her boy. 
 
 The candidate, who had been affectionately urged 
 to continue to have his home at the castle, after he 
 had finished his duties there as a teacher, was now 
 glad, in gratitude for the friendliness so long shown 
 him, to remain to help the baroness in watching over 
 her son, and in a manner presiding in the house, while 
 she was left in the retirement she craved. He was 
 not satisfied with the course he had taken with the 
 father in his education, nor with its success, and was 
 all the more eager to try the effect of his new theories 
 and new resolutions on the son. The candidate would 
 have been glad to take his pupil in charge while he 
 was yet in petticoats, but that the mother wisely re 
 fused. While a very little child Carl was left in the 
 hands of a kind old nurse and a conscientious man 
 servant, the faithful Arvid, who had been born on the 
 estate, and was devotedly attached to the family. A 
 ride on Arvid s strong shoulders was the first thing 
 that Carl could remember. At five years of age the 
 boy began his daily visits to the library, to be in 
 structed by the candidate, who meant to achieve a 
 perfect success in his education. 
 
 From the very first the boy had been kept much 
 
HOME AND MOTHER. 23 
 
 away from his mother. She wanted him to be happy, 
 but she could not control herself sufficiently to so hide 
 the traces of her sorrows and cares as to be a proper 
 companion for a sensitive child. This Carl had early 
 shown himself to be, though his sensitiveness was 
 linked with a kind of pride of character that made 
 him try to suppress all outward exhibition of the 
 tenderness of his feelings. 
 
 Carl adored his mother. She was to him like a 
 princess whose humble servitor he was proud to be. 
 She encouraged that feeling. It was a kind of play 
 between them, which made it more easy for her to 
 carry out her cherished plans. She could not tell him 
 of his father s wrong-doings, and of her disappoint 
 ment in the man she had so devotedly loved, and to 
 whom her heart still clung in fond affection. She 
 would be to her boy like an honoured queen, and he 
 should never dare to ask her questions that it would 
 be troublesome to answer truthfully. Every day he 
 made his courtier s entrance to her room, sat with 
 her perhaps fifteen delightful minutes, and then was 
 formally dismissed with " You may go now, my dear 
 boy." Then she laid her hand lightly on his head 
 and said solemnly, " God bless yon, my son ! " and he 
 rose up as if he had been knighted. 
 
24 HOME AND MOTHER. 
 
 That was a real prayer that came from the depths 
 of the helpless, sorrowing mother s heart. One real 
 prayer daily uttered may be the small, ever-strength 
 ening link between a yearning, clouded soul and 
 Heaven. 
 
A 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 AN ENCOUNTER. 
 
 RVID was one of those Swedes like their own 
 rocks they love so well firm, massive, still. 
 Carl wondered what it was about Arvid that made 
 him feel so safe when he was at the honest fellow s 
 side. Arvid was strong to lean upon, because he 
 himself leaned upon the right strength. 
 
 When Sunday morning came, Arvid always went 
 to church. A mile there and a mile back he counted 
 a short easy walk in all weather, summer or winter. 
 How he longed to take Carl with him, but that had 
 been expressly forbidden. 
 
 On Sunday, Carl was left more to himself than was 
 usual. On week-days, Arvid never seemed to have 
 the boy out of his mind. He always knew where 
 Carl was, and what he was likely to be about. He 
 let the boy be free, but not so free as to come into 
 danger or temptation. Carl never thought that he 
 
26 AN ENCOUNTER. 
 
 was watched. He only felt that in a friendly way 
 Arvid was always near him. Such nets, such bows, 
 such fishing-tackle, such sleds and snow-shoes Arvid 
 could make ! Carl thought Arvid a wonder of skill 
 and kindness, and a bulwark for reliance. 
 
 " Good-bye, Carl ! Look out for yourself ! " were 
 Arvid s last words to the boy as he strode away to 
 church a few days after Carl had expressed his limited 
 hopes for his future, even to be a baron in blossom as 
 he was now a baron in bud. 
 
 There was always on Sunday a service in the great 
 dining-room for the household at Hogniis, at which 
 tin- candidate presided. The massive table, covered 
 with a dark cloth, was placed between the windows 
 on the long side of the room, and served as a tem 
 porary reading-desk on such occasions. Opposite the 
 caiulidate sat Carl on a big sofa, looking very small 
 and lonely. The baroness, of course, was in her usual 
 ivtiivnu iit. Her maid, "Big Brigitta," in her full 
 Dalecarlian dress, and even more imposing than usual, 
 was sure to appear at two minutes before eleven, as 
 regularly as if a chime of bells had called her to a 
 pompous service in a grand cathedral. There, too, 
 was Pierre the cook, who had served in the same. 
 capacity in the French army, and had come long years 
 
AN ENCOUNTER. 27 
 
 ago to the castle, where he had married the house 
 maid and become a permanent member of the estab 
 lishment. By his side was a small figure in her usual 
 Sunday garb black dress and head handkerchief. 
 This was Pierre s wife, " Little Gitta." She, too, 
 had a right to be called Brigitta, but had yielded 
 it to her superior in size, as well as in everything 
 else, if it had come to fair measurement. The old 
 gardener and his " boy " closed up the list of the con 
 gregation, and of Carl s friends and acquaintances. 
 
 The Collects for the day (there were two) and the 
 Epistle and Gospel were read. Then came a short 
 homily, which only the candidate could understand, 
 a hymn not sung but recited as a prayer, a solemn 
 Amen, and the candidate s official performance was 
 over. The rest of the day he spent much as usual, 
 with perhaps a little more of nature and a little less 
 of books and Carl, though, as a necessary part of the 
 boy s thorough education, there was a catechism drill 
 before the twilight came on. 
 
 Carl liked a whole morning in the woods. It was 
 a pleasant change from his inevitable routine. He 
 put his little black book in his pocket, took his 
 trowel in his hand, and set off as soon as the service 
 was over. He made his way to a grove on a high 
 
28 AN ENCOUNTER. 
 
 point near the bay. He was in the midst of taking 
 up an unusually bright coloured group of pansies 
 when he heard the plashing of oars in the water 
 below. This was a rare occurrence. Carl s attention 
 was immediately fixed on the four happy girls who 
 were rowing with all their might towards the shore 
 below him. They landed gaily, and began to make 
 themselves at home among the trees and on the great 
 stones by the water. They were not children, as he 
 had thought at first glance, but were grown girls, 
 humble people in humble dress, looking so fresh and 
 glad it was a pleasure to watch them. Carl saw 
 them take their basket and enjoy their simple meal 
 in the midst of what seemed to be very pleasant 
 chat. When that was over, a change came upon them. 
 Little books were taken out, there was a looking 
 over each other, a short consultation, and then they 
 seated themselves in a demure group and sat quite 
 still for a moment, each with her hands closely clasped. 
 Then came such a glad burst of song as brought Carl 
 to his feet with delight. He could not quite hear 
 the words, but he was almost sure it was a hymn. 
 He drew nearer and nearer, till he could catch the 
 beautiful expressions of love and trust trust in the 
 merciful Saviour of men. Carl was moved as he had 
 
AN ENCOUNTER. 29 
 
 never been moved before. He had 110 time to think 
 of his own feelings, however ; for one of the girls, 
 looking upward, thanked God in her own simple lan 
 guage for the beautiful world, and for youth and health 
 and friends and every want provided for. Then she 
 thanked her heavenly Father for a knowledge of the 
 better life, and prayed to walk in purity, truth, and 
 love, by the help of, and for the sake of, the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 All this was like a new revelation to Carl. He 
 had never imagined that any one could so speak 
 speak to God as to a dear friend, and with apparently 
 real affection as well as deep reverence. 
 
 Carl was lost in thought about what he had seen 
 and heard, when he suddenly saw three large boys 
 come stealing along the shore. They had their week 
 day leather aprons on, and in them they were storing 
 stones which they picked up as they stepped warily 
 on. Their purpose was soon made plain, as a shower 
 of these stones fell around and upon the girls, who 
 were now quietly reading together in the shade of 
 the low birches. They started up in affright, while 
 another shower fell just beyond them. Perhaps the 
 boys had intended to frighten rather than harm them. 
 The rough young tormentors now came up to the 
 
30 AN ENCOUNTER. 
 
 girls, and began to dance about them, rudely screaming, 
 and calling them names of contempt that had been 
 recently invented for the specially religious. 
 
 This was more than Carl could quietly bear. He 
 was now near the boys, who, intent upon annoying 
 and frightening the girls, did not notice his quick 
 approach. His trowel was in his hand. He was a 
 good marksman, and he did not miss his aim. He 
 hit the tallest of the boys in the head, and the blood 
 at once flowed freely. 
 
 In a rage they all turned upon Carl. " It is the 
 baron ! It is Carl ! " said the familiar voice of the 
 gardener s assistant. 
 
 "Baron or no baron, I ll make him learn manners," 
 screamed the wounded lad. " My parents are full as 
 honest as his," and he hit Carl first on one side of the 
 head and then on the other. 
 
 This was a different business from playing boxing 
 with Arvid, as Carl soon found by the strange singing 
 in his ears and the pain in his head, while he was 
 sprinkled with the blood from his own nose, as well 
 as from the wound of his infuriated adversary. 
 
 The girls now cried, " Shame to beat a little fellow 
 like that ! " and gathered round Carl as a wall of 
 defence. 
 
AN ENCOUNTER. 31 
 
 The boy from the castle had stolen away affrighted, 
 and the two others, muttering, yet abashed, were glad 
 to follow him. 
 
 " You might have killed that bad fellow," said the 
 oldest of the girls, handing the trowel to Carl. " Had 
 we not better help you home ? You live at the castle, 
 I suppose ? " 
 
 " I am the baron, " Carl was going to say, but he 
 really answered shortly, " Yes, I live at the castle. I 
 can get home by myself, thank you. I am not much 
 hurt." 
 
 " We understand," said the oldest girl, still taking 
 the lead, " that you wanted to help us, and it was 
 kind in you ; but the servants of the Lord do not 
 fight. The boys would not have hurt us. "We ought 
 not to have been afraid, but they came so suddenly 
 upon us." 
 
 " But you were doing no harm," Carl persisted 
 indignantly. "I wish Arvid had been here to give 
 those fellows a good thrashing. I ll see that Fritz 
 hears of this thing, the scamp ! " Carl was half-cry 
 ing with pain, and made rather a sorry figure as 
 he went off, walking very straight, and holding his 
 handkerchief to his face, and bearing the pain as best 
 he could. 
 
32 AN ENCOUNTER. 
 
 The girls each dropped a courtesy for the little 
 baron as he turned away from them, and in the heart 
 of one of them at least was a prayer for one who 
 seemed to her little better than a heathen. 
 
 When Carl arrived at the castle, he went straight 
 to the tutor s room. His face was still burning, and 
 his open mouth had the ugly pout it always wore 
 when he had been in one of his fits of violent temper. 
 Mild and tractable as Carl generally was, he was 
 subject, under extraordinary provocation, to a wild 
 rage that it was fearful to see. 
 
 The candidate looked up from the big volume over 
 which he was bending, and fixed his eyes on the boy. 
 " You have been angry again, Carl ," said the tutor 
 sternly. " What is all this about ? " 
 
 Carl was eager to tell some one the indignity he 
 had suffered, and his teacher got the whole story at 
 once. 
 
 " You have acted more like a wild old northern 
 knight than like a modern gentleman," said the 
 candidate slowly. " If you had walked quietly up 
 to those young rascals, child as you are, they would 
 have shown you proper respect. Fritz would have 
 known you at once. They would all have sneaked 
 off quietly, and that would have been the end of the 
 
AN ENCOUNTER. &3 
 
 matter. I do not believe they really meant to hurt 
 the girls ; but it was a coarse kind of persecution, a 
 shame in a Christian country. It may be, though, 
 that Fritz thought they were trespassers who had no 
 right on the premises, and got his rough companions 
 to help him to drive them away. If he knows no 
 better how to manage than that, it is plain he will 
 not do at Hognas. As for you, Carl, if you under 
 take to fight with the people, you must take the 
 people s blows. You meant well ; but you were 
 angry, and threw a weapon that might have killed 
 that boy. How would you have liked that ? Twelve 
 years old, and a murderer ! Your temper makes you 
 like a wild beast. You lose your reason, and you are 
 as fierce and ungovernable as a tiger. Go to your 
 room, and sit there till your catechism lesson. See that 
 you have the commandments in right order for once I " 
 
 When Arvid came home, he listened attentively to 
 Carl s account of his morning adventures. The big 
 veins swelled in Arvid s forehead, and his mouth was 
 shut more firmly than usual. He said not a word, 
 but went at once to the candidate. 
 
 Big Brigitta was soon summoned to the library, to 
 go from thence to her mistress. The upshot of all 
 was that Fritz was promptly dismissed. " He is a 
 
 (430) 3 
 
34 AN ENCOUNTER. 
 
 poor boy, Carl," Arvid said soberly. " His mother 
 will miss the little help he got here ; but after what 
 has happened he cannot stay. They will be sorry 
 to have him come home once more with his good 
 appetite." 
 
 Carl had a sacred box in which he kept his black 
 book and the little money he owned. He had a trifle 
 handed to him by his tutor every month, which he 
 expended through Arvid. He little knew how that 
 money was earned. Perhaps the editor of a certain 
 German magazine could have enlightened him. To 
 that magazine admirable articles on insect life came 
 now and then from a Swedish contributor, with 
 whom the spider seemed a special favourite. " Such 
 money is my own ; I can do with it as I choose," the 
 tutor had said to himself, and he only knew the 
 secret. He was the better pleased, therefore, when he 
 heard from Arvid that all of Carl s store had been 
 cheerfully sent to Fritz, with the expressed hope that 
 he would soon get a good situation. 
 
 The matter of the monthly allowance the tutor 
 considered his own affair. He did not want Carl to 
 grow up without any knowledge of the use and value 
 of money. The candidate kept the account of the 
 household expenses at Hognas, but there was no entry 
 
AN ENCOUNTER. 35 
 
 of those trifling sums for Carl. All that concerned 
 the boy s moral character was duly reported through 
 Brigitta to the baroness in her retirement, who really 
 watched over her son more carefully than many 
 mothers do over the children with whom they are in 
 daily familiar intercourse. Carl s school reports were 
 sent weekly to his mother ; and as for Brigitta, she 
 had wonderful eyes and ears, and was always gather 
 ing up words and actions of the little baron, to fill 
 her daily budget for her mistress. With this scanty 
 nourishment the lonely woman fed her hungry mother s 
 love, and strove to be happy in continuing the course 
 she had convinced herself was wisest for the peace 
 and best development of her only child. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 LOOKING BACKWARD. 
 
 THE room which the baroness occupied was next 
 to the equally large room where " Big Brigitta " 
 had her quarters. These two rooms and the empty 
 ones beyond gave Brigitta an outlook on three sides 
 of the house, and she made good use of it. She al 
 ways sat at a window when she sat down anywhere. 
 The walls of the castle were four feet thick, and in 
 the deep window-seats or near them Brigitta had her 
 materials and implements for her various kinds of 
 work. Being quite independent of outside observers, 
 she did what she had to do almost in open day. At 
 one window she had her loom, with all its accessories 
 patterns, yarns, cottons, and tools. At another was 
 the sewing-machine, which proved the most desirable 
 of all the gifts the baroness had received before her 
 wedding from her married sister in England. Beside 
 a third stood a table and a lap-board, with all possible 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 37 
 
 equipments for sewing and pressing. There Brigitta 
 cut out and made the clothes for Carl which he wore 
 so unconscious of the trouble they had cost. By the 
 fourth was Brigitta s spinning-wheel, with a heap of 
 wool filling the window-seat. 
 
 When Brigitta wanted anything for her various 
 branches of manufacture, it was not to the country 
 shop she went, nor often to the city. The garret 
 was her inexhaustible mine. There for two cen 
 turies had been accumulated the refuse garments of 
 a luxurious household. The moths that had been 
 defied by pepper and wormwood were now thor 
 oughly routed by Brigitta. "Red cloaks, gay uni 
 forms, and rich garments for children, dead in their 
 old age long ago, were mixed indiscriminately together; 
 and the best parts of them were as indiscriminately 
 mixed again as they were woven into the gray or the 
 striped cloths that were the favourite products of 
 Brigitta s loom. There was no longer any rest for the 
 contents of the long rows of carved chests that were 
 ranged along the sides of the great garret, like the 
 stone sarcophagi in the church near by, themselves 
 but the refuge of the cast-off garments of the bygone 
 Blankasvards. In those attic chests Brigitta s long 
 arms had fumbled and sorted until she had their 
 
38 LOOKING BACKWARD. 
 
 treasures as clearly catalogued in her memory as 
 another kind of antiquary might have those of his 
 private museum. These chests were to her as her 
 flock of sheep, yielding their wool freely, but re 
 quiring no hillside to graze upon, and no shepherd 
 to watch them by day or by night. 
 
 In a certain shop in Stockholm, Brigitta could sell 
 with much profit full suits of a Dalecarlian girl s 
 peasant costume that had never seen Dalecarlia, but 
 were perfect to the smallest ornamentation. Many 
 a travelling stranger proudly bore away a suit of 
 Brigitta s making ; and such costumes figured at gay 
 fancy parties, or were worn by Stockholm misses who, 
 ruralizing for the summer, were pleased to roam the 
 woods in peasant guise. Round sums, meanwhile, 
 flowed into Brigitta s capacious pockets, and were 
 daily handed over to the candidate for household 
 expenses. 
 
 All this had gone on for a year or two before it came 
 to the knowledge of the baroness. She had ordered 
 that the castle should be stripped, and everything sold 
 that could find a purchaser, and that the household 
 should be reduced to its present number, and that all 
 possible economy should be used. As for herself, ab 
 sorbed in her own sorrow, she had been content to lie 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 39 
 
 listless on her couch, exhausted in mind and body, hap 
 less and hopeless, save when she thought of her boy, 
 and had the short joy of his daily visit. She had 
 made a great struggle to meet her misfortunes at first, 
 and had sunk proportionately afterwards. Her own 
 room had been swept of its old belongings, save the 
 portraits of herself and her husband in their wedding 
 attire. With these she would not part. She liked to 
 think of her husband as he then was to her, and as 
 he became more and more, in her loving memory, 
 which forgave though it could not forget. 
 
 Arvid and Brigitta had managed to refurnish the 
 baroness s own room by placing articles of furniture 
 there which they declared were too much out of re 
 pair or too queer or old-fashioned to be sold. By 
 degrees Brigitta smuggled in bits of gay colouring to 
 brighten the surroundings of the languid invalid. A 
 long striped scarf from the attic, in the Swedish blue 
 and yellow, she ventured first to drape over the wed 
 ding portraits, and had a sweet smile from her mistress 
 for her encouragement and her reward. Then came 
 a basket-work wall-pocket of her own making, filled 
 with fresh daisies in the beginning, and never after 
 wards left empty while Carl could find wild-flowers 
 for it, or a bunch of gay leaves in the woods, or of 
 
40 LOOKING BACKWARD. 
 
 beautiful young cones on the evergreens that here and 
 there studded the park. 
 
 All the rich sets of china and glass had been sold, 
 of course, but there were left on the shelves choice 
 bits of porcelain that Arvid and Brigitta had put by 
 as of no value, and not without a thought that they 
 would serve for the lonely meals of their mistress. 
 Some simple tray came to her covered with a shining 
 white napkin, and bright with rich-coloured china 
 from long ago. 
 
 " I may keep this little teapot and this little coffee 
 pot, I suppose, for my mistress s use," Brigitta had 
 said to one of the creditors. " I should not know how 
 to serve her, otherwise." 
 
 The stern creditor had had a chance peep through 
 a half-open door at the slender figure in the mourning 
 dress lying on a couch like a stricken lily. " I take 
 it on my list," he hastily replied ; " I take it, and 
 leave it here ; " and Brigitta was satisfied. 
 
 " Nobody wanted to carry these little things away," 
 she had said to her mistress, who hardly heard her ex 
 cuse, and did not seem to realize how daintily she was 
 cared for. Even the fresh flower that always came 
 in with her coffee in the morning was just looked at 
 and drearily laid down, while the thoughts wandered 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 41 
 
 far back into the past. What with small game from 
 the place, fresh fish in their season, and a taste of 
 elk-steak to tell that the autumn had come, and 
 Pierre s ever-ingenious providing and consummate 
 cookery, the baroness had always something to tempt 
 her fastidious appetite, and nothing in the serving to 
 shock her more fastidious taste. 
 
 In the memory of the baroness, and to her present 
 fancy, the castle stood as it had been, and she almost 
 forgot her own strict orders when there was no trying 
 change before her own eyes. At the sound of her 
 twice-struck bell, Brigitta had always been ready to 
 come in her pretty costume, her fine fresh face beam 
 ing with her willingness to be of service to her dear 
 mistress. 
 
 Brigitta, with her magnificent proportions, always 
 bore herself as if she were in her mountain home, so 
 that her presence seemed to have with it the breeziness 
 and life-giving power of her own native air. Brigitta 
 could lift her mistress in her arms without apparent 
 exertion, and lift her she often did during that first 
 year of nervous exhaustion. The baroness then never 
 voluntarily left her couch. One day, somewhat later, 
 when Arvid had been making for Carl a wonderful 
 snow-man, and the boy was dancing about it delighted, 
 
42 LOOKING BACKWARD. 
 
 Brigitta took her mistress suddenly in her arms and 
 carried her to the window to see the fun going on below. 
 The baroness found it charming to watch her free, 
 happy boy. How she loved him ! The very sight of 
 him at his play filled her with new resolution to per 
 severe in the course that kept him free from the sorrow 
 ful shadow that might have early quenched his joy. 
 Now she could hope that at some far future day he 
 might have his home free from a creditor s claim. 
 Often afterwards she stole, when alone, to the window 
 to look down on her boy, and he learned to look up 
 to her for a nod or a smile. 
 
 One day, when she knew that Carl was shooting 
 with bow and arrow at a mark on the other side of 
 the house, she felt suddenly a desire to know how he 
 was succeeding. She could see him from the room 
 beyond Brigitta s, perhaps, and surprise him by look 
 ing down upon him unexpectedly. Brigitta, she knew, 
 was not at home. With a quick step the baroness 
 passed behind the screen that usually shut off the view 
 into Brigitta s quarters on the rare occasions when the 
 door must be opened ; for Brigitta usually came to her 
 mistress from the corridor. 
 
 The great room that had been adorned for special 
 guests in former times had unreasoningly lived in the 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 43 
 
 mind of the baroness with all its lost charms. She 
 now came suddenly into a bare apartment, without 
 even the ordinary coziness of a thrifty labourer s 
 home. It was but a great workshop, with a poor 
 plain bed in one corner, a little cracked looking-glass 
 with a small psalm-book on the shelf under it, a table 
 of home manufacture, that was all. Hanging on the 
 wall was a big apron with long sleeves and a kind of 
 overall cap. This, it was plain, was Brigitta s working 
 dress. The baroness understood in a moment that 
 this was a device of Brigitta s for being always ready 
 to come a model of tidiness in her pretty costume at 
 the sound of the twice-struck bell of her mistress. 
 
 Here the faithful creature had lived and worked, 
 while that mistress had sorrowed and lounged, and 
 lounged and sorrowed, as the months went by. The 
 tears rushed to the eyes of the baroness, not now tears 
 of bitterness or self-pity, but of tenderness and shame. 
 A finished Dalecarlian suit lay on the cutting-board, 
 with a mammoth sheet of wrapping-paper beside it. 
 Such parcels she had seen Brigitta carrying with her 
 to town when she went there, as she said, on business 
 necessary for the castle. The baroness understood it 
 all. She felt herself a useless toy, a selfish idler, com 
 pared with the faithful, industrious servant. She went 
 
44 LOOKING BACKWARD. 
 
 back silently to her own room, and said nothing to 
 Brigitta of what she had seen. On her next trip to 
 the city, Brigitta was commissioned by her mistress to 
 buy her some fine linen and some embroidery cotton 
 like that produced from among the old stores of the 
 long-unopened work-box. Brigitta asked no questions, 
 but she rejoiced when the commission was explained, 
 as her mistress took out her embroidery-hoop, and 
 found a new pleasure in using her old skill as the 
 beautiful work grew in her hand. 
 
 " Perhaps some bride will buy this, Brigitta, at the 
 place where you take your Dalecarlian costumes," said 
 the baroness, when her roll of embroidery was com 
 pleted. 
 
 " My mistress ! " said Brigitta. Her face flushed 
 and the tears filled her eyes. Not a word more was 
 said between them on the subject. 
 
 Tasteful embroidery for underclothing was now a 
 regular part of Brigitta s budget for the city, and the 
 work of the solitary woman adorned the trousseau of 
 many a happy bride. 
 
 Next, the paint-box of the baroness was brought 
 out. The wild flowers that Carl had picked to lay 
 beside her plate, and the rose that came from the 
 gardener s sunny window for the same purpose, were 
 
LOOKING BACKWARD. 45 
 
 now treasured and copied, until they lay on the white 
 paper as they had lain on the white napkin, fresh 
 plucked in their beauty. Of course, Brigitta was 
 traced, and her home and her secret discovered. The 
 baroness s story was told in a whisper to many a 
 foreign customer, who went away with a bit of her 
 work, which seemed to the purchaser adorned with 
 something even more than a coronet. 
 
 The baroness rallied more and more under the in 
 fluence of pleasant, useful work. She and Brigitta 
 came nearer together as they talked over their plans 
 and showed each other the results of their under 
 takings. The baroness tried the sewing-machine, and 
 was as pleased as a child to find how skilfully she 
 could use it. So it came round that the once quiet 
 part of the house became the scene of almost cheerful 
 activity ; and Carl felt, he knew not why, that his 
 visits to his mother were more and more charming. 
 
 This change went on slowly, year by year. The 
 atmosphere was brighter, but there was still a forced 
 distance between mother and son. That could only 
 end when, with a strong manly heart, he could bear 
 her trouble with her. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 ARVID S SECRET. 
 
 ARVID seemed to have given up going to church. 
 He had been at home for four Sundays. He 
 attended the castle service in the morning, and then 
 went out with Carl to the woods. Not that there 
 was much conversation between them. Arvid was 
 quiet ; and Carl had his trowel and his thick little 
 black book, and so he did not lack pleasant occupa 
 tion. He understood very well that Arvid thought 
 he was not to be trusted to be alone, but he would 
 not allude to the matter. 
 
 Sunday had come again. Arvid said he did not 
 feel inclined to go to the woods ; he wanted to talk 
 quietly with Carl. Carl had made his visit to his 
 mother early in the morning. The service was over. 
 Arvid motioned to Carl to take a place on the bench 
 under one of the pair of magnificent lindens that 
 stood like tall silent watchmen at the entrance of the 
 
ARVID S SECRET. 47 
 
 broad straight walk that led directly up to the front 
 of the castle. When Carl was seated he looked up 
 at Arvid, who was standing like a rough statue before 
 him. At last Arvid opened his mouth wide. Carl 
 was all attention ; but the mouth shut again, and then 
 there was a long silence. 
 
 At length Arvid fairly bolted out what he wanted 
 to say " I am going to be married, Carl ! " 
 
 It was a short sentence, but it had a powerful 
 effect. Carl sprang to his feet. " Going to be 
 married I " he exclaimed. " I never thought that you 
 could be married ! " 
 
 "Neither did I," said Arvid. "It did not look 
 possible anyway. That was nothing to me, for I 
 never saw anybody I wanted to marry." 
 
 " What will become of me when you are gone ? " 
 said Carl dolorously. " No new man could be like 
 you. I have known you, and you have been good 
 to me, ever since I can remember." Those trouble 
 some tears were actually in the boy s eyes. 
 
 " I am going to bring her here," Arvid hastened 
 to say. " I couldn t go away, of course." 
 
 Arvid would as soon have thought it possible for 
 the castle to leave its foundations as for him to for 
 sake his trust. 
 
48 ARVID S SECRET. 
 
 " Bring her here ! " said Carl wonderingl^ , " Where 
 will she live ? " 
 
 Arvid pointed with his finger to what was usually 
 called " the left wing," as if the castle were an array. 
 He was glad that a gesture would do now instead of 
 talking. 
 
 In front of the castle was an immense circle of 
 green grass, kept cut and in order almost in English 
 style. Around the circle swept a broad gravelled 
 road, on which the marks of the rake were always to 
 be seen. No foot travelled that honoured road, for 
 the occupants of the castle alw r ays used the trodden 
 paths close to the walls when they came in at the 
 main entrance. 
 
 At right angles with the great old homestead, and 
 on each side of the green circle, were two long white 
 one-story buildings, called " the wings." The wings 
 were as separate from the main body as are those 
 of a turkey laid on the side of the platter by a 
 skilful carver. Yet wings they were called and 
 considered, nevertheless. Here the castle retainers of 
 old had had their quarters. There were no doors 
 opening from the wings upon the rake-marked road. 
 Their entrance was on the less sacred and less care 
 fully kept road that wound round to the back of the 
 
ARVID S SECRET. 49 
 
 castle. In the " right wing " the old bachelor-gardener 
 had his home. Behind the sunny front windows he 
 had his self-constructed conservatory, where there 
 were always beautiful flowers in blossom, waiting to 
 take a trip to town. The gardener had his products, 
 too, of various kinds, for which he must find a 
 market, and so add to the purse of the household. 
 
 The left wing had long been empty, for Arvid had 
 had his room next to Carl s. The little building was 
 half-covered with climbing roses, which peeped in at 
 the small windows as cheerfully as if they were not 
 overlooking one of the candidate s hunting grounds 
 when he was out on a prowl after spiders. 
 
 " It is all bare in the left wing," said Carl hope 
 lessly. It had flashed into his mind that he would 
 like to fix up a pretty home there for Arvid and his 
 wife. He felt very young and very helpless about 
 the matter, and so he repeated, " It s all empty, 
 Arvid." 
 
 " It isn t going to be empty," said Arvid cheerfully. 
 " You must get your nest ready, if you are going to 
 have a bird in it," said Arvid, getting poetic, if not 
 quite clear in his figure. " You ve seen her," he con 
 tinued, looking at Carl with a twinkle in his eye as 
 he spoke. " I have, in a way, to thank you for her. 
 
 (430) 4 
 
50 ARVID S SECRET. 
 
 I know you ll like her. I can t say I haven t thought 
 about you in doing this thing, and a bit for myself, 
 of course. She was the one, that Sunday, you know." 
 
 " Not the oldest one, that that that " 
 
 " Yes, the oldest one that prayed. That was Emma, 
 and she is going to be my wife." 
 
 " I like her ! I am so glad ! " said Carl. " I wish 
 we could have it all pretty for her. How did you 
 get to know her, Arvid ? " 
 
 " Of course I rowed over the bay to tell those girls 
 Hogniis property was no public park for them to be 
 coming to whenever they were pleased to be singing 
 and praying under the trees, when the church was 
 open for all honest Christians on a Sunday. I spoke 
 as sharp as I could, and I meant it. She just looked 
 at me very pleasantly, Emma did, for I found her 
 first, and then she said it shouldn t happen again. 
 Somehow I got to talking to her, and I had, yes, I 
 had a real nice visit, the nicest I had ever had in my 
 life. I went a good many times when I was free 
 on Sundays, when you were at your catechism, and 
 evenings sometimes, too, besides. It seemed to me it 
 would be a good thing for us to have her here. She 
 made me think of my mother, and many good things 
 besides. She has a way with her of talking so that 
 
ARVID S SECRET. 51 
 
 what I knew before seems real and near at hand. 
 But never mind about that now. I thought it would 
 be good for you to have her, and perhaps for the 
 baroness too. She is a lacemaker from Wadstena. 
 You can t think what dainty pretty things she can 
 make. I just like to watch her fingers moving. 
 She s like you about leaves and flowers ; she s half- 
 wild about them. She s always thinking, too, Could 
 I make like that in lace ? Not in a business way, 
 either. I can t say just how it is. She says she 
 likes to make leaves and flowers best, for then God 
 sets her the pattern. So she talks on a week-day 
 just as if it was Sunday; and yet she looks so pleasant 
 all the time, as if she liked to think about such 
 things. It just fits .in, too ; for she can be with you 
 while I am at church, and then row over to her 
 meeting across the bay in the afternoon." 
 
 " How nice ! " said Carl heartily. " But what shall 
 we do about the left wing, Arvid ? " Carl said, as if 
 he were going to be married too. 
 
 " That s just it. I couldn t have thought of marry 
 ing if it wasn t all made so easy," said Arvid. " She 
 seems to think Providence had laid it all out for us. 
 I don t know how she can be so certain, but I am 
 glad it is all clear as it is. She s an orphan, Emma 
 
52 ARVID S SECRET. 
 
 is. She earned her bread at Wadstena, lace-making. 
 She had an aunt, the other side of the bay, who had 
 a long holding-on sickness. The poor woman knew 
 what was before her, and had nobody in particular to 
 take care of her, for it wasn t to be pleasant nursing, 
 so she sent for Emma. She had never thought of 
 her own niece when she was well. Of course Emma 
 went. I believe she would nurse her worst enemy 
 if she had a chance. Well, the old woman lived for 
 months, and she got to be of Emma s way of thinking, 
 and no end fond of Emma, and talked as cheerful of 
 going to heaven as I would of going in to speak to 
 the baroness. What does the old woman do, near the 
 last, but to have a writing made and leave all she 
 had to Emma. It wasn t little for folks like us 
 some money in the bank, and all her snug things. 
 Three rooms she had, all furnished and respectable. 
 Three rooms we are to have here, too ; but we shan t 
 heat them all in cold weather that would be like 
 throwing away money." 
 
 " Will mamma like it ? Does she know all about 
 your being married, and living in the left wing ? " 
 asked Carl anxiously. 
 
 " Of course she does. Do you think I would plan 
 things like that, and not ask the baroness about it ? " 
 
ARVID S SECRET. 53 
 
 said Arvid, looking very straight and dignified. " I 
 asked my mistress before I asked Emma." 
 
 Arvid did not say that the baroness had joyed in 
 his joy, and had said, " I am so glad, you good faith 
 ful Arvid ! A happy home is the best thing in life." 
 She had spoken with a flash of light, like that when 
 the sun is going under a cloud. And a cloud did 
 follow the flash, and some bright drops stood on her 
 black eyelashes. She dashed them away, and Arvid 
 left the room sure of the baroness s full consent to the 
 step he was taking. Now he was as sure that his 
 marriage met Carl s approval. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 THE OLD CHURCH. 
 
 IT was Pierre, the cook at Hognas, who had given 
 Carl his first and only whipping. Carl, when 
 about six years old, had made his way to the great 
 building where many of the labourers on the estate 
 were quartered with their families, with a certain 
 allowance of food and fuel. He spent a charming 
 afternoon with the hosts of wild little children, who 
 were delighted with their new playmate. The fact 
 of course came out. Carl denied the whole affair. 
 The matter came to the ears of the baroness. Dis 
 obedience and lying called for a severe punishment. 
 Such faults must be checked in the bud. The baroness 
 sent for Arvid. 
 
 " Carl must be whipped, thoroughly whipped, so 
 that he will be sure to remember it!" said the baroness 
 decidedly. 
 
 Arvid stood immovably before her, with his mouth 
 
THE OLD CHURCH. 55 
 
 firmly shut. She thought she saw in his face a deter 
 mination to refuse for once to carry out her orders. 
 She gave him no chance, but said promptly, " Let 
 Pierre give the poor boy a whipping ; and may it 
 keep him from such faults in future." 
 
 Arvid knew what this command had cost the 
 tender-hearted mother. He understood the tone 
 that was behind the apparent severity. 
 
 Pierre had no hesitation about whipping any 
 creature, man or dog, that had come under his dis 
 pleasure. He whipped Carl as coolly and as soundly 
 as he would have whipped Hollo, and for the same 
 reason, to make him learn to obey orders. 
 
 Carl never forgot that whipping. He was sensi 
 tive to pain, but more sensitive to mortification. That 
 he, the little baron, should be whipped by the cook, 
 publicly brought to disgrace, as it seemed to him, 
 was horrible. It was a kind of domestic hanging. 
 
 The tutor and Arvid had their own say afterwards, 
 to drive home the lesson of his shame and the danger 
 of sin. For Pierre, Carl had ever since had an aver 
 sion. To the kitchen he never cared to go. It was 
 well he did not, for Pierre, with his stories of camp 
 life, would not have been a particularly profitable com 
 panion. It was something new for Carl to be in his 
 
56 THE OLD CHURCH. 
 
 company, even for the short row with Arvid across the 
 bay to bring home Emma s belongings. Pierre was on 
 his good behaviour in the presence of Arvid, for whom 
 he had the respect that such characters, high or low, 
 are sure to command. 
 
 It was a joy for Carl, as Arvid had anticipated, to 
 have a share in the cheerful stir that was going on 
 for the preparation of the new home. 
 
 The sunlight had streamed in through the open 
 windows of the left wing for more than a week 
 before the work of refitting and adorning began. 
 That work went forward slowly, for Arvid was not 
 the man to be taking the time from his regular duties 
 for making his own home attractive even for Emma. 
 It was all in order at last. No spider with its eight 
 eyes could have recognized the former revelling place 
 of its race. Where they had run and hopped and 
 swung, and massacred the devoted flies, neither fly 
 nor spider was to be seen. All was freshness and 
 cleanliness and tasteful comfort. Everybody at the 
 castle had contributed to the remodelling and adorn 
 ment of the left wing. Emma s possessions supplied 
 the necessaries only for the little household. Brigitta 
 had woven a rainbow table-cover. Little Gitta had 
 scoured and re-scoured the floors until they were as 
 
THE OLD CHURCH. 57 
 
 white as her husband s best apron. Pierre had 
 papered the sitting-room with his own skilful French 
 hands, that were adapted to all kinds of under 
 takings. The gardener had contributed a bouquet 
 of living flowers in a moss basket of his own 
 making. The candidate s present was not a case of 
 his gay-coloured spiders, but a framed print of Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus, which was more to the taste of the 
 bride. The baroness sent an engraving from an old 
 picture of Christus Consolator, which Brigitta had 
 hung in the room of her mistress, saying none of the 
 creditors seemed to care to have it. As the last 
 touch to the premises, Carl had festooned a long 
 garland of golden chrysanthemums over the doorway 
 a garland plucked from the very place where he 
 had first seen Emma. It was to him welcome to the 
 bride, and at the same time a pleasant commemora 
 tion of a scene he could never forget. 
 
 Three times the banns had been published, and the 
 wedding-day had come. It was Sunday. The cere 
 mony was to be performed in church, after the usual 
 morning service. 
 
 Carl had never directly asked any permission of 
 his mother, but now the wish of his heart burst 
 out suddenly in, " May I go to the wedding, mamma ? 
 
58 THE OLD CHURCH. 
 
 I should so like it." The tears filled his eyes at the 
 unwonted effort. 
 
 The question was not unexpected, and the answer 
 was ready. " Yes, my child ; certainly you may go. 
 You have not a better friend in the world than 
 Arvid ! You must represent us both, for my thoughts 
 and good wishes will go with you. Obey the candi 
 date, and do not leave his side." 
 
 " Thanks, dear mamma ! I promise," said Carl ; and 
 beaming with delight, he left the room. 
 
 The baroness had insisted on being left alone at 
 the castle. She knew well that all the small house 
 hold would wish to be present on the important 
 occasion. The heart of the bridegroom was hardly 
 as joyous that morning as was the little baron s. 
 Arvid took life seriously, and he felt that it was a 
 very important step he was taking a step almost in 
 the dark, he considered it, though he believed that 
 for himself, and for others dear to him, it was a 
 fortunate move. 
 
 Carl had often seen the little church from the 
 attic windows of the castle, and from the heights 
 near the shore. Now he felt he was to draw near 
 to something he had long known and revered at 
 a distance. The little white bell-tower, with its 
 
THE OLD CHURCH. 59 
 
 black, pointed roof, stood off from the sacred build 
 ing, as if for some past sin it was but allowed to 
 summon others to the house of prayer, itself ever 
 without. 
 
 It was a little, low, white church, solid and simple 
 and old. The sexton stood in the vestibule. He 
 bowed particularly low to the candidate and Carl, 
 and led the way at once to the big family pew, near 
 the chancel. 
 
 What a beautiful place, what a holy place it 
 seemed to Carl! Gay -coloured hatchments were 
 hanging on the white walls. In the corners of the 
 church, on each side of the chancel, were long flag- 
 staffs, from which were drooping old banners, as if 
 they had come to lay their worthless honours at the 
 foot of the Cross. 
 
 There was a sculptured marble tablet on the wall 
 inside the chancel, and Carl s heart leaped high as he 
 saw the well-known arm with its broken sword thrust 
 far out above the long inscription below it. How 
 he longed to read those Latin words ! Perhaps that 
 tablet was in memory of his father. Or perhaps 
 that father was lying in one of those great sar 
 cophagi that were ranged by the walls ; it might be 
 in the very one on which a row of little village 
 
60 THE OLD CHURCH. 
 
 children were perched, knocking their feet gently 
 against its cold sides. 
 
 Carl was deep in these thoughts, when there was 
 a little stir among the congregation that had slowly 
 assembled behind him. 
 
 The old rector, white-haired and venerable look 
 ing, seemed to Carl most imposing in what was to 
 the boy a strange, rich, crimson velvet garment, 
 ornamented on the back with a long golden cross 
 in elaborate embroidery. Beside him was a young, 
 dark-skinned, dark-haired priest, in a simple black 
 gown. They stepped up the aisle together, and 
 together they knelt at the altar in silent prayer. It 
 was a beautiful picture, and Carl felt it. 
 
 Then came the opening of the service, beginning 
 solemnly, " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty ! " 
 a noble ascription of praise. 
 
 A moment afterwards the candidate pointed to a 
 place on Carl s open book. He read the rubric 
 " Here the clergyman and the congregation kneel and 
 pray." Carl knelt down and followed with his heart 
 the penitent words of the confession : 
 
 " I, poor sinful child of man, born in sin, and who 
 ever since, all the days of my life, have in many 
 ways trespassed against thee, from my heart confess 
 
THE OLD CHURCH. 61 
 
 before thee, holy, righteous God, most loving Father, 
 that I have not loved thee above all things, and my 
 neighbour as myself. Against thee and thy holy 
 commandments I have sinned in thought, word, and 
 deed, and know that I am therefore worthy of 
 eternal condemnation, if thou should st judge me as 
 thy justice demands and as my sins have deserved. 
 But now thou, dear heavenly Father, hast promised 
 to receive \vith gentleness and mercy all repentant 
 sinners who turn to thee, and with a living faith fly 
 to thy fatherly compassion and the merits of the 
 Saviour, Jesus Christ. Thou wilt overlook their 
 offences against thee, and lay their sins no longer to 
 their charge. On this, I, poor sinner, rely, and 
 pray trustfully that thou, after this same promise, 
 wilt be to me compassionate and gracious, and forgive 
 me all my sins, to thy praise and the glory of thy 
 holy name. 
 
 " The almighty, everlasting God, for his great 
 unfathomable mercy and the merits of the Saviour, 
 Jesus Christ, forgive us all our sins, and grant us 
 grace to better our lives, and obtain with him an 
 everlasting life. Amen." 
 
 Carl followed every word with deep feeling. 
 Something like this had long been stirring within 
 
62 THE OLD CHURCH. 
 
 him. It had now taken form, and had, he felt, been 
 solemnly expressed before the Most High in his holy 
 temple. Overcome with his own deep interest, Carl 
 was still on his knees when his tutor touched him. 
 He started up to find the congregation were all 
 standing. He did not of course know, even then, 
 that he only of all the assembly had knelt ; for 
 the old-fashioned rubric was no longer generally 
 obeyed. 
 
 How beautiful, how holy Carl thought the whole 
 service ! Sometimes the clergyman sang a prayer or 
 a short exhortation. The clear voice of the young 
 priest filled the w r hole building ; but Carl liked bet 
 ter the old man s tones. Then Carl forgot all for 
 the moment, music and even words, in the solemn 
 sense that some one was really speaking in song to 
 God. 
 
 The sermon Carl could never remember. He could 
 only recall a glad feeling of being in the heavenly 
 Father s house and worshipping among his children. 
 
 The service was over, and the congregation swept 
 out, the rustics elbowing each other down the aisle, 
 as if that were a place for a free fight for precedence. 
 Carl and the candidate sat still. How Carl wished 
 he had his mother beside him ! He would have 
 
THE OLD CHURCH. 63 
 
 liked to have laid his hand in hers, and to have 
 known that he had her sympathy there in the house 
 of God. 
 
 There was a sound of footsteps ; there were low 
 whispers in the vestibule. Then up the central aisle 
 came Arvid, with Emma beside him. Carl thought 
 Arvid looked very grand, just like somebody out of 
 an old northern saga ; and Emma was so beautiful 
 to him in her black dress, and her black hair too, 
 like his mother s. He liked her for that. There 
 was no colour about her but the little green myrtle 
 crown that held her bridal veil in its place, and 
 was to all present a special type and sign of the 
 occasion. 
 
 Carl was almost frightened to hear what they 
 promised to love each other always, and to be so 
 good to the very end. Yes ! anybody could promise 
 to love Arvid ; but Emma, she was almost a stranger 
 among them. Carl always thought what concerned 
 Arvid concerned him, and he almost felt as if he too 
 had promised to love and cherish the bride. 
 
 There was something special, something holy in 
 Emma s face as she turned away from the altar. 
 Perhaps the thought had passed through her mind 
 that a true bride is the image of the purified 
 
64 THE OLD CHURCH. 
 
 Church of Christ, which shall be presented to the 
 heavenly King " without spot, or wrinkle, or any 
 such thing." 
 
 Arvid and his wife passed out, followed by the 
 little train from the castle and the few friends from 
 the other side of the bay. 
 
 Carl lingered a little, and then said hesitatingly to 
 the candidate, " May I look round the church, and 
 go into the churchyard ? I should like to stand 
 by my father s grave. I suppose he is buried 
 here." 
 
 A dark shadow passed over the tutor s face. He 
 answered quickly, " Not now, Carl. We must go 
 home immediately." 
 
 Carl remembered his promise to his mother, and 
 obeyed instantly. He obeyed ; but he felt repulsed, 
 thrown back on himself, and he walked beside the 
 candidate in silence. 
 
 " Carl," said the tutor after a long pause, " there 
 have been people who have felt very religious in 
 church, but have left their religion behind them 
 when they got outside the church doors. God is 
 everywhere. He is in the midst of nature, as well as 
 inside the church. Keep God s laws. He has laws 
 for man as well as for birds, and for the very least 
 
THE OLD CHURCH. 65 
 
 of his creatures. Keep God s law, boy ; that too is 
 worship ! " 
 
 It was the first time that the tutor had given Carl 
 any direct, personal religious instruction, and it sank 
 deep into his heart. Carl made no answer; he was 
 not in the mood for talking. 
 
 (430) 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 AN INTRUDER. 
 
 THE walk homeward had been a very silent one 
 for the candidate and Carl. They were near- 
 ing the castle. The tutor suddenly gave a start of 
 surprise and alarm. From a thick copse not far from 
 the private road through the park a man suddenly 
 appeared. He was dressed like a gentleman, but there 
 was a disagreeable swagger about his tall figure, and 
 a general reckless expression about him, that could 
 not escape attention. A suspicious-looking person, 
 Carl thought him, inexperienced as he was. 
 
 The man gave the boy and the tutor a hasty glance 
 and hurried rapidly away. 
 
 Carl saw his tutor start at the sight of the stranger, 
 and then stand for a moment and follow with aston 
 ished eyes the retreating figure. 
 
 " He must have come out from the underground 
 
AN INTRUDER. 67 
 
 passage. It only opens from inside the castle. My 
 mother I " Carl quickened his steps. How strong he 
 felt to protect her, his dearest, and yet how helpless ! 
 What might not have happened while he had been 
 absent ? 
 
 " There is no reason for thinking he came out by 
 the secret passage," said the candidate, trying to rally. 
 But Carl could not help seeing that the cool, quiet 
 man was unusually moved, and gladly hurried towards 
 the castle. 
 
 They both, however, looked at the secret door, 
 apparently a mere rock, behind the bushes, and made 
 sure that it was firmly closed. 
 
 " You need not speak to anybody of what you 
 have seen, Carl," said the candidate, as they came 
 round the narrow path close to the castle by 
 which the main entrance was approached by the 
 family. 
 
 On the wide rake-marked road, which Pierre kept 
 so strictly in order, there were the impressions of a 
 man s footsteps all the way up to the wide portal. 
 A long slender foot had passed that way once, and 
 found some other mode of exit. Rollo was in the 
 great vestibule barking furiously. Pierre had not 
 been able to entice him away from the great stone in 
 
68 AN INTRUDER. 
 
 the wall which turned on its hinges and so admitted 
 one person at a time to the underground passage that 
 had its exit in the copse. 
 
 Carl and the tutor looked involuntarily at each 
 other. They both, of course, had the same thought. 
 
 Pierre and little Gitta, with frightened looks, were 
 standing by the dog, who, at the sight of the preceptor 
 and Carl, seemed to think he had given up his respons 
 ibility indoors, and hastened to follow with his nose 
 some invisible trace along the vestibule, and to kick 
 and howl and scratch indignantly when he found the 
 narrow footsteps on the road without. The faithful 
 creature had been found by Pierre barking furiously 
 in the kitchen, where he had been confined after 
 obstinately insisting upon following the bridal party. 
 He seemed to have thought that there was to be a 
 general abdication of the premises, and that he, as an 
 important part of the household, must be with the 
 emigrating party. 
 
 All this was told by Pierre and little Gitta in an 
 immeasurably short space of time. 
 
 Meanwhile Brigitta was coming down the staircase, 
 looking very calm and collected. 
 
 " My mother ! How is my mother ? " said Carl 
 eagerly. 
 
AN INTRUDER, 69 
 
 " Is the baroness well ? " asked the tutor, with more 
 than usual interest. 
 
 " The baroness is well," said Brigitta, unmoved. 
 " She looks more like herself than I have seen her for 
 many a long day. She really had a fresh colour in 
 her cheeks when I came home." 
 
 Brigitta thought Pierre and little Gitta, in general, 
 alarmists, and rarely put much faith in their stories of 
 what had happened or what might happen. 
 
 Carl gave his tutor a look of relief and went at 
 once to his own room. She, his dearest, was safe. 
 That was a comfort. But what could that straggler 
 have been doing at Hb gnas, and how did he know 
 about the underground passage ? 
 
 This strange incident so filled the mind of the boy 
 that the wedding seemed far back in the past. 
 
 Arvid did not come in as usual to wait upon Carl 
 that evening. It had been arranged by the baroness 
 that Carl was now to wait upon himself. He was to 
 have his room next to the library, his only access to 
 it being through the tutor s quarters. In this way 
 there would be a little oversight over his comings and 
 goings, and yet he would be thrown more on himself 
 than ever before. Carl knew he should miss Arvid, 
 but he rather liked this arrangement. It gave him 
 
70 AN INTRUDER. 
 
 the feeling of being more like a man, and of being 
 really alone when he chose in his room, without some 
 one looking in upon him at any moment. 
 
 He took out that afternoon his little black book 
 with a feeling that he should not probably be inter 
 rupted while he had it in his hand. 
 
 What a pleasant visit Carl had to his mother the 
 next morning ! She had never before had such a 
 sweet, tender, natural manner towards him. He al 
 most felt as if he must tell her about the service of 
 yesterday, and what it had been to him. The tears 
 were ready to moisten his eyes as he thought of that 
 confession. He saw he could not dare to try to speak 
 of what had moved him so deeply. He only kissed 
 his mother s hand twice before he went out, and his 
 great blue eyes beamed with the love for her that 
 was filling his young heart. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 EAVESDROPPING. 
 
 THE great half -circle behind the castle had never 
 been kept in the strict order that was main 
 tained in front. The grass was tufted, sparse, and 
 uneven, as it was self-sown and had its own way. 
 Here was once a wide gravelled sweep, where car 
 riages waited and retainers thronged. Many changes 
 had taken place since then ; but here still, on summer 
 evenings, Pierre would sometimes sit and smoke his 
 
 o 
 
 pipe, and below, on the stone staircase, Carl had his 
 favourite resort. It was now June, and the long days 
 and the soft air made it particularly pleasant to Carl 
 to linger at the head of the avenue of old lindens, 
 
 o 
 
 and think and look out into the wonderful beauty of 
 the waning daylight. 
 
 He had been but a few moments nestled in his 
 quiet nook, when he heard a low murmur near him. 
 Arvid and Ernma were taking their places on the 
 
72 EAVESDROPPING. 
 
 wooden bench beside the great lilacs. He soon forgot 
 them altogether. After a while he was attracted by 
 hearing Arvid say solemnly, " I did not mean to tell 
 you, Emma." Here he stopped, then went on again. 
 " I did not mean to tell you about Carl s father, and 
 the real truth about our way of living. I knew you 
 would fall in with things as they were, and do your 
 best to make all pleasant for everybody. Now it 
 is different, and you must know the truth. He has 
 come back from over the sea, Carl s father has. The 
 candidate saw him yesterday, as he sneaked away 
 from the castle. Carl saw him, too, but of course 
 he couldn t know who he was. He had seen the 
 baroness, no doubt. She has been like a different 
 person since. She loves him still, after all she has 
 gone through. Now what will come we don t know. 
 It is all new to you, of course. The baron led a wild 
 life when he was young, and was just at the last with 
 his debts when he married. The baroness s property 
 went soon to make all clear. Then he lived fast, and 
 borrowed and borrowed again. Of course the baroness 
 knew nothing of all this, for he was very sweet and 
 tender towards her, and cared for her, I do believe ; 
 and who could help it ? And she she almost wor 
 shipped him. He must have been sore pressed. God 
 
EAVESDROPPING. 73 
 
 knows what his temptation was. His old cousin had 
 charge of the property until he was twenty- five, and 
 he did not seem to know where to turn. What does 
 he do but forge his cousin s name for a big cheque, 
 and take it to the bank himself. It was found out 
 almost immediately. The old gentleman was raging. 
 The baron declared he knew nothing about the whole 
 thing, and the money was nowhere to be found. 
 When his affairs were looked into, in a hurry, it 
 was found that he had debts on debts, and it was 
 plain he was guilty. The old gentleman threatened 
 a public trial, but he promised to hush all up for the 
 honour of the family, if the baron would take him 
 self off to America at once. The cheque was paid ; 
 but of course the whole thing got whispered around, 
 with no end of things put to it that never happened. 
 
 . " You can think what this was to the baroness. 
 She put on mourning, and shut herself up ; and she 
 was a mourner, and she has been ever since. The 
 baroness has saved and worked, and so have we all, 
 to get all clear ; and now he has come home to make 
 more debts, perhaps, and shame us again maybe. Carl 
 doesn t know that his father is living. His mother 
 has never let him get near enough to her to ask her 
 questions that would be hard to answer. She did 
 
74 EAVESDROPPING. 
 
 not want him to know all I have been telling you, till 
 he was old enough to bear it like a man. He is like 
 his father, the same kind feelings and tender heart ; 
 but he has had another kind of a bringing up. The 
 baroness has meant that he should be handled strictly, 
 and made to walk straight, if possible. I am afraid 
 for him when I see the tears come in his eyes as they 
 do, and yet that he can get like a tiger when he is 
 angry. He doesn t seem to have himself in hand at 
 all. That was just the way with his father. We all 
 loved him, though ; we couldn t help it." 
 
 " You loved him, Arvid ! loved such a man ! " said 
 Emma in surprise. 
 
 " I loved him from the time I was a boy. We 
 lived at the quarters, packed close as herring in a 
 barrel. My mother was sickly, and my father drank, 
 and there was a lot of us. The baron was a boy 
 then, only a little older than I was. He came to the 
 quarters one day with his father. He saw our poor 
 crowded home. Why don t they have more than 
 one room ? he asked indignantly. There s plenty 
 of room at the castle. Some of the children could 
 live there with us ! and the tears stood in his eyes. 
 That s a fine chap/ said the old gentleman, pointing 
 at me. You may have him at the castle, to wait on 
 
EAVESDROPPING. 75 
 
 you, if you choose. He never could bear to deny 
 the young baron anything he wanted. 
 
 " So to the castle I went to live ; and how I loved 
 iny young master ! I helped him gladly in anything 
 he proposed. I helped him in many things that were 
 not for his good, as I saw afterwards. Now I love 
 Carl just the same, but I wouldn t help him to do 
 wrong. No ; I would rather have my right arm cut 
 off, and say, Freely Given ! as it stands in the letters 
 over the castle door. Tender feelings are dangerous. 
 A man may seem to feel right, and then go and do 
 wrong the next minute." 
 
 Emma had been quite silent while Arvid had gone 
 on talking. He had his own wife now to talk to, 
 and his sealed lips were loosed. 
 
 " It seems to me that feeling right is the beginning 
 of doing right," said Emma simply. 
 
 " Do right, and you ll feel right that s my notion," 
 said Arvid. 
 
 " It will be easier for me to obey you because I 
 love you, Arvid," urged Emma. 
 
 " That may do for a woman," answered Arvid 
 kindly ; " but a man s got to do his duty, however he 
 feels. That s my way of thinking," said Arvid. 
 
 " Perhaps we can help each other to be better, just 
 
76 EAVESDROPPING. 
 
 because we don t think quite the same about that," 
 said Emma. " But what can I do about the baron s 
 coming home ? I don t exactly see." 
 
 " You can keep your ears and eyes open, and your 
 mouth shut, except when you are talking to me. If 
 you see strange tracks on the front gravel, or a tall, 
 broken-looking, handsome man round here, one that 
 looks like a gentleman and yet doesn t, you watch him 
 and tell me. If I see him, I ll just let him understand 
 how mistress has been these years, and what the bar 
 oness has done, and how Carl is like what he was, 
 and that we want to help him from going down and 
 coming to a bad end. I ll beg him, if he is a father 
 at all, not to come now and spoil all. I believe if he 
 would hear me, he would go far away. I am sure he 
 will have a heart in him as long as he lives, if he 
 can t stand a long pull of doing his duty. There s 
 bad blood ! there s bad blood in the family ! The 
 baron s father Here Arvid s voice fell so low that 
 Carl could not hear what followed. 
 
 Emma was plainly much moved, and Arvid tried 
 to comfort her. " I thought it would be all pleasant 
 for you, and now I have made you down-hearted the 
 very day after you were married," he said. " I would 
 have helped it if I could. They say walls have ears. 
 
EAVESDROPPING. 77 
 
 I felt somehow as if I could tell you better out 
 here." 
 
 " God help us all to do our duty ! " said Emma 
 soberly. " I am most sorry, after all, for the little 
 baron." 
 
 u We don t call him the baron, any of us," said 
 Arvid ; " that seems to belong to his father. We just 
 think of him as Carl, the dear boy he has always 
 been. We ll have to begin some time, I suppose. It 
 was the baroness s own order we should say Carl, 
 and she will tell us when to change." 
 
 The two rose and went in, little thinking there had 
 been a listener below. 
 
 Emma might well be sorry for Carl. In that new 
 room, where he had expected to be and feel like a 
 man, he covered his face with his hands and cried 
 quietly like a suffering child. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 A SOLITARY HOUR. 
 
 A MERE fit of childish weeping was not to be the 
 end and only consequence of Carl s eaves 
 dropping. He had come upon a secret the remem 
 brance of which was never to leave him. From being 
 a happy, thoughtless boy, he had suddenly become 
 like a sorrowful man, with all the helplessness and 
 indecision of youth still clinging to him. 
 
 Carl had liked to think himself a gentleman, not 
 only by birth, but in all his feelings and habits. 
 " The ear, Carl, is not a sensitive part of the body 
 the visible, outer ear, I mean," the candidate had once 
 said to him. " The inner ear, though, is a most 
 sensitive and wonderful organ. The ear of the soul 
 is a far more precious and delicate thing. It is of 
 that one must be most careful. A gentleman will 
 never suffer himself to hear coarse or profane language. 
 He can take himself out of the company where such 
 
A SOLITARY HOUR. 79 
 
 talk is tolerated. As to listening willingly to what 
 is not intended for him to hear, coming into other s 
 secrets by eavesdropping, that is below anybody who 
 has the slightest claim to being a gentleman ! " 
 
 Carl could not forget that when Arvid had begun 
 talking to Emma he had paused a moment, as if he 
 had something serious to say. In that moment it 
 had rushed through Carl s mind to call out, " I am 
 here, Arvid." He had hesitated, been slow to act or 
 speak, as was his wont. The important second passed 
 by ; and when he heard his father named, he thought 
 of nothing, felt nothing but an eager desire to hear 
 more. The sorrow and shame that his mother had 
 sacrificed so much to keep from him in his youth 
 he had plunged into by hesitating to do promptly 
 the duty of the moment. "Do the duty of one 
 moment, Carl," the candidate had said to him, " and 
 you will have more strength to do the duty of the 
 next ! " 
 
 Carl felt himself humbled, abased, as well as deeply 
 afflicted. He could not make up his mind to say to 
 his mother that he knew her great sorrow to speak 
 in her presence of his father s misdoings. He could 
 not tell her that the very sight of that father, when 
 he judged of him as a stranger, had filled him with 
 
80 A SOLITARY HOUR. 
 
 repulsion. He could not say that it was a pain to 
 him to know that was the man whom his mother 
 still dearly loved, and whose stealthy return had 
 brought back the colour to her cheeks arid a bright 
 sparkle to her usually sad eyes. No ! he could not 
 tell his mother. Arvid should not know that, after 
 all his years of care-taking, it had been his voice that 
 had told the sad story to his young master s ears. 
 He would bear alone the sorrow he had brought upon 
 himself by one moment s hesitation about his plain 
 duty. 
 
 " One angry moment may make a man a murderer. 
 One moment of temptation yielded to may blast a 
 man s life." So the candidate had warned Carl, and 
 now the words rang in his ears. 
 
 A baron could be a bad baron ! a baron could be a 
 disgraced baron ! That was a truth that came home 
 to Carl and toppled over his stronghold of pride. 
 " There is bad blood in the family ! " he murmured 
 over and over to himself. What could have been the 
 terrible whisper that followed ? " How did the bad 
 blood show itself in him ? " he questioned. Was it 
 his terrible temper, that was for the time such a 
 madness that he had trouble afterwards even to 
 remember what he had said and done while it was 
 
A SOLITARY HOUR. 81 
 
 upon him ? Would the bad blood show itself in any 
 other way later on ? Need he say later on ? Was 
 there not much in him already that was plainly bad 
 blood ? Would he ever sin so that he must be driven 
 from country and home ? All these thoughts rushed 
 through Carl s mind when his gush of tears had passed 
 by. He had ceased to dwell on his father s mis 
 doings, and was lost in the searching of his own 
 heart. 
 
 It was late, nearly eleven o clock, but the lingering 
 twilight came in at the great windows, and he had 
 hardly been conscious of the passage of time, sitting 
 there in the stillness. With the dreary sense of all 
 that was evil in his own heart, and his readiness to 
 fall into temptation, came into his mind the opening 
 of the confession, " I, poor sinful child of man." He 
 could not exactly remember the words that followed. 
 He went to the table and took his psalm-book, and 
 found the place where he had turned a leaf down on 
 Sunday to remember what had been to him a great 
 event in his life. 
 
 Carl stood reading silently and solemnly, when the 
 door quietly opened and his tutor stepped in. The 
 unexpected sound of a movement in Carl s room had 
 roused the candidate from his late studies. He saw 
 
 (430) 6 
 
82 A SOLITARY HOUR. 
 
 the boy standing close to the window with a book 
 in his hand. 
 
 " What are you reading, Carl ? " said a stern voice. 
 
 Carl was startled, and for a moment did not 
 answer. 
 
 The tutor authoritatively took the book from his 
 hand, and looked at the open page, and then at Carl s 
 large moist eyes, ready to well over with tears. 
 
 " Carl," said the tutor, soberly but gently, " right 
 feeling prompts to right action. Just now your 
 duty is to be in bed. Don t make me feel that you 
 must be looked after, to see that you are in bed at the 
 right time, and need to be tucked up like a baby. 
 Confess your sins if you choose, Carl that is right 
 confess your sins ; but be sure you forsake them. 
 Good-night." 
 
 How well Carl now understood the way in which 
 he was treated. To his ear the stern voice of his 
 tutor seemed to say, " Don t seem to be tender and 
 moved, and then go down in sin, like your father ! " 
 
 Carl knew that in his heart he wanted to forsake 
 his sins as well as to confess them. He did not want 
 the bad blood to take the upper hand with him. 
 
 The evening prayer of his lifetime a child s short 
 prayer did not satisfy him that night; nor did he 
 
A SOLITARY HOUR. 83 
 
 venture to speak in his own words to the Most High. 
 " Our Father " came into his mind. At the word 
 Father the tears filled his eyes, but he kept on, 
 moving his lips silently. c: Our Father which art in 
 heaven." In heaven he had really a Father. The 
 father whose body he had believed to be lying in the 
 churchyard, while his soul was with the angels, he 
 had seen on earth. He had still a Father, a perfect 
 Father in heaven ! Carl s mind had wandered from 
 the prayer. He went back and began again ; and how 
 each petition seemed fitted for him ! " Lead us not 
 into temptation ; but deliver us from evil ! " These 
 words met his deep wants. With these thoughts in 
 his mind, Carl felt that he need not fear the " bad 
 blood," and he fell quietly asleep. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 EMMA. 
 
 END your wife up to me, Arvid. You need 
 not come with her," the baroness had said 
 to Arvid a few days after the wedding. " Tell her 
 to bring some of her pretty lace-work with her. I 
 should like to see how she does it." 
 
 This was precisely what Arvid had hoped for. He 
 thought Emma had such a wonderful way of getting 
 at people s hearts and bringing them comfort. It 
 could not be said that this had not been a great 
 motive for the honest fellow s " falling into matri 
 mony," if he had not exactly fallen in love with his 
 future bride. He thought she was wanted at the 
 castle, and as he said to himself, " She will be no 
 expense to anybody, and it will be a good thing for 
 us all to have her there." A good thing it certainly 
 seemed to be for his mistress at once. 
 
 Emma quite dreaded the interview. She thought 
 
EMMA. 85 
 
 it would be painful and gloomy to see the lady who 
 had been shut up so long by herself. She got out 
 of this difficulty as she did out of most others, by 
 thinking that the Lord Jesus would be with her, and 
 so she should be sure of having one Friend at her side 
 in the strange interview. 
 
 It was not any strange interview after all, but 
 a very pleasant one, as she found to her surprise. 
 It was a sweet, cheerful voice that said, " Come in ! " 
 when she knocked at the door. She found the 
 baroness half-way across the room to meet her as 
 she entered. What a kindly shake of the hand she 
 had ! And then the pleasant voice said, " Emma, 
 you have married a man you can be sure of. There 
 is not a more honest or faithful fellow in the king 
 dom than our Arvid." 
 
 Emma blushed with pleasure, and her dark-blue 
 eyes looked out from under their long lashes full at 
 the speaker. Emma unconsciously dropped another 
 courtesy as she felt the impression the baroness made 
 upon her. This courtesy was more to the woman 
 than to the baroness to the woman who had suffered 
 in silence, and who still loved her husband in spite of 
 his sins. Emma was sure, after she had thought over 
 the matter, that she should love Arvid, and pray for 
 
86 EMMA. 
 
 him, and hope he would get to be a good man, into 
 whatever sin he might be tempted. 
 
 " Now let me see some of your lace-work, Emma," 
 said the baroness, with an approving glance at the 
 tidy, trim-looking bride who stood at her side. "I 
 am fond of all kinds of handiwork myself, and do a 
 good deal at it ; but I have never seen lace-making." 
 
 Emma showed her prettiest patterns, and brought 
 out her bobbins, and modestly displayed her skill, 
 explaining all the while what she was doing, until 
 she felt quite acquainted with the baroness and alto 
 gether at ease. 
 
 " You must teach me to make lace, Emma," said 
 the baroness pleasantly, as Emma was putting together 
 her things to take leave of the lady, almost frightened 
 to find that she had made such a long visit. It was 
 then arranged that Emma should come up to the 
 baroness every morning for an hour, to teach her 
 pretty work to her eager pupil, who had found the 
 solace of constant and varied employment. 
 
 Emma had reached the door, when the baroness 
 handed her a letter, saying hastily, " Please give that 
 to Arvid, and ask him to send it to be mailed by 
 anybody on the place who may happen to be going 
 to the boat." 
 
EMMA. 87 
 
 Emma dropped her little courtesy and went out. 
 She handed the letter to Arvid without examining 
 the address. She was surprised to see him look at 
 it and stare, reading aloud : " Mr. Gustaf Blanka, 
 Popeco, California, United States. He s gone over 
 the water, then. That s a comfort ! I was afraid 
 he d be coming home for good, and making more 
 dehts, after all our trouble. I wonder what he came 
 for. It s all very strange. That the baroness should 
 write so soon, and such a thick letter ! She cares for 
 him just as much as ever, that s plain." 
 
 " I should care for you whatever you did, I am 
 sure," said Ernma. 
 
 " I care for the baron, too, and I don t wonder the 
 baroness does," said Arvid. " I care for him ; but I 
 care a great deal more for the baroness and Carl. 
 And, yes, I care for Hb gnas property too. I want it 
 to come clear of debt into Carl s hands some day." 
 
 Arvid went out with the letter. It was soon 
 known through the house, as the baroness meant it 
 should be, that she was in correspondence with her 
 husband, and that she was not ashamed that her faith 
 ful servants should so far share her secret. Gustaf 
 Blanka was too much like Gustaf Blankasvard for 
 them to doubt for whom the letter was intended. 
 
88 EMMA. 
 
 Of course the sending of this letter was the subject 
 of many and varying comments at Hognas. Carl 
 alone was kept in ignorance of the news that excited 
 such general interest. 
 
 The poor boy was tormented by the perpetual fear 
 of seeing again that shambling, unsteady figure, and 
 that unattractive likeness to the familiar portrait of 
 the handsome young bridegroom whom he had loved 
 to think of as his father. It was that likeness, no 
 doubt, which had unconsciously, mysteriously attracted 
 his attention, while the whole general air of the man 
 was so repulsive. Yet this man was his father ! 
 There was bad blood in the family ! Poor Carl ! He 
 felt as if he were infected by some terrible disease. 
 He seemed to himself to have all sorts of evil tend 
 encies in him, ready at any time to take the mastery. 
 His violent temper had never before given him any 
 uneasiness. He had almost had a pride in it, as 
 making him like the old northern heroes, who in their 
 " berserker " rage did such wonderful feats of valour. 
 Now he saw it as a madness that might lead him in 
 some wild moment to a desperate deed. He was al 
 ways watching this way and that way that the bad 
 blood did not get the better of him. He grew moody 
 and self-conscious. His dropping of the lower lip 
 
EMMA. 89 
 
 became habitual. His lessons were less and less 
 creditable, his tears harder to restrain. His little 
 black book was more and more his companion. With 
 his mother he felt ill at ease. He knew a secret that 
 was ever in his mind when he was with her. He 
 could see that she had grown more cheerful, but he 
 could not rejoice at it. His daily interviews with 
 " his queen, his princess," were a source of pain now 
 rather than pleasure. With Arvid even he was grow 
 ing stiff and distant. What would the honest fellow 
 say if he knew that an eavesdropper had heard his 
 secret talk with his young wife ? 
 
 During this dreary time Carl had one cheering 
 influence upon him. With Emma he was once more 
 the simple, happy boy he had been. She had a way 
 of making him forget himself. Arvid felt that Carl 
 was quite safe in Emma s keeping, and left them 
 much together. This was what he had anticipated 
 when he married. 
 
 Emma s gladness and frankness were contagious. 
 She was almost as much a child of nature as the wild 
 flowers that she appeared to look upon as her special 
 friends. She was always ready for a trip to the 
 woods when Carl appeared with his trowel. She did 
 not seem to think of God as some far-away being, 
 
90 EMMA. 
 
 who in the beginning of time created the world, and 
 then left it and its inhabitants to get on as they best 
 could. He was present to her in the woods and by 
 the way, present in the darkness, present in the sun 
 shine. This Carl soon came to understand. Her 
 trustfulness seemed to calm his troubled spirit, and 
 remind him there was a Power all Love, on which poor 
 human nature could lean. 
 
 To the baroness Ernma was even more than she 
 was to Carl. The baroness was accustomed to be 
 approached with a certain degree of deference and 
 formal respect. Brigitta treated her often like a 
 child, truly, whom she was obliged to manage, and 
 control, and provide for ; but it was more as a royal 
 child something high above her that was trusted 
 in its troubled weakness to her faithful care. Emma 
 chatted with the baroness over her lace-work in her 
 simple, natural way, now of the woods near her early 
 home, now of her mother s wise counsel and deep 
 spiritual life. 
 
 The sorrow and long confinement and time for 
 solemn thought had prepared the ground for the good 
 seed that Emma was unconsciously sowing, and a new 
 life was springing in the heart of the lonely woman 
 in her silent room. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 A SURPRISE. 
 
 THE autumn had come. The great ash had 
 dropped its hesitating, floating leaves gently 
 to the ground. The "lingon* 5 * had lavished its cor 
 nelian beads and strown the mossy ground with its 
 bright jewels, a treasure for poor and rich. The air 
 was fresh and sharp, and the blue waves of the long 
 inlet sparkled in the rejoicing sunshine. 
 
 It was Sunday morning. Arvid had walked away 
 to church after playfully trying to persuade Emma 
 to accompany him. " You promised I should do as I 
 pleased about that," Emma had soberly urged. " And 
 you know," she added convincingly, " that it is best 
 I should be here and see after Carl, and keep him 
 happy when the service is over." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know it. It is best you are at home," 
 said Arvid, and then he strode away in the direction 
 
 * A kind of red bilberry. 
 
92 A SURPRISE. 
 
 his conscience took him whenever the church bell 
 pealed out its summons. 
 
 The little congregation was assembled as usual in 
 the great cheerful hall at Hognas, but the candidate 
 did not appear. There were a few moments of solemn 
 silence. He had never been known to be unpunctual 
 before. Carl presently went out demurely to see 
 what could be the matter. He came back quickly to 
 say that a spider had bitten the candidate. It was 
 nothing alarming, but he must be detained for a while 
 in his room. 
 
 Emma got up suddenly and whispered to Carl, " I 
 will go to the baroness," while a bright light shone in 
 her face. 
 
 " Perhaps," thought Carl, " she is going to pray and 
 preach herself," and the scene at the shore came up 
 before him. He was lost in reviving the remem 
 brance of the events of that morning, when there 
 was a sound of footsteps, and his mother entered the 
 room. She wore her usual black dress, but there 
 was a bright red rose on her breast ; for she had 
 always now some gay-coloured flower about her, as 
 if to correspond with the smiles that had come back 
 to her face. Now she was sweetly serious. She had 
 at once calmly answered to Emma s announcement, 
 
A SURPRISE. 93 
 
 " I will read myself this morning," as if there were 
 nothing remarkable in that. She took her small 
 psalm-book in its velvet case in her hand, and went 
 out of the room with a free determined step, while 
 Emma followed in glad surprise. 
 
 The baroness walked steadily to the candidate s 
 accustomed place, and said without embarrassment 
 as she opened her book, " We will all say the con 
 fession together. We have all sins against God and 
 our fellow-men which need to be forgiven." 
 
 Every one present felt that that was not a con 
 fession read, but really spoken to God. As for Carl, 
 he could hardly repress a sob as the voice of his 
 mother, clear but full of feeling, repeated the solemn 
 words that had become so clear to him. 
 
 The Lord s Prayer followed. In the opening it 
 was as if the speaker were praising with the angels 
 in glad adoration. The tones changed to those of 
 humble petition as she prayed for the needs of help 
 less, sinful men below ; but they soared back to 
 heaven at the close, as it were in strong confidence 
 in the great heavenly King. 
 
 In the midst of her prayer the candidate had come 
 softly in. He took his seat quietly by the door. 
 The baroness did not seem to notice him as she rose 
 
94 A SURPRISE. 
 
 from her knees. She turned not to the Gospel for the 
 day, but to the place where her mark had for weeks 
 been kept. Then she read aloud as her heart 
 prompted, and as her peculiar gifts enabled her to 
 read. 
 
 It was the old story of the Prodigal Son, but to all 
 present it was as a real relation of a real recent event. 
 They followed the wanderer to the far country ; they 
 saw him in his abasement, and heard him in his re 
 pentance, as he turned his face to his distant home. 
 Suddenly the countenance of the baroness grew shin 
 ing with a glad light as she read, " And when he was 
 yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had com 
 passion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." 
 She was almost triumphant, as she seemed to clothe 
 the wanderer in the best robes, and put a ring on his 
 finger, and shoes on his weary feet. 
 
 Then came the story of the murmuring eider 
 brother. Carl questioned himself " Was that a de 
 scription of his own father, repentant, forgiven ; and 
 was he like the hard, unmerciful elder brother ? " 
 Something of the same kind floated through the mind 
 of the candidate, and was dimly present to the duller 
 sense of the other listeners. 
 
 They had not long to dwell on their own thoughts, 
 
A SURPRISE. 95 
 
 for the baroness indicated a familiar hymn, and look 
 ing pleasantly at Emma she said, " Now we will close 
 our little service with a song of praise." 
 
 Emma began, as the baroness intended. Then came 
 the baroness s own strong beautiful voice, that had 
 not been heard in the castle for many long years. 
 The candidate found himself singing, he hardly knew 
 why. " Feeling ! only feeling ! " he thought. But 
 from that day forward he sang in the little circle 
 where the baroness had taken his place at the family 
 altar quietly taken it, though she did not yet appear 
 during the week. 
 
 Carl felt knit to his lother by a new bond. Closer 
 he felt to her, yet still : ir away. The knowledge of 
 the secret she had tende ^\y kept from him was still 
 an invisible bar between 1 lem ; but the boy loved his 
 mother with a deeper and higher affection. She was 
 now linked with the better life springing in his in 
 most soul. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 CARL-DAY. 
 
 HOGNAS was not necessarily like a lone island 
 in the ocean. It was only the strong will 
 of the baroness that had made it so. Daily, all the 
 year round, the long inlet was plied by a little 
 steamer, stopping at the est Jes or villas along the 
 shore, and ending its trips ; u the factory village at 
 its head. In summer, wh oe sails flitted over the 
 water, and in the long even ngs often came from the 
 many boats sweet singing to join with the pleasant 
 plash of the oars. Then Carl loved to linger near 
 the shore, and listen and look and dream, in a kind 
 of glad vision. He never thought of longing to 
 mingle in the world outside of Hb gnas. He accepted 
 his retired life as if it were the result of natural law. 
 It was now the twenty-eighth of January. The 
 ground had been for weeks covered with snow. 
 There had been a shower of transparent flakes during 
 
CARL-DAY. 97 
 
 the night, and now the whole white surface of the 
 ground glittered like a dew-besprinkled meadow on a 
 bright summer morning. The bay was fast frozen 
 and covered with a broad sheet of snow. Right 
 through its centre was now the main highroad for 
 the traffic of all that region. Sleighs, sleds, and foot 
 passengers went cheerily along the smooth thorough 
 fare, no ups and downs, no dangerous ditches, no 
 impediments of any kind in the way. Then horses 
 and equipages looked in the distance to Carl like 
 a gliding panorama of silhouettes on the white back 
 ground of the snow. 
 
 The steamer was still making its trips by day and 
 by night, through a canal forced through the ice, and 
 kept open by frequent use. On the edge of this 
 strip of clear water, not far from the shore opposite 
 Hb gnas, were ever-increasing shining embankments, 
 glistening with the fresh deposits of water and ice. 
 Passengers crossed the bay in sleighs and on foot to 
 get on board ; and on the sides of this winter canal, 
 sacks of meal, trunks, and boxes were thrown off on 
 to the strong ice. Now and then there were crashes 
 that startled the passengers in the warm cabin, as 
 a pile of boards was deposited, or the boat for a 
 moment scraped the icy edges of its watery way. 
 
 (430) 
 
98 CARL-DAY. 
 
 All this Carl dearly loved to watch. He took an 
 early walk to the bay that bright January morning, 
 as soon as breakfast was over. He soon saw Pierre 
 returning from a trip to the boat stopping on the 
 other side of the inlet. The skilful Frenchman was 
 pushing a great sled from behind, holding on to its 
 tall posts. It went shooting lightly over the ice, 
 though it was heavily laden with stores of groceries 
 for the needs of Hognas. Carl had seen the steamer 
 fairly on its way before Pierre reached the landing. 
 Then came a charming ride to the foot of the hill on 
 which the castle stood. At that point there was a 
 fork in the road. Pierre fumbled in his pocket, as 
 he said, " I have some things to leave at the quarters; 
 it will be quite a while before I get home. Here is 
 a letter for the baroness. You had better give it to 
 Arvid or Emma at once." 
 
 Foreign letters were now no rare thing at Hog 
 nas. They were usually secretly delivered to the 
 baroness. As this one, however, was from England, 
 Pierre thought the usual caution could be relaxed 
 a little. 
 
 Carl took the letter, thrust it immediately into his 
 pocket, and sprang up the hill. He did not want to 
 come unlawfully into any more secrets. He was 
 
CARL-DAY. 99 
 
 glad when he met Arvid, and the temptation of the 
 moment was over. 
 
 The little baron had thought that his short absence 
 that morning would be for the general convenience, 
 and so it had proved. It was " Carl-day " in the 
 almanac. At Hb gnas, as in many families in Sweden, 
 such name-days were observed even more than the 
 birthdays of the members of the household. 
 
 Carl found, as he had expected, a little table 
 spread with a white cloth, in the dining-room, to his 
 special honour. It was adorned at the edge with 
 green leaves from the gardener, and exquisite paper 
 roses made by his mother s own busy hands. There 
 were simple gifts from all, and a display of cake and 
 the choice confectionary that Pierre knew so well 
 how to manufacture. 
 
 To Carl the most precious present of all was an 
 illuminated motto in a carved frame. He did not 
 need any one to tell him it was all of his dear 
 mother s making. She seemed to speak to him 
 through the sacred words, " Take heed to thyself, 
 and keep thy soul diligently." He took it at once 
 from the table, and placed it on the wall of his own 
 room, to remind him constantly of his duty and his 
 mother. 
 
100 CARL-DAY. 
 
 After he had thanked her affectionately, and had 
 received from her a specially tender blessing for his 
 birthday, he went out to see Arvid s huge present. 
 
 For a few days past Carl had been forbidden to 
 be on the half-circle in the rear of the castle. There 
 he now found an imposing snow -fort, with battle 
 ments shining in the sun. Within was a store of 
 snowballs, ammunition enough for any ordinary siege. 
 Carl went in, took possession formally, and rolled to 
 the low, narrow doorway the rounded mass of snow 
 that was intended to close it. He stood and pictured 
 to himself a storming party approaching from with 
 out. They had encircled the fort. Quite carried 
 away by his own imagination, he began to rush 
 hither and thither, now urging on the supposed 
 defenders of the fortress, now climbing the icy stairs 
 to the very battlements, and casting down handfuls 
 of balls on the stormers below. He shouted, he 
 laboured, he cheered. The stronghold was saved ; 
 the enemy were retiring ; the victory was won, 
 but the brave leader was wounded by a shot from 
 the retreating besiegers ! Carl clapped his hand to 
 his forehead, and fell, as if really mortally wounded 
 fell, and lay motionless on the cold ground. 
 
 " How would he feel if he were really passing 
 
CARL-DAY. 101 
 
 suddenly from this world ? " Such thoughts hurried 
 through his mind. He mentally saw before him all 
 the proofs of the " bad blood " he dreaded, and all his 
 weakness under temptation. 
 
 From the upper windows of the castle friendly 
 eyes had been watching his wild defence of the fort, 
 first with amusement, then with anxiety, and at last 
 with sudden fear. Brigitta was at once despatched 
 to see after the excited boy. Arvid had arrived 
 before Brigitta. They pushed their way through the 
 blockaded door, and were bending over Carl, before 
 he opened his eyes. The dying hero started up, and 
 blushing, explained what he had been about. 
 
 " Carl is queer, very queer," Arvid said to the 
 baroness, when he had given her Carl s explanation 
 of his excitement. " I almost think, sometimes, he is 
 not quite right in his mind. He doesn t seem to hear 
 when one speaks to him. He s so still and shut up, 
 too, not at all as he used to be. Doesn t he have it 
 too quiet for a boy ? It doesn t seem natural." 
 
 Arvid was almost frightened that he had spoken 
 out what had for some time been in his mind. 
 
 The baroness smiled sadly, and said, " I have per 
 haps made a mistake, Arvid. It was hard to know 
 just what to do. I thought I had acted for the best." 
 
102 CARL-DAY. 
 
 Arvid said no more. He simply handed to the 
 baroness the letter Carl had given him, and left the 
 room. 
 
 A letter from England, and in a lady s hand ! 
 What could it mean ? No letter had come from her 
 sister s family there for years. That sister had long 
 been dead, and the baroness had found it hard to 
 write to the earl, her brother-in-law, especially as he 
 had strongly advised her against her early marriage. 
 
 The letter was broken open hastily. It was 
 signed, " Your own niece, Mary." 
 
 The eyes of the baroness filled with tears as she 
 read : 
 
 " DEAR AUNTY, You must not be displeased that 
 I write to you as if I had always known you. What 
 I most enjoyed when I was a child was to hear my 
 dear mother tell about you, when she was with you 
 in the old home, before you were both left orphans. 
 I always think of you as the dear little girl she liked 
 to describe, though I know you have a son now older 
 than you were when your sister was married. I 
 want to come to see you. Yes, aunty, I want to 
 stay a whole year with you, and get very near to 
 you, as my dear mother would have wished. 
 
CARL-DAY. 103 
 
 "You know, perhaps, that I am now eighteen. 
 My brothers are at school, and papa is again very 
 happily married, so he can very well spare me. I do 
 not care for society ; I like to be in a country home. 
 
 " I do not want to make just a little visit of ten 
 days, and then go away to let some one take my 
 place. I want to be one of you, and to feel as if 
 I really lived with you. Papa lets me use my own 
 income just as I think best, and it is not a little 
 money for a foolish girl like me to manage. I dare 
 say you can give me good advice about it. At least 
 you will not let me be an expense to you. If you do 
 not promise that, I cannot come ; and that would be 
 a great disappointment to me, for I have set my heart 
 upon it. Please write soon, aunty, and say that I 
 may come to you. In March a friend of papa s is 
 going to Sweden, so I could have company then all 
 the way to Stockholm. I do so want to see you. 
 You seem to me something left of my dear mother 
 some one who really belongs to me. 
 
 "Please give my love to my cousin. I am sure 
 we shall be very good friends. I am used to being 
 with boys, and like them. 
 
 " Let me ask you again to write to me very soon. 
 Your own niece, MARY." 
 
104 CARL-DAY. 
 
 A stranger at Hognas ! That seemed to the 
 baroness at first impossible. When, however, she 
 thought of Carl she wavered. A fresh, warm-hearted 
 English girl might be just what her dear boy needed 
 somebody to make the house cheerful for him. It 
 was not natural that he should live always just with 
 his tutor and his servants, with his daily short visit 
 to his mother. Yes ; he should have his cousin to 
 make him brighter and happier ! The baroness longed, 
 too, herself to see her own sister s daughter, who could 
 write to her so trustfully and freely, though they had 
 never met. 
 
 The baroness always came to her decisions rapidly, 
 and usually acted promptly upon them, and kept to 
 them firmly. She simply said to Brigitta, that very 
 afternoon, that her niece from England was coming 
 to make her a long visit. The small room next her 
 own, that had once been her boudoir, must be 
 arranged for the guest. 
 
 To go to town to buy furniture for the stranger s 
 use was a thing to which Brigitta would not consent. 
 That she looked upon as downright extravagance. 
 " Ladies," she was sure, " did not travel to see things 
 just as they had at home. If they did, they might 
 just as well stay on the spot where they were born. 
 
CARL-DAY. 105 
 
 The baroness should see what a charming room could 
 be made ready for the young lady such a room as 
 she could not see anywhere but in Sweden." 
 
 Nor anywhere in Sweden, excepting at Hognas, 
 Brigitta might have added, as it proved. 
 
 Brigitta had just finished a long piece of fine, soft, 
 gray netting, that was intended for sale in the city. 
 Now she appropriated it to home uses. She knew 
 where there was a mass of light blue damask drapery, 
 somewhat faded, in truth, but which would shine out 
 alluringly through the gray meshes ; and so it did. 
 With this union of the past and present she draped 
 the one great window, the alcove for the bed, the 
 couch, and even that banished, cracked Psyche-glass 
 that had so long stood with its face to the wall in 
 the attic ; and so the " maiden s bower " was almost 
 ready. Pierre had but to use a black paint-brush on 
 a table and chairs from under the eaves, and some 
 modern French furniture came out, butterfly-like, 
 from an unpromising beginning. 
 
 Brigitta s brother in Dalecarlia had received a 
 present from some Lapps whom he had befriended, 
 even a great rug made of reindeer skin, and bordered 
 with the woolly coat of a white sheep, and finished 
 off in deep-red cloth points. He had thought it 
 
106 CARL-DAY. 
 
 would suit Brigitta at Hognas. She thought it was 
 better fitted to keep Lady Mary s feet warm in the 
 Swedish bower that had been prepared for her. And 
 so it was appropriated, and was the very keystone of 
 the whole affair. 
 
 The baroness had a child s pleasure in the success 
 of Brigitta s undertaking, and now fairly longed to 
 see the pretty room occupied by the English guest, 
 one of her own kith and kin. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 THE ENGLISH COUSIN. 
 
 LADY MARY was not to see the spring in its 
 true northern guise. The season was un 
 commonly early. Even at the beginning of March 
 the bays were easily traversed, in spite of the floating 
 masses of ice. The little steamer was to land at 
 Hognas, a most unusual occurrence. 
 
 Carl lingered, half-hidden by the trunks of the 
 young birches, while Arvid went to the end of the 
 landing to receive the English visitor. Arvid was 
 bold with his studied watchword, " La-dy-Ma-ry ? " 
 spoken staccato and questioningly, with the accent 
 equally strong on each syllable. He used his talis- 
 manic salute, though he did not need it to identify 
 the guest. A tall, slight figure went freely up the 
 landing plank, which was none of the steadiest. That 
 was not surely a Swedish girl. There was some 
 thing strong and decided in the way she held her 
 
108 THE ENGLISH COUSIN. 
 
 long straight back. As to her step, she moved as if 
 she could walk miles and not be the worse for the 
 exertion. 
 
 It was a fair fresh face, pure and calm, almost too 
 calm for a young lady, it would have seemed, but for 
 the smile that suddenly clothed it in sunshine, and the 
 waving light brown hair that was taken back from 
 the forehead, truly, but looked willing to fall into 
 cheery little curls the very moment it had permission. 
 
 "This is Arvid, I suppose," said Lady Mary, in 
 tolerable Swedish, as she pointed at her boxes. 
 
 Arvid smiled in surprise, and made his very best 
 bow in assent. 
 
 Carl came forward involuntarily to meet the 
 stranger as soon as he had a full sight of her face. 
 What a cordial grasp of the hand she gave him ! 
 
 " Cousin Carl ! How tall you are ! " was her first 
 exclamation, which she immediately translated into 
 Swedish. 
 
 " I did not think of you speaking Swedish ! " said 
 Carl with delight. 
 
 " My mother always spoke Swedish to me," said 
 Lady Mary, " and papa let me keep her Swedish 
 maid, so I have never forgotten it. Kasin wanted to 
 corne with me, but papa said she would be a stranger 
 
THE ENGLISH COUSIN. 109 
 
 now in her own country, and she had better stay 
 where she was sure of a good home as long as she 
 lived. Papa said, too, that I must learn to wait on 
 myself, and that would do me good." 
 
 So the two chatted together, Carl forgetting that 
 he was talking with the English cousin of whom he 
 had thought he should be so much afraid. 
 
 Arvid, meanwhile, congratulated himself that the 
 English lady would not have to wait upon herself at 
 Hoo-nas, unless it was her own pleasure. Who could 
 
 o - 
 
 be handier or nicer to be about the young stranger 
 than his own Emma, as had been planned between 
 the baroness and himself ? 
 
 Lady Mary was on the point of exclaiming, 
 " Hognas does not look at all like a castle ! " as she 
 came in sight of the great, simple building. She 
 checked herself, however; for there had been much 
 pride in the way in which Carl had said, on the first 
 glimpse of the white walls, " There, there is Hognas ! " 
 
 Carl had a little proud way about his whole manner 
 that amused his cousin. It was so unlike her own 
 rough-and-tumble brothers. Every lock of his slightly- 
 curling, soft, fair hair lay over his forehead as if dis 
 posed with care. She remembered the shock heads 
 of Tom and Harry, for which they were under per- 
 
110 THE ENGLISH COUSIN. 
 
 petual reproof, and which only the thought of the 
 dinner-table seemed to make them able to subdue. 
 
 " Why, Carl," said Lady Mary, as they stopped a 
 moment in the great vestibule, and she had a full look 
 at her cousin, " you hang your lip as my brother Harry 
 used to do before he had the operation performed on 
 him. He doesn t do it at all now. I must talk to 
 aunty about having the same thing done for you." 
 
 Carl made no answer. He only looked very digni 
 fied, as he often tried to when he was really hurt and 
 almost ready to cry. He had never had any one 
 speak to him about hanging his lip. He wondered if 
 he really had anything so peculiar about his face that 
 a stranger could not help remarking upon it. 
 
 He was so lost in these thoughts that there is no 
 saying how long Lady Mary might have been kept 
 standing in the vestibule if Arvid had not put down 
 the wraps and said, " The baroness is waiting to see 
 Lady Mary in her room. Please walk upstairs." 
 
 Upstairs, and upstairs again, went Lady Mary, 
 much wondering at the bare look of everything about 
 her, though she had been told of the dismantled con 
 dition of Hognas. She forgot the castle, she forgot 
 everything but her aunt, when Arvid had thrown 
 open the door she was to enter. The baroness came 
 
THE ENGLISH COUSIN. Ill 
 
 forward to receive her niece, and embraced her first 
 with her head on one shoulder of her guest and then 
 on the other, then clasped her tenderly to her breast, 
 before she led her to a place beside her on the sofa. 
 
 " How beautiful you are, aunty ! and so like my 
 mother ! " Lady Mary wanted to say ; but she only 
 murmured, " Dear aunty ! dear aunty ! you are so like 
 my mother ! " The tears came into her eyes as she 
 spoke. 
 
 Carl noticed it. The tears were in his own eyes 
 too. He had never seen his mother so warm or 
 cordial before. " She is never so to me," was the next 
 thought, and his lip fell, for he was half jealous of his 
 cousin already. 
 
 " I had almost forgotten you, Carl," said his mother, 
 turning towards the boy, who was standing quite still 
 in the middle of the room. " Your Cousin Mary and 
 you must be good friends. How wonderful it is that 
 she speaks Swedish so well. You did not tell me 
 that in your letter, Mary." 
 
 " I kept it for a surprise. I thought you would 
 not suspect it," said Lady Mary. She gave Carl 
 meanwhile a wondering glance. He did not look at 
 all like the pleasant companion she had had in the 
 short walk from the boat. 
 
112 THE ENGLISH COUSIN. 
 
 " You can go, Carl," said his mother. " Your Cousin 
 Mary and I will get on best just now alone." 
 
 Carl kissed his mother s hand as usual, bowed to 
 Lady Mary, and went out. 
 
 The tears ran over when he was fairly out of sight. 
 So this was the way it was to be. His mother and 
 Cousin Mary were to have a nice time together, while 
 he was to be more lonely than ever. Something 
 whispered to him that the " bad blood " was getting 
 the better of him ; yet his lip still pouted and hung 
 down, and he went to his room in a bad humour. 
 There he took up his little black book, as if that had 
 power to console him. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 NEW PLANS. 
 
 WHAT a charming dinner that was for Carl on 
 the first day of Lady Mary s arrival ! The 
 candidate looked ten years younger as he talked with 
 the pleasant guest. As for Carl, he was getting so 
 well acquainted with Tom and Harry, far away in 
 an English school, that he fairly longed to see them. 
 What splendid fellows they must be, and what a nice 
 time they must have ! Carl suddenly realized what 
 a lonely life he had been leading. He did not have 
 long to dwell on himself, for Lady Mary had a question 
 for him, or an anecdote of the boys, whenever she saw 
 his lip go down, and the sad, wandering look come 
 into his great blue eyes. She had a wonderful piece 
 of good news for him. Her papa had said she could 
 have her ponies and little phaeton in Sweden for the 
 year, if her aunt thought it possible ; and her aunt 
 had thought it would be a very nice plan, and the 
 
 (430) 8 
 
114 NEW PLANS. 
 
 faithful man who had long had charge of them was 
 to bring them at once. " And then, Carl," Lady Mary 
 added, " you and I will have such rides and drives 
 together ! " 
 
 Carl was delighted, and he tried to say so ; but 
 just as he had opened his mouth, the thought came, 
 " They don t mean to leave me out. I am to have a 
 nice time, too ! " The tears wanted to come, now for 
 joy ; and Carl sat with his mouth wide open, and said 
 never a word. 
 
 Lady Mary reached out her long white hand and 
 laid it on Carl s that was resting on the table ; and 
 as she did so, she said cheerfully to the candidate, 
 "Aunty thinks you will teach me German. If you 
 will be so very kind, I will try to be a good scholar ; 
 but I shall have to begin at the beginning. My 
 governess did not understand German ; but papa liked 
 her so very much, and thought she understood every 
 thing else so well that he wanted her to teach me, 
 that he said I must wait for German till I was older 
 and had a good opportunity to learn the language 
 thoroughly." 
 
 "It will give me great pleasure to teach your 
 ladyship," said the candidate, half -rising in his chair, 
 and bowing to the stranger. 
 
NEW PLANS. 115 
 
 " And, Carl," the new cousin went on to say, " you 
 will have to teach me Swedish history, and a bit of 
 Swedish geography, too, I am afraid. You know I 
 am half a Swede, yet I hardly know anything about 
 this my mother country, in a way. The English 
 think the history of England the important thing in 
 education. I was drilled in that before I was even 
 allowed to know anything about the old Romans, or 
 hardly the modern French, excepting as they were 
 connected with us through our wars with our neigh 
 bours on the other side of the Channel." 
 
 Carl s lip dropped slightly, as he thought he did 
 not know anything about those wars his cousin men 
 tioned. How ignorant she would think him ! 
 
 " Will you teach me Swedish history, Carl ? " Lady 
 Mary said, seeing his attention had wandered. 
 
 "I am a very poor scholar," said Carl, blushing. 
 " I am afraid I should make a very poor teacher." 
 
 " I think you will have to try," said Lady Mary, 
 laughing pleasantly. " Perhaps your talents lie in 
 that direction. You see I mean to learn a great deal 
 while I am here, and I cannot trouble the candidate 
 to be all the while giving me lessons. Swedish 
 history and geography will be your branches ; and 
 perhaps the candidate will help me a little with 
 
116 NEW PLANS. 
 
 arithmetic as well as with German. I have always 
 been very poor in arithmetic." 
 
 " Have you ? So have I ! " exclaimed Carl, his 
 eyes sparkling with pleasure and astonishment. 
 
 " We ll take a thorough review together ! " said 
 Lady Mary gaily. " That will be capital fun ! " 
 
 The candidate now understood which way the 
 current was drifting. He entered at once eagerly 
 into Lady Mary s plans for her own improvement, 
 and was delighted with the bright prospects for his 
 younger pupil. 
 
 The programme for the lessons was all arranged 
 there and then at the dinner-table, and at the close 
 of the pleasant meal Carl went to his room in high 
 spirits. He took down his school books from their 
 shelf, and felt reconciled to them, one and all, though 
 they had cost him many a sorrowful hour. What 
 splendid lessons he meant to have on the morrow, 
 when his cousin was to spend all the school hours 
 in the library, " as a real pupil," she said. 
 
 Carl wanted first to go over his books carefully, 
 rolling out the " dog s-ears " at the doleful places 
 where he had lingered over bad lessons in a bad 
 humour. He must rub out, too, broad marks in 
 the margins, by which he had expressed his disap- 
 
NEW PLANS. 117 
 
 probation of hard sums or difficult parts of the Ger 
 man grammar. 
 
 The books really did look tolerably well to belong 
 to a boy of his age, and there was not much to do to 
 put them in presentable order for a lady s inspection. 
 
 Carl was generally neat with his belongings, as 
 well as with his person. Perhaps there was a hidden 
 connection between his care of himself and his posses 
 sions and his sensitiveness to any encroachment upon 
 his dignity or his rights. 
 
 Carl had never studied as he did that evening. 
 He really knew his lessons perfectly when he arranged 
 his books in an orderly pile and went out to supper. 
 
 What a happy boy he was when he lay down 
 that night ! It was as if a fresh warm breeze had 
 swept through the castle with the coming of Lady 
 Mary. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING Carl s thorough prepara 
 tion, he made very poor recitations during 
 Lady Mary s first morning in the schoolroom. He 
 hesitated, coughed, drew long breaths, and put in 
 unnecessary "hems" in vain. The words would not 
 come. It had been hard work for him to recite 
 fluently when alone with his tutor ; and now, in the 
 presence of an almost stranger, it was impossible. A 
 week went by with more and more hard study on 
 Carl s part, and less and less success. 
 
 Another Monday had come. There was the usual 
 failure in Carl s lessons, and the usual reproof from 
 the tutor, and, in the schoolroom, an ever-increasing 
 sorrowful expression on the countenance of Lady 
 Mary. When the morning session was nearly over 
 Carl rose suddenly, bowed to the candidate and his 
 cousin, and went to his own room with his back as 
 
THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK. 119 
 
 straight as a general s. He looked very calm and 
 decided as seen from the rear, but before he could 
 reach his door hot tears were rolling down his cheeks. 
 He fairly sobbed when the door was shut, He was 
 mortified and utterly discouraged. By degrees he 
 grew quiet, though his face was still swollen when he 
 took his pencil in hand and bent over his little black 
 book. 
 
 The door opened, but he would not look up. There 
 was a soft step on the floor, and Lady Mary stood at 
 his side. She took no notice of the signs of his late 
 flood of tears, but gently took from his hand the 
 book that had seemed to interest him so much. 
 
 "What is this, Carl?" she asked playfully. 
 " Verses ! " and she glanced at the pencil in his hand. 
 
 He had half resisted her taking the book, and yet 
 he had long wished somebody could see his poetry 
 and tell him if there was anything really in it, or if it 
 were as poor as his recitations. 
 
 Lady Mary read the titles " A Summer Morning ; " 
 " Hognas, the Ballad of the Coward Knight ; " " My 
 Mother! my Queen!" "The Sad-hearted Boy;" 
 "Thor s Hammer," etc.; and lastly, "The Boy s 
 Prayer." 
 
 She read slowly and carefully, while Carl watched 
 
120 THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK. 
 
 her face eagerly. Her eyes were moist. He thought 
 he saw her dash away a tear. At last she spoke. 
 
 " This is not bad, Carl. Why do you let yourself 
 appear so stupid when you are not ? You have no 
 right to be a poor scholar." 
 
 " Then you do not think the poetry very poor ! " 
 said Carl, his eyes sparkling. " That little book has 
 been such a comfort to me. I always write when I 
 feel sorrowful, or discouraged, or lonely, and then I 
 forget all my troubles. Indeed, I have almost always 
 some verses I am working at." 
 
 " You forget your troubles, Carl, in this way," said 
 Lady Mary, " but you do not get strength to do better. 
 I understand now what is the matter with you. 
 Your real interest goes to your poetry and not to 
 your studies. Your studies are your duty, and your 
 poetry is, or should be, your innocent amusement." 
 
 " But it is not merely amusement to be a real poet," 
 said Carl eagerly. 
 
 " You may be a real poet and yet a bad man," 
 said Lady Mary soberly. " That is worse than to be 
 stupid. Be what you ought to be, and your poetry, 
 if you have any power to write, will be a blessing 
 not a curse to the world. Carl, shall I keep the little 
 book till you can learn your lessons, and recite them 
 
THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK. 121 
 
 too ? The poetry is good, Carl, for a boy like you ; 
 but good lessons would be better. You do not want 
 to be a self-indulgent man, a bad man, perhaps, nor 
 surely an ignorant man, if you are a poet. Begin by 
 doing your duty first, and then let the poetry come 
 afterwards." 
 
 " I am so used to be always composing, I do not see 
 how I can get out of the habit," said Carl dolefully. 
 
 " Try, and pray God to help you," said Lady Mary 
 soberly. " I will tell you what rules my father gave 
 my brothers. Perhaps you will like to write them 
 down, as Tom and Harry did." 
 
 Carl took a sheet of paper and a pencil, and wrote 
 as Lady Mary dictated : 
 
 " A Christian boy puts duty first and pleasure 
 afterwards. Lessons are often a boy s chief duty. 
 They show whether he wants to be obedient and 
 faithful and conscientious. A Christian boy is fair 
 in all games. He tries to be pure and true and kind. 
 He is not afraid of anything but doing wrong. He 
 remembers that God sees him always. When he has 
 done wrong, he is sorry, and asks God to forgive him 
 for the sake of the Lord Jesus, and to help him to be 
 better. He resolves to begin every morning, with 
 God s help, a new and higher life." 
 
122 THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK. 
 
 Carl wrote very steadily, and in doing so forgot 
 himself and his troubles. He went soberly to his 
 desk and put the paper carefully away. When he 
 sat down again Lady Mary said cheerfully, " The 
 friend of my father s who came with me to Stockholm 
 is our family physician. He wanted to study the 
 Swedish gymnastics, as he is much interested in all 
 such things. It was he who performed the operation 
 on Harry for the hanging lip, and he is going to do 
 the same thing for you. He knew and loved my 
 mother, and would take any trouble for her nephew. 
 He will be here by the boat to-morrow morning. 
 The candidate and I will be with you. You need not 
 be afraid." 
 
 Lady Mary nodded pleasantly to Carl, and went 
 out. 
 
 A surgical operation ! Carl shuddered at the 
 thought. Lady Mary had said it would be very 
 slight, but so they always told the patient. Carl was 
 very timid by nature, yet he had a thoroughly manly 
 contempt for a lack of courage. His timidity made 
 him dread the operation and believe it might possibly 
 be fatal, how or why he did not reason. 
 
 Very soberly Carl made his preparations, as he 
 thought, for his probable death. He wrote some loving 
 
THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK. 123 
 
 words of farewell to his mother, confessing that he 
 knew her secret, and had longed to tell her, but had 
 feared to give her pain. There was a parting message 
 for Lady Mary, and for the candidate, and for all the 
 servants. Carl wept much as he wrote. He longed to 
 put down a few parting verses, but he had promised 
 Lady Mary to let poetry alone for the present, and he 
 meant to keep his promise. These particulars occupied 
 his mind more than any real preparation for the great 
 change from time to eternity. After all, he said the 
 nightly prayers he had used of late, and went to sleep, 
 perhaps a little more quietly than usual. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 A SURGICAL OPERATION. 
 
 r I ^HE morning for the dreaded operation found 
 JL Carl nerved for whatever might happen. He 
 was glad the doctor was to come early. He longed 
 to see his mother once more. " It would not be best 
 though," he said to himself, " the sight of her would 
 certainly unman me." If the tears once came, there 
 would be no keeping them back, even before the doc 
 tor and Lady Mary. 
 
 The doctor was not a man to be afraid of. Hearty, 
 genial, and decided, he commanded respect and con 
 fidence at once. Without a word of objection Carl 
 took his seat in the chair appointed him. Lady 
 Mary could see that he was very pale. After a 
 thorough examination of the patient, the doctor took 
 out his case of instruments. Carl grasped the seat 
 of the chair firmly, and held himself rigid. 
 
 He was ashamed to find for what a trifle he had 
 
A SURGICAL OPERATION. 125 
 
 made all this preparation. The whole thing was done 
 in less than a minute, and the pain was very slight. 
 It was over ! The reaction brought the tears suddenly 
 to Carl s eyes, but he would not wipe them away. 
 An unuttered "Thank God" swelled at his heart. 
 Life looked very pleasant to him as he met Lady 
 Ma,ry s kind glance, and heard her say cheerfully, 
 " Now it is done, Carl ! And it was not very bad, 
 after all ! " 
 
 " It is done, my boy," said the doctor; "the operation 
 is over. You will breathe more freely now ; but that 
 will not keep your jaw from falling, unless you con 
 trol yourself. No surgeon s knife could keep you 
 from pouting, if that were your habit, when you were 
 out of humour, and so your mouth would take the 
 form that your bad disposition gave it. A boy must 
 learn early to rule his body, every part of it. Shut 
 your mouth now. Let me look at you. Not a bad 
 mouth, but it wants firmness. Make up your mind 
 to keep your mouth shut, and stand to it. It will 
 help you to control your whole body. You must 
 control your soul too. If you let yourself be angry 
 at everything that offends your dignity, and discour 
 aged by every trifle that goes wrong, all the phy 
 sicians in the world could not give you a firm mouth, 
 
126 A SURGICAL OPERATION. 
 
 such a mouth as befits a strong man. You are not 
 to go by your feelings, but by what is right ! " 
 
 " Feelings ! feelings ! " thought Carl. " Why does 
 everybody talk to me about feelings ? " 
 
 The quick-coming tears and the ready flush had 
 not escaped the keen eyes of the experienced doctor. 
 He had seen, too, that the boy was afraid, but was 
 yet determined to be courageous. " There was the 
 making of a fine man in him ! " The doctor had had 
 a talk with Lady Mary before Carl was called in, and 
 so was of course helped to understand the new patient, 
 and prompted to a warm desire to benefit him. 
 
 The doctor turned suddenly from Carl to Lady 
 Mary and said to her, " You, too, want attention. 
 You will be in danger here of not taking as much 
 exercise as you are accustomed to. You must have 
 gymnastics. Carl could take lessons with you. It 
 would do you both good. Shall I send you out a 
 teacher for three times a week ? " 
 
 " That would be charming ! " said Lady Mary ; and 
 Carl s face brightened as he listened. 
 
 " Is there any room in the castle that you could 
 have for the purpose ? " asked the doctor. 
 
 " The room next the dining-room is quite empty," 
 said Carl eagerly. 
 
A SURGICAL OPERATION. 127 
 
 Of course the doctor had to see the room, and to 
 know that it could be properly ventilated, and was in 
 all ways suited to the purpose proposed. 
 
 Carl forgot, as was intended, all about the opera 
 tion in his interest in the gymnastics, and the doctor 
 had an opportunity to see him when he was quite at 
 his ease. 
 
 Lady Mary had before assured the doctor that any 
 thing desirable might be arranged for Carl, without 
 reference to expense ; so the matter of the gymnastics 
 was fully agreed upon before the doctor took his 
 leave. He shook hands warmly with Lady Mary, 
 and then said to Carl, 
 
 " Good-bye, my little baron. Look out for your 
 mouth, and keep it shut ! Rule your body and soul 
 by God s law, and all will go well with you. I shall 
 hear about you from Lady Mary. My compliments 
 to the baroness ! " and with another bow to Lady 
 Mary the doctor was gone. 
 
 " Now I must go to my mother ! " said Carl cheer 
 fully. 
 
 His mother had never before greeted him so affec 
 tionately. How he longed to open his whole heart 
 to her, to have no secrets from her ! Once or twice 
 he felt his jaw dropping during the interview, but he 
 
128 A SURGICAL OPERATION. 
 
 shut his mouth determinedly. His mother saw it, 
 and rewarded him with a bright smile. 
 
 In the midst of the joyousness that gave Carl s 
 step an unusual lightness as he moved down the cor 
 ridor, there came the image of that shambling figure 
 he so much disliked, and the depressing thought of 
 his own share in the " bad blood " that was in the 
 family. 
 
 Then it was hard for him to keep his lips firmly 
 closed ; but he managed to do it, and felt that he 
 had conquered for once. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 AN ENGLISH TALK. 
 
 THERE were no secrets now between Lady Mary 
 and her aunt. The baroness had learned that 
 her niece had known her sad story before coming to 
 Sweden. Pierre and Little Gitta had not been so 
 delicately silent as Arvid and Brigitta about affairs at 
 the castle. They were devoted and faithful servants, 
 but no special refinement of feeling kept them from 
 talking of the baroness and Carl to their particular 
 friends in the neighbourhood, and they had not a 
 few. 
 
 It was well understood by all who cared to know 
 about Hognas how matters stood there. Old friends 
 of the earl s first wife had found their way to his 
 English home, and had enlarged upon the trials and 
 sacrifices of his sister-in-law and her lonely son. 
 
 The earl s daughter had come to him one morning, 
 her sweet face unusually earnest. She wanted to 
 
 (430) 9 
 
130 AN ENGLISH TALK. 
 
 have a serious conversation with her father about 
 something that was pressing on her mind. 
 
 Lady Mary had found herself too comfortable in 
 her luxurious home, more so than satisfied her con 
 science. She had her health and her own large in 
 come. Her father was happy in his second marriage. 
 Her brothers were at school. Her time was too much 
 on her hands. She wanted, while she was young and 
 strong, to really do something for the heavenly King 
 whom she had solemnly promised to love and serve. 
 All this she said in her own direct, simple way ; and 
 the earl knew she meant it from her heart. 
 
 " You have the cottagers and the schools on the 
 estate, Mary," he said. " Why cannot you devote 
 yourself more and more to them ? There is still 
 much to be done for them." 
 
 " I know it, papa," said Mary, blushing ; " but but 
 I think mamma would like to see after that. I 
 think she feels a responsibility about attending to the 
 people herself. I would like to be a deaconess, or a 
 hospital nurse, or a city visitor of the poor, or some 
 thing like that." 
 
 " My clear good daughter," said the father tenderly, 
 " I understand you. But you are young, child, and 
 inexperienced to devote yourself to any special voca- 
 
AN ENGLISH TALK. 131 
 
 tion yet. According to my mind, girls should never 
 seek a special mission outside the claims of their own 
 nearest relatives, until they are sure they have no 
 sufficient sphere of duty among them. Mary dear, I 
 am glad you spoke to me of this matter. I have 
 been deeply moved in thinking of your dear mother s 
 sister in Sweden and her little son. I am sure that 
 if they would let you come to Hognas, you could be 
 very useful there, and a great comfort to them. You 
 are accustomed to boys, and your brothers always so 
 delight to be with you. I think if you could make 
 up your mind to a long visit to your aunt, it would 
 be what your dear mother would have much liked ; 
 for she was very fond of her sister, whose great mis 
 fortune came upon her shortly before your mother 
 was taken from us." 
 
 "Dear, dear papa," said Lady Mary warmly, "I 
 should so like to go to my aunt." 
 
 " Write to her at once then, dear, and tell her so. 
 Write as your heart prompts you. You cannot go, 
 of course, to be an expense at Hognas. Tell your 
 aunt you want to spend a year with her, and cannot 
 come as a common visitor. Mary dear, your property 
 came from Sweden, and you have my full permission 
 to spend your income as freely as you please there 
 
132 AN ENGLISH TALK. 
 
 for the happiness and advantage of your aunt and 
 cousin. You can have your phaeton and ponies with 
 you, and James to take care of them, if your aunt 
 will permit. Think what a pleasure that would be 
 for the boy ! His name is Carl. I am glad he did 
 not have his father s name," and the earl s brow 
 darkened. " Poor child ! He inherits bad blood. 
 God help him ! " 
 
 Mary s heart echoed warmly that " God help him ! " 
 It was a real prayer for her cousin, and in that spirit 
 she had come to Hognas. Already she had brought 
 a measure of sunshine to the Swedish castle. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 AN EVENTFUL DRIVE. 
 
 WITH the rides, and the drives, and the gym 
 nastics, and the lessons, life had grown 
 very different to Carl. Yet the shadow of the figure 
 of the man from whom he shrank, while he longed to 
 love him, was ever coming to mar his joy. The 
 whole course of his studies had been utterly changed. 
 In some, Carl and Mary were joint pupils. In En 
 glish, Mary was the teacher, and the candidate and 
 Carl were scholars together. In the history and 
 geography of Sweden, and in the Swedish language, 
 Carl was Mary s interested tutor, while these studies 
 were laid aside for himself. Carl was really giving 
 his attention to the duty of the hour, rather than 
 dreaming and versifying when he was alone, and 
 even in study hours, and too often when he had some 
 one beside him. 
 
 Mary and Carl were taking a drive in the cozy 
 
134 AN EVENTFUL DRIVE. 
 
 little phaeton. Sometimes Mary had the reins in her 
 own hand, which she liked best. Carl was better 
 pleased when James was driving, as he was on this 
 particular evening. Then he had his cousin all to 
 himself. James, of course, did not understand Swedish, 
 nor did he seem to desire it. The stable, which had 
 been given over to his care, was his England, which 
 he managed on strictly English principles, and the 
 ponies were his chosen and satisfactory companions. 
 He occasionally condescended to mention the Swedes 
 to Lady Mary as " these foreigners," who were evi 
 dently, in his opinion, little better than outlaws and 
 savages. 
 
 The conversation in the phaeton had gone on 
 cheerily as usual, when Carl said suddenly, " Cousin 
 Mary, you don t seem at all I hate to use the word 
 at all proud because you are an earl s daughter. 
 Why, that is higher than being a baron s daughter in 
 Sweden!" 
 
 Lady Mary laughed a pleasant little laugh. She 
 liked Carl to talk to her right out of his heart, which 
 he now often did to his own great relief. Lady Mary 
 laughed at first, but a moment afterwards she an 
 swered soberly, " My father says that whatever mere 
 worldly advantages we have health, or beauty, or 
 
AN EVENTFUL DRIVE. 135 
 
 high station, or money, or talent we should take them 
 as gifts from the Lord to use in his service, not to 
 gratify our own pride or love of admiration. He 
 made me once, when I was a little girl, learn two 
 Bible verses, which he said I must all my life 
 remember together. The first was, What hast thou 
 that thou didst not receive ? Now if thou didst 
 receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not 
 received it ? The other was, Freely ye have 
 received, freely give ! 
 
 Carl did not answer he never did when Mary 
 talked to him of holy things ; but he took in her 
 words eagerly, and pondered deeply on them in his 
 heart. 
 
 After a long silence, Carl said abruptly, " What 
 would you do, Cousin Mary, if there were bad blood 
 in your family ? " Carl crimsoned as he spoke. 
 
 Lady Mary gave him a sudden, inquiring glance, 
 and then answered quietly, " I have, Carl." The 
 surprise was now on his side. She went on to say, 
 " We all have bad blood in our family. We are all of 
 the sinful race of man. We do not have to go back 
 to our ancestors to find that there is bad blood in us. 
 It is in our own hearts, always wanting to lead us 
 wrong. There is a blessed comfort for all this, Carl. 
 
136 AN EVENTFUL DRIVE. 
 
 If we do wrong, and are sorry for it, and confess our 
 sins, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin/ 
 and nothing is laid to our charge." 
 
 " What if you had done something that was wrong, 
 that you think somebody that you love would not like, 
 and yet you do not see how you can tell it to that 
 person ? Do you think confessing it to God would be 
 enough ? " Carl looked with sorrowful eagerness into 
 his cousin s face as he spoke. 
 
 " I cannot quite understand how that can be, Carl," 
 said Lady Mary. " I cannot give you any advice 
 when I do not know what you mean." 
 
 " I saw my father when he was here," said Carl 
 suddenly. " I listened to Arvid saying things to 
 Emma about him which I ought not to have heard, 
 and which my mother had taken such pains I should 
 not know. It has made me very unhappy. I cannot 
 tell mamma. I think she would not like me to speak 
 of such a thing to her." 
 
 " I think your mother I am sure your mother, 
 Carl, would like you to be quite open with her. It 
 would make you both happier. She has talked about 
 her sorrows with me. I told her I knew her troubles. 
 I could not be with her and pretend to be quite a 
 stranger to what she had suffered. We love each 
 
AN EVENTFUL DRIVE. 137 
 
 other better because all is open between us. You 
 had better talk to your mother about these things as 
 soon as you can. Now I understand, my dear boy, 
 what has been troubling you," and she laid her hand 
 gently in his. 
 
 " I am so glad to have told some one ! " said Carl, 
 and the tears came to his eyes. He had all he could 
 do to keep from showing his strong emotion, and 
 they drove home in silence. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 DISCLOSURES. 
 
 THE morning after what Carl considered his 
 most eventful drive with Lady Mary, the 
 baroness was expecting his usual short visit. He 
 came into her room much agitated and struggling to 
 speak, while the tears stood in his eyes. 
 
 " Sit down, child. What is the matter ? " said the 
 baroness, drawing Carl tenderly towards her, and 
 seating him beside her on the couch. " What is it 
 that moves you so, my darling ? " 
 
 " I want to tell you," said Carl, with a desperate 
 effort, " I saw my father when he was here the day 
 that Arvid was married. I meanly listened when 
 Arvid was talking with Emma the next evening. 
 He told how it was when my father went away ; and 
 he said there was bad blood in the family ; and then 
 he whispered, and I did not hear any more. Will 
 you will you forgive me ? " 
 
DISCLOSURES. 139 
 
 " That was not your father, child/ said the baron 
 ess, as she clasped Carl close in her arms. " My poor 
 boy ! I can think how you have suffered alone. My 
 poor, poor boy ! " and the tenderness long kept back 
 gushed forth towards the astonished child. " That 
 was Olof, your father s half-brother. He went astray 
 very early, and was always a trial to the family. 
 Yet I almost love him now, for he came all the way 
 from America to tell me that your father was innocent 
 of that last dreadful act, and that he himself was the 
 forger. He used his strong likeness to your father to 
 deceive even the people at the bank, and then hurried 
 off to Germany, and from there to America, thinking 
 your father could easily clear his name. He happened 
 to hear that I was alone here, still believing my 
 husband had gone all wrong. He could not bear to 
 think of that, and how it was now at Hognas without 
 your father ; so he came to tell me the truth. He was 
 always tender-hearted and full of feeling, but he 
 could not resist the slightest temptation." 
 
 " I arn so glad that was not my father ! " murmured 
 Carl. " I did not like that man. It was dreadful 
 to me to think I felt so towards my own father. I 
 did not even like to think that you loved anybody 
 who looked like that," and Carl s tears flowed fast 
 
140 DISCLOSURES. 
 
 again. They were not tears of sadness, for his 
 mother s arm was about him. She was no longer his 
 " queen," but his dear, loving mother. 
 
 " Poor Olof," the baroness went on, " is only a half- 
 brother of your father s. When your grandfather 
 was very young he foolishly married a pretty girl, the 
 gate-keeper s daughter. She proved a poor, ignorant, 
 unprincipled creature, and they were very unhappy 
 together. One day your grandfather got very angry. 
 That sad Blankasvard temper took the upper hand 
 with him, and he treated her exceedingly harshly. 
 She ran away shortly afterwards with her baby, and 
 your grandfather could not trace her. Perhaps he 
 did not take much pains about it. She soon died, 
 and left the child among some plain people in Ger 
 many, with whom she had been boarding. Of course 
 they wrote to your grandfather to provide for the 
 boy, which he did abundantly, but he would not have 
 him brought home. He always said, when urged to 
 do so, There s bad blood in that boy ; he will be a 
 disgrace to the name. Your grandfather soon married 
 again. When his young wife had her own child at 
 her side, her heart went out to the poor boy far 
 away, who was really half-brother to her own son. 
 She persuaded and persuaded, until at last your 
 
DISCLOSURES. 141 
 
 grandfather consented to have Olof brought home. 
 He came, a pretty boy, so like the other little baron 
 that they were often taken for twins, for your father 
 was always tall for his age. Olof was an affectionate 
 little fellow, and all were charmed, with him at first ; 
 but he soon began to show a perfect want of any idea 
 of honour or honesty. He gave no end of trouble, 
 and was a great disadvantage to your father, who 
 really loved him. Olof behaved so badly at last that 
 he was very severely punished. He was angry, and 
 ran away to sea, and never came home again. He 
 was always writing from some far-away place that he 
 was destitute and out of money. Money was sent to 
 him, but it plainly went as easily as it came ; and 
 then he suffered a while, then sent for another re 
 mittance. When your grandfather died he left Olof 
 but a small inheritance, which he soon drew and ex 
 hausted ; and then they heard no more of him, and 
 supposed he was dead. All this your father told me 
 before I was married, and said, as far as he knew, 
 this was the only stain on the Blankasvard name." 
 The baroness paused. 
 
 Carl s eyes had been eagerly fixed on his mother 
 while she was speaking. Many thoughts of his own 
 temptations, and of that first and only terrible whip- 
 
142 DISCLOSURES. 
 
 ping, passed through his mind. How grateful he felt 
 for the care that had watched over him so closely, 
 through the candidate and the faithful Arvid. He, 
 too, might possibly have gone far astray like poor 
 Olof. 
 
 The baroness rose and went to her desk, and took 
 from it a large folded sheet. This is poor Olof s 
 confession, addressed to me, to be delivered at Hb gnas, 
 in case he should die on the way here. It was so 
 like him to leave it with me, sure that I would not 
 use it until he was out of the country and safe from 
 arrest. He said he wanted Gustaf to have a way to 
 clear his name fully ; and as for himself, he had no 
 good name to lose. I need not give you the part 
 where he tells how he managed his crime. He was 
 no stranger to such things. Something urged him, he 
 said, to come to his country once more. He saw your 
 father, by chance, in a restaurant, and heard him 
 called by name. The wonderful resemblance between 
 them struck him. In haste he committed the crime 
 and left the country. The rest of the paper you can 
 take to your room and read alone. But, first, your 
 mother has a confession to make to you, her child 
 a confession of something that has cost her great 
 sorrow." 
 
DISCLOSURES. 143 
 
 Carl drew closer to her side, and put his arm ten 
 derly round her as she spoke. 
 
 " I was young, my boy, when we married young 
 and foolish and fond of pleasure. To have a merry, 
 happy time, I seemed to think, was what I was made 
 for, and for nothing else. After we were married, 
 your father and I enjoyed ourselves greatly together. 
 You cannot think what Hognas was like then, with 
 the dinners and balls, and the riding and driving, and 
 gentlemen s parties, and hunting and rowing, and 
 more than I can tell of. I little thought that the 
 young men who seemed so pleasant and charming 
 could be bad at heart. But many of them really 
 were so, and they led your father astray. He was 
 friendly and generous, and ready to join in anything 
 that was proposed. Money was lavishly and un 
 wisely, and even wrongly, thrown away. I did not 
 think anything about all this, for I was as giddy as 
 he was. Yet at last I began not to like his frequent 
 absences to Stockholm, of which he gave me no par 
 ticular account. He began to look gloomy when my 
 large bills were brought in, and to tell me that I was 
 foolish and extravagant. At last I got a letter from 
 the old cousin who still managed the estate, saying 
 that your father had forged his name for a large sum, 
 
144 DISCLOSURES. 
 
 and himself presented the cheque at the bank, so 
 there could be no mistake about his guilt, though he 
 denied it. The old gentleman said he would pay the 
 cheque for the honour of the family and hush all up, 
 if your father would leave the country immediately. 
 Otherwise he would prosecute him publicly, and there 
 was evidence enough to convict him if the matter 
 came to court. He added that your father s debts 
 were enormous, but that I could live on at Hognas, 
 though it would take all the income of the estate for 
 years to pay the creditors. This your father had 
 fully owned to him. I had hardly read this letter, 
 and was in my first sorrow and indignation, when 
 your father suddenly appeared before me. He looked 
 haggard and unnatural. He said hastily, I must 
 leave the country at once. I could not go without 
 seeing you once more. I wanted to tell you my 
 self 
 
 " I know it all ! I exclaimed. c You have dis 
 graced yourself. I never want to see you again/ 
 
 " You never shall ! he thundered, and was gone 
 instantly. So I lost my husband, and lost his love, 
 as I have believed, for ever. In believing him guilty 
 I had lost before my high ideal of his character. I 
 lost, too, my own self-respect by my angry, cruel 
 
DISCLOSUKES. 145 
 
 words. How I have repented you can hardly under 
 stand. Now you know all, my boy. Carl, can you 
 forgive your mother ? " 
 
 " Dear mother, how can you ask me ? " said Carl 
 lovingly. " How you have suffered all this time ! " 
 
 " Yes, Carl ; but I am happier now. I know your 
 father did not commit that terrible crime. I know 
 he is a repentant, Christian man. I know I have his 
 full forgiveness. But go now, my child, and read 
 this paper by yourself. My dear, dear boy, I feel 
 that I have you now, at last, as my own dear son ! 
 There will be no secrets between us now." 
 
 " No secrets, dear mother ! " said Carl, kissing her ; 
 " no secrets any more." 
 
 Carl sat down in his own room. He was too much 
 moved to read at once the closely-written paper he 
 had in his hand. One feeling was uppermost, and 
 that was joy. He had his mother now ; all was open 
 between them. His own fault had been confessed 
 and forgiven. There was, too, the glad assurance 
 that the repulsive-looking stranger was not his father. 
 He was forgivingly disposed towards the guilty Olof 
 as he opened the closely-written confession, duly 
 witnessed, signed, and sealed on the other side of the 
 water. 
 
 (430) 10 
 
146 DISCLOSURES. 
 
 It was clearly written, for Olof was a skilful pen 
 man ; but the style was like himself, wandering and 
 irregular. Sometimes he mentioned the same circum 
 stance twice, or must go back to tell some important 
 fact necessary to make his whole story intelligible. 
 
 From it all Carl gathered that Olof, " after a long 
 confinement " (he did not say where), had, in con 
 sequence of their uncommon resemblance, been mis 
 taken for his brother by a stranger, who told him 
 that Baron Gustaf Blankasvard was living in Cali 
 fornia as Gustaf Blanka, having been driven from his 
 country in consequence of being accused of a crime, 
 which no one who knew him in California could 
 believe that he had ever committed. He had come 
 years before to the mines, where he had shared the 
 poor, rough life of the miners, as far as their physical 
 needs were concerned, but had been separated from 
 them by his abhorrence of vice in every form. He had 
 been a sad, reserved man, but kind and tender towards 
 his companions in their misfortunes. By degrees 
 they made him their " bank," as he had no " ways " 
 like the rest of the rude company. A banker, indeed, 
 he had become as the years went on. He lived a 
 retired, quiet life at the little town of Popeco, that 
 had grown up near " the diggings," where he had 
 
DISCLOSURES. 147 
 
 come a poor, friendless man. His bank and his 
 business were in San Francisco ; but from all society 
 there he had kept himself apart, though he was 
 universally respected. The Swede from whom Olof 
 had this information had just returned from a visit to 
 the " old country," and was eager to tell what he had 
 learned there that Blankasvard had been accused of 
 forgery, and had fled under suspicion ; that his wife, 
 the baroness, believed it, had sold everything in the 
 castle, and lived there as poorly, and working as hard, 
 as any labourer s wife ; that the son was shut up at 
 Hognas " like a tethered calf ; " that the boy did not 
 know anything about his father, not even that he was 
 alive, for the baroness wore mourning for him, and 
 shut herself up like a nun, and had almost cried her 
 self to death with all her troubles. " I told him then 
 and there," wrote Olof, " that I was the forger, not my 
 brother, and that he must not go and tell that story 
 in San Francisco. And as for that lonely woman, she 
 should hear the truth from my own lips, whatever it 
 might cost me. I never could bear to think of a 
 woman suffering, and she shall not suffer any more if 
 I can help it." 
 
 This was the end of Olof s long story. Carl laid 
 down the paper, and the words that he had so often 
 
148 DISCLOSURES. 
 
 heard, " Feelings ! feelings ! " came to his mind. What 
 might not Olof have been with conscience for his 
 guide ? Carl made then and there a new, deep 
 resolution to strive, with God s help, to feel right and 
 do right, even to the end of his life. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 "THE PRECIPICE/ 
 
 THE weeks went happily by, and spring had 
 come not only in name but in all its beauty. 
 Lady Mary was making a collection of Swedish wild- 
 flowers. They were pressed in a way that filled Carl 
 with admiration, and entirely met the candidate s 
 approbation. Some few choice specimens were want 
 ing. Carl declared one morning that he knew where 
 at least one was to be found. He was sure that he 
 had picked it near " The Precipice " the year before. 
 
 The shore about the landing was high, but sloped 
 down to the water in a steep green descent, like those 
 that are often seen in Switzerland. At one spot the 
 grassy bank was suddenly parted for about forty feet, 
 and a bold, steep, rocky face, back from the shore 
 line, took the place of the hillside. At the foot of 
 " The Precipice " lay the still water according to re 
 ports at Hognas, almost too deep for sounding. 
 
150 "THE PRECIPICE/ 
 
 Here Carl and Lady Mary did really find the 
 flower they were seeking. It grew just at the edge 
 of the strange "cut," which seemed to have been 
 fashioned by some long-ago convulsion. 
 
 Carl shuddered as he looked at the perpendicular 
 rock, and said, " I saw a traveller cross there last 
 year. He was a young Norwegian, not much taller 
 than I am. He came over in a boat, it seems, just 
 to see the cliff. He sat on the grass here with his 
 companion. I was just below looking for flowers. 
 They both thought it w r as a wonderful place. The 
 Norwegian seemed to understand all about it. He 
 said he had seen such cuts by the lakes in Switzer 
 land, and had crossed them too. His friend didn t 
 seem to believe him. I ll show you ! said the Nor 
 wegian, and right along the face of the cliff he went. 
 I can see now just where he put his feet, and held on 
 to the ridges and strong old roots above." Again Carl 
 shuddered at the remembrance, as he .added, " But he 
 got safely over." 
 
 In another moment Carl was tearing off his own 
 coat and throwing his cap on the ground. To Lady 
 Mary s horror she saw him look up a second, and 
 then start across " The Precipice " where he had seen 
 the Norwegian pass. She did not dare to call out to 
 
"THE PRECIPICE. 151 
 
 him. She thought he was crazed. Skilfully and as 
 carefully as possible he made his way along. He was 
 almost across when he stopped for a moment. Lady 
 Mary held her breath. He paused but to get a firm 
 foothold on an unusually wide projection, and then 
 gave a strong leap and landed firmly on the green 
 grass. Then he started on a swift run down towards 
 the shore. Mary now understood his movements. A 
 little toddling child was hurrying towards the end of 
 the landing, an almost baby, belonging to a labourer s 
 family who lived near the shore. The child had be 
 come a special pet of Carl s, who had often been at 
 the cottage with his cousin. 
 
 Carl was too late. The little thing reached the 
 end of the landing, and fell helplessly into the deep 
 water, when he was but a few steps behind her. Carl 
 had never been an expert swimmer, and now he was 
 exhausted in body and mind by his late effort. The 
 child was not to be seen. He sprang into the water, 
 and sank instantly. 
 
 Mary covered her eyes a second, then ran to the 
 castle for help, for she could only reach the cottage 
 at the shore by a round-about road. 
 
 Meanwhile a boat, rowed by two pair of strong 
 arms, darted from behind a point, and shot towards 
 

 152 " THE PRECIPICE. 
 
 the landing. A gentleman plunged in, caught the 
 child as it rose and almost cast it into the boat, and 
 then dived for Carl. The boy was brought up sense 
 less and apparently dead. The rower from the other 
 side of the bay led the way at once to the cottage, 
 carrying the child in his arms, while Carl was borne 
 by the eager stranger. The little creature was 
 screaming with fright by the time they reached the 
 door, and the mother could hardly look at Carl or the 
 stranger for her joy over her rescued darling. Carl 
 was rolled and rubbed by the skilful hands of the 
 stranger, with the help of Arvid and Brigitta and 
 Mary, who stood ready to do exactly as they were 
 bidden. 
 
 Arvid was not astonished when, even in the midst 
 of his distress, the stranger gave him a warm grasp 
 of the hand and a look of friendly recognition. He 
 had known the baron at once. 
 
 " My brave boy ! my brave boy 3 " burst from the 
 lips of the father. " To lose him so I " and he renewed 
 his efforts for the unconscious boy. 
 
 At last there were signs of returning life, and Carl 
 slowly opened his eyes. 
 
 " My boy ! my dear boy I " was the fond exclama 
 tion that greeted him. 
 
"THE PRECIPICE. 153 
 
 " Where am I ? " said Carl dreamily, then shutting 
 his eyes. Again he gave a bewildered look at the 
 fond face bending over him. " It must be my father ! " 
 he said, and feebly stretched his hands toward the 
 baron ; then grew paler, and relapsed into uncon 
 sciousness. The colour had fully come at last, and 
 the heart was steadily beating. 
 
 Arvid and Pierre took Carl in charge to bear to 
 the castle, while Lady Mary hurried forward to tell 
 the baroness that Carl had had an accident, had been 
 in the water, but was safe. 
 
 The baron s luggage had been deposited at the cot 
 tage, and he now thought of himself, and hurriedly 
 changed his dress and walked rapidly up to the 
 castle. 
 
 We will not describe the glad, grateful meeting 
 between the husband and wife. Love and repentance 
 and forgiveness had triumphed, and they were to be 
 gin a new life together. 
 
 " My brave boy ! " said the baroness, bending over 
 Carl. 
 
 " Brave, mother ? " said Carl, astonished. " I am a 
 coward ; but I hate it ! " 
 
 " Cowards do not cross The Precipice just there, 
 my dear child ! " said the father. " I watched you 
 
154 "THE PRECIPICE/ 
 
 from the boat ; and we pulled hard, or I should not 
 have reached you in time. Your mother wrote me 
 that she was afraid she had made you too much 
 of a girl with her training, and that you needed a 
 father now. I call you a man ! a brave man, my son ! 
 That is the boy I arn proud to find at Hognas ! " 
 
 " It was all Cousin Mary," said Carl. "When I saw 
 little Greta on the landing I thought what Cousin 
 Mary had said, Fear nothing but sin, and so over 
 I went. I had seen a Norwegian do it once, so I 
 knew it was not impossible. I did not think of any 
 thing more that I remember, till I saw Greta sink 
 in the water. I am a poor swimmer, and I was a 
 little tired with that bit of a climb." 
 
 It seemed quite natural to Carl to see his father 
 and mother together, just as they had always been 
 in the portraits, side by side. They were handsomer 
 now than when they were married, Carl thought. And 
 so they were. The better beauty that springs from 
 a soul at peace, and striving to grow holier day by 
 day, had come into both the fond faces, now beaming 
 with love and joy. 
 
 " I should have come home at once after I received 
 your last letter, Agda, if it had been possible," said 
 the baron, when he and his wife were walking to- 
 
"THE PRECIPICE. 155 
 
 gether in the long dining-room that evening. " I was 
 at the mines, getting all settled there, when it came. 
 It was a month before I got back to Popeco. During 
 my absence poor Olof had come to my house there. 
 He told at once that he was my half-brother; and 
 no one doubted it, seeing the strong family likeness 
 between us. He was out of money, and thoroughly 
 broken down. I suppose the fever was already on 
 him, for he went at once to bed and never rose again. 
 He said he only wanted to live till I came home, as 
 he had something on his mind for which he wanted 
 to ask my forgiveness. 
 
 " Good care was taken of him, but he soon became 
 delirious, and did not know me when I arrived. He 
 lingered a few days, and then died. I stayed to see 
 him properly buried. I like best to think of him 
 now as the pleasant little boy who first came to 
 Hognas. I shudder when I think that I, too, might 
 have gone as far astray, but for the sudden sorrow 
 that made me see my sin and danger. God be praised 
 that under your careful training our dear Carl seems 
 to be on the right road ! May we so live as to set 
 him a true Christian example." 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 A JOURNEY. 
 
 THOSE were happy days for Carl, those first 
 days after his father s return days of the 
 fulness of home happiness, the best of earthly joys. 
 
 All the family now assembled for morning prayers 
 in the great hall ; and what prayers they were ! 
 Thanksgivings went up for the abundant mercies 
 that crowned the household, and an earnest plead 
 ing that all might have help to walk in the ways 
 of God. 
 
 Then came the cheerful hour at the breakfast 
 table, five now to sit down ; and what a large family 
 circle that seemed to Carl ! 
 
 Carl was busy one morning with his tutor, when 
 Mary took out a letter and said soberly, " I have 
 heard again from papa. He says mamma is not well, 
 and he is afraid he cannot let me stay out my year 
 at Hognas. He says, too, that the boys are coming 
 
A JOURNEY. 157 
 
 home soon for the summer, and he does not know 
 how they will get on without me. Mamma is 
 uneasy about the schools and the cottagers on the 
 estate. They need more attention than she is able 
 to give them. They both think I arn needed at 
 home. Papa says," Mary went on, "that he should 
 like so very much to have Carl come home with me. 
 From what he hears, he thinks that it would be well 
 for my cousin to spend some time with my rough- 
 and-tumble brothers, and that they would learn from 
 him much that would be of service to them. I am 
 sure the change would do Carl good. I should 
 dearly love to take him with me." 
 
 All parties were convinced that the proposed visit 
 would be a good thing for Carl. " He is a splendid 
 fellow," said the baron, " but too high-strung. He 
 needs boys about him boys of his own age. They 
 will be the best medicine for him, and a pleasant 
 one, I am sure. Tell your father at once, Mary, that 
 I am deeply grateful for the proposal, and accept it 
 gladly. I mean to send Carl to school in Stockholm 
 in the autumn, and this w r ill be an excellent prepara 
 tion for him. After a summer with your brothers 
 he would suffer much less from being thrust into the 
 hurly-burly of a host of noisy boys. But how can 
 
158 A JOURNEY. 
 
 we do without you, Mary ? What do you say about 
 that, Agda ? " 
 
 " I can only thank Mary for what she has been to 
 me. No one in this world can ever know the glad 
 sure light she brought into my puzzled heart, groping 
 in the dimness after better things. Little Emma 
 was the first to help me, but she was but as a little 
 child of God. She could know nothing of my sor 
 rows and struggles. I could not really come heart 
 to heart with her. The dear little thing though was 
 a great help and comfort to me. Now that I know 
 what Mary is, I can well understand how much she 
 is missed at home." 
 
 "I have learned so much here, aunty," said Lady 
 Mary ; " you cannot think how much. At home I 
 was very much interested in the cottagers and their 
 children, but the servants in the house I thought 
 very little about. Our servants are very nice, and 
 do everything well ; but they are so quiet they seem 
 almost like machines. They never met me with a 
 cheerful Good-morning ! and a pretty courtesy, as 
 Emma does, not even Kasin. I suppose she has 
 given up her Swedish ways, and grown stiff like the 
 rest. They never talked to me, nor I to them, as if 
 we were both children of God, walking heavenward 
 
A JOURNEY. 159 
 
 in the station appointed by him. I do not seem to 
 have thought that they had human hearts and souls 
 as important to God as my own. Arvid and Brigitta 
 and Emma have taught me what noble, trusted, loved 
 servants can be. I do not mean to be merely Lady 
 Mary for our household when I go home, but a 
 Christian friend, if I can." 
 
 " All servants here are not like Arvid and Brigitta 
 and Emma," said the baroness, her face brightening. 
 " When I think of them, I want to say as our Saviour 
 did of his disciples, I have not called you servants ; I 
 have called you friends. " 
 
 " It is not hard to be a friend to you, Agda," said 
 the baron affectionately. 
 
 " You do not know, Gustaf," the baroness replied. 
 " I was very selfish those first years. I thought only 
 of myself and my boy. And as for him, poor fellow, 
 if it had not been for the candidate and Arvid " 
 
 The baron s face grew dark with a gloomy shadow, 
 and the baroness did not finish the sentence she had 
 begun. 
 
 Mary broke the silence that followed. " I shall 
 have to start soon, uncle. Papa spoke of next 
 week," she said. " Do you think Carl could be ready 
 then ? " 
 
160 A JOURNEY. 
 
 " Of course he can," said the baron, a little 
 dreamily. " Perhaps you had better tell him about 
 it yourself, Mary." 
 
 Mary did communicate the news to Carl in her 
 own cheerful, pleasant way. Childlike, much as he 
 hated to leave home, he entered eagerly into the 
 whole plan. 
 
 " I shall feel like one of the old vikings, to be 
 really sailing on the North Sea," he said. 
 
 " Not to conquer England though ! " Mary answered 
 gaily. " And there will be no dungeon full of snakes 
 awaiting you, as for your Ragnar Lodbrok." Mary 
 liked to show Carl that she remembered the stories of 
 the old Northmen in which he had delighted to drill 
 her. 
 
 Carl was not much like an old viking in crossing 
 the North Sea. We never hear that they were the 
 victims of sea-sickness. As for Carl, he was con 
 quered, humiliated. The lower lip, that had so long 
 been held up resolutely, dropped drearily as he sat 
 on the deck, bundled up in his sea-chair, with Lady 
 Mary s kind face beside him. 
 
 The shores of England were as welcome to Carl 
 as to his cousin. And what a hearty shake of the 
 hand and what a rough clap on the shoulder he had 
 
A JOURNEY. 161 
 
 from Tom and Harry, who had come to Hull to meet 
 the travellers! 
 
 The most delighted of the party from Sweden was 
 probably the dignified James, who said confidentially 
 to his fellow -servants, when he reached home, that he 
 was glad to leave those outlandish foreigners behind 
 him, and have to do with honest Englishmen once 
 more. 
 
 Such a home as it was ! Carl had never imagined 
 such luxury and comfort as that by which he was 
 soon surrounded. 
 
 He thought the earl a little stiff and precise at 
 first, and the countess a bit formal, in the midst of 
 her real cordiality. Lady Mary, however, and the 
 boys seemed so free and happy, and so much at ease 
 with their parents, that the shy young Swede soon 
 caught their spirit, and found himself laughing as 
 cheerily as they did in the presence of their elders, 
 and quite at home in the earl s family. 
 
 (430) 11 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 BOYS. 
 
 r I ^HREE months in England went by very rapidly 
 _!_ for Carl. What with rowing and riding and 
 running races, and games with bat and ball and bow 
 and mallet, he was much of the day in the open air, 
 and in the pleasant company of the boys and their 
 German tutor. Lady Mary was with them too when 
 they were able to get her away from what her 
 brothers called her " Sister of Charity hobbies." How 
 often Carl was thankful to her for her painstaking in 
 teaching him English at Hb gnas, and her persisting 
 in speaking to him in her own language when he was 
 such a poor stumbler. 
 
 It was not all play to Carl with his cousins. 
 They, too, like him, had been slow in learning the 
 intricacies of the German grammar, and a few hours 
 hard study was to be their portion daily all through 
 the summer. Carl was in the schoolroom with them, 
 
BOYS. 163 
 
 and the new tutor had no reason to complain of his 
 lessons. Indeed Carl won the respect of his cousins 
 by his accurate recitations, for he had begun to put 
 his conscience into his duties as a scholar. 
 
 The boys, too, were unconsciously Carl s teachers 
 in many ways. They were accustomed to tease and 
 rally each other goocl-humouredly without mercy, and 
 they never thought of sparing the little stranger. 
 They soon noticed his difficulty with his mouth when 
 he was a little displeased, and they set about curing 
 him in their own fashion. No sooner did they see the 
 slightest dropping of Carl s lower jaw than a boister 
 ous cry of " Lip up ! lip up ! " burst upon him. His 
 mouth was at once firmly shut, to keep in angry 
 words as much as from any other cause, and the ex 
 pression of it \vas actually changing. It was firmer, 
 more manly, though not less pleasant a change of 
 which Carl was quite unconscious. 
 
 The little baron had no end of trouble with the 
 Blankasvard temper when he came to be daily with 
 two merry boys, who, being accustomed to be roughly 
 handled themselves and take it in good part, had no 
 idea how often they wounded and offended their more 
 sensitive cousin. Carl s face would crimson sometimes 
 and his eyes flash at some infringement of his dignity 
 
164 BOYS. 
 
 or some sudden rude handling of what he seemed to 
 consider his " most sacred person." " The red banner 
 out ! Teeth shut ! War declared ! " or similar shouts 
 greeted his silent exhibitions of dissatisfaction. Im 
 mediately afterwards there would be, perhaps, some 
 friendly offer to play a game he particularly fancied, 
 or the tendering of some boyish stores of sweets or 
 fruit for his consumption. These were understood as 
 conciliatory advances from the rough fellows towards 
 the Swedish cousin, and as such were frankly accepted, 
 and the difficulty was over. What a struggle it cost 
 Carl to meet properly these overtures of peace Tom 
 and Harry never suspected. 
 
 These slight ruts and jars Carl never mentioned in 
 his frequent letters home. In them England was 
 described as a kind of Paradise, only to be surpassed 
 by " old Sweden." 
 
 Carl had seen the handwriting of his cousins on his 
 first visits to the English schoolroom. He was fairly 
 ashamed afterwards to have the addresses to his 
 letters fall under their critical eyes. He took more 
 and more pains with these letters, both without and 
 within, and improved rapidly in freedom in expressing 
 himself, as well as in the use of the pen. He had so 
 much to tell always, and so much affection to express, 
 
BOYS. 165 
 
 that he had constantly a letter on hand to be continued 
 at spare moments, so that he felt himself in constant 
 communication with the dear ones at Hognas. How he 
 treasured the letters that came to him ! so full of love 
 and advice, and news, too, of the little circle in and 
 about the castle. The old rector had died. Carl re 
 membered his venerable appearance, and clothed him in 
 his thoughts with all saintly virtues. How keenly he 
 enjoyed the description of Emma s baby, with its dark 
 hair, like its mother s, and its blue eyes wide open, 
 like Arvid s ! Carl was fond of little children, and he 
 fairly longed to have that baby in his arms. He im 
 parted this fact to Tom and Harry, who received the 
 announcement with an astonished shout of laughter, 
 and the cry of " Such a fellow as Carl to climb and 
 shoot and jump to turn child s nurse ! " and then there 
 was another loud " Ha ! ha ! " The old oaks in the 
 park might well have been astonished at the merry 
 sounds, if they had not been accustomed for more 
 than a century to the shouts of generations of boister 
 ous boys. 
 
 That visit to England had come to an end at 
 last. Arvid had appeared to take Carl home ; and 
 what was an exceedingly interesting fact to the little 
 baron, he was to have a pair of horses and a pony 
 
166 BOYS. 
 
 of his own as fellow - travellers on his journey to 
 Sweden. 
 
 Arvid had the best advice at the earl s as to his 
 purchases, and James honoured him with the strictest 
 injunctions as to how he was to manage them. Arvid 
 met this freely-lavished counsel with the repeated 
 assurance that he was not to have the care of the 
 horses, but that they would be under the care of an 
 experienced Swedish groom. Experienced was spoken 
 very slowly and decidedly, the only notice that Arvid 
 was pleased to take of the all-knowing assumption of 
 James. 
 
 Carl found it hard to bid good-bye to his merry 
 cousins. He told them frankly he had had a " splen 
 did time with them," and that they had " handled 
 him just right," of which fact he was now sure at 
 the bottom of his heart. 
 
 Carl felt so fresh and vigorous when he stepped on 
 board ship for his return voyage, that he could hardly 
 believe that he could be sea-sick again. He was a 
 regular viking now, and could defy the waves. Carl 
 had not conquered England during his visit, but he 
 had made a great conquest over many of his own 
 peculiarities, and was the braver and stronger for his 
 many conflicts. He even found that resolution could do 
 
BOYS. 167 
 
 much, if not everything, on board a vessel in a roll 
 ing sea, and he actually made quite a respectable 
 traveller compared with what he was on his first 
 voyage. 
 
 What a joy it was for Carl when he landed at 
 Gottenburg ! He would have liked to have stooped 
 down in knightly fashion to kiss the very hem of the 
 garment of "-JftHr Svea." He thought he saw his 
 native land now, not only with the eyes of one of her 
 devoted sons, but with the impartial view of a travelled 
 stranger. There certainly were never such lakes, such 
 bays, such health-giving woods, or such a wealth of 
 bright flowing rivers, anywhere else in the world. 
 This was Carl s impartial verdict after three months 
 absence from his native land. 
 
 Hognas was one blaze of light, every window aglow, 
 when Carl drove up to the main entrance of the castle, 
 now become a travelled road, instead of the old silent, 
 broad way, with its. untouched marks of the rake. 
 
 What a glad group that was that met him on the 
 doorstep ! Carl judged as impartially of his father 
 and mother as he had of his native land, and with 
 much the same conclusion. Perhaps he was not far 
 wrong. The baron s tall figure had the firmness of 
 one who is determined to walk in God s law of justice 
 
168 BOYS. 
 
 and love. His fine face, chastened by sorrow and re 
 pentance, was full of dignity and calm, with a serious 
 sweetness about the thin lips that might formerly 
 have curled with pride. 
 
 The baroness was wearing a soft, light-coloured 
 dress, as Carl had never seen her before, and she was 
 in his eyes the perfection of beauty. 
 
 There was something about the candidate that did 
 not look quite natural, the young traveller could 
 hardly tell what. 
 
 As for Carl, all saw at once from his decided, free 
 movement and his glad, frank expression that he had 
 profited by his stay in England. 
 
 Not that all this was definitely in the minds of 
 any of the group in that joyous meeting, which was 
 so full of silent gratitude, as well as of deep family 
 affection. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 HOGNAS. 
 
 THE first welcome home was over. " Now, Carl," 
 said the baron, " you must have a full look at 
 Hognas while the lights are everywhere burning." 
 
 The procession started round the castle. Every room 
 in the three stories was explored ; and how charming 
 Carl thought it everywhere ! Not a room but was 
 furnished, and looked only waiting for an occupant. 
 No luxury, no splendour, no showiness to be seen ; 
 but taste, and comfort, and refinement, and coziness 
 combined. What a pleasure that " furnishing " had 
 been to the baron and baroness ! 
 
 Brigitta and Emma, not satisfied with Carl s first 
 warm grasp of the hand, seemed to have felt it neces 
 sary to follow the procession in all its rounds. Not 
 that the candles they carried were needed ; they only 
 wanted themselves to see the glad light that beamed 
 from Carl s countenance as he saw the pleasant trans- 
 
170 HOGNAS. 
 
 formation in the dear old home. They disappeared 
 when the party at last reached the dining-room, where 
 the table was waiting for supper to be served. 
 
 The family party stood irregularly grouped round 
 the table, admiring the pleasant changes about them. 
 
 " Carl, iny son," said the baron soberly, " before we 
 take our first meal together in this, in one way, our 
 new home, I want to tell you what you are to expect 
 at Hognas. I have gone wrong, my boy, and have 
 repented and been forgiven by those who love me on 
 earth," and he glanced round the little circle, " and 
 by the ever-merciful God above. My cup has been filled 
 with blessings. It is my earnest wish and purpose 
 to be heartily and wholly given to my heavenly 
 Father all that I am, and all that I have, to be his 
 and his alone." Then pointing to the group above 
 him on the ceiling, he went on, " I take anew for my 
 own, but in a higher and holier sense, our family 
 motto, Freely Given, my self, my all, freely 
 given to the King of kings ! And may he accept 
 my poor offering, and enable me, as a steward, to use 
 what is his in his service. I want Hognas to be a 
 Christian home. I want to be as a father and friend 
 to the people who are under me and who are in my 
 employ. I want to have a hospitable home. At 
 
HOGNAS. 171 
 
 Hognas I hope the weary and careworn will often 
 have a season of rest. Here, I hope, the young and 
 tempted may be led to a better life. Here, I hope, 
 many a poor convalescent may find tender care and 
 cheerful society. Here, I trust, the young will be 
 innocently happy : and often the old find here a 
 refreshing change, and affectionate, considerate atten 
 tion. My guests will be henceforward the guests of 
 the Lord, and invited in his name at least in my 
 own heart and with a prayer that a blessing may be 
 on their stay at Hognas. This will be a temperance 
 home, Carl. Nothing that intoxicates will be offered 
 here. Had I been myself the night before that sad 
 occurrence long ago, and on the morning that wrecked 
 my life, I could have proved promptly where I was 
 and how occupied. Neither I nor my so-called friends 
 could give a proper account of ourselves when suddenly 
 questioned, and I was hurried from the country as a 
 guilty exile. From that time I resolved never to taste 
 the cup that could so dull my memory and rob me 
 of mastery over myself. I have kept rny resolution, 
 and, God helping me, I will continue to do so. All 
 vices, and all the well-known roads to vice and 
 extravagance, will be shut out as far as possible from 
 my home. I shall in all have a faithful helper in 
 
172 HOGNAS. 
 
 your dear mother, and in our long-tried and long-loved 
 friend, no more the candidate, but the pastor in our 
 church and the church of our ancestors. We shall 
 have his help and prayers for us all. To-morrow 
 your mother and I are to take the holy communion 
 together in the dear old church. I would not have 
 the presence of our dear new pastor surprise you in 
 the house of God." 
 
 A quick glance at his tutor showed Carl that it 
 was the slight change in the dress of his old friend 
 that had struck him at first on their meeting. 
 
 The baron as he closed had waved his hand slightly 
 to the new pastor, who immediately said, 
 
 I have been all these long years a candidate only, 
 Carl, because I did not feel myself prepared for the 
 holy ministry. The calling was early proposed to me 
 by a kind friend, who offered me the means for an 
 education means that I lacked in my humble home. 
 I eagerly embraced the offer. As the time drew near 
 for my ordination, it was forced upon me by my 
 conscience that I did not believe myself to have the 
 inner Christian life that became a minister of the 
 gospel. I made up my mind to give up the calling 
 for which I had been so long preparing myself. My 
 friend at once withdrew his support and his friendship. 
 
HOGNAS. 173 
 
 Here, afc Hognas, I found a warm-hearted pupil and 
 a hospitable home. Here I have remained with my 
 poor instructions, my studies, my spiders, and my pen. 
 How I might have ended my career I cannot say, if it 
 had not been for three Christian women the baroness, 
 Lady Mary, and Emma. They each, in their own 
 way, showed me the beauty of a character modelled 
 by the Spirit of God. My eyes were opened to find 
 what I lacked, the one thing needful. I have been 
 enabled to see where before I was blind, and to believe 
 in the willingness of God in Christ Jesus to forgive 
 sin. I want now to help others to have the light 
 I have and to lead the life I want to lead. All this I 
 told the baron immediately on his return ; and he was 
 the more ready to spare you for your trip to England 
 that I might have time at my command to review, 
 preparatory to my ordination, the studies I have never 
 laid aside. So now, Carl, your old tutor is your 
 pastor." 
 
 " I am so glad," said Carl, with his eyes beaming. 
 He had been too much moved to say what he wanted 
 to when his father had ceased speaking, nor had a 
 pause been left for him. Now he said simply, " Dear 
 father, I love you so, and I am so proud of you. We 
 are very proud of him, dear mamma ? " 
 
174 HOOKAS. 
 
 The baroness did not need to reply ; her bright 
 loving face expressed all that she felt. 
 
 The supper came in at the moment and put an end 
 to the more serious conversation. The deep fervour 
 of the grace was felt by all, as the baron asked not 
 only a blessing on the food, but on the united family, 
 the household, and all the dwellers at Hognas. 
 
 As they sat round the table the baroness had much 
 to tell Carl about home affairs. " The carpets at the 
 castle you saw them, Carl," she said " they were 
 all made at Hognas, all but the one in the drawing- 
 room. I have Emma now for my maid. She has a 
 young girl to help her with the baby, but sometimes 
 she brings the dear little thing to take its morning 
 nap here. Brigitta has taught so many of our women 
 on the place to weave. She has quite a weaving 
 school in what used to be the quarters, though some 
 of the people live there still. And Emma has many 
 scholars in lace-work, too, among them. It is won 
 derful how easily they learn." 
 
 The baroness did not say that she herself was 
 teaching other of the girls embroidery, and better 
 lessons in the ways of truth and holiness. 
 
 " But where do the people live that were at the 
 quarters ? " said Carl eagerly. " Mary was quite in 
 
HOGNAS. 175 
 
 despair about them when she had her Sunday school 
 there. She said she could really do very little for 
 them while they lived in such a crowded and uncom 
 fortable way." 
 
 "It was from Mary," said the baroness, "that I 
 learned how they were really packed in there. I had 
 not thought much about it before. I have so longed 
 since to do something for them. Now, dear Carl, the 
 debts are all paid, and Hognas is free. Thank God, 
 your dear father s efforts in that far-away land have 
 been richly blessed, so that we can do what we wish 
 for our people, and for others who need, too. Some 
 cottages are built already, and more wall soon be 
 done." 
 
 " I want to do something to help in all this," said 
 Carl eagerly. 
 
 " I hope you will do much, in time," said the baron 
 seriously, " and carry out all I have left undone ; but 
 now you will have other work on your hands. You 
 are to ride into Stockholm to school every day, as 
 soon as the term begins ; and I hope you will be a 
 faithful scholar." 
 
 " Am I to go to school in Stockholm ? " exclaimed 
 Carl, delighted ; then glancing at his tutor, he added, 
 " I am so used to being with boys now, I am sure I 
 
176 HOGNAS. 
 
 should miss them ; but I shall not forget all the pains 
 you have taken with me, and your patience with me 
 when I was such a poor scholar." 
 
 The preceptor smiled pleasantly, and said, " I shall 
 miss you, Carl ; but I have new duties, too. I have 
 found something better to do than watching my spiders 
 in my spare time. But after all, the spider is a won 
 derfully interesting insect." 
 
 The preceptor looked quizzically out of his micro 
 scopic eyes, and a pleasant laugh went round the 
 happy group. 
 
CHAPTER XXIY. 
 WHITE CAPS. 
 
 FIVE years had passed pleasantly away in a 
 happy school-life for Carl. It was a bright 
 May morning in Stockholm. The parks that had but 
 lately thrown off their white mantle were now clothed 
 in tender green. The trees were casting more soft 
 ened shadows day by day, as the opening buds were 
 springing and swelling in the clear sunlight. Dale- 
 carlian girls in red caps and rainbow-striped aprons 
 were raking away every trace of what the winter had 
 strewed under the oaks and lindens. The tulips were 
 gay in the parterres, and the full hyacinths perfumed 
 the air. 
 
 Facing one of the largest of the beautiful parks 
 was a noble school-house, only separated by the wide 
 street from the broad, ever-open entrance to the green 
 ness and beauty within the enclosure. 
 
 Filling the whole street there was a dense black 
 
 (430) 12 
 
178 WHITE CAPS. 
 
 crowd, noisy and restless. Policemen hovered on its 
 outskirts in an unusually genial humour. Now and 
 then at an upper window of the school-house young 
 faces appeared suddenly. Then some kind of head 
 gear, a hat or a cap damaged by a winter s wear, was 
 merrily cast down, to be received by the shouting 
 crowd below, and tossed from hand to hand, or kicked 
 from foot to foot, till it was triumphantly seized by 
 some little ragamuffin, who ran off to examine the 
 value of his booty. 
 
 Meanwhile an eager young figure would issue 
 hastily from the door below, his head wearing the 
 Upsala student s small white velvet cap, adorned in 
 front with a tiny rosette gay with the true Swedish 
 colours, yellow and blue. Each new-comer was wel 
 comed with a roar of applause, and his name was 
 shouted in deafening tones. His hand was grasped 
 by one and then another and another in the noisy 
 crowd, as if he were going down an old-fashioned 
 country-dance, but with a heartiness that left often 
 a stinging remembrance after it. He had passed his 
 final examination as a school-boy, and was now, by 
 virtue of his white cap, effectually pronounced a mem 
 ber of the time-honoured university of Upsala, and 
 worthy of the congratulations of all friends and rela- 
 
WHITE CAPS. 179 
 
 tives. Few were the glad boys who had not a parent 
 or a friend, or a brother or a sister, to give him then 
 and there a hearty and loving congratulation and an 
 affectionate embrace. 
 
 The crowd had stretched by degrees within the 
 limits of the park. There Baron Blankasvard and 
 his wife were impatiently waiting, now standing, now 
 pacing along the broad walk. They were beginning 
 to look weary and a little anxious, when a well-known 
 light-brown felt hat was cast from the upper window 
 and welcomed by the usual shouts below. 
 
 The glad parents made their way rapidly towards 
 the street. They had hardly reached its bounds when 
 a tall youth came eagerly out, taking abstractedly, 
 yet in a friendly way, the hands stretched out to him, 
 while the shouts of " Blankasvard ! Blankasvard!" filled 
 the air, in the midst of cheers unusually hearty and 
 long. In the moment of his triumph Carl was look 
 ing for his father and mother. In the distance there 
 was a hat waved above the crowd, and he saw the 
 dear familiar head, early whitened in the severe school 
 of life. In another moment Carl had embraced first 
 his mother, then his father, then his mother again. 
 With his usual want of confidence in himself, he had 
 much feared the result of this final examination, and 
 
180 WHITE CAPS. 
 
 was proportionately glad when it had been honourably 
 passed. 
 
 Carl was not long left to the congratulations of his 
 father and mother. An imperative crowd of his com 
 rades authoritatively claimed him. He knew the 
 ordeal that awaited him. Others had already gone 
 through it that day. He took his newly-won cap in 
 his hand and straightened himself to be "hoisted." 
 Like a wooden image he was tossed up again and 
 again between two rows of strong arms, that were 
 ranged on each side of him. There was a new claim 
 ant for the doubtful privilege, and Carl was set on 
 his feet, amid deafening cheers. 
 
 Carl lingered until his favourite friend, a homeless 
 orphan, had come out safely with his white cap on 
 too, and had gone through the initiating process. 
 Then all was ready, and the Blankasvard party en 
 tered the carriage that soon rolled cheerily away 
 towards Hognas. 
 
 At the door of the castle Carl s dear old tutor was 
 ready to receive him, not grown portly and pompous 
 by increasing years or increasing clerical advance 
 ment. His bearing was more noble, truly, but his 
 face had a sweeter simplicity and a brighter spiritual 
 light. 
 
WHITE CAPS. 181 
 
 Not the preceptor s still microscopic eyes could 
 have spied a trace of pride or self-sufficiency in Carl s 
 pure open face, with its shining blue eyes and firm 
 sweet mouth. All had gone as he had expected for 
 his beloved pupil, and he gave him his congratula 
 tions and his blessing in a silent warm shake of 
 the hand. 
 
 Within the great vestibule the servants were sta 
 tioned. Emma s little boy stood in front of the group, 
 waving a tiny Swedish flag that Brigitta had made 
 him for the occasion. Carl had a hearty response 
 for their kind greeting, though he knew Lady Mary 
 and Tom and Harry, now full-fledged Oxford students, 
 were waiting to receive him above. 
 
 Lady Mary looked older and calmer and sweeter 
 than ever before, but was not less frank and friendly. 
 As for Tom and Harry, they were boys again, bois 
 terous and full of slang at the very sight of Carl, 
 with whom they had spent their summer vacations 
 for years, sometimes in England and sometimes at 
 Hognas. 
 
 There was to be a general reception that day at the 
 castle neighbours and friends of all degrees, guests 
 from the house, too, and they were many, and full of 
 warm congratulations, for Carl was a favourite with 
 
182 WHITE CAPS. 
 
 all. In the midst of the universal rejoicing, Lady 
 Mary found time now and then for a little quiet chat 
 with her young cousin. Once, when she caught him 
 for a moment, she said playfully, " Now, Carl, I think 
 the little black book might safely be allowed to come 
 out of its retirement. Your scholarly habits are too 
 well fixed for you to be carried away by your day 
 dreams." 
 
 Carl had long since laid away the little black 
 book among his boyish treasures, but he had not 
 altogether forsaken the muse. Now and then a little 
 poem had come fully formed to his mind, and he 
 had written it down on a loose bit of paper, to get 
 rid of it, as he had truly said to himself. Some of 
 these effusions were read aloud in the home circle, 
 and heartily approved of by the partial listeners at 
 Hognas. 
 
 At the university, later on, Carl was less strict 
 with his muse than he had been as a school-boy. 
 She made him not so very unfrequent visits, but she 
 was not allowed to disturb his severer studies. If a 
 hymn or a song was wanted for some special occasion, 
 it was to Blankasvard that his fellow-students had 
 recourse. If there were speeches to be delivered, 
 Blankasvard was the favourite orator. If compli- 
 
WHITE CAPS. 183 
 
 mentary words of welcome were to be spoken to 
 some distinguished stranger, it was on Blankasvard 
 the honour fell. Was there a sick comrade to be 
 watched with by night ? it was well known that 
 Blankasvard would be ready and competent for such 
 a task. Was there a poor student to be helped in his 
 struggle with poverty ? Blankasvard was sure to have 
 a hand in the affair. Was there a noisy carouse, or a 
 midnight frolic on foot ? care was taken that Blankas 
 vard should know nothing of it. His sad disapproval 
 was dreaded by those who admired and honoured him 
 at a distance, though they did not follow his noble 
 example. 
 
 " Blankasvard will take a stand by-and-by as our 
 best Swedish poet," said one of his enthusiastic fellow- 
 students. " No ! " said another confidently ; " he will 
 make his mark in the Riksdag (Parliament) as soon 
 as his age will let him come in. He will be a strong 
 advocate for the rights of the people, you may be 
 sure ! " It was well understood that, although by 
 birth and gifts and charms of manner Carl was fitted 
 for the highest society, his heart was as warm as ever 
 towards his brethren in humble life. 
 
 Whatever course might be prophesied for Blankas 
 vard on leaving the university, all were agreed that 
 
184 WHITE CAPS. 
 
 he would be a true friend to his country and a faith 
 ful servant of the King of kings. He would never 
 forget, in the midst of his abundant blessings, the 
 royal mandate, " Freely ye have received, freely 
 give ! " 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 Roe Carson s Enemy ; or, The 
 
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 Godliness with Contentment is 
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Illustrated Books for the Young. 
 
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 Bible Stories Simply Told. By 
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 In this elegant volume we have stories 
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 Natural History for Young Folks. 
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 "Evidently the result of years of re 
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 Royal Portrait Gallery. With 
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 In this volume our kings and queens 
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 Pictures and Stories from English 
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