"He is not an aristocrat," thought John; "he is a boor."
The two were antipathetic to each other, as two members of the lower class, who looked askance at each other in their clamber laboriously upwards.
The carriage was before the door; the coachman was in livery, and stood with his hat in his hand. The secretary asked John whether he would sit in the carriage or on the box, but in such a tone that John determined to be polite and to accept the invitation to sit on the box. So he sat next the coachman. As the whip cracked, and the horses started, he had only one thought, "Away from home! Out into the world!"
At the first halting-place John got down from the box and went to the carriage window. He asked in an easy, polite, perhaps somewhat confidential tone, how his employers were. The baron answered curtly, in a tone in a way which cut off all attempts at a nearer approach. What did that mean?
They took their seats again. John lighted a cigar, and offered the coachman one. The latter, however, whispered in reply that he dared not smoke on the box. He then pumped the coachman, but cautiously, regarding the baron's friends, and so on. Towards evening they reached the estate. The house stood on a wooded hill, and was a white stone building with outside blinds. The roof was flat, and its rounded comers gave the building a somewhat Italian aspect, but the blinds, with their white and red borders, were elegance itself. John, with his three pupils, was installed in one wing, which consisted of an isolated building with two rooms; the other of which was occupied by the coachman.
After eight days John discovered that he was a servant, and in a very unpleasant position. His father's man-servant had a better room all to himself; and for several hours of the day was master of his own person and thoughts. But John was not. Night and day he had to be with the boys, teach them, and play and bathe with them. If he allowed himself a moment's liberty, and was seen about, he was at once asked, "Where are the children?" He lived in perpetual anxiety lest some accident should happen to them. He was responsible for the behaviour of four persons—his own and that of his three pupils. Every criticism of them struck him. He had no companion of his own age with whom he could converse. The steward was almost the whole day at work, and hardly ever visible.
But there were two compensations: the scenery and the sense of being free from the bondage in his parent's house. The baroness treated him confidentially, almost in a motherly way; she liked discussing literature with him. At such times he felt on the same level with her, and superior to her in point of erudition, but as soon as the secretary came home he sank to the position of children's nurse again.
The scenery of the islands had for him a greater charm than the banks of the Mälar, and his magic recollections of Drottningholm faded. In the past year he had climbed up a hill in Tyreso with the volunteer sharpshooters. It was covered with a thick fir-wood. They crawled through bilberry and juniper bushes till they reached a steep, rocky plateau. From this they viewed a panorama which thrilled him with delight: water and islands, water and islands stretched away into infinite distance. Although born in Stockholm he had never seen the islands, and did not know where he was. The view made a deep impression on him, as if he had rediscovered a land which had appeared to him in his fairest dreams or in a former existence—in which he believed, but about which he knew nothing. The troop of sharpshooters drew off into the wood, but John remained upon the height and worshipped—that is the right word. The attacking troop approached and fired; the bullets whistled about his ears; he hid himself, but he could not go away. That was his land-scape and proper environment—barren, rugged gray rocks surrounding wide stormy bays, and the endless sea in the distance as a background. He remained faithful to this love, which could not be explained by the fact that it was his first love. Neither the Alps of Switzerland, nor the olive groves of the Mediterranean, nor the steep coast of Normandy, could dethrone this rival from his heart.
Now he was in Paradise, though rather too deep in it; the shore of Sotaskär consisted of green pasturage overshadowed by oaks, and the bay opened out to the fjord in the far distance. The water was pure and salt; that was something new. In one of his excursions with his rifle, the dogs, and the boys, he came one fine sunny day down to the water's edge. On the other side of the bay stood a castle, a large, old-fashioned stone edifice. He had discovered that his employer only rented the estate.
"Who lives in the castle?" he asked the boys.