“Yes,” said Bjornstjerna, “but after that the militia is to be called out, and if I get my officers I should lose my men—aye, and two-thirds of the women, too. How many women do you think would turn out, if you took away all the men between the ages of twenty and twenty-five? And let me tell you that the women, though the law does not allow us to press them into the service, are just as useful as the men,—and in the dref, where all you want is to drive the game forward, a great deal more so, for they talk twice as much, and their screams, and squalls, and laughter, are heard as far again as the men’s shouts. O, by the Thousand! I had rather lose my men than my women. But you gentlemen are a perfect Godsend; I shall do very well for officers now. Herr Modige is kind enough to take the hållet, and, whether you like it or no, Master Lieutenant, you will have the charge of that skal-arm which furnishes the pickets.”
“Well, I suppose I must obey my superior officer; I wish they treated us Lieutenants of the Guards as well as they do those of England, and then I should be Captain as well as you—commanding you, perhaps, if I happened to be senior.”
“Would you, my boy? I would have you to know that I rank a Colonel now,—I write ‘Hof’ before my name.”
“Upon my soul, old fellow, I congratulate you; I do not know any one who deserves it better.”
“No more do I,” said Bjornstjerna, “and I must say that it is not often that the Förste Hof Jagmästere shows such a specimen of discrimination. However, to business. Along the left flank of the dref, you will see that in the course of our beat there are some fifteen or twenty places where game can escape by climbing up the water courses. At each of these you will post a picket, strong or weak, according to the nature of the ground. Herr Länsman, can you furnish the Lieutenant with a man who knows the country?”
The Länsman, or tax-gatherer, who in these remote districts acts as police officer, and is, in fact, the sole representative of majesty, offered his own services in that capacity.
“Very good,” said the Ofwer Jagmästere, “then you will point out the particulars; but, to help you, I have marked all the more practicable passages with red crosses. Here, however, is your principal danger—in fact, it is that which made me hesitate about establishing the hållet where it is. You see where this cow-path leads to the hills—the path, I mean, which I have just pointed out to Herr Modige as the place where I wish him to arrange the shooting line; carry your eye onward to where it ascends the hills; that is an easy pass, such as you can ride up, and it is so close to the hållet that any beast that turns at the line, would naturally dash at the opening. Here you must post a very strong force.”
“I cannot do better than put my English friends there,” said Birger, who saw at a glance that this was the very crack post of the whole line; “I will venture to say that their rifles will not allow anything to pass alive through that opening, from an elk to a rabbit.”
“Hush, not a word about elks,” said Bjornstjerna; “neither they nor stags must be touched—the new law is very strict about that.”
“It is very difficult to tell one beast from another, in the thick juniper,” said Birger; “I never could myself.”