All that was left to him of love’s young dream was this counterfeit presentment of his sweetheart. The young lady’s portrait had not been done by a skilled artist; the face on the canvas under the powdered hair was set and expressionless; it looked more like a pretty doll than the likeness of a human countenance. However, the features were of delicate mould, and to him who had seen her eyes sparkle and her lips curve in a smile, the portrait was beautiful enough. Pastor Wennervik perhaps felt some of the old glow of youth in his heart when his gaze rested on the picture.
Mayhap ’twas the portrait which inspired the obscure country parson to surround himself with flowers and birds, to enhance the beauty of life with music and poetry.
[IV
THE GANDER]
THERE was only one thing the children had against Pastor Wennervik—that in his late years he had married Jungfru Raklitz, the dreadful old housekeeper-person who had gone from manor to manor and been harassed and tormented by hard mistresses, until she, in her turn, became a plague and a torment.
If Pastor Wennervik must needs have married again he should at least have thought to protect his dear daughter against the stepmother. That she was allowed to treat the girl as she saw fit, to scold and chastise her and put upon her an unreasonable amount of work—that, the children could never forgive him.
How they loved the billy-goat that got drunk on dregs and butted into old Raklitz, upsetting both her and her brandy cruse. They also sided with the market folk at the Ombergshed Fair who stole her apples and shouted back to her that the Mårbacka parson was too good a man to take money from poor folk for his apples. And they gloried in the bold thief who broke into her larder after she’d had a new lock put on the door which was so big and strong it might have done for a prison gate. And they were ready to burst into tears at the thought of the poor goosey-gander!
One fine April day, in the time of Fru Raklitz, all the Mårbacka geese had been let out in the farmyard. Suddenly some wild geese came flying high above them, honking and shrieking as usual. The tame geese flapped their wings and squawked back—the way they do every spring.
As flock after flock of wild geese flew over, the tame geese grew more and more restless, and before any one knew what was up, a big gander darted into the air and joined the wild geese in their flight.
Everyone expected that he would soon turn back; but indeed he did nothing of the sort. When he was not there by the next morning, they thought they’d never lay eyes on him again. He must have fallen prey to the fox or the eagle, they said, if he had not actually become winded and dropped dead from exhaustion. It was inconceivable that a tame goose could fly with wild geese to the far north.