Now the husband was not glum and difficult when he came. He took his wife tenderly in his arms, dried her tears, and spoke loving words of comfort to her. It seemed as if then for the first time, when seeing her so crushed and sorrowful, was he able to reveal the full depth of his love.
“And I thought I should lose you, too!” she said.
“I’m not one that grief can drive away,” said he. “Did you think I would desert you because of your great compassion?”
In that moment she understood his heart as never before. She knew that in peaceful and happy days she must rely on herself—which she was well able to do; but in sorrow and suffering and times of stress he would always be by her side—her stay and comfort.
[OLD HOUSES AND OLD PEOPLE]
[I
THE STONE HUTS]
WHEN Lieutenant Lagerlöf took over Mårbacka the buildings were mostly very old. Oldest, however, were the manservants’ hall and the sheep-cot, though the storehouse on stilts, which served as larder, the stable with the loft balcony, the bath-house, where they used to smoke bacon, and the kiln, where they malted grain, were no newcomers into the world.
The servants’ hall and sheepfold were built of stones which had been picked up on the ground—large and small, round and flat. The walls were two ells in thickness, as if meant to withstand a siege. That style of building was not of last year or the year before, so that in the matter of age those two structures would certainly take precedence.