When the march was finished the Lieutenant motioned to his wife, who struck up Worthy Fathers, Noble Shadows, from the opera of “Gustaf Vasa,” which was the Major’s great show piece. He rendered the song with power and feeling, and the instruments seemed almost to sing with him.
Over on the straight-backed sofa, quiet as mice, sat all the children—Daniel, Johan, Anna, Selma, and Gerda—listening. What could they do but keep still, when the grown-ups played and carried on like youngsters? When the Major sang Worthy Fathers, Noble Shadows, they thought he sang of himself and the others who were performing in the living room.
To the children they were all like ghosts of a vanished something—shadows of a great and glorious past of which they could but catch the faint gleams of an afterglow.
[THE NEW MÅRBACKA]
[I
THE SEVENTEEN CATS]
THERE was a cow-girl at Mårbacka named Britta Lambert, who had been on the place from the time of the Paymaster of the Regiment. She was little and ugly, with a face like old parchment, and she had only one eye. In the company of humans she was crabbed and surly, but she loved animals. If a cow was expected to calve in the night, she would make up a bed in the barn and sleep there. Every day she would heat water in the brew house and carry great bucketfuls down to the barn, so that the cows might have warm mash. When the hay ran low in the cow-house, along in April, and the cows had to chew on rye-straw, she was not above sneaking over to the stable and stealing hay from the horses.
The barn in which she ruled was very old and so dark you could scarcely see your hand before you; the passageways were narrow, the floor was worn full of holes, and the cows stood in cramped little stalls, which Britta did not think to keep clean. Nevertheless, steady contentment reigned in the old cow-house. There was no fear of a cow’s overfeeding, or getting anything sharp in her fodder, or that aught would go wrong with the calving. There were lots of calves and plenty of milk. The mistress at Mårbacka never had any anxiety concerning the cow-house.
But there was one species of animal Britta Lambert loved even better than she loved the cow, and that was the cat. She believed that cats had some sort of supernatural power to protect her and her cattle. The worst thing one could ask of her was to drown a kitten now and then, lest there should be more cats than cows to care for. When anyone stepped inside the dark cow-house he was met on all sides by the uncanny gleam of green cat-eyes. The cats got under his feet and sprang on to his shoulders—for that Britta had got them into the habit of doing.