He had drawn up a chair near the fire, and was telling Sigrun about foreign lands, that she had never seen and never would see, now that she sat buried here in a little parsonage in Sweden.
Sigrun was busy with her own thoughts and her restless desires, and let his words pass idly by. She she could have listened to what he was saying; it would have perhaps dispelled her weariness and longing if she could. But it was beyond her power.
Every now and then the Pastor raised his head and looked in to them from the room where he sat. And, listening, he could hear that they were talking of great cities in the lands where now the war raged at its worst. And it seemed to him very foolish of Sigrun to sit listening to all that idle chatter.
Out in the brewhouse where Lotta Hedman sat, the milkmaid had just finished rinsing her pail with hot water, and, seeing that the work was ended and the room would not be in use any more that day, Lotta moved in there with her table, her lamp, and her Bible. She drew a pair of pink stuff curtains across, in front of the great bricked-in cauldrons, hiding all the smoky black corner and making the place look more like a living-room.
She had a comfortable wicker chair to sit in, and brought out another now from the room adjoining, placing it by the table. For it was Sigrun's custom to come out and talk to Lotta for a while during the long evenings. Now and again the Bailie would come out and sit for a long time, coaxing Lotta to talk of Sigrun, and sometimes the Pastor himself would come and tease her by asking if she had yet discovered the mystery of the seven seals and the glorious millennium.
Lotta Hedman had been asked to stay at the vicarage and help with odd work, looking after the fowls and such-like, on condition that she could be content with a room in the brewhouse. She had accepted the offer with joy. Sigrun had herself put up wall paper and curtains in the little room at the side, and given her really beautiful things to furnish it with. Lotta had had her belongings sent down from Stenbroträsk, managed her own housekeeping independently of the rest of the household, and in the evenings she had the two rooms entirely to herself. It was quite like having a real drawing-room of her own.
About the same time as Lotta moved into the scullery, the lad in the men's room went into the kitchen to find someone to talk to. The milkmaid was there as well. And now all began talking about their master and mistress, and wondering if the Pastor had not yet found out that the Bailie was in love with his wife.
"He was so jealous about her before, they say," said the milkmaid, "that he moved up here on purpose, to be somewhere where she wouldn't be likely to see anyone but him. But he doesn't seem to mind about this Bailie man."
"Thinks it's not worth worrying about, I dare say," said the lad. "An old man like that, and half dead with the stroke already."
The Bailie was sitting as before by the stove in the inner room. But he was silent now, and had drawn up his chair and sat deep in thought.