The newcomer at once entered into conversation with Lotta. He asked her whether any revelations had come to her before the time of the war, or if it was only since its beginning that she had been aware of her gift. He spoke in low tones, with a soft, gentle, and very winning voice, exhibiting the warmest interest, without either expressing doubt or faith. To others, his manner of speaking might seem irritating in its extreme humility, but Lotta Hedman was pleased to be addressed with some measure of respect, now that she had for the first time shown herself among strangers and revealed her calling.
"I should be glad indeed if you would tell me something about your visions," said the man. "It is too much to ask, perhaps, seeing that I am a stranger to you, but be sure I should feel it a great honour."
The young woman could not resist such an appeal, and began at once to tell about the first time she had noticed anything strange. But she spoke now with far greater calm than before. True, she raised her voice, and found also more listeners than the one directly addressed, but the man before her seemed unwittingly to exert a calming influence, and her eagerness was restrained.
"I was only fourteen at the time," she said, "and was just recovering from a serious illness that had been sent by my persecutor Death; I was very weak, and all my body felt as if it were withering and falling to nothing. But I did not live alone then, as I do now; I lived at home with my father and mother. And they were only poor peasant folk, but they cared for me in my weakness, and let me stay at home, instead of sending me out to service among strangers. And Mother asked no more of me than that I should help her with light work and errands, and read aloud a chapter of the Bible every day.
"There was no sawmill at Stenbroträsk in those days, and no box factory, and no workmen's dwellings, nor even the beginning of a settlement. All our side of the river there were no houses beyond a couple of small farmsteads. The church and the Deanery and the big farms were all over on the other side, just as they are now.
"Then, one Sunday evening, Mother told me to row over with some milk to the Deanery, for it was summer time, and everyone there had their cows out at a distance for months together, and they could not get milk nearer than from us.
"I got into the boat, and started to row across, and it was all so easy and light of a sudden. As if the heavy boat was turned to the lightest little thing, and the water changed to smooth, fine oil, and the oars to delicate wings. And everything was very quiet and still. The oars did not creak in the rowlocks, nor splash in the water, and there was no sound from either shore. Not so much as a cow-bell anywhere. No men and girls sitting talking on the banks, and all the swallows that always used to build in the high banks and were always fluttering and flying about outside their holes, they seemed to be gone all at once, and never a sign of them.
"And when I had rowed across, and taken the milk and started up to walk to the Deanery, it wasn't hard walking at all, though it was uphill all the way, and I had the sun right in my face. The sun didn't seem hot in the least, and the milk wasn't heavy at all.
"And I thought to myself they must be waiting eagerly for me, and it must mean something good for me somehow; for I had never found it so easy to get over there before.
"And then when I came into the kitchen, it was all quiet there too, and not a soul to be seen that I could give the milk to, so I had to stay waiting at the door.