“Yes, come tomorrow, both of you, and we’ll have fruit juice and biscuits first, and then go into the hothouses.”
It was in this way Stellan penetrated beyond the high, white fence round Stonehill. From the beginning he tried to imitate the aristocratic indifference of the “china doll” to all the good things to eat. Except, of course, when he thought nobody was looking, and then he gobbled up all he could. Worldly wisdom and fine manners are all very well, but we are only human after all....
Yes, all this had happened the year before. Now he was cut off from all that splendour, because of the rotten old boat, and the gardener’s tarred punt he was ashamed to go in.
Stellan was already walking away from the pier, where the water glittered and beat so mockingly against the wet boards, when it suddenly struck him that at Ekbacken old Hermansson had a smart little craft that was decorated every Sunday with a fine display of streamers in the stem, and a flag in the stern.
“I was beastly stupid, yesterday,” he thought, “beastly stupid,” and his usual expression, the cool, half-sneer returned.
Stellan stole cautiously across the park so as not to be seen or have Laura on his heels. From the bend in the avenue he got a good view of Ekbacken. And he stopped a moment, impressed by the sight. It seemed as if he were looking at Ekbacken for the first time. An expression of amazing cunning came into Stellan’s face, as he passed in through the red wooden gateway. Already his thoughts travelled far, far beyond to old Hermansson’s fine, little boat.
Ekbacken Sawmill and Shipyard was a fine, old business that ran itself. Trustworthy, leisurely, old workers stalked about on the timber rafts inside the boom, and there were steady, old, grey sailors who had sailed in all the seas of the world and were caulking old brigs and barges. And inside in the office sat the book-keeper Lundbom, with eyeglasses and a leather shade, writing out bills to a lot of good and safe customers, who paid in cash and not with miserable acceptances. There also sat old Hermansson reading his paper. There was such a blessed peace that he had smoked half his cigar and the ash was still on it.
He looked up at Stellan with an expression of fatherly benevolence.
“Good-morning, my dear boy. You are looking for Herman, I suppose, but he is at his lessons now. Yes, that’s what happens when you flunk. Come along now, and let us have a talk.”
Stellan asked for nothing better. They went over to the house in a pretty oak wood just by the road to town. On the other side spread soft, billowing, green fields set with old, brown barns. This land also belonged to Ekbacken, but was let to tobacco growers. On the town side the estate was sheltered by some stony hillocks with a few pines here and there, behind which, however, some high, bare walls had entirely shot up and threatened to destroy the idyl.