II
THE ROBBER’S STRONGHOLD
The children were playing up in the big attic at Selambshof. The rain pattered against the tiles of the roof and rushed down the spouts. But inside it was dry and dusty and mysterious in the twilight among the roof-timbers and the chimney pipes. And there were heaps of things that the grown-ups had thrown aside, but which for that very reason were so tempting: old, worn-out things which had reached their second childhood, and just for that reason suited the children’s games so well.
It was only with great difficulty that Stellan could open the lock of the iron-bound oak chest. Triumphant, he pulled out a torn black skirt and spread it over the pram in which Hedvig lay on her back, pale and with her legs hanging over the edge. He called to Peter, who was the hearse-horse, and the melancholy procession was just about to start, when Hedvig began to sneeze because the skirt was full of red pepper.
“Can’t you pretend to be dead, you silly girl,” shouted Stellan impatiently.
And Laura bent down and giggled in the midst of the procession. Besides these two, the mourners were Herman Hermansson from Ekbacken and little Tord. But Tord did not want to take part in the game any longer, so he crept into a corner and sulked. The outlook was not very promising.
Creakily the pram began to move. They were playing “Mamma’s funeral” for the hundredth time.
The procession stopped before the church, which was the triangle under the staircase up to the ceiling. Herman, with an air of deadly earnest on his open face, stood and chimed a nail on a stove ring. But Stellan drew the black skirt over his shoulders and climbed up on a wooden box and pretended to be the clergyman. He threw his head back and laying his hands on his chest began to hold forth: “From the earth you come, and wipe your feet, and honour your father and mother and sister and brother, and don’t hang on to people’s skirts, and don’t balance yourself on your chair because you will fall, fallevall, appala, mesala, mesinka, meso, sebedi, sebede, and get away now you silly, for now you are dead.”
This long rigmarole was uttered with the utmost solemnity and did not fail to impress the listeners. Hedvig grew frightened of shamming death. She was so frightened that she felt cold shivers down her back. But she did not climb out of the coffin, she remained as quiet as a mouse, for she knew that if she gave up the place of honour Laura would seize it at once. And Hedvig did not want that on any account.
Suddenly the rain stopped pattering on the roof. Silently the shadows crept on in the dust under the heavy beams. It was as if the silence and the emptiness of the big gloomy house had stealthily crept up among these mourners. They really felt the emptiness after their mother’s death, after her dainties and her scolding—perhaps most after her scolding. Yes, formerly when Mamma was in the kitchen scolding, they heard it up in the attic. But with old Kristin it was different. She kept on worrying them the whole time—and they got tired of it—
And then there was something funny about father. Since Mamma died he was always in town, and when sometimes he came home he looked so dull-eyed and shabby, almost as if he was drunk. And then they felt still lonelier. Stellan had overheard Kristin say to the gardener that the master was drinking himself to death—but Stellan could not understand how that could happen. Surely one did not die from being drunk?