That was what he thought he was writing, but his poor brain was far gone by this time and the paper he scribbled on over the counterpane was merely covered with unintelligible curves and strokes which Anna could not send on to Oscar.
When it seemed certain that the intensity of the Governor's wrath would kill him, and that he would die with nothing in his heart but hatred of the Factor, Anna and Aunt Margret put their heads together and thought of a way to soften his feelings and sweeten his end. It centered in the child as before. "A little child shall lead them," they said.
They took little Elin to the Governor's bedroom, and left her to play on the floor. She had grown to be the sweetest thing, with an angel's face, a little beam of spring sunshine that ran about the room and talked. But the only effect of her presence was to make the sick man stretch his arms to a safe near the head of his bed and take out a roll of papers.
Nobody knew what the papers were, except that they were old and that they crinkled in his stiff fingers. He kept them under his pillow at all times save when his bed was being made and then he smuggled them into the breast of his night-shirt.
When the women talked of Elin and all her pretty ways and sweet mysteries of childish make-believe, the Governor talked of Oscar. Although his memory was confused about recent events it was wondrously clear about distant ones, and he had countless stories of Oscar as a child. Some of them were humorous and he would laugh at them as well as he could with his distorted face, but all were meant to show that Oscar was not like other children, and when he had come to an end he would say:
"My son is a great man now, as I always said he would be, and when he gets my letter you'll see what he will do."
Meantime the Act had been sent over to Denmark and the Sheriff had been called across to Copenhagen. There was only one thing that this could mean, and in the absence of telegraphic communication the little capital sat waiting for the return of the steamer that was to bring the Sheriff back. She was due on a Sunday night, and the bell-ringers of the cathedral stood ready to ring a peal in honor of the new Minister.
The Governor heard that the "Laura" was expected and he conceived the idea that Oscar was coming with her to bring the King's veto and to scatter his father's enemies. He was very ill that day, and Doctor Olesen had said he might not last until morning. But he would have nobody to nurse him, and Magnus, who had come at his mother's call, but dared not show his face to his father, sat on the stairs outside the door.
Aunt Margret was coming and going during the whole of the day, and toward evening the Factor himself was seen tramping to and fro outside the house, looking up at intervals at the Governor's windows with a face in which the madness of love and fear was fighting with the greater madness of pride and wrath. At length Anna went out to him and said:
"Oscar Neilsen, come into the house to see your old friend."