"She is not honest flesh and blood; she is a shadow," said an old Worä peasant doubtingly. "It seems to me that I see the moon shine right through her."
"We will soon prove that," exclaimed a rough fellow from Ilmola, laying his coarse hand rather heavily on Regina's shoulder.
It was a critical moment; the young girl turned round and looked her molester right in the face with such deep, shining eyes, that the latter seized with a strange feeling, immediately drew back, and stole away abashed. Some of the nearest bystanders followed him. None could understand the power of these dark eyes in the moonlight, but all felt their wondrous influence. In a few moments the space near Regina was empty, and the strife had ceased. A patrol, who now arrived, arrested the ringleaders.
Not long, however, did the rivalry engendered by the Club War continue between the peasants and the soldiers; between the peaceful plough, Finland's pride, and the conquering sword, which at this time was drawn to subdue the Roman Emperor himself.
Of Regina we need only say that she willingly allowed herself, yet with a sigh over the martyr's-crown she had missed, to be taken back to the dark, solitary prison-chamber. But Bertila returned with his daughter to Storkyro; the old man with thoughts of coming greatness, the young woman with the memory of a past joy. All this occurred during two days in the summer of 1632, thus, before King Gustaf Adolf's death.
Days and months elapsed, and human destinies changed their forms, so that the swift word is obliged to check its flight, and remain silent awhile in expectation of the evenings which are to come. For the surgeon's stories, like a child's joy or sorrow, lasted but a brief time—long enough for those who with friendship listened to them, and perhaps sufficiently long for the others. But never was the thread of the story clipped in the middle of its course without both young and old anticipating more. And the surgeon had to promise this. He had so much still left to relate about the half-spun skein of two family histories, that next time it will probably be spun; longer—if not to the end, at least to the knot, which says that the skein has reached its right length.
III.—FIRE AND WATER.
Six weeks passed before the surgeon and his circle of listeners gathered again. During that time an accident had happened to old Bäck. Most of us in this world possess hobbies, and old bachelors in particular. Bäck had got it into his mind that he ought to have a certain comfort in his old age; he had in his garret a good-sized sack of feathers, which he increased in spring and autumn by bird-shooting. To what use these feathers were to be put no one knew; when he was asked about it, he said:
"I will do like Possen at the 'Wiborg explosion'; if Finland is in need, I will go up some tower and shake my feathers into the air, then there will be as many soldiers as the sack has feathers."