"Ha, my father, you have wished it!" cried the young man, and in a flash was outside the door and in his sleigh, which at the next moment was heard driving off through the raging tempest.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FUGITIVE LADY.
We will now see what has become of Lady Regina, and what has induced her to exchange Fru Marta's tender care for the desperate adventure of fleeing in the middle of winter, through a strange country filled with desolate tracts, where she was profoundly ignorant of the roads and paths, and did not even know how to make herself understood in the language of the people.
We must not overlook the fact that our story is laid in a period when Catholicism and Lutheranism were in the sharpest conflict; when Lutheranism, heated by the violent opposition, was as little inclined to religious tolerance as Catholicism itself. Fru Marta had once for all been possessed by the idea that she was in duty bound to convert Lady Regina to the Lutheran faith, and from this well-meant but futile enterprise, no one could dissuade her. She therefore persisted, in and out of season, to torment the poor girl with her views; sometimes with books, sometimes with exhortations, and at others with persuasions and threats, or promises of freedom; and when Regina refused to read the books, or listen to the preaching, the zealous old lady had prayers read in her prisoner's room every morning and evening, as well as services on Sundays. All these means were thrown away on what Fru Marta considered Regina's stubbornness. The more the former exerted herself, the calmer, colder, and more unyielding became her captive. Regina naturally looked upon herself as a martyr for her faith, and suffered every humiliation with apparent fortitude for the sake of the holy cause.
But within the young girl's veins fermented the hot southern blood, and it was with great difficulty that she could always appear calm on the surface. There were times when Regina would have blown up the whole of Korsholm, if it had been in her power. But the old granite walls defied her silent rage, and flight finally became her only method of escape from the persecution. Night and day she pondered over it; and at last she discovered a means of eluding Fru Marta's vigilance.
In Kajaneborg castle was then confined the celebrated and unfortunate Johannes Messenius, who in his youth had been educated by the Jesuits in Braunsberg, and chosen by them to become the apostle of Catholicism in Sweden. Imprisoned for his lampoons and conspiracies in the interest of Sigismund's party, he had now for nineteen years, under hard treatment, sat there like a mole in his hole, when the report of his learning, his misfortunes, and his Popish sentiments reached Lady Regina in her prison. From this moment some bold plans began to ferment in the young girl's mind.
One day, about New Year's time, a wandering German quack came to Korsholm with his medicine-chest on his back, just like peddling Jews at a later date.* Such doctors and apothecaries combined in one individual did a lucrative business at the expense of the common people, and were frequently consulted even by the upper classes, for in the whole country there was not a single regular physician, and only one apothecary in Abo; and even this one was not well stocked. No wonder, then, that our man found enough to do, even at Korsholm, what with pains, stomach-aches, and gout; nay, Fru Marta, who, every time she had thrashed her male servants, complained of colic and shortness of breath, received the foreign doctor with very good will. In a few days the latter was quite at home, and thus it fell out that he was called in to prescribe for Lady Regina, who was suffering from a severe headache.
* It was peculiar that the surgeon always spoke of quacks with great contempt, although he had himself travelled about with a medicine chest on his back.
This time, Fru Marta's usual perspicacity deserted her. Two days afterwards the young lady, old Dorthe, and the quack doctor were all missing. A grating which had been broken off from the outside, and a rope ladder, made it certain that the quack had been instrumental in procuring for the prisoner a free passage over wall and ramparts. Fru Marta forgot both her colic and shortness of breath, from sheer amazement and anger, stirred up the castle and the town, and immediately dispatched her soldiers in all directions to capture the fugitives. It will soon be seen how far she succeeded.