"Unharness the horses and let us ride there."
"No, dear master, it is of no use; these woods have been fearfully haunted, that I know of old, ever since the peasants beat the bailiff to death during the Club War, and burned his house and his innocent children."
"Nonsense! I tell you that we will ride there."
"It is all the same to me."
In a few moments the horses were taken out of the traces, and the two travellers pushed on in the direction of the light, which sometimes disappeared and then again shone between the snow-covered pines.
"But tell me, Pekka," resumed Bertel, "what is the story about this wilderness? I remember that I often heard them speak of it in my childhood."
"Yes, yes, your mother was born here."
"There used to be quite a little colony in this wood."
"Yes, indeed, it was many hundreds of acres in extent. The bailiffs had laid it all out for miles, as far back as Gustaf Vasa's time; and here many hundreds of tons of grain have been grown, so father has told me; and the noble bailiff had built a fine house here, and lived like a prince in the wilderness; and then, as I told you, the peasants came and set fire to the place in the night-time, destroying both people and cattle, with the exception of the young 'Lady,' whom your father saved and afterwards took for his wife. It is very certain that he had a finger in that pie."
"And so the farm was never built up again."