The old man's gaze was fixed upon the paper long after he had laid down his pen.
"Yes," he said thoughtfully and reflectively, "so shall it be. During my lifetime they have trampled me like a worm in the dust; once I am dead they will know upon whom they have trodden. Gloria, gloria in excelsis! The day will arrive, even if it be a century hence, when the miserable prisoner who, now forgotten by the whole world, pines away in the wilderness, shall with admiration and respect be called the father of Swedish history....
"Then," he continued with a bitter smile, "they can do nothing more for me. Then I shall be dead ... Ah, it is strange! the dead man, whose bones have long mouldered in the grave, lives in his works; his spirit goes quickening and ennobling through the ages. All that he has endured while he lived, all the ignominy, all the persecutions, all the prison gratings are forgotten; they exist no longer, provided his name still shines like a star through the night of time, and posterity, with its short memory and its ingratitude, says, with thoughtless admiration, he was a great man!"
During this soliloquy the old woman, whose acquaintance we made in the castle yard, entered the room. She carefully opened the door, and walked on tip-toe, as if afraid of waking a sleeping babe. Then she carefully put down the wood she carried in her arms. A little noise, however, was unavoidable; the old man at the table, startled from his thoughts, began to upbraid the intruder:
"Woman!" he said, "how dare you disturb me! Have I not told you iterum iterumque, that you shall take away your penates procul a parnasso? Do you understand it ... lupa?"
"Dear Messenius, I am only bringing you a little wood. You have been so cold all these days. Do not be angry now. I shall make the room nice and warm for you; it is excellent wood..."
"Quid miki tecum. Go to the dogs. You vex me, woman. You are, as the late King Gustaf always said, Messenü mala herba; my wormwood, my nettle."
Lucia Grothusen was an extremely quick-tempered woman, angry and quarrelsome with the whole world; but this time she kept quite still. How strangely her domestic position had altered! She had always idolized her husband, but as long as he was in the full strength of his manhood and prosperity, she had bent his unquiet, vacillating spirit like a reed under her will. All that time the feared and learned Messenius was held in complete subjection. Now the rôles were changed. As his physical strength declined, indicating more and more that he approached the end of his life, his wife's idolatrous love came into conflict with her masterful disposition, and finally produced the extraordinary result of reducing this character to humble submission. She nursed him as a mother nurses her sick child, for fear of losing him. She bore everything patiently, and never had an angry word in reply to his querulous remarks. Even on this occasion, only a slight trembling of the lips gave evidence of the effort it cost her to check her anger.
"Never mind," she said kindly, as she went a few steps nearer, "do not feel angry about it, my dear, because it injures your health. I will not do it again; next time I will lay a mat under the wood, so that it will not disturb you. Now I will cook you a splendid leg of mutton for supper ... Believe me, I had trouble enough to get it. I almost had to take it by force from the Governor's kitchen."
"What, woman! have you dared to beg beneficia from tyrants? By Jupiter, do you think me a dog, that I should eat the crumbs from their tables? And then you limp. Why do you do that? Answer me; why do you limp? I suppose you have been running around like a gossiping old woman, and tripped on the stairs."