"He was one of Stälhandske's horsemen!" said the Finn with great pride.
"When did he fall, and where?"
"In the last struggle with the Pappenheimers."
"Go and search for him."
The duke's order was promptly obeyed by these exhausted soldiers, who had reason to wonder why one of the youngest officers should be searched for this night, when Nils Brahe, Winckel, and many other old leaders were lying uncared for in their blood on the battlefield. It was nearly morning when the searchers returned and reported that Bertel's dead body could not be found anywhere.
"Hum!" said the duke discontentedly; "great men have sometimes funny ideas. What shall I now do with the king's ring?"
The November sun rose blood-red over the field of Lützen. A new time had come; the Master had left, and the disciples had now to carry out his work alone.
II.—THE SWORD AND THE PLOUGH.
Silence reigned after the conclusion of the narrative; everyone was thinking of the great hero's fall, and not realising that the tale was ended. The old grandmother sat on the stuffed sofa in her brown woollen shawl, and near her the schoolmaster, Svenonius, with his blue handkerchief and brass spectacles. Captain Svanholm, the postmaster, who had lost a finger in the last war, was on the right; on the left pretty Anne Sophie, eighteen years old, with a high tortoise-shell comb in her long brown hair; and around them, on the floor or on stools, sat six or seven playful children, with mouths now wide open, as if they had heard a ghost story.