The Stonehills
Sven Elversson had been in to Göteborg to settle some accounts for building materials supplied for the schoolhouse, and came back by train. On arrival at the station nearest Applum, he found that the conveyance which was to have met him there had not come.
It was over ten miles to walk, and he stood in the station puzzling how he was to get back, when a small carriage with two horses drove up and stopped. It was from the inn at Applum, and, on inquiry, Sven learned that it had been ordered by the Priest, who had just married a clergyman’s daughter from a distance, far away in Norrland.
Sven Elversson had likewise ordered a carriage from the inn, but it was now clear that his message had gone astray; no carriage had been sent for him. The driver suggested that he should ask the Priest to let him ride on the box, but Sven did not wish to push himself forward, and would not hear of it.
They were still discussing the question, when the Priest and his young wife came out from the station.
They made a handsome pair. The Priest, just over thirty, was a man of middle height, powerfully built, and with a splendid head. He wore a full beard, dark and curling; had a broad, handsome forehead, well-cut features, and fresh complexion, with white teeth. Altogether, he seemed all that a young girl could wish for; a man to cherish and protect her, work for her, and give her a good place in the world. The young wife, too, was surprisingly beautiful. Sven Elversson was reminded of the type so favoured by some English painters: handsome women with tall, slender figure and sloping shoulders, slightly bowed head, rich hair prettily shading the face, straight eyebrows and delicate cheeks, and with a look in the brilliant eyes that seemed looking out of a strange world toward heaven.
It struck him as curious that, as he watched the pair, the Priest seemed gradually to lose all that Sven had formerly found attractive in him. The fine, unspeakably delicate lines and colouring of the woman seemed to render the man coarse and mean, almost ugly, by comparison. And Sven hoped that he was not influenced by ill-feeling toward the Priest from the time of that scene in the church, in feeling now that this was but a poor husband for the slight, dainty creature at his side.
Sven Elversson moved quickly away as the two came up, but he heard the driver asking on his own account if he might take Sven with him on the box, whereupon the Priest came forward and invited him to drive with them.
The Priest had, indeed, always treated him with kindness, and now, as Sven Elversson sat on the box and the carriage drove off, he tried to efface the impression of a moment ago. “I was mistaken, as I often am,” he said to himself. “I should say that I have not seen for years a pair so completely suited as these two. And well they may be. Here is the husband sitting and thinking how different life will be now in the little vicarage at Applum, with a young mistress to fill the place with life and gaiety—while she on her part is dreaming of all she will do to make the home so comfortable that he will never wish to leave it, and always be longing for it when he is away.”
So completely had Sven surrendered himself to this view, that he was astonished when a little later the young wife exclaimed, in a tone of weariness, even impatience:
“Oh, will they never end?”
“What is it she wants to end?” thought Sven to himself. “What can it be that could trouble her this day of all days?”
Sven Elversson looked round on all sides. And suddenly he understood. It must be the stonehills.
It was indeed a strange-looking landscape they were driving through.
Mountain country one could not call it, for there were neither peaks nor mountain ridges; on the other hand, it was not a level plain, for the ground was broken everywhere by hillocks of rock, large and small. In places, they were so close together as hardly to leave a passage between; then they would lie farther apart, with broad open spaces large enough for homestead and field. Right and left, behind and before, the same—truly a stranger might well ask if they would never end. The road wound in and out between them, and never the crest of a hill so high that they could see across them, to what lay beyond. All along the way were stonehills, and ever more behind. Some were sparsely clad with a poor growth of grass, others were bare, and others again showed patches of bush and heather; save for this, they were all alike.
Now and again, an open space between led one to hope that the ground might be clear beyond, but one had scarcely time to frame the thought before a new hillock thrust itself into view.
“It must be different in Norrland, of course,” thought Sven. “And these stonehills of ours are dark and forbidding enough, it is true. A pity they should be the first this little lady sees of Bohuslän.”
And next moment he heard her telling her husband that she felt as hopelessly lost among these stony hills as in the darkest forest.
In one place a flock of sheep could be seen grazing, then a couple of cows, or again some children picking berries. And the young wife declared that it was well they were there, for had it not been for the sight of children and homely animals, she would hardly have believed they were in a Christian country.
“Sigrun, how can you say such a thing!” exclaimed her husband. “This is Bohuslän, my own country, and I love every stone and every tuft of heather in it. What would you have said if I had spoken so about the pine forests and the moors of Norrland?”
As was but natural, his words took effect. The young wife was silent at first for a while; then she whispered something, with tears in her voice, and Sven understood that she was begging her husband’s forgiveness for having spoken so about his country.
“I’m not like that other days, really. I don’t know what can be the matter with me to-day,” she said.
Every word she uttered was a delight to hear; so solemnly and sincerely she spoke, with the slightest trace of a lisp in her voice. “God forbid she should be otherwise for my part,” thought Sven. “Surely ’tis only beautiful that she should be afraid of all ugly things.”
Nothing more was said for a time, but then the little lady began again, with a strange quiver in her voice:
“Edward, I know it’s wrong of me to trouble you, but I can’t help it. I am so afraid. I’ve been trying to overcome it by myself, but I can’t—it won’t go away. And then I just remembered that I shan’t need to struggle against things all alone now—that I’ve you to help me with all my weakness.”
There was such a depth of entreaty in her tone that Sven Elversson felt embarrassed at sitting there where he could hear. He felt himself unworthy even to over, hear the thoughts and feelings of this delicate lady.
She was trying now to explain to her husband that she was actually afraid. She fancied she had seen these hills somewhere before—had fled for her life among such a confusion of rocky hills, with some behind that sought to kill her. Or that there was someone even now lying in wait there, ready to fall upon them. Something terrible there must be, close at hand. She had but one desire, to get away from the place.
Her voice told that she was in greater fear even than she would admit, and that this was deadly earnest. Sven Elversson himself could not help smiling where he sat, and the Priest was utterly unable to understand her fear of nothing at all; he tried to answer gaily, and pass it over with a jest.
But his endeavours failed of their effect. She declared, with sudden violence, that if Applum were as cold and shut in as here, she could never live there.
“And it’s wicked and wrong of me to say so, I know,” she said; “but I’ve been thinking of it all the time, while we’ve been driving here; if I cannot find something beautiful at the end of it, something to help me, I shall be haunted by the same fear there as well. I shall be dreading every day that something terrible will happen.”
Sven Elversson thought of the plain at Applum, with the vicarage behind the church, set in a little hollow to be sheltered from the wind. And he wondered if she would find any comfort in the evenly divided fields, the dark wall of hills all round, the narrow view, the homesteads painted blue and white and red, and the treeless meadowland.
“’Tis none so easy for him just now,” thought Sven. “I’d find it hard myself to comfort her in his place. But he knows her, and loves her—it makes all the difference.”
The Priest must have been thinking of the same thing. He sat for a while without speaking.
“Let me tell you of a dream I had last winter,” he said at last. “It made me very happy at the time, that dream, and perhaps it may help you too.
“I dreamed that I was driving along the road to your home at Stenbroträsk, and it was toward the end of winter, bare earth and leafless trees, and the road a sodden stretch of mire. The bridges were out of repair, and the horse was a wretched beast that could hardly move at all.
“There was a keen, cold wind from the north, and everything was gray and dismal, and the few houses here and there along the way looked poor and miserable; the whole country seemed inhospitable and depressing.
“Then at last, coming up over the hill, I caught sight of the steep river-bank, and the church and the house at Stenbroträsk, and in a moment all was changed. The air seemed warmer, the fields were green, the birches wore a veil of leaf, the road was firm and good—everything was kindly and smiling as if in welcome; even the horse came suddenly to life and trotted on bravely.
“But the strange thing about it all was that I felt the spring and the warmth came from myself. They had not been there before, but now, as if by magic, they came—and all because of the warmth that filled my heart at sight of your home. And there seemed nothing strange about it all in my dream—it was all natural and as it should be.”
Here the Priest paused, and his wife, in a changed voice, asked what happened after.
“There was no more,” he answered. “For the warmth at my heart was so good to feel that I woke.” And, having said this, he was silent again.
But those few words of love, the little glimpse of something beautiful, had filled the young wife’s heart with joy, and the listener in front heard her whisper to her husband in a voice almost stifled with emotion:
“You mean that if I had but the same warmth in my heart as you, I should find beauty in this country of yours, and in your home—even in these dreadful hills.”
And then gladly and confidently she went on:
“Do not be afraid for me. There is nothing to frighten me now. I feel now as you felt in your dream.”
“There,” thought Sven to himself. “See how little one can judge things at first sight. Truly she could not have found a better husband than Pastor Rhånge. He has a good heart and a good head. Who else could have answered her so well?”