CHAPTER III.

THE SOUTHERN FLOWER COMES TO THE NORTH.

Some miles south of Vasa, on the sixty-third degree of latitude, the Bay of Finland, which has hitherto gone straight north and south, makes a perceptible bend towards the north-east. The great blue Baltic following the same direction, narrows for a moment in the "Qvark," widens again, and leans its bright brow against Finland's breast. Freer there than anywhere else, the winds from the Arctic Ocean sweep over these coasts and drive the waves with terrible violence against the rocks. In the midst of this stormy sea, lie Gadden's bare flat ledges, with their warning lighthouse and far projecting reefs. When the mountain winds shake their wings over these breakers, then woe unto the vessel which, without a sure rudder and lightly furled sails, ventures through the narrow passage at "Understen"--its destruction is certain. But in the middle of summer it often happens that a slightly northern wind is the most welcome, and promises clear skies and fine weather. Then fly many hundreds of sails from the coast out towards "Qvark's" islands and reefs, to cast their nets for shoals of herrings; and the restless, murmuring sea dances like a loving mother, with her daughters, the green islands, resting upon her bosom.

With the exception of Aland and Ekenäs there is no part of Finland's coast so rich with luxuriant vegetation as "Qvark" and its neighbouring east shore. These innumerable islets, of which the largest are Wallgrund and Björkö, are here sprinkled about like drops of green in the blue expanse, and formed a parish by themselves called "Replotchapel," inhabited only by fishermen. So numerous are these groups, so infinitely varied the sounds, so intricate the channels, that a strange vessel could not find its way out without a native pilot at the helm. Thirty cruisers here would be insufficient to prevent smuggling; there is only one means of putting a stop to this inherited sin of the coast, and this method is a light tariff with but few prohibitions; Finland during later years has tried it with success and to her own advantage.

At the same period as described in the preceding chapter, therefore in the middle of August, 1632, the waters of the Baltic were divided by the royal man-of-war "Maria Eleonora," bound from Stockholm to Vasa to transport the recruits for the German War. It was a bright fine summer morning. Over the wide sea played an indescribable glitter, which was at the same time grand and enchantingry beautiful. A boundless field of snow, illumined by the spring sun, can rival it in splendour, but the snow is stillness and death, the shimmering waves are motion and life.

A slumbering sea in its resplendency, is grandeur clothed in the smile of delight; he is a sleeping giant, who dreams of sunbeams and flowers. Gently heaves his breast; then the plank rocks underneath thy feet, and thou tremblest not; he could swallow thee up in his abyss, but he mildly spreads his golden carpet under the keel, and he, the strong, bears the frail bark like a child in his arms.

It was immediately after sunrise. The monotonous silence of sea-life prevailed on board the vessel during the morning watch, as when no danger is feared. Part of the crew were still asleep below the deck, only the mate, wrapped in a jacket of frieze, walked to and fro on the aft deck. The helmsman stood motionless at the rudder, the man in the round top peered ahead, and here and there on the fore deck stood a sailor, fastening a loose rope end, carrying wood to the caboose, or polishing the guns which were to salute Korsholm when they entered that port.

The stern discipline of a modern man-of-war was at that time almost unknown. There were no uniforms or steam whistles, nor any of the complex signals and commands which are now carried to such perfection. Then a man-of-war scarcely differed from a merchant vessel, excepting in size, armament, and the number of officers and men she carried. When one remembers that at that time there was neither whisky or coffee on board to protect against the chill morning air--they had, however, already learned from the Dutch to use an occasional quid of tobacco for this purpose--then it is readily perceived that life on the "Maria Eleonora" bore very little resemblance to that on board one of our modern men-of-war.

By the green gunwale of the deck stood two female figures, with wide travelling hoods of black wool on their heads. One of these passengers was small in atature, and showed under her hood an old wrinkled face, with a pair of peering grey eyes; she had wrapped herself up in a thick wadded cloak of Nurberg cloth. The other figure was tall and slender, and wore a tight-fitting capote of black velvet lined with ermine. Leaning against the gunwale, she regarded with a gloomy air the fast receding waves left in the vessel's wake. Her features could not be seen from the deck; but if one could have caught her countenance from the mirroring waves, it would have exhibited a classically beautiful pale face, illuminated by two black eyes, which surpassed in lustre the shining wave-mirrors themselves.

"Holy Mary!" cried the old woman in strongly pronounced Low German, "when will this misery come to an end, that the saints have imposed upon us on account of our sins? Tell me, my little lady, in what part of the world we are now? It appears to me as if a whole year had passed since we sailed from Stralsund; for since we left the heretic's Stockholm I have not kept account of the days. Every morning when I rise, I say seven _aves_ and seven _pater nosters_, as the revered Father Hieronymus taught us, as a protection against witchcraft and evil. One can never know; the world might end here, and we have now come far away from the rule of the true believing Church and Christian people. This sea has no end. Oh, this horrible sea! I now praise the River Main, which flows so peacefully underneath our turret windows in Würzburg. Say, lady, what if over there, on the horizon, the earth ends, and that we are sailing straight into purgatory?"

The tall slender girl did not seem to listen to her loquacious duenna. Her dark brilliant eyes under the black eyelashes were resting pensively on the water, as if in the waves she could read an interpretation of the dream of her heart. And when at times a long swell from former storms rolled forth under the smaller waves, and the ship gently careened, so that the gunwale dipped close to the water, and the image in the sea approached the girl on board, then a smile could be seen on her beautiful features, at once proud and melancholy, and her lips moved inaudibly, as if to confide her inmost thoughts to the waves.

"It is only the great and majestic in life that deserve to be loved."

Then she added, transported by this thought:

"Why should I not love a great man?"

And she whispered these words with unbounded enthusiasm. But instantly a shiver ran through her delicate frame, a bright flash shot from her dark eyes, and she said, almost trembling at the thought:

"It is only the great and majestic in life that deserve to be hated! Why should I not hate----?"

She did not finish the sentence. She bent her head towards the ground, the fire in her eyes disappeared, and in its place a tear was seen. Two mighty opposing spirits fought with each other in this passionate soul. One said to her "Love!" the other said to her "Hate!" And her heart bled under this terrible struggle between the angel and the demon.

It is unnecessary to mention what the reader has already divined, that the slender girl on board the "Maria Eleonora" was no other than Lady Regina von Emmeritz, the beautiful fanatical girl who tried to convert King Gustaf Adolf to the Catholic faith at Frankfurt-on-the-Main. The king who knew the human heart, considered with reason, that this religious enthusiast was capable of anything if left a prey to the Jesuit's influence. It was, therefore, not from revenge, which was unknown to this great heart, but, on the contrary, from noble compassion for a young and richly endowed nature, that he had sent her away for a time to a far-off country, where the black monk's influence could not reach her. The reader will remember that the king, on the night of the feast at Frankfurt, ordered the Lady Regina to be sent by Stralsund and Stockholm to the strict old lady Marta at Korsholm. The noble king did not know that the dark power, from whom he was trying to save his beautiful prisoner, followed her even to the far-off coast of Finland. Lady Regina had permission to choose one of her maids to accompany her; accordingly she selected the one in whom she had the greatest confidence; unfortunately this was not the bright and fair Ketchen--she had been sent back to her relations in Bavaria--but old Dorthe, who had been her nurse, and who was controlled by the Jesuit; for a long time this old woman had nourished the fanatical fire in the young girl's soul. So the poor unprotected maiden was still given up to the dark powers that had warped her mind since childhood, and perverted her rich, sensitive heart with their terrible teachings. And against this influence she could only place a single but mighty feeling: her admiration, her enthusiastic attachment to Gustaf Adolf, whom she loved and hated at the same time--whom she would have been able to kill, yet for whom she would herself have suffered death.

The shrewd Dorthe seemed to guess her mistress' thoughts; she leaned forward, and peering with her small eyes, said in the familiar tone which a subordinate in her position so easily assumes:

"Aye, aye.... Is that the way it stands; do they come up again, the sinful thoughts about the heretic king and all his followers? Yes, yes, the devil is cunning; he knows what he is about. When he wishes to catch a little frivolous girl of the usual kind, he puts before her eyes a young handsome cavalier, with long silken curls. But when he wishes to entangle a poor forsaken girl, with great proud thoughts and noble aspirations, he brings forward a great king, who gains castles and battles; and little does the poor child care that the stately conqueror is a sworn enemy to her Church and faith, and is working for the ruin of both."

Regina turned her tearful and glistening eyes away from the sea, and looked for a moment with indescribable doubt at her old counsellor.

"Say," said she, almost vehemently, "is it possible to be at once the greatest and the most hateful of human beings?"

Regina looked again towards the sea. The peaceful tranquility of the mornine lay over the glittering waters, and stilled the tempest within. The young girl remained silent. Dorthe continued:

"By their fruits ye shall know them. Just think, what evil has not the godless king done to our Church and us? He has slain many thousands of our warriors; he has plundered our cloisters and castles; he has driven out our nuns and holy fathers from their godly habitations, and the devout pater, Hieronymus, has been frightfully abused by his people, the heretic Finns; ourselves he has sent away to the ends of the earth..."

Again Regina looked over at the islands and the inlets bathed in the mild morning effulgence. While the dark demon whispered hatred in her ears, beaming nature seemed to preach only love. On her lips hovered already the ravishing thought:

"What matters it if he has slain thousands; if he has driven away monks and nuns; if he has forced us into exile! What matters all this, if he is great as an individual, and acts according to the dictates of his faith!"

But she kept silent from fear; she dared not break from all her preceding life. She caught up, instead, one of Dorthe's words, as if to dispel the thunder-cloud of hatred and malice, which enveloped her heart in its dark mist, in the midst of this calm and lovely scene.

"Do you know, Dorthe," she said, "that the Finns whom you hate live on the coast of this sea? Do you see that strip of land over there in the east? It is Finland. I have not yet seen its shores, and yet I cannot detest a country which is bathed by so glorious a sea. I cannot think that evil people can grow up in the heart of such a land."

"All saints protect us!" exclaimed the old woman, and her lenn hand hastily made the sign of the cross. "Is that Finland? St. Patrick preserve us from ever setting foot upon its cursed soil; my dear lady, you have then never heard what is said of this land and its heathen people? There prevails an eternal night; there the snow never melts; there the wild beasts and the still wilder men lie together in dens and caves. The woods are so thick with hobgoblins and imps, that when one of them is called by name, a hundred monsters immediately come forth from the leaves and branches. And among themselves, these people bewitch each other with all kinds of evils, so that when anyone carries food to another person, he changes his enemy into a wolf; and every word they speak takes life, so that when they wish to make a boat or an axe, they say it, and directly they have what they wish."

"You are drawing a fine picture," said Regina, smiling for the first time in a long period, for the freshness of the sea had a good influence on her dreamy soul. "Happy is the land where the people can create all they wish for with a word. If I am hungry, and desire a beautiful fruit, I have but to say, _peach_, and right away I have it. If I feel thirsty, I say, _spring_, and instantly a spring gurgles at my feet. If I have sorrow in my heart, I say, _hope_, and hope returns. And if I long for a beloved friend, I mention his name, and he stands by my side. A glorious land is Finland, were it such as you represent it to me. Even if we lived with wild beasts in a cave under the eternal snows, we would look at each other and say, Fatherland, and at the same moment we would sit hand in hand on the banks of the Main, beneath the shadows of the lindens, where we often sat when I was a child, and the nightingales of our native land would sing to us as before."

Dorthe turned angrily away. The vessel steered between the rocks and islands, and moved with gentle speed past the outermost cliffs, many of which now stand high above the surface of the water, but at that time these were washed by the briny waves.

"What is the name of the long, richly wooded stretch of land to the left?" asked Regina of the helmsman standing near.

"Wolf's Island," answered the man.

"There you have it yourself, dear lady ... Wolf's Island! That is the first name we hear on Finland's coast, and shows us what we have to expect."

The vessel now turned to the north, and sailed between Langskär and Sundomland, again veered towards the east, passed Brändö, went safely over the shoals, which now exclude large vessels from its waters, into Vasa's at that time superb harbour, and then saluted with sixteen cannon the castle of Korsholm.