CHAPTER VII.

THE LOST SON.

It is Epiphany, in 1635, thus in mid-winter. In Aron Bertila's "stuga,"* at Storkyro, a large fire of pine logs crackled on the spacious hearth, for at that time heavy forests still grew around the fertile fields. Outside rages a snow-storm, with a heavy blast; the wolves howl on the ice of the stream; the famished lynx prowls around to find shelter. It is Twelfth-day evening, an hour or two after twilight. The Storkyro peasant king sits in his high-backed chair, at a short distance from the hearth, listening with scattered thoughts to his daughter Meri, who by the firelight reads aloud a chapter of Agricola's Finnish New Testament, for at that period the whole Bible had not been translated into the Finnish tongue. Bertila has grown very old since we last met him, then still vigorous in his old age. The great ideas that constantly revolve in his bald head give him no peace, and yet these plans are now completely shattered by the king's death, like fragments from a shipwreck floating around on the stormy billows of a dark sea. Strong souls like his generally succumb only by destroying themselves. All the changes and misfortunes of his turbulent life had not been able to break his iron will; but grief over a ruined hope, the vain attempt to reconstruct the vanished castles in the air, and the sorrow of seeing his own children themselves tear down his work, all this gnawed like a vulture upon his inner life. A single thought had made him twenty years older in two years, and this idea was presumptuous even to madness.

* A large room, filling the entire house space with the exception of one or two small chambers. Sleeping bunks are arranged round the walls. The later peasants' houses have more rooms.

"Why is not one of my own family at this moment King of Sweden?" Thus it ran.

At times Meri raises her mild blue eyes from the Holy Book and regards her old father with anxious looks. She, too, looks older; the quiet sorrow lies like the autumn over green groves; it neither breaks or kills, but makes the fresh leaves wither on the tree of life. Meri's glance is full of peace and submission. The thought that shines forth from her soul like a sun at its setting, is none other than this:

"Beyond the grave I shall again meet the joy of my heart, and then he will no longer wear an earthly crown."

Near her, to the left, sits old Larsson, short and stout like his jovial son. His good-natured, hearty face has for a time assumed a more solemn expression, as he listens to the reading of the sacred book. His hands are folded as in prayer, and now and then he stirs the fire a little, with friendly attention, so that Meri can see better.

Behind him in a devotional attitude sit some of the field hands; and this group, illuminated by the reflection of the fire, is completed by a purring grey cat, and a large shaggy watch-dog, curled up under Meri's feet, to which he seems proud to serve as a footstool.

When Meri in her reading came to the place in Luke, where it speaks of the Prodigal Son, old Bertila's eyes began to glitter with a sinister light.

"The reprobate!" he muttered to himself. "To waste one's inheritance, that is nothing! But to forget one's old father ... by God, that is shameful!"

Meri read until she came to the Prodigal Son's repentance: "And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

"What a fool of a father!" again muttered Aron Bertila to himself. "He ought to have bound him with cords, beaten him with rods, and then driven him away from his house back to the riotous living and the empty wine-cups!"

"Father!" whispered Meri reproachfully. "Be merciful, as our Heavenly Father is merciful, and takes the lost children to His arms."

"And if your son ever returns..." began Larsson in the same tone. But Bertila stopped him.

"Hold your tongues, and don't trouble yourselves about me. I have no longer any son ... who falls repentant at my feet," he added directly, when he saw two large, clear pearls glistening in Meri's eyelashes.

She continued: "And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son."

"Stop reading that!" burst out the old man, in a bad temper. "See that my bed is in order, and let the folks go to sleep; it is now late."

At this moment horses' hoofs were heard outside on the creaking snow. This unusual occurrence on the evening of a sacred day made Larsson go to the low window, and breathe on the frost-covered pane, so as to look out into the storm. A sleigh, drawn by two horses, worked its way through the snow-drifts and drove into the yard. Two men in sheep-skin cloaks jumped out.

Seized with a sudden intuition, Larsson hurried out to meet the travellers, and quick as lightning Meri followed him. The door swung to behind them, and there was a moment's delay before it opened again.

But now a young man in a soldier's garb entered with bowed head, threw aside his plumed hat, white with snow, and going straight to old Bertila, knelt down, and bent his beautiful curly head still lower, as he said:

"Father, I am here, and ask your blessing!"

And behind him stood Meri and old Larsson, both with clasped hands, and raising their pleading eyes to the stern old man, with the same words:

"Father, here is thy son, give him thy blessing!"

For a brief moment Bertila struggled with himself, his lips slightly trembled, and his hand was unconsciously stretched out, as if to lift up the young man at his feet. But soon his bald head rose higher, his hand drew back, his keen eyes flashed darker than ever, and his lips trembled no more.

"Go!" said he, short and sharp; "go, you reprobate boy, back to your brother noblemen, and your sisters, the fine ladies. What seek you in the plain peasant's 'stuga,' which you despise? Go! I have no longer a son!"

But the youth went not.

"Do not be angry, my father," he said, "if in my youthful ambition I have at any time violated your commands. Who sent me out amongst the great and illustrious ones of the earth, to win fame and honour? Who bade me go to the war to ennoble my peasant name with great deeds? Who exposed me to the temptation of all the brilliant examples which surrounded the king? You, and only you, my father; and now you thrust away your son, who for your sake twice refused a patent of nobility."

"You!" exclaimed the old man with foaming rage. "You renounce a patent of nobility, you, who have blushed for your peasant name and taken another which would look more imposing? No, on your knees have you begged for a coat of arms. What do I know about its being offered you; what do I care. I only know that since your earliest childhood I have tried to implant in your soul, recreant, that there are no other rightful powers than the king and people, that all who place themselves between, whether they bear the name of aristocrats, ecclesiastics, or what not, are monstrosities, a ruin, a curse to State and country ... all this have I tried to teach you, and the fruit of my teachings has been that you have smuggled yourself among this nobility, which I hate and despise, that you have coveted its empty titles, paraded with its extravagant display, imbibed its prejudices, and now you stand here, in your father's house, with a lie on your lips, and aristocratic vanity in your heart. Go, degenerate son! Aron Bertila is what he has always been--a peasant! He curses and rejects you, apostate!"

With these words the old man turned away, rose and went with a firm step and a high head into the little bed-chamber, leaving Bertel still on his knees in the same place.

"Hear me, father, father!" cried Bertel after him, as he quickly unbuttoned his coat and took out a folded paper; "this paper I have intended to tear to pieces at your feet!"

But the old father did not hear him; the paper fell to the ground, and when Larsson, a moment later, unfolded and read it, he saw it contained a diploma from the Regency in Stockholm, conferring upon Gustaf Bertel, captain of horse in the "life-guards," a patent of nobility, and a coat of arms with the name of _Bertelsköld_* at Duke Bernhard of Weimar's solicitation.

* Bertila is a Finnish peasant name. Bertel is a burgher name. Bertelsköld is a noble name, indicated by the termination sköld, always a sign of nobility in Sweden and Finland.

While all in the "stuga" were still perfectly stupefied by old Bertila's conduct, three of Fru Marta's soldiers from Korsholm entered in great haste.

"Hullo, boys!" they exclaimed to the hands, "have you seen her? Here is something that will pay. Two hundred silver thalers reward to him who seizes and brings back, alive or dead, Lady Regina von Emmeritz, state prisoner at Korsholm."

At the sound of this name Bertel was aroused from his stupefying grief, sprang up, and seized the speaker by the collar.

"Wretch, what did you say?" he exclaimed.

"Ho, ho, if you please! Be a little more careful when you speak to the people of the Royal Majesty and the Crown. I tell you that the German traitress, the papistical sorceress, Lady von Emmeritz, succeeded in escaping last night from Korsholm castle, and that he who does not help to catch her is a traitor and a..."

The man had no time to finish his speech, before a blow from Bertel's strong arm stretched him at full-length on the floor.

"Ha, my father, you have wished it!" cried the young man, and in a flash was outside the door and in his sleigh, which at the next moment was heard driving off through the raging tempest.