CHAPTER VIII.

THE FUGITIVE LADY.

We will now see what has become of Lady Regina, and what has induced her to exchange Fru Marta's tender care for the desperate adventure of fleeing in the middle of winter, through a strange country filled with desolate tracts, where she was profoundly ignorant of the roads and paths, and did not even know how to make herself understood in the language of the people.

We must not overlook the fact that our story is laid in a period when Catholicism and Lutheranism were in the sharpest conflict; when Lutheranism, heated by the violent opposition, was as little inclined to religious tolerance as Catholicism itself. Fru Marta had once for all been possessed by the idea that she was in duty bound to convert Lady Regina to the Lutheran faith, and from this well-meant but futile enterprise, no one could dissuade her. She therefore persisted, in and out of season, to torment the poor girl with her views; sometimes with books, sometimes with exhortations, and at others with persuasions and threats, or promises of freedom; and when Regina refused to read the books, or listen to the preaching, the zealous old lady had prayers read in her prisoner's room every morning and evening, as well as services on Sundays. All these means were thrown away on what Fru Marta considered Regina's stubbornness. The more the former exerted herself, the calmer, colder, and more unyielding became her captive. Regina naturally looked upon herself as a martyr for her faith, and suffered every humiliation with apparent fortitude for the sake of the holy cause.

But within the young girl's veins fermented the hot southern blood, and it was with great difficulty that she could always appear calm on the surface. There were times when Regina would have blown up the whole of Korsholm, if it had been in her power. But the old granite walls defied her silent rage, and flight finally became her only method of escape from the persecution. Night and day she pondered over it; and at last she discovered a means of eluding Fru Marta's vigilance.

In Kajaneborg castle was then confined the celebrated and unfortunate Johannes Messenius, who in his youth had been educated by the Jesuits in Braunsberg, and chosen by them to become the apostle of Catholicism in Sweden. Imprisoned for his lampoons and conspiracies in the interest of Sigismund's party, he had now for nineteen years, under hard treatment, sat there like a mole in his hole, when the report of his learning, his misfortunes, and his Popish sentiments reached Lady Regina in her prison. From this moment some bold plans began to ferment in the young girl's mind.

One day, about New Year's time, a wandering German quack came to Korsholm with his medicine-chest on his back, just like peddling Jews at a later date.* Such doctors and apothecaries combined in one individual did a lucrative business at the expense of the common people, and were frequently consulted even by the upper classes, for in the whole country there was not a single regular physician, and only one apothecary in Abo; and even this one was not well stocked. No wonder, then, that our man found enough to do, even at Korsholm, what with pains, stomach-aches, and gout; nay, Fru Marta, who, every time she had thrashed her male servants, complained of colic and shortness of breath, received the foreign doctor with very good will. In a few days the latter was quite at home, and thus it fell out that he was called in to prescribe for Lady Regina, who was suffering from a severe headache.

* It was peculiar that the surgeon always spoke of quacks with great contempt, although he had himself travelled about with a medicine chest on his back.

This time, Fru Marta's usual perspicacity deserted her. Two days afterwards the young lady, old Dorthe, and the quack doctor were all missing. A grating which had been broken off from the outside, and a rope ladder, made it certain that the quack had been instrumental in procuring for the prisoner a free passage over wall and ramparts. Fru Marta forgot both her colic and shortness of breath, from sheer amazement and anger, stirred up the castle and the town, and immediately dispatched her soldiers in all directions to capture the fugitives. It will soon be seen how far she succeeded.

Let us now return for a moment to Bertel, whom we find driving ahead in the stormy night, attended by the faithful Pekka, and with a heart full of the most conflicting feelings. The faithful attendant could not understand the enormous folly of leaving a cheerful fireside and good wholesome porridge, for snow-drifts and wolves in the wild woods, as soon as they had arrived. Neither did Bertel comprehend it himself. On returning to the north, by way of Tornel, on a furlough from Germany, while the army lay in winter quarters, he had hurried through Storkyro to Vasa, which was his secret destination. And now he had met in one place a father's anger, and in the other the empty walls, where she had been, but was no longer. Regina had disappeared without leaving a trace.

"Where shall I drive?" asked Pekka monotonously and gruffly, when they entered the broad highway.

"Wherever you like," answered his master just as testily.

Pekka turned his horses towards Vasa, about twenty miles away. Bertel noticed this.

"Ass!" he cried, "have I not ordered you to drive north?"

"North!" repeated Pekka mechanically, and with a heavy sigh turned his horses towards Ny-Karleby, to which town it was quite forty miles. At that time they had no regular stations, with horses provided for the accommodation of travellers. But there were farms at intervals, where all who travelled on Government business could reckon on finding horses, while other travellers were obliged to bargain as best they could.

The parsonages were the usual stopping-places for the night, and always had a room in order in an out-building, where beds of straw and a table with cold food stood hospitably prepared for travellers.

It was, therefore, quite natural that Pekka, with his mind still full of the porridge-kettle, ventured to ask as a further question whether they would spend the night at Wort parsonage.

"Drive to Ylihärmä," answered the captain of horse, provoked, and wrapping himself up in his long sheepskin cloak, for the night wind was icy cold.

"The devil take me if I understand the pranks of these noblemen!" murmured Pekka to himself, as he turned off into the narrow village road, which from Storkyro leads northward towards Lappo parish.

Here the snow had drifted several feet high between the fences, and the travellers could only advance step by step. After an hour's efforts the horses were completely worn out, and stopped every few paces.

Bertel, absorbed in his thoughts, was scarcely conscious of it. They had left Kyro's wide plains behind them, and were now in the midst of Lappo's thick woods. The silence of the wilderness, interrupted by the wailing of the storm, surrounded the travellers on all sides, and as far as the eye could reach there were no traces of human habitations.

Pekka had for a time walked by the side of the sleigh, and with his broad shoulders lifted it up again, when it sank so deep in the snow that the horses' strength was insufficient to move it from the spot.

Finally his sinewy arms also refused their services, and the sleigh stopped right in the midst of a mountain of snow.

"Well!" exclaimed Bertel impatiently, "what is the matter?"

"Nothing," replied Pekka stolidly, "except that we need neither priest nor undertaker to find us a grave."

"How far is it from here to the nearest farm?"

"Between six and seven miles, I think."

"Do you not see something resembling a light, far away there in the woods?"

"Yes, yes, it looks like it..."

"Unharness the horses and let us ride there."

"No, dear master, it is of no use; these woods have been fearfully haunted, that I know of old, ever since the peasants beat the bailiff to death during the Club War, and burned his house and his innocent children."

"Nonsense! I tell you that we will ride there."

"It is all the same to me."

In a few moments the horses were taken out of the traces, and the two travellers pushed on in the direction of the light, which sometimes disappeared and then again shone between the snow-covered pines.

"But tell me, Pekka," resumed Bertel, "what is the story about this wilderness? I remember that I often heard them speak of it in my childhood."

"Yes, yes, your mother was born here."

"There used to be quite a little colony in this wood."

"Yes, indeed, it was many hundreds of acres in extent. The bailiffs had laid it all out for miles, as far back as Gustaf Vasa's time; and here many hundreds of tons of grain have been grown, so father has told me; and the noble bailiff had built a fine house here, and lived like a prince in the wilderness; and then, as I told you, the peasants came and set fire to the place in the night-time, destroying both people and cattle, with the exception of the young 'Lady,' whom your father saved and afterwards took for his wife. It is very certain that he had a finger in that pie."

"And so the farm was never built up again."

"You may depend upon it that the fields were a fat slice, and so there were plenty of people ready to move here and bid defiance to the devil. But the old Evil One was too artful for them; he began to make such a rumpus here with supernatural performances day and night, so that no one was sure of his life, much less of his sinful soul. If they sat in their homes, the chairs were pulled from under them, and the porridge-bowl rolled of its own accord down on the floor; the stones were torn from the walls and were showered around people's ears. If they went out in the woods they were no better off; they had to keep a sharp look-out that the trees did not come crashing down upon their heads, although the weather might be perfectly quiet, and that the ground did not open under their feet, and draw them down into a bottomless pit. And when I think that we are now travelling through the same woods ... Oh, oh, I am sinking..."

"You fool, it is only the pure snow!--and then you say people could not stand it any longer?"

"They all moved away, so that there was not even a cat left, except an old cottager, but I suppose he died long ago. The whole settlement was again deserted, the ditches filled up, the fields became covered with moss, and the pine-woods spread over the former grain lands. It is now forty years since that time..."

And Pekka, who was not in the habit of making long speeches, seemed astonished at his own loquacity, and came to a sudden stop as he reigned in his horse.

"What is it now?" asked Bertel impatiently.

"I don't see a glimpse of the light."

"Neither do I. It is hidden by the trees."

"No, dear master, it is not concealed by the trees; it has sunk into the earth after decoying us here into the depths of the forest. Did not I tell you that it would be so? We shall never get out of this alive."

"For the devil's sake ride on and do not stop, else both man and beast will stiffen with the cold. It seems to me I see something like a hut over there."

"Fine hut; it is nothing but a granite rock with grey sides, from which the wind has blown away the snow. It is all over with us."

"Hold your tongue, and ride on! Here we have an open space with young woods; I caught a glimpse of something there between the snow-drifts."

"All the saints be with us! We are now on the very spot where the house stood. Do you not see the old fire-place sticking out through the snow? Not a step farther, master!"

"I am not mistaken ... it is the hut."

Bertel and his companion found themselves on very rough ground, where the horses stumbled at every step over large stones, or sank into great hollows covered with snow. Deep snow-drifts and fallen trees made it worse still, as if to obstruct the passage to a dilapidated peasant's hut, which by design or chance was hidden behind two spreading firs, with branches hanging to the ground. The only window of the hut had a shutter, which was at one moment blown open by the wind and then slammed to again, thus causing the light within to show itself and disappear by turns.

Bertel dismounted from his horse, tied it to a branch of the fir, and approached the window to throw a glance inside. A secret hope gave wings to his feet. He took it for granted that unless the fugitives had gone in a northerly direction, they could not have followed the main highway, but had sought to escape their pursuers on the side roads. But in this part of the plain of East Bothnia hundreds of small roads crossed each other at that time, all leading to the new settlements in the East. Who told him that the fugitives would select just this road?

Still his heart beat faster when he approached the window. Of the four small panes two were of horn, which was formerly used in default of glass; one of them was broken and stopped up with moss; only the fourth was of glass, but so covered with ice and snow that at first nothing could be seen. Bertel breathed on the glass, but found to his vexation that the frost on the inside defied his curiosity. Just then his horse neighed.

It seemed ridiculous to Bertel to stand spying into a poor peasant's hut. He was already on the point of knocking at the door, when at that instant a shadow obscured the light, and the frost on the inside of the glass was quickly melted by the breath of a human being, as eager to look out as he was to look in. Bertel was soon able to discern a face with burning eyes, which stared out close to the window, to discover the cause of a horse's neighing so late at night in the wilderness.

The sight of this face had the effect of an electric shock upon the inquisitive captain. With his thoughts on the beautiful Regina, Bertel had expected a sight not involving so great a contrast. But instead he beheld a corpse-like face surrounded by a black tight-fitting, leather hood, and this dark frame made the pale face seem still paler.

Bertel had seen these features before, and when he searched his memory, the picture of a terrible night in the Bavarian woods rose before his mental vision. Involuntarily he drew back, and hesitated for a moment. This motion was observed by Pekka, who had remained on his horse so as to be ready to fly.

"Quick, away from here!" he cried. "I have told you that nobody but the devil himself lives in these woods."

"Yes, you are right," said Bertel, now smiling at his own fears, and what he considered to be the offspring of his heated fancy. "If ever the Prince of Darkness has assumed a human form, then he resides in this hut. But that is just the reason why we will look the worthy gentleman in the face, and force him to give us lodgings for the night. Hullo, there! open the door to some travellers."

These words were accompanied by some heavy blows on the door.