CHAPTER X

THE PASTOR FROM FINLAND

Maia Lisa fancied she must be bewitched, for do what she would she could not forget her stepmother. All morning she had been in her thoughts, and although she knew she was fully occupied making her candles at Lövdala, she started involuntarily every time the door opened, for fear lest dear Mother should step in and see how badly she was behaving.

Just imagine if Fru Raklitz had known she was still asleep at eight o’clock that morning, and, worse still, that her aunt had been so kind as to bring her a cup of coffee in bed, although all coffee-drinking was forbidden by His Majesty the King. What a shock for dear Mother who insisted so that all rules and regulations must be obeyed! How her cheeks would flame at the very idea!

Or imagine either if she could have seen how Maia Lisa’s aunt left her work all day to sit on the bench between the window and the parlour table and chat with her! Or if she could have heard her aunt laugh as her niece talked about her stepmother and all her doings! For now that Maia Lisa was rested she was no longer a cry-baby, but ready to make a joke of all her troubles. No doubt dear Mother had expected that this aunt would treat Maia Lisa as she did herself. How annoyed she would have been if she could only have seen how mistaken she was.

But indeed it would not have been such a terrible mishap if the Pastor’s wife had burst upon Maia Lisa when she was alone with her aunt. Had she come a little later in the day, it would have been far worse.

In the middle of the morning a traveller came driving into the inn-yard. Maia Lisa turned quickly to the window and saw a tall, fine-looking man getting out of a little green sleigh. He was dressed in a suit of homespun so light that it was almost white, and he was wearing no fur, but that apparently was from choice, for it was evident from the frank and hearty way in which he shook hands with the peasant host that he was a gentleman. Her aunt was so accustomed to strangers that she never troubled to turn her head until Maia Lisa begged her to look out of the window and tell her who the handsome man was.

Fortunately her aunt could answer her inquiry. The stranger outside was, to be sure, no one but the minister from Finnerud, Pastor Liliecrona.

The Pastor’s wife ought to have been there to see how Maia Lisa started when she heard the stranger’s name. Even her aunt noticed it with some curiosity, but that did not matter, for Maia Lisa was quite pleased to tell her about the magic pancake and her dream. It would have been utterly impossible to tell such a tale to her stepmother, who would only have tossed her head in contempt at the folly of it all.

But her aunt, on the other hand, took it all in dead earnest. “It wouldn’t be so much amiss for you if you could get him,” she said. “He is not only good-looking, but a real fine fellow as well.”

Maia Lisa sat in utter astonishment. Surely her aunt never meant that she could marry the Pastor of Finnerud. Why, that parish lay right away in the north, farther away even than Västmarken. And nobody lived there but Finns who had gone there two or three hundred years ago, and couldn’t even speak Swedish. Finnerud seemed as outlandish to Maia Lisa as if it were in farthest confines of Lapland.

But her aunt set her mind at rest. She needn’t be afraid of having to live in Finnerud, for, although Pastor Liliecrona had worked there for eleven years, he was probably leaving now and going to the living of Sjöskoga. Then Maia Lisa began to understand why her aunt was so eager over the matter. She had not been a Pastor’s daughter in her young days without knowing very well that Sjöskoga was the best living in the district.

But Finnerud or Sjöskoga were all one to Maia Lisa; her husband would have to be the Pastor of Svartsjö and live in Lövdala.

“Yes, so you say now; but when the right man comes, you’ll not trouble about either parish or house.”

And so seriously was it said that Maia Lisa had to turn and look out of the window once again. Yes, indeed the Pastor was very handsome, with his broad shoulders and his bright blue eyes. He spoke too in a clear, pleasant voice that could be heard quite well indoors. His host stood listening to him with a pleased look on his face, whilst the men hurried from stall and barn to unyoke his horse.

“Look how they come from every nook and cranny. It is plain enough who it is, for they are all fond of the Finnerud Pastor. Evidently he is going to stay a little instead of going on at once, so you will get a chance to speak to him.”

Scarcely had the words left Fru Margreta’s lips than the door opened and the Pastor came in.

As he crossed the threshold he called out to her that his host had told him to go into the grand drawing-room, but he had no wish to sit by himself, so would Mother Margreta object to his joining her in the parlour? He would perhaps have to wait some long time in the inn, for his brother, the foreman at Henriksberg, had made an appointment with him here but had not come. He did not know what he wanted, for he had only heard last night by a special ski messenger and had not started till early in the morning, so that his brother ought really to have got there first.

As his words came pouring out, Fru Margreta went to welcome him, and Maia Lisa fancied she was as pleased to see him as the men outside. At last her aunt got in a word to tell him he might sit in the parlour as long as he liked. He would not be coming there many more times. She must congratulate him on the great promotion he was getting, although it would be a sad loss to her not to see him any more.

He made an impatient gesture. “I don’t know what to do, Mother Margreta. I think I’ll refuse it altogether. But what the---- No, no, that’s not the right word for a Pastor’s tongue.”

The cause of his sudden exclamation was neither more nor less than that he had caught sight of the Pastor’s daughter. She had been sitting all the time on the window-seat and he had only just noticed her.

Maia Lisa was not a little taken aback when he went on to ask in his clear voice: “What dainty thing is this that you have got in your house, Mother Margreta?” Fru Margreta explained who she was, but he did not behave any more properly for her answer.

He could well believe that she was one of the beautiful daughters of the Lövdala parsonage. How glad he was to get a sight of her at last, after the many times he had begged Mother Margreta to invite him to meet her niece, so that he might know if what people said of her was true.

Maia Lisa was not only taken aback, but really frightened. It wasn’t fitting to sit and listen to such things. If her stepmother---- But true! Her stepmother was busy making candles in Lövdala. Her aunt evidently saw her distress and tried to turn his glances in another direction.

Surely he was never thinking of refusing Sjöskoga? she said. He ought to be glad at his age to have the offer of important work like that. She had been told that as a rule it was only old men who managed to get such a fat living!

He shrugged his shoulders. He had never meant to go there. Fortune had been too kind to him, for he was quite content where he was.

But surely he had applied for it?

Oh yes, all his relatives were to blame for that, for they had driven him to it.

He had forgotten Maia Lisa by now as completely as if she had never been there at all. He was thinking of his own affairs as he walked up and down the room with hasty steps and knitted brow. He had a long lock of hair over his forehead which he continually seized and pushed straight up on end only to let it fall down again. He did not seem to be at all satisfied himself with his appearance, although for her part she was obliged to own that he looked equally well whatever he did.

At last he stopped in front of Fru Margreta and asked if he might beg for some advice. He had turned the matter over in his mind so often that by now he did not know right from wrong.

At this, Maia Lisa got up. She thought she had no right to sit there listening to his secrets. But he was one of those people who have eyes in the back of their head. And no sooner did he notice her than he begged her to stay where she was. It was such a pleasure to have something beautiful to look at.

But she had already grown so accustomed to him that she never even blushed. And indeed there was no reason to feel abashed, for she saw plainly enough that he only looked upon her as a beautiful doll, and it certainly never occurred to him for a single moment that the doll could have both ears and thoughts of her own.

When he began to talk with her aunt he sat down on the edge of the broad table with his back to the Pastor’s daughter, so that she thought she was far from his mind, but at that moment he got astride on a chair and fixed his eyes on her face.

Well, to begin with, he wanted to ask Mother Margreta if she had heard what a great deal of trouble he had caused the folk in Finland ever since he went there. Did she know that the very first time he had preached in the church at Finnerud the old Finn men and women had sat there wondering what misdeed he could have committed to be sent up to them?

Fru Margreta had her answer ready, but he gave her no time to speak. Yes, it really was a fact that they had done so, and perhaps not quite without some show of reason. They knew what a house they had to offer their Pastor and how much stipend he got, and they knew well enough they could not expect any Pastors except those no one else wanted. And then when they saw him----

The fine-looking man stopped short, quite at a loss how to go on, but Fru Margreta finished the sentence for him.

“They certainly thought the Pastor was too young and too good-looking to come to them.”

He started off again at full speed. Oh well, they saw he wasn’t a hundred years old, and although they didn’t understand what he said in his Swedish tongue, yet they heard that he could both talk and sing. They agreed, these old men and women, that he was one who ought to be living in a parsonage with lofty rooms and large windows, and that he would never have come up to them if there had not been something wrong with him.

“Perhaps it wasn’t very easy to think anything else?”

No, that was just why. And no sooner did one of them go down over the Swedish border to sell bear hides and sheep skins than they told him to be sure and find out what was wrong with the Pastor.

And Pastor Liliecrona jumped up from the chair and paced up and down the room. Evidently he was still excited about it after all these years. But Fru Margreta only laughed and asked if their messenger had found out anything.

Ah, what were they likely to find? When they came back, they knew nothing more than that he had been sent up to Finnerud at his own request.

But the old Finn men and women stuck to their own opinion. It was, of course, impossible to believe that he had come to them because they were desolate and neglected and parted from their own people. There must be some other reason.

“You see, Pastor, they are so clever up in Finnerud! You mustn’t expect too much of them.”

But now when they had heard quite certainly that he had done nothing wrong, they had to believe it. But they were not satisfied until they had hit upon an explanation to suit them. No doubt he had only come up to them to get a little practice in his calling. He would certainly go elsewhere as soon as he felt a little more at home in the pulpit.

“And they were not right in that either?”

“No, that they weren’t, for I have been there now eleven years.” And he added with an angry laugh, “But even now they must needs puzzle their heads over me. There isn’t a better-born man in the parish, and if I had grumbled over my loneliness, that they would have understood. Or if I had shut myself up in the Parsonage with only my books for company, that they would have understood too. But a Pastor who was out and about and content to associate with Finn peasants! A Pastor who wanted to know how they cultivated their boggy lands, or how they burnt their clearings, and a Pastor who went hunting with them, was indeed, beyond their understanding.”

Now he was astride the chair again and twisted it half round so that he sat eye to eye with Maia Lisa. But he went on speaking to her aunt.

When he had been some years in Finnerud he began one Sunday to preach in Finnish. And every creature had been so touched that there wasn’t a dry eye in the church, and it certainly did not occur to anyone to question his motives before the service was over. But, once out of the church, they had begun in the same old way again. Whatever reason had the Pastor for speaking in Finnish? They went to Peter, the Pastor’s man, and questioned him. Had he understood that the Pastor was wanting another living? Peterkin, however, had never noticed but what his master was quite content to live in an ordinary Finn hut with only one room and a fire without a chimney, so that a hole had to be made in the roof to let out the smoke. So they went their way, not understanding any better than before. It was no wonder he got tired of such things, was it?

The Pastor must remember, said Fru Margreta, “that we down here have not always been very pleasant to strangers.”

But not to understand such a simple matter as that their Pastor wished them well! They would have been quite pleased if he had gone with a long face grieving that he had to waste the best years of his life amongst poor Finn peasants. It made them quite uneasy to see him content and happy.

One year he told some of the Finn children to come to him and learn Swedish, so that they would not be so helpless as their fathers when they went to the Swedish courts or markets. But when the old Finns heard the children begin to talk Swedish the same distrust awoke again. So, straight they went to Peter. Perhaps the Pastor wanted more money? But Peter told them he had never heard but what the pastor was satisfied with pay no better than the wages that a Swedish peasant would pay his farm-hand. Peterkin was the only one up there with a grain of sense.

It had been just the same tale when he taught the Finn women how to grow flax. He had gone with them, planted it, hackled it and teased it. But when they had got so far as to have their own flax to spin in their huts their old suspicions came back. Why had the Pastor taught them how to grow flax? They could not possibly understand, so they were obliged to apply to Peterkin again. The Pastor, they supposed, was not wanting a fresh road up to his house? But Peter answered that his master was content with the road he had, although it was so rough and full of holes that it was scarcely possible for a horse to get up it except when it was covered with snow and ice.

Well yes, Mother Margreta could well understand how annoying all that was. Perhaps that was why he had tried for something else?

It had had something to do with it, for he had been so vexed at never being able to win their confidence. But the chief reason had been that his mother and all the family had so overwhelmed him with entreaties. They, indeed, had been just as impossible to deal with as the Finn peasants. They were for ever writing to him that he was wasting his life, and urging him to try for a living farther south whenever a fairly good one fell vacant. They had worn him out with their arguments, of course, but he had paid no heed, for he wanted to do his duty. Then when Sjöskoga----

He stopped short and went and stood straight in front of the Pastor’s daughter. “Of course,” he said thoughtfully, looking at her, “I could never get such a wife as this if I stayed in Finnerud.”

It was plain enough that he admired her beauty, but nothing more. He looked at her as he would have looked at a painted picture. Not even her stepmother could have found any tenderness in the long glances he fixed upon her.

And in another second he was telling of his troubles again.

When the old rural dean Cameen of Sjöskoga had followed his wife and died last summer, leaving his post vacant, it had struck him that he might apply for it. He thought he might as well please his mother by sending in his application, as there was no chance of its leading to anything. Sjöskoga had always been given to some old professor or head of a school who petitioned the King directly for it. And besides, he rather wanted to see how they would take it in Finnerud. But, after all, it was mostly a little feeling of mischief that sent him down to Karlstad with his testimonials.

He hesitated many a time on the way. Perhaps he would only be laughed at; a chaplain from Finnerud was certainly taking a good deal on himself in applying for a great living like that. Yet, as he was on the way, he thought he would go as far as Karlstad, and not hand in his papers until he saw who else had applied.

The journey took longer than he had expected, and he only reached the town just an hour before the closing of the application list. He had barely time to stable his horse and hurry up to the Consistory Court.

As he climbed the steps, however, he was so overcome with remorse that he determined to go back again. But the registrar was a special friend of his, and as he was there anyway, he would just step in and see him. He need not mention Sjöskoga, but say he had come down to Karlstad to see his mother.

No sooner had he put his head round the door than the registrar exclaimed: “Someone at last to apply for Sjöskoga. I have been expecting you ever since the living has been vacant.”

At first he thought his friend was only joking, so he answered that he had come to town to meet his mother. How could he imagine he was thinking of Sjöskoga? He was not so far left to himself as not to know that His Majesty the King would give Sjöskoga to some old learned divine from Upsala or Lund.

“I should think you are all of that opinion,” said the registrar. “You are all so modest that no one ventures to apply. But times are changed since the last King’s death. I was delighted when you came in, for I have only had two applications. We must have one more at any rate, so out with your papers.”

In this way he had been enticed into leaving his application. When he got home, for a few days he wondered if it would be successful. But he was soon busy with his usual occupations and had forgotten the whole matter, when one day he had a communication from the Consistory. He was third on the select list, and in a few weeks he was to come to Sjöskoga for his trial sermon.

It was no pleasure to him--no, not for a moment--indeed, he would have liked to withdraw his application, but he did not do so because he had no wish to have it said that he was afraid to preach in a parish where there were so many rich peasants and gentlefolk. As Mother Margreta knew, he came of an old Pastor’s family, and did not want people to think he was unworthy of his father and grandfather. So he went and preached whilst his hearers sat and listened devoutly. But he did not know what they were thinking. He was glad to get home again and feel that that was, no doubt, the end of the whole matter. But just before Christmas he received an intimation that all had gone well and that he had been chosen unanimously.

He said this in such distressed tones that Fru Margreta could not help laughing.

If he really didn’t want to go, he could withdraw.

That was exactly what he had tried to do, but then the bishop himself wrote urging him not to refuse. There was every prospect of his nomination being confirmed. His mother, too, got word of the matter, and wrote begging and praying him not to throw away such a piece of good fortune. And not only his mother, but his brothers, his sisters, and even his cousins. He had not known until then how many relations he had.

Well, and they were right too, of course. You cannot be----

He interrupted her as he almost ran across the room and pressed his clenched fist against his forehead in a kind of almost comic despair. Then there were those blessed Finn peasants. Did Mother Margreta know what they had taken into their heads to do? As soon as they heard that he might be going to move they had cut timber in the forest and driven it up to build him a new house. They had not actually increased his stipend in money, but they had done it in another way. One day a fine elk skin lay in his sledge, another time he found a tub of butter outside his door. They said not a word, indeed, when they met him, but when he was in the pulpit, young and old fixed their eyes on him, so that he knew they were every one of them thinking: “Surely you will not forsake us. If you do, far better you had never come.”

So, at last he knew that they wanted to keep him. He stepped up to Fru Margreta, sat down beside her and took her hard, toil-worn hand in his. “Now think, Mother Margreta,” he said in such an earnest, tender voice that both she and Maia Lisa felt their eyes fill with tears, “suppose anyone came and told you that you could move to a great fine estate on condition that you left this home and all you had held dear here all your life! What would you do then?”

But no one heard what Mother Margreta meant to answer, for Maia Lisa could not possibly restrain herself any longer. She rushed up to the Pastor with flaming cheeks, and in a voice trembling with eagerness cried out that most certainly he must stay in Finnerud. Why should he go to Sjöskoga? No doubt they could get along well enough without him there. But when he had done so much for the Finn peasants, how could he ever dream of leaving them?

She would have said a good deal more if someone had not just chanced to come to the door. Then she came to herself again, and although it was not her stepmother but only one of the maids, she stopped short in confusion and would not go on.

But the young Pastor understood what she meant. He jumped up and came towards her with outstretched arms. He looked as though he wanted to clasp her to his heart, but he only took both hands and pressed them between his own. “Mamsell Maia Lisa, dearest Mamsell Maia Lisa,” he said very earnestly, “Mamsell Maia Lisa, you are the very first of my own position to believe that I am doing any good up there. I thank you with all my heart. Indeed, indeed, I will----”

He stopped short just as the promise was on his lips. The words died unuttered, his hands twitched, and as the Pastor’s daughter looked up at him in astonishment she noticed that every feature was contorted with the deepest suffering. He turned away, went down the room, and came back to bend over her as he said in a voice half inaudible from strong emotion: “I will refuse it if I can. If I am not able, it is Mamsell Maia Lisa’s fault.”