CHAPTER III

THE BLACK LAKE

All five maids were sitting with their thimbles on and needle and thread on the table beside them, mending old clothes. It was evident that, like tailors, they preferred a high seat for sewing, for all five of them were perched up on the high table-benches. Only the old housekeeper was sitting on a chair.

Little-Maid was standing at the window, looking out. Before her lay a great courtyard with cleared paths between high banks of snow. There were great buildings on all sides, and Little-Maid was trying from her mother’s description to make out which was which. The long, low house exactly opposite the main building was, no doubt, the dairy; the stable lay to the east, and the brewhouse with the room belonging to it on the west.

The houses were not built close to one another, but were separated by a fence, so that the only way to get to the main building was through a narrow gate left open now in winter-time. To the east of the stable she could see the gables and roofs of a number of buildings, standing round another and still larger courtyard. There was the sheep-house, the piggery, the larder, and the storeroom, the lofts for rye and oats, the barns and wood-house, the servants’ room, and the tool-sheds. Several of the buildings stood on piles, others had steps that twisted up the walls to the eaves, where they crept into a low garret. Wherever she looked, there were annexes and extra buildings, garrets with small, dark windows, and long, cold passages. Most of the houses had thick roofs of straw or turf, now covered with another of heaped-up snow. It seemed to Little-Maid as though they were all warmly tucked in under soft rugs and furs. A quiet peace reigned over everything as if the old houses were taking their winter sleep.

One of the maids was new and came, besides, from another parish. So she thought she would make use of this quiet hour to learn something about her master and mistress. She had asked question after question about the Pastor’s daughter and wife as well as the Pastor himself, but never an answer had she got. All the others sat with tight-closed lips and pretended they knew nothing.

Possibly she noticed at last that she could get nothing out of them, for now she began to put other questions. “Why is this parish called Black Lake?” She could not understand how it got its name, for, although she had heard that there were three lakes in Löven, she knew none of them was called Black Lake.

Well, there was no harm in answering this question, but, unfortunately, none of the maids knew where the parish had got its name. So it seemed as though she was not going to get this answered either. But then the old housekeeper put down her work and took her spectacles off her nose.

There was nothing strange in the name, for the parish was so called after a lake which used to be there but was dried up now.

The new maid was overjoyed at getting an answer at last, and hastened to ask whereabouts the lake had lain.

“Well, now, it is said to have lain in the valley below Lövdala,” and the housekeeper turned and pointed out of the south window. She thought the water had reached the rising ground before the brewhouse. At any rate there was fine sand there like the sand on a lake-side.

The new maid turned her head, too, towards the window. The dwelling-house lay on fairly high ground and the houses round were too low to shut out the view. Over the dairy fence she could see down a six-mile valley with a grassy bed as level as a floor.

But she would not believe that the housekeeper really meant this was the bed of an old lake. She had always thought the ground would be a steep hollow where a lake had once been.

The housekeeper did not contradict her. She did not trouble what the brewhouse maid thought. She had only spoken of what she knew.

And with this she put her glasses on and began to sew again.

The new maid gave a scornful sniff. It was a strange thing that old folk never could bear to be contradicted. They expected people to believe whatever they took a fancy to say.

None of the other maids said a word to help the housekeeper.

The kitchen grew quite silent. Little-Maid was very anxious to tell what she knew about this Black Lake, but she was not sure if it would be fitting for her to join in the conversation.

Then the bedroom door opened and Mamsell Maia Lisa came out into the kitchen.

At first she said nothing, but stood looking at the workers. Then she went up to Little-Maid, who still kept her place by the window.

“Tell me, Nora,” she said, sitting down on the wooden chair under the window and taking Little-Maid’s hand in both of hers, “have you ever travelled far enough to see any other lake but Löven?”

Little-Maid blushed crimson when the Pastor’s daughter spoke to her. It was as much as ever she could do to speak above a whisper, when she answered that she had seen more lakes than she could count.

“Then do me the favour and think of one of them,” said the Pastor’s daughter; “whichever you like, provided it is long and narrow and lies between two long lines of wooded hills.”

Little-Maid dropped her chin on her chest and fixed her eyes on the ground; but soon she looked up again. Now she had thought of one.

There was mischief in the glance the Pastor’s daughter gave her, but her voice was terribly serious all the time.

“Do you see it quite plainly?” she asked. “Do you see a gay little river running into it from the north, and that it gets narrower and narrower towards the south until there is nothing left but another little stream?”

Yes, Little-Maid saw that.

“If you see so much, no doubt you see, too, how its shores go out and in, in long gulfs and bays. And that here and there narrow little headlands jut out, covered with birches overhanging the water. And small stony islands lie out in its channel, overgrown with mountain-ash and wild cherry trees that are as gay in their spring blossoms as any royal bride.”

Yes, indeed, Little-Maid saw everything that the Pastor’s daughter wanted her to see.

Mamsell Maia Lisa looked through the window down the long valley. Then she turned to Little-Maid smiling, but spoke with a tone in her voice as if she wanted her to remember her words.

“If you see so much, no doubt you see, too, that on one side there is a sandy shore, generally full of children who bathe the whole summer through, and at another spot there is a steep mountain-side where great dark pines grow with their thick roots intertwined like snakes. And farther on, the shore is marshy with alder bushes crowding upon each other, and farther away still there lie beautiful smooth meadows with cattle grazing in them.”

Little-Maid was clever enough to see these too.

“If you see so much, no doubt you see, too, the great stones on the edge of the shore where people stand on Sundays to fish for perch,” said the Pastor’s daughter, “and the small oak rods lying in bundles on the land, and the little fisher huts standing old and grey out on the headlands.”

“Yes,” said Little-Maid; she saw that and more.

“Yes, if you see that, no doubt you see, too, that the whole lake is encircled by peasant houses with their fields and gardens, but they are not so close to the water as the fisher huts, but lie a good bit inland. Above these there lies a little forest clearing and a few birch woods, but then the mountain is covered far and wide with pine forests right up to the very top.”

“Yes,” Little-Maid saw that too.

Now the pastor’s daughter grew thoughtful all at once.

“But now comes the hardest. If, one fine day, the lake that you have thought of should dry up so that not a drop of water was left, what do you think the place would look like where it had been?”

But that was beyond Little-Maid. She only fixed her eyes on the Pastor’s daughter.

“I don’t know exactly either,” said the Pastor’s daughter, “but I fancy that after some years grass would grow over the bed of the lake, and it would be enclosed, cultivated, divided, and marked out into gardens and roads like any other land; but otherwise it would be much the same as before.”

Little-Maid stood staring in front of her. She looked indeed quite lost.

“No doubt you have been in the hall at Helgesäter sometime, and seen the great gilt mirror hanging between the windows. The glass was broken this year and the Captain could not put a new one in, so he covered the back with green cloth. But the gilt frame remained the same. There was only this difference, that there was no longer a mirror inside it.”

Little-Maid looked up quickly. She began to understand.

“So it was no doubt with the lake we have been talking about,” said the Pastor’s daughter. “Everything on the shore remained the same, although the clear water which used to lie in the middle had gone. The birches hung down their branches on the headlands, though they could no longer see their own reflection, the sandy shore lay in its old place, although no summer bathers came again, and the fishing stones were there too, although there were no more fishers. The little islands were still covered with mountain-ashes, although ploughed fields lay all around them, and all the houses kept their places round the lake, although the young folks who lived in them could no longer go sailing and rowing on the lake in the beautiful summer evenings.”

Yes, Little-Maid could agree to that too.

But then the Pastor’s daughter turned quickly to the window.

“Look out, Nora, and you others, too,” she said, pointing to the long valley. “What do you think it is that you see down there?”

And sure enough, when Little-Maid peeped out, she saw in one glance all that the Pastor’s daughter had described. There lay the level bed, and the old shores round it going out and in, in long gulfs and bays. There were the headlands with their birches, and in the fields the little copses that had been wooded islands before, and on one side the steep mountain with its pine forest, and on the other the crowded alder bushes. Half-way up the mountain she saw the circle of peasant cottages. And the wooded hills and clearings and everything else was there.

The maids stood behind her and they, too, looked and saw the same as she did.

However was it that they had never noticed it before?

It was certainly true that Black Lake had lain there once; it was the bed of an old lake sure enough.

“Yes, that is just what it is,” said the Pastor’s daughter. “That is the mirror which once lay before Lövdala, but it has lost its glass now. There are very many who think it is a pity that it is gone and that the mirror is a mirror no longer.”

But now Little-Maid’s heart was bursting with desire to say all she knew about the lake; she could not keep silence any longer.

“Mother used to talk about this lake that is said to have lain below Lövdala,” she said.

“Yes,” said the Pastor’s daughter, “I expect you have heard a good deal about Lövdala from your Mother.”

“Mother said,” continued Little-Maid, speaking very fast, “that there were three things the lake left behind when it dried up. One was the cold breeze that always blows in the valley here, the second was the cold fog that rises in the autumn, and the third was----”

But Little-Maid never got to the third, for the Pastor’s daughter interrupted her sharply.

“Just so, there was something else,” she said. “We know what that was already.”