CHAPTER VIII

THE FOX-PIT

Long-Bengt was standing with his lantern in his hand very early in the day looking down into the fox-pit. Something was wrong with it, for never in all his life had he seen a pit look like that.

Now, if there was one thing in the world that Long-Bengt knew he could do it was to lay a good fox-trap. And the evening before he had seen to it just as carefully as ever. He had covered the mouth of the deep pit with little birch branches, straw, and snow, and given it such a deceptive roof that not even the sharpest old vixen could tell it from ordinary earth. And the duck that had to sit on the top of the tall pole in the middle of the pit to entice the fox that way had been fastened with a strap over her wings, and fixed so firmly to the post that he knew she could not get away. The best duck in the poultry-yard she was, and had the strongest voice too. He had heard how she quacked when he had left her tied fast to the pole; her shrill piercing cries of distress had resounded far and wide through the silence of the winter’s night. It was a great disgrace for anyone to bait a fox-pit and tie the duck so insecurely that the fox could run off with her, and one that Long-Bengt had never yet incurred. A disgrace too, equally great, whether the fox got her off to the forest or carried her down to the bottom of the pit as he fell.

The dairymaid never liked giving up her ducks. If any harm should come to one of them, he knew she would taunt him with it every evening that he wanted to set the trap.

Now, however, this mishap had come to pass. When he shone the lantern before him he saw that there was no duck on the post, nothing but the ends of the strap hanging there. He was so annoyed that he turned to go, scarcely caring to see if the fox had fallen into the pit or got clear away. Still it was just possible that he might be a prisoner. He tried to throw the light from the lantern on the ground at his feet. There were holes in several places of the pit-roof. If only he could understand how that fox had managed to drag down so much straw.

But, turn the lantern as he might, he could not possibly see down to the floor of the pit, so he began to look for footsteps on the snow. If there had been two foxes he could better understand why the roof was so broken up, and then, too, it would not be quite such a disgrace to have lost the duck.

He found the foot-marks in the snow, held the lantern close to them, and bent lower and lower. At last he got down on his knees, took the candle out of the lantern, and threw its light to the ground.

When he got up, his legs trembled so beneath him that he was glad nobody was there to see. He could scarcely get over the ground fast enough to fetch a rope from the stable. When he came back with it, he made the lantern fast to one end, and let it down the pit. Now he could see to the very bottom, and in a moment a broad grin passed over his face. His eyes grew smaller and smaller and brighter and brighter, and his white teeth glistened in the candle-light. Yet he seemed in no hurry, but stood leaning over the pit chuckling to himself.

A little later Long-Bengt came up to the big house. He did not go along the kitchen path, but tramped heavily up to the front door and felt for the locks and bolts to let himself in. It was barely five o’clock, and no one was up but the old housekeeper. She heard the fumbling at the door and, quite startled at the noise, came to open it.

“But why in the world are you here, Long-Bengt? Whatever possesses you to come in the front way?”

Long-Bengt brushed her aside without vouchsafing a word of reply. He went straight to the bedroom where the Pastor and his wife lay in their first sleep, and knocked at the door.

“What is it? What has happened?” And the Pastor sat up in bed.

“It is Long-Bengt, Pastor. I wanted to tell you the duck disappeared from the pit last night.”

“That’s a bad job, of course, Bengt, but still you needn’t come in the middle of the night and----”

“The duck and the fox are both down in the pit.”

“You are a duffer, Bengt. You know I came home late from the wedding, and have only just this minute gone to sleep.”

But after a respectful pause Long-Bengt went on. “There was a wolf on the fox’s track, and he’s fallen into the pit as well.”

Quick as a flash came the Pastor’s answer: “Tell them in the kitchen to come and light up here so that I can get up!”

But Long-Bengt kept his ground as though he were deaf.

“And there was another wolf following the first, and he’s in the pit as well.” Not a word more, but straight to the door and out.

When the day had really dawned all the Parsonage people had gathered round the fox-pit, the Pastor and his wife, the Pastor’s daughter, the housekeeper, the five maids, the old crofter-woman and Little-Maid. Besides these there were Long-Bengt and his Mother, Old Bengta and his wife, Merry Maia, the two Vetter-lads, Player-Jons and Old Backman, a soldier who was doing a little work on the Lövdala land. They were all silent, and all leant forward to look down into the pit for a minute or two, and then drew back again.

Little-Maid was standing a little apart, for there was no room for her close to the edge of the pit. The Pastor caught sight of her and beckoned to her to come and look as well as the others.

A minute before she would have liked to push forward, but now she could not take a step. A shudder went through her, she simply dared not look at the wolves. She had never seen any before, although she had often heard them bark in the forest round Koltorp, and she knew that wolves were the most horrible things in creation, worse even than great serpents.

The Pastor was gayer this morning than she had ever seen him before. He took a good grip of her sheepskin collar.

“Now I have got you fast, Nora Stormwind, so that you can’t fall. You must look down into the pit, even if you are but a child, so that you can tell the young folks when you are an old woman how, in one night, we caught two wolves and a fox in the Lövdala pit!”

So there she stood at the edge and looked down at last. The pit was square and lined with wood like the well, although, of course, much bigger. She looked about for great monsters with gaping jaws that could swallow a little girl like her in one bite. But she could not catch sight of them, so she turned round and looked at the Pastor.

“Look into the corners!” he said. Once again she bent forward. It was pretty dark down there, but now she began to make out something. There were four animals in the pit, one in each corner. All four were perfectly quiet, only their eyes shone brightly when they looked up to the light and the people peering down at them.

In the corner exactly opposite her lay the fox, a little tight red ball, no larger than a sofa cushion. In the next lay a creature like a great shaggy dog; in the third stood the duck on both legs, straight and dignified. Whilst in the fourth there was another of the great furry dogs.

There was something strange and mysterious in the silence down in the pit. Little-Maid was as silent as all the rest when she stepped back from its edge.

When they had all looked their fill, the men went away in a group to talk it over. They must kill the wolves, but it was not easy to say how it was to be done. It would have been simple enough to shoot them, but if once blood was shed in the pit, it would be quite spoilt; not another creature would ever be caught in it again. When it was only a fox in question, a man used to jump down, give him a knock on the head to make him unconscious, tie a loop round his neck and haul him up. There was no danger in jumping down to a fox, but it was quite another matter to go into a pit with no less than two wolves.

Long-Bengt took the cudgel he generally used to knock the fox senseless, went up to the pit, looked down, shook his head, and went back to the others. One of the Vetter-lads fetched a rope and made a noose of it. He stood on the edge of the pit, and let down his noose straight in front of one wolf. If he could only get the noose over the wolf’s head, it would be easy work to pull him up. Down went the noose, lower and lower, right on the creature’s nose, but he never stirred. Then suddenly he tossed his head and snapped. Two rows of teeth shone white, and the noose lay bitten off on the floor of the pit.

Terror filled the hearts of those who saw it. It was no joke to have a tussle with animals who could bite off a rope at one go. “There’s no help for it, we shall have to shoot them in the pit,” said the Pastor. “Then, of course, we shall have to dig a new pit before next winter.”

But now a man who had been standing a little behind the others stepped up to the pithead. He was no other than the Henriksberg smith who had come up to Lobyn the evening before to buy hay. But in the bride’s home so many guests were staying the night that they could not offer him a bed, and Biorn Hindriksson had begged the Pastor to take him in. Well, the bedroom under the Parsonage roof was always ready to offer to strangers, and there he had passed the night. But in the morning everyone’s thoughts had been so taken up with the wolves that they had quite forgotten all about him.

He looked down into the pit, then took up Long-Bengt’s cudgel and weighed it in his hand. But they all thought he was only doing it for amusement. He was very tall but slight, and did not look so very strong. His hands were slender, too, and white, not in the least like a smith’s great fists. He didn’t look like a man who had had a specially happy life. His eyes looked as though all the sorrow he had ever felt had taken refuge there and never been washed away by healing tears, and when he moved he seemed borne down by a cruelly heavy burden, for his step was as slow and dragging as a worn-out wayfarer’s.

Now he stood listening to the other men’s suggestions for a little time, but when he saw how helpless they were, he jumped, quickly for once, on to the edge of the pit and down right into the very midst of the wild beasts.

Before anyone realised what was happening, swish went the cudgel, and a dull thud was heard. That was one of the wolves who had got a stunning blow on his head, then another and another.

The second wolf had got up, so he had a blow on his back that felled him to the ground, and then came a death-stroke on his skull as well.

“Now down with the rope!” cried the stranger to the others.

Long-Bengt threw a rope with a noose down to him. He drew it over the first wolf’s head, then over the other’s, and had them both drawn up.

The fox now showed signs of life. He was taking great leaps up the pit walls, but the stranger took no notice of him. “Put down the ladder. The cattle-man can look after the other two,” he said.

As he came up both men and women were so amazed that not a word could they say. When he had jumped down, the women had been so terrified that they stood there trembling, and the men were a little ashamed that they had dared not to do it themselves. But the Pastor’s daughter came with shining eyes to meet him.

“Now, indeed, I have seen a true man,” she said. “I have longed for this all my life.”

He looked at her with his sorrowful eyes. “Everything in the world,” they seemed to say, “is poor and worthless, and I myself am worse than all else.” But at the same time the kindly smile lit up his face. “I thought it was a pity,” he said, “to shoot down into the pit and spoil it.”