Read Ebook: På Elghyttan by Beskow Elisabeth Maria

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Ebook has 2526 lines and 77778 words, and 51 pages

"I wonder you can bear to speak about it at all!" she said almost reproachfully when he had finished.

Left to himself, Gordon became the prey of a singular depression. The sensation of horror which the recital of the incident revived in him was intensified, not merely by its sombre contrast with the former liveliness of his thoughts, but by the actual surroundings amongst which he stood. The room itself was so suggestive of reminiscences that it seemed instinct with the presence of his dead friend. For the fact that he had but lately entered it after a lapse of years gave a fresh vividness to his memories. It was as if the dust had been suddenly swept from them by a rough hand.

He walked over to the oak chest which stood against the wall by the fireplace. A book in a red cover lay upon it and he took it up. It was a novel which Arkwright had written at the farmhouse, and it contained an inscription to that effect from the author's hand.

"I seem likely to pass a pleasant week," he said to himself, and taking his hat, stepped out into the clear sunshine.

But his thoughts ran ever in the same channel. Each familiar object that he passed recalled his friend, and the remembrance of that night in the Alps hung like a black cloud about his heart. He tried to thrust it aside, but the more earnestly he tried, the more persistently it chained his attention, until in the end it seemed to shadow forth something sinister, something almost of menace. For some distance he followed the bed of the valley and then struck upwards to the right, on to the slopes of Scafell Pike. After a while he stopped to light his pipe, and, turning, saw over against him the track mounting in sharp zigzags towards the summit of the Styhead Pass. It was as clearly defined on the hill-side as a pencilled line on paper, and his eyes followed its direction mechanically until it bent over the edge of the Pass and disappeared from view. Then equally mechanically he began to picture in his mind its subsequent course. He had traced it past the tarn and half the way to Borrowdale, when of a sudden a smile dawned through the gloom on his face, "The path to Keswick!" he thought. He traced it consciously after that; he saw it broaden out into a road, and his imagination set a dainty figure in a white dress and a sailor hat at the end of it.

Gordon had met Kate Nugent for the first time some three years before at Hawke's home in London, and from the outset of their acquaintance she had commenced to dominate his thoughts, not so much on account of her beauty as from a certain distinctness of personality which appealed to him at that time with a very peculiar force. For she came to him at a somewhat critical period in his life.

Left an orphan while yet a child, David had spent his boyhood alone in the north of Scotland. His guardian--an uncle with a seat in Parliament and an estate near Ravenglass--he never saw; his tutor--an unpractical scholar of the old-fashioned type--he neglected, in order to follow the marsh-lamps of his own dreamy and somewhat morbid imagination. And so dividing his time between the study of the more exuberant poets and solitary rides along the bleak sea-coast, he mapped out the world for himself upon a purely fanciful plan. He first came into contact with actual life on his migration to Oxford. He was brought face to face with new facts and new experiences, which, strive as he might, he could not fit in with his theories. And, besides, he seemed to see all around him men actuated by the interests of truth toiling noisily at the overthrow of creeds and erecting nothing in their place. As a consequence, his false idealism crumbled beneath him, he lost his self-reliance, and felt hemmed in by a confused tangle of truth and falsehood which there was no clue to help him to unravel. The step between an intellectual scepticism and personal cynicism is an easy one for most men to take. Gordon strode over the intervening gaps unconsciously the moment he ceased to trust himself, since his own sensations had, of necessity, been the one standard by which he judged.

His meeting with Kate Nugent, however, changed the whole tenor of his mind. She appeared to him the one real thing that he had found in his journey through a world of shadows. He pictured her standing out white and clear from a background of shifting haze, and his very self-distrust diminished since he referred his thoughts and actions to his conception of her as to a touchstone for the testing of them.

After their engagement, she became almost his religion. He re-fashioned a second world in her image, faith coming to him like a child born from the joining of their hearts. His ambitions, so long dulled to inaction, sprang into new vigour and he followed their lead with a confident patience. There was, in fact, an element of quaint extravagance in his devotion, such as one finds mirrored in the love-poems of the seventeenth century.

Hence it came about that as he walked home in the fall of the afternoon, matching the sunset with the colour of his thoughts, the sight of the white Inn walls, prominent in a dark clump of firs, recalled to him not only the fact of Hawke's proximity, but his desire to put an end to their estrangement. The desire grew as he dwelled upon it, until he began to feel an absolute repulsion from the prospect of starting along this new stage of his life at enmity with an old comrade.

Hkandidaten, och jag tog honom i den tron, att han skulle kunna pl?ja ?kern lika bra som hafvet. Men se, 'den gubben gick inte', som de l?rda s? sant uttrycka sig.>>

>>Men om han inte kan sk?ta sin uppgift, borde han v?l afskedas>>, ans?g kandidaten.

>>Visst borde han det>>, erk?nde majoren beredvilligt. >>Men hvem katten har hj?rta till n?got s?dant? Inte jag ?tminstone. Jag slog fram n?got om det en g?ng, men d? blef han s? j?mmerlig, att jag genast tog min hotelse tillbaka. Han kommer nog att f?rbli p? Elghyttan, tills endera af oss d?r. Och jag ?r just inte ledsen f?r det. Vill jag ha roligt ibland, g?r jag bara ut till honom p? f?ltet och l?ter honom ber?tta sina historier f?r mig. De roa mig ofantligt. 'Det ?r intet ondt, som ej har n?got godt med sig', p?st?r ordspr?ket. R?ttaren g?r mig ?tminstone den nyttan, att han lockar mig ut att se till arbetet p? godset mycket oftare ?n jag annars skulle komma mig f?r med det.>>

>>Det ?fverinseendet ?r allt mycket v?rdt, n?r pappa bara h?r p? hans skepparhistorier>>, anm?rkte Torvald skrattande.

>>?r du n?svis, pojke?>> fr?gade majoren med ett l?tsadt f?rs?k att vara fruktansv?rd.

Torvald l?t sig ej det minsta bekomma.

>>Men pappa>>, sade Elisa, >>det g?r inte an att l?ta det vara som det ?r med Andersson.>>

>>Hvarf?r skulle det inte g? an?>> fr?gade majoren en smula ot?lig.

Tanken p? att n?got borde ?ndras besv?rade honom, och i synnerhet n?r man tycktes fordra ett ingripande fr?n hans sida.

>>Han b?rjar dricka p? allvar. Kanske skulle det bli honom till hj?lp, om pappa gjorde nykterhet till villkor f?r hans kvarstannande.>>

>>Predika absolutism f?r honom du, min v?n. Skulle jag b?rja g?ra det, kunde han kanske svara: 'sopa rent utanf?r din egen d?rr f?rst, min gubbe'.>>

>>I dag kom han f?r sent till f?ltet, d?rf?r att han druckit i g?r.>>

>>Arbetade inte folket ?nd??>>

>>Jo.>>

>>N? hvad g?r det d?? Missunna inte karlen hans lilla morgonlur.>>

>>Men arbetet g?r inte med samma fart, d? f?rmannen saknas.>>

>>?h strunt, farten blir nog bra. L?t oss nu tala om n?got annat.>>

>>Fr?ken var tidigt ute i morse>>, sade kandidaten till Elisa.

>>Ja, i soluppg?ngen>>, svarade hon.

>>Hu! Hvad skulle du uppe att g?ra s? midt i natten?>> fr?gade en r?st bakom henne.

Det var hennes bror Christian, som sent omsider uppenbarade sig. Han var l?jtnant vid ett landsortsregemente och hade d?rf?r godt om tid att g? och sl? dank p? Elghyttan. Elisa var glad, n?r han bev?rdigades tillbringa sin ledighet d?r och icke annorst?des.

>>Jag skulle se om Inga i Hanebyskogen. Hon ?r sjuk.>>

>>Ge henne en flaska portvin>>, sade majoren godhj?rtadt.

>>Tack, det skall g?ra henne godt. Men det hon ?nnu b?ttre beh?fver ?r frisk luft och renlighet>>, svarade Elisa och ber?ttade i hvilket tillst?nd hon funnit gumman och hennes omgifning.

Alla utom majoren f?rfasade sig; han f?rstod den gamla.

>>Man tycker om att ha det som man ?r van>>, sade han, >>och det k?nns alltid bittert att skiljas fr?n det man ?lskar, vare sig detta nu ?r guld och ?ra eller smuts och grisar.>>

>>Men om hon skall d?, s? m?ste hon ju skiljas ifr?n det i alla fall>>, sade Elisa.

>>L?t henne ?tminstone beh?lla sina f?n tills hon d?r, stackars kr?k. Fuska inte i d?dens handtverk du, min unge>>, sade majoren och kastade n?gra l?ckerbitar till sina tv? favoritkattor, hvilka sutto och sn?lades p? hvar sin sida om honom.

>>Det ?r f?r att m?jligen r?dda gumman, som jag vill g?ra rent hos henne, f?rst?r pappa. Hon kan inte lefva i en s?dan omgifning.>>

>>Hon d?r mycket f?rr, om du ber?fvar henne den k?ra smutsen>>, vidh?ll majoren. >>L?t henne du beh?lla den.>>

>>Det ?r ?nd? rysligt att ?lska smuts. Folket beh?fver uppfostras. Hit borde komma n?gon och h?lla f?rel?sningar i hygien>>, sade Christian med en ansats till energi.

Han kunde l?ta ganska d?dkraftig, n?r det g?llde s?dant, som ej kom i fr?ga f?r honom att g?ra.

>>Har du inte t?nkt p? att h?lla ett s?dant f?redrag, Rise?>> tillade han.

>>Den jag tror skulle lyckas b?ttre vore fr?ken Elisa>>, svarade denne.

>>Elisa! Nej tack, min syster f?r inte h?lla tal>>, sade l?jtnant Christian. >>I ett fall ?r jag biblisk och det ?r i den ?sikten, att kvinnan skall tiga.>>

>>Jag tror inte alla hygieniska f?redrag i v?rlden skulle kunna rensa mor Ingas stuga>>, sade Elisa; >>till det beh?fves en driftig kvinna med sopkvast och rotborste. Det skulle ta b?ttre ?n m?nga l?rda herrars v?ltaliga tungor.>>

>>Det var ett sant ord>>, sade kandidaten leende. >>Det finns nog f?r mycket tal och f?r litet handling i v?rlden.>>

I detta ?gonblick ?ppnades d?rren, och tant Cilla seglade in med minen af en martyr.

>>Urs?kta, min n?diga, att vi satte oss>>, sade majoren, >>men se, din morgons?mn och v?r morgonaptit ?ro b?da alltf?r goda f?r att kunna komma ?fverens liksom pr?sterna i v?r f?rsamling.>>

>>Min morgons?mn!>> upprepade tant Cilla med lidande r?st. >>Den ?r minsann inte god. Jag sofver aldrig, ser kandidat Rise, men det tror ingen.>>

Tant Cilla var en syster till majoren. Hon hade vid hans hustrus d?d flyttat till honom f?r att taga hand om hans hush?ll och barn, men Elisa var dock den, som i sj?lfva verket bar omsorgen om allt, tant Cilla inber?knad.

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