Selma Lagerlöf - From a Swedish Homestead

'But warn him! do warn him!' Ingrid said to the angel in unspeakable fear. 'Tell him that they are living, and that he must take care.'

'I am not allowed to speak to him,' said the angel with his clear voice; 'thou must thyself warn him.'

The apparently dead girl felt with horror that she lay powerless, and could not rush to save the student. She made one futile effort after the other to raise herself, but the impotence of death bound her. But then at last, at last, she felt her heart begin to beat, the blood rushed through her veins, the stiffness of death was loosened in her body. She arose and hastened towards him.

It is quite certain the sun loves the open places outside the small village churches. Has no one ever noticed that one never sees so much sunshine as during the morning service outside a small, whitewashed church? Nowhere else does one see such radiant streams of light, nowhere else is the air so devoutly quiet. The sun simply keeps watch that no one remains on the church hill gossiping. It wants them all to sit quietly in church and listen to the sermon – that is why it sends such a wealth of sunny rays on to the ground outside the church wall.

Perhaps one must not take it for granted that the sun keeps watch outside the small churches every Sunday; but so much is certain, that the morning Ingrid had been placed in the grave in the churchyard at Raglanda, it spread a burning heat over the open space outside the church. Even the flint stones looked as if they might take fire as they lay and sparkled in the wheel-ruts. The short, down-trodden grass curled, so that it looked like dry moss, whilst the yellow dandelions which grew amongst the grass spread themselves out on their long stems, so that they became as large as asters.

A man from Dalarne came wandering along the road – one of those men who go about selling knives and scissors. He was clad in a long, white sheep-skin coat, and on his back he had a large black leather pack. He had been walking with this burden for several hours without finding it too hot, but when he had left the highroad, and came to the open place outside the church, he stopped and took off his hat in order to dry the perspiration from his forehead.

As the man stood there bare-headed, he looked both handsome and clever. His forehead was high and white, with a deep wrinkle between the eyebrows; the mouth was well formed, with thin lips. His hair was parted in the middle; it was cut short at the back, but hung over his ears, and was inclined to curl. He was tall, and strongly, but not coarsely, built; in every respect well proportioned. But what was wrong about him was his glance, which was unsteady, and the pupils of his eyes rolled restlessly, and were drawn far into the sockets, as if to hide themselves. There was something drawn about the mouth, something dull and heavy, which did not seem to belong to the face.

He could not be quite right, either, or he would not have dragged that heavy pack about on a Sunday. If he had been quite in his senses, he would have known that it was of no use, as he could not sell anything in any case. None of the other men from Dalarne who walked about from village to village bent their backs under this burden on a Sunday, but they went to the house of God free and erect as other men.

But this poor fellow probably did not know it was a holy day until he stood in the sunshine outside the church and heard the singing. He was sensible enough at once to understand that he could not do any business, and then his brain began to work as to how he should spend the day.

He stood for a long time and stared in front of him. When everything went its usual course, he had no difficulty in managing. He was not so bad but that he could go from farm to farm all through the week and attend to his business, but he never could get accustomed to the Sunday – that always came upon him as a great, unexpected trouble.

His eyes became quite fixed, and the muscles of his forehead swelled.

The first thought that took shape in his brain was that he should go into the church and listen to the singing, but he would not accept this suggestion. He was very fond of singing, but he dared not go into the church. He was not afraid of human beings, but in some churches there were such quaint, uncanny pictures, which represented creatures of which he would rather not think.

At last his brain worked round to the thought that, as this was a church, there would probably also be a churchyard, and when he could take refuge in a churchyard all was well. One could not offer him anything better. If on his wanderings he saw a churchyard, he always went in and sat there awhile, even if it were in the middle of a workaday week.

Now that he wanted to go to the churchyard a new difficulty suddenly arose. The burial-place at Raglanda does not lie quite near the church, which is built on a hill, but on the other side of the road; and he could not get to the entrance of the churchyard without passing along the road where the horses of the church-goers were standing tied up.

All the horses stood with their heads deep in bundles of hay and nosebags, chewing. There was no question of their being able to do the man any harm, but he had his own ideas as to the danger of going past such a long row of animals.

Two or three times he made an attempt, but his courage failed him, so that he was obliged to turn back. He was not afraid that the horses would bite or kick. It was quite enough for him that they were so near that they could see him. It was quite enough that they could shake their bridles and scrape the earth with their hoofs.

At last a moment came when all the horses were looking down, and seemed to be eating for a wager. Then he began to make his way between them. He held his sheepskin cloak tightly around him so that it should not flap and betray him, and he went on tiptoe as lightly as he could. When a horse raised its eyelid and looked at him, he at once stopped and curtsied. He wanted to be polite in this great danger, but surely animals were amenable to reason, and could understand that he could not bow when he had a pack full of hardware upon his back; he could only curtsy.

He sighed deeply, for in this world it was a sad and troublesome thing to be so afraid of all four-footed animals as he was. He was really not afraid of any other animals than goats, and he would not have been at all afraid of horses and dogs and cats had he only been quite sure that they were not a kind of transformed goats. But he never was quite sure of that, so as a matter of fact it was just as bad for him as if he had been afraid of all kinds of four-footed animals.

It was no use his thinking of how strong he was, and that these small peasant horses never did any harm to anyone: he who has become possessed of such fears cannot reason with himself. Fear is a heavy burden, and it is hard for him who must always carry it.

It was strange that he managed to get past all the horses. The last few steps he took in two long jumps, and when he got into the churchyard he closed the gate after him, and began to threaten the horses with his clenched fist.

'You wretched, miserable, accursed goats!'

He did that to all animals. He could not help calling them goats, and that was very stupid of him, for it had procured him a name which he did not like. Everyone who met him called him the 'Goat.' But he would not own to this name. He wanted to be called by his proper name, but apparently no one knew his real name in that district.

He stood a little while at the gate, rejoicing at having escaped from the horses, but he soon went further into the churchyard. At every cross and every stone he stopped and curtsied, but this was not from fear: this was simply from joy at seeing these dear old friends. All at once he began to look quite gentle and mild. They were exactly the same crosses and stones he had so often seen before. They looked just as usual. How well he knew them again! He must say 'Good-morning' to them.