Instead of going straight on, and trying to get down to the dock, the boy turned
into a side street leading east. First and last he wanted to get away from the
one who tramped after him.
But the next instant the bronze man turned down the same street; and then the
boy was so scared that he didn't know what to do with himself. And how hard it
was to find any hiding-places in a city where all the gates were closed! Then to
the right, a short distance from the street, he saw an old frame church, in the
centre of a large grove. Not an instant did he pause to consider, but hurried on
toward the church. "If I can only get there, then I'll surely be shielded from
all harm," thought he.
As he ran on he suddenly caught sight of a man standing on a gravel path
beckoning to him. "There is certainly some one who will help me!" thought the
boy. Oh, how relieved her felt! And he hurried off in the man's direction. He
was actually so frightened that the heart of him fairly thumped in his breast.
But when he got up to the man, who stood at the edge of the gravel path, upon a
low pedestal, he was absolutely thunderstruck. "Surely, it can't be that one who
beckoned to me!" he thought; for he saw that the entire man was made of wood.
The boy stood there and stared at him. He was a thick-set man on short legs,
with a broad, ruddy countenance, shiny, black hair and full black beard. On his
head he wore a wooden hat; on his body, a brown wooden coat; around his waist, a
black wooden belt; on his legs he had wide wooden knee-breeches and wooden
stockings; and on his feet black wooden shoes. He was newly painted and newly
varnished, so that he glistened and shone in the moonlight. He looked so
good-natured that the boy at once placed confidence in him.
In his left hand he held a wooden slate, and there the boy read:
Most humbly I beg you,
Though voice I may lack:
Come drop a penny, do;
But lift my hat!
Oho! so the man was only a poor-box. The boy felt that he had been fooled. He
had expected this to be something really remarkable. And now he remembered that
grandpa had also spoken of the wooden man, and had said that all the children in
Karlskrona were very fond of him. And that must have been true, for he, too,
found it hard to part with the wooden man. He had something so old-timey about
him, that one could well take him to be many hundred years old; and at the same
time, he looked so strong and bold, and spirited ­ just as one might imagine
that folks looked in olden times.
The boy had so much fun gazing at the wooden man, that he entirely forgot the
one from whom he was fleeing. But now he heard him turning from the street into
the churchyard. So he had followed him here, too! Where could the boy go?
Just then he saw the wooden man bend down to him and stretch forth his big,
broad hand. It was impossible to think anything but good of him; and with one
jump, the boy stood in his hand. The wooden man lifted him to his hat ­ and
stuck him under it.
The boy was just hidden, and the wooden man had just got his arm back to its
right place again, when the bronze man stopped in front of him and banged the
stick on the ground so that the wooden man shook on his pedestal. Thereupon the
bronze man said in a strong and resonant voice: "Who might this one be?"
The wooden man's arm went up, so that it creaked in the old woodwork, and he
touched his hat-brim as he replied: "Rosenbom, by Your Majesty's leave. Once
upon a time boatswain on the man-of-war, Audacity; after completed service,
sexton at the Admiral's Church ­ and, lately, carved in wood and exhibited in
the churchyard as a poor-box."
The boy gave a start when he heard that the wooden man say "Your Majesty." For
now, as he thought about it, he knew that the statue on the square represented
the one who had founded the city. It was probably no one less than Charles the
Eleventh himself that he had encountered.
"You give a good account of yourself," said the bronze man. "Can you also tell
me if you have seen a little brat who runs around in the city to-night? He's an
impudent rascal, and if I get hold of him, I'll teach him manners!" With that,
he again pounded on the ground with his stick, and looked fearfully angry.
"By Your Majesty's leave, I have seen him," said the wooden man; and the boy was
so scared that he commenced to shake where he sat under the hat and looked at
the bronze man through a crack in the wood. But he calmed down when the wooden
man continued: "Your Majesty is on the wrong track. That youngster certainly
intended to run into the shipyard, to hide there."
"you don't tell me, Rosenbom? Well then, don't stand on the pedestal any longer
but come with me and help me find him. Four eyes are better than two, Rosenbom."
But the wooden man answered in a doleful voice: "I would most humbly beg to be
permitted to stay where I am. I look well and sleek because of the paint, but
I'm old and mouldy, and cannot stand moving about."
The bronze man was not one who liked to be contradicted. "What sort of notions
are these? Come along, Rosenbom!" Then he raised his stick and gave him a
resounding whack on his wooden shoulder. "Does Rosenbom not see that he holds
together?"
With that the two set out together ­ big and mighty ­ on the streets of
Karlskrona ­ till they came to a high gate, which led to the shipyard. Just
outside and on guard walked one of the navy's jacktars, but the bronze man
strutted past him and kicked the gate open without the jacktar's pretending to
notice it.
As soon as they got into the shipyard, they saw before them a wide, expansive
harbour separated by pile-bridges. In the different harbour basins lay the
warships, which looked bigger, and more awe-inspiring than when the boy had seen
them from above. "Then it wasn't so crazy after all to imagine that they were
sea-trolls," thought he.
"Where does Rosenbom think it most advisable for us to begin the search?" said
the bronze man.
"One like him could very easily conceal himself in the hall of models," replied
the wooden man.
Ancient structures lay all along the harbour on a narrow strip of land which
stretched to the right from the gate.
The bronze man walked over to a building with low walls, small windows, and a
conspicuous roof. He pounded on the door with his stick until it burst open;
then tramped up a pair of worn-out steps. Soon they came into a large hall which
was filled with tackled and full-rigged little ships. The boy understood without
being told that they were models for the ships which had been built for the
Swedish navy. There were many different varieties. Some were old men-of-war,
whose sides bristled with cannon, and had high structures fore and aft ­ their
masts weighed down with a network of sails and ropes. There were small
island-boats with rowing-benches along the sides; there were undecked cannon
sloops and richly gilded frigates, which were models of the ones the kings had
used on their travels. Finally, there were also the heavy, broad armour-plated
ships with towers and cannon on deck ­ such as are in use nowadays; and narrow,
shining torpedo boats which resembled long, slender fishes.
While the boy was being carried around among all this, he was awed. "Fancy that
such big, splendid ships have been built here in Sweden!'' he thought to
himself.
He had plenty of time to see all that was to be seen. For when the bronze man
saw the models, he forgot everything else, and examined them from the first to
the last, and asked about them. Rosenbom, the boatswain on the Audacity, told as
much as he knew of the ships' builders, and of those who had manned them; and of
the fates they had met. He told of Chapman and Puke and Trolle; of Hoagland and
Svensksund ­ all the way along until 1809 ­ after that he had not been there.
Both he and the bronze man had the most to say about the fine old wooden ships.
The new battleships they didn't exactly appear to understand.
"I can see that Rosenbom doesn't know anything about these new-fangled things,"
said the bronze man. "Therefore, let us go and look at something else; for this
amuses me, Rosenbom."
By this time he had entirely given up his search for the boy, who felt calm and
secure where he sat in the wooden hat.
Thereupon both men wandered through the big establishment: sail-making shops,
anchor smithy, machine and carpenter shops. They saw the mast sheers and the
docks; the large magazines, the arsenal, the rope-bridge and the big discarded
dock, which had been blasted in the bed-rock. They went out upon the
pile-bridges, where the naval vessels lay moored, stepped on board and examined
them like two old sea-dogs; wondered; disapproved; approved; and became
indignant.
The boy sat in safety under the wooden hat, and heard all about how they had
laboured and struggled in this place to equip the navies which had gone out from
here. He heard how life and blood had been risked; how the last penny had been
sacrificed to build the warships; how men of genius had strained all their
powers, in order to perfect these ships which had been their Fatherland's
safeguard. A couple of times the tears came to the boy's eyes, as he heard all
this.
And last, they went into an open court where the galley models of old men-of-war
were grouped; and a more curious sight the boy had never beheld; for these
models had inconceivably powerful and terror-striking faces. They were big,
fearless and savage: filled with the same proud spirit that had fitted out the
great ships. They were from another time than his. He fancied that he shrivelled
up before them.
But when they came in here, the bronze man said to the wooden man: "Take off thy
hat, Rosenbom, for those that stand here! They have all fought for the
Fatherland."
And Rosenbom, like the bronze man, had forgotten why they had begun this tramp.
Without thinking, he lifted the wooden hat from his head and shouted:
"I take off my hat to the one who chose the harbour and founded the shipyard and
recreated the navy; to the monarch who has awakened all this into life!"
"Thanks, Rosenbom! That was well spoken. Rosenbom is a fine man. But what is
this, Rosenbom?"
For there stood Nils Holgersson, right on the top of Rosenbom's bald pate. He
was no longer afraid but doffed his white toboggan hood, and shouted: "Hurrah
for you, Longlip!"
The bronze man struck the ground hard with his stick; but the boy never learned
what he had intended to do to him, for now the sun ran up, and straightway both
the bronze man and the wooden man vanished ­ as if they had been made of mists.
While he still stood staring after them, the wild geese flew from the church
tower, and circled back and forth over the city. Presently they caught sight of
Nils; and then the big white one darted down from the sky and fetched him.
[Next]
Chapter X.
"Chapter X." by Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940), translated by Velma Swanston Howard.
From: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. by Selma Lagerlöf. New York: Doubleday,
Page & Company, 1922, pp. 133-138.
CHAPTER TEN
THE TRIP TO ÖLAND
Sunday, April third.
THE wild geese went out on a wooded island to feed. There they happened to run
across a few gray geese who were surprised to see them ­ since they knew very
well that their kinsmen, the wild geese, usually travel over the interior of the
country.
They were curious and inquisitive, and wouldn't be satisfied with less than than
the wild geese telling them all about the hounding which they had to take from
Smirre Fox. When they had finished, a gray goose, wh appeared to be as old and
as wise as Akka herself, said: "It was a great misfortune for you that Smirre
Fox was declared an outlaw in his own land. He'll be sure to keep his word, and
follow you all the way up to Lapland. If I were in your place, I shouldn't
travel north over Småland. I should take the outside route over Öland instead,
to throw him off the track entirely. To really mislead him, you must remain for
a couple of days on Öland's southern point. There you'll find lots of food and
lots of company. I don't think you'll regret it, if you go over there."
This was certainly sensible advice, and the wild geese concluded to take it. As
soon as they had eaten all they could hold, they started on the trip to Öland.
None of them had ever been there before, but the gray goose had given them
excellent directions. They only had to travel straight south until they came to
a large bird-track, which extended all along the Blekinge coast. All the birds
who had winter homes by the West Coast and were now on their way to Finland and
Russia, flew forward there ­ and, in passing, they were always in the habit of
stopping at Öland to rest. The wild geese would have no trouble in finding
guides.
That day it was perfectly still and warm, like a summer's day ­ the best weather
in the world for a sea trip. The only drawback was that it was not quite clear,
for the skies were gray and veiled. Here and there were enormous clouds which
hung far down to the sea's outer edge, obstructing the view.
When the travellers had passed beyond the rock-islands, the sea spread out so
smooth and mirror-like that, as the boy looked down, he thought the water had
disappeared. There was no longer any earth under him. He had only mist and sky
around him. He grew very dizzy, and held himself tight on the goose-back ­ more
frightened than when he sat there for the first time. It seemed as if he
