Thus unconsciously Tord did a good stroke of business whilst he sat there feeding his Japanese mice—thanks to the envy of his brothers and sisters.
As things turned out there was no need to handle Tord delicately. He agreed at once when he heard of an island full of living creatures. And the sea! That would be something for his poetic bent. And when Peter, who had done all he possibly could in the matter, came and put the sixty thousand crowns that were left after the purchase of Järnö into his hands, he was so astounded that he forgot his suspicions for a whole week. Then for the first time he began to tell Dagmar that that cursed Peter had of course cheated him, though he could not say exactly how.
He was, as a matter of fact, right. Peter had at the last moment got Järnö five thousand crowns cheaper than his sisters and brothers were told. So he earned a little on the business all the same.
Thus Tord moved out to Järnö with a lot of cages. He had a whole menagerie. And Dagmar looked rather like a tamer of wild animals.
The old dilapidated dwelling house lay in a little garden among the small patches of cultivated ground below the rocks in the southern part of the island. Tord could not live there. It was too tame—too close to his tenant’s little red cottage. No, they must build a log hut of coarse timber on the highest cliff, a real eagle’s eyrie with a view over his estate of stones and water!
Here we shall find him later on, just as before in the old Rookery by the muddy bay of Lake Mälare—but all the same as if grown greater by the sea and the winter loneliness.
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Laura cast a glance down the esplanade before she pulled the blind. She had moved to Narvavägen now. It was the most fashionable quarter.
The September evening was clear and cool. The prosperous-looking windows in the house opposite threw back discreet golden reflections. The little church at the corner looked like a luxurious bigoted needlework box. The recently planted trees of the esplanade were as like each other as soldiers in a row marching in column order out towards the fields.