Anna Stjärnhök fainted, but old Ulrika stood calm. She had noticed that everything was not right with him who had followed them on the road.
Afterwards the captain and his wife arranged the matter so with Sintram that old Ulrika was allowed to stay at Berga. He agreed good-naturedly.
“He did not want to drive her mad,” he said.
I do not ask any one to believe these old stories. They cannot be anything but lies and fiction. But the anguish which passes over the heart, until it wails as the floor boards in Sintram’s room wailed under the swaying rockers; but the questions which ring in the ears, as the sleigh-bells rang for Anna Stjärnhök in the lonely forest,—when will they be as lies and fiction?
The beautiful point on Löfven’s eastern shore, about which the bay glides with lapping waves, the proud point where the manor of Borg lies, beware of approaching.
Löfven never looks more glorious than from its summit.
No one can know how lovely it is, the lake of my dreams, until he has seen from Borg’s point the morning mist glide away from its smooth surface; until he, from the windows of the little blue cabinet, where so many memories dwell, has seen it reflect a pink sunset.
For perhaps you will be seized with a desire to remain in that old manor’s sorrowful halls; perhaps you will make yourself the owner of those fair lands; and if you are young, rich, and happy, you will make your home there with a young wife.
No, it is better never to see the beautiful point, for at Borg no one can live and be happy. No matter how rich, how happy you may be, who move in there, those old tear-drenched floors would soon drink _your_ tears as well, and those walls, which could give back so many moans, would also glean _your_ sighs.
An implacable fate is on this lovely spot. It is as if misfortune were buried there, but found no rest in its grave, and perpetually rose from it to terrify the living. If I were lord of Borg I would search through the ground, both in the park and under the cellar floor in the house, and in the fertile mould out in the meadows, until I had found the witch’s worm-eaten corpse, and then I would give her a grave in consecrated earth in the Svartsjö churchyard. And at the burial I would not spare on the ringer’s pay, but let the bells sound long and loud over her; and to the clergyman and sexton I should send rich gifts, that they with redoubled strength might with speech and song consecrate her to everlasting rest.