“Do you think this is a night for sleeping?”

And hear now what this Captain Kristian tells him! The giant has had his suspicions, he has realized that now the minister is going to be afraid to drink. He would never have any peace again, thought Captain Kristian, for these clergymen from Karlstad, who had been there once, could come again and take the vestments from him at any time, if he drank.

But now Captain Kristian has set his heavy hand to the good work, now he has fixed it so that those clergymen will never come again, not them and not the bishop either. After this the minister and his friends will be able to drink as much as they want there in the parsonage.

Hear what a great deed he has carried out, he, Captain Kristian, the strong captain!

When the bishop and the two other clergymen had climbed into the covered cart and the doors had been securely closed behind them, then he had climbed up onto the driver’s seat and driven them a good ten miles in the light summer night.

And then Kristian Bergh had let the reverends feel how precariously life is seated in the human body. He let the horses run at a frenzied pace. That would serve them right, for not allowing an honorable man to have a drink.

Do you think he drove them along the road, do you think he avoided bumps? He drove across ditches and fields of stubble, he drove at a dizzying gallop along hillsides, he drove along the lakeshore, the water whirling around the wheels, he came close to getting stuck in the marsh, and took off across bare rock, so that the horses stood sliding on stiffened legs. And all the while the bishop and the clergymen sat behind the leather curtains, faces wan, mumbling prayers. They had never had a worse journey.

And imagine how they must have looked, when they arrived at the inn at Rissäter, alive, but shaking like buckshot in a leather pouch.

“What’s this supposed to mean, Captain Kristian?” says the bishop, as he opens the carriage door for them.

“It means that the bishop should think twice before he comes here on another inquiry about Gösta Berling,” says Captain Kristian, and he has thought that sentence out beforehand so as not to forget what he wanted to say.

“Then tell Gösta Berling,” says the bishop, “that neither I nor any other bishop will be coming to see him again.”

See, the strong Captain Kristian tells about this deed, standing by the open window in the summer night. For Captain Kristian had only just left the horses at the inn, and then he came down to the minister with the news.

“Now you can be calm, minister and dear friend,” he says.

Ah, Captain Kristian! The clergymen sat with wan faces behind the leather curtains, but the minister in the window looks a great deal paler in the light summer night. Ah, Captain Kristian!

The minister even raised his arm and aimed a dreadful blow against the giant’s rough, stupid face, but he restrained himself. He pulled down the window with a crash and stood in the middle of the room, shaking his clenched fist toward the sky.

He, who had felt the fiery tongue of inspiration, he, who had been able to proclaim the glory of God, stood there thinking that God had played a terrible joke on him.

Wouldn’t the bishop believe that Captain Kristian had been sent by the minister? Wouldn’t he believe that he had been a hypocrite and a liar all day? Now he would pursue the inquiry against him in earnest; now he would have him suspended and defrocked.

When morning came, the minister had left the parsonage. He did not stay to defend himself. God had mocked him. God was not willing to help him. He knew that he would be defrocked. It was God’s will. So he might as well leave at once.

This happened in the early 1820s in a far-off parish in western Värmland.

This was the first misfortune that befell Gösta Berling; it would not be the last.

For such foals, as cannot bear the spur or the lash, find life difficult. With every pain that befalls them, they bolt away on wild paths toward gaping abysses. As soon as the path is stony and the journey troublesome, they know no other recourse than to upset their load and run off in madness.

II. THE BEGGAR

One cold day in December a beggar came wandering up the hills of Broby. He was dressed in the shabbiest rags, and his shoes were so worn that his feet were wet from the cold snow.

Löven is a long, narrow lake in the province of Värmland, laced up in a few places by long, narrow straits. To the north it extends up toward the forests of Finnmark, to the south down toward Vänern. Several parishes spread out along its shores, but Bro parish is the largest and wealthiest. It occupies a good part of the shores of the lake on both the east and west side, but the largest farmsteads are on the west side—manor houses such as Ekeby and Björne, widely known for wealth and beauty, and the large village of Broby with its inn, courthouse, sheriff’s residence, parsonage, and marketplace.

Broby sits on a steep incline. The beggar had gone past the inn, which sits at the foot of the hill, and was plodding up toward the parsonage, which sits farthest up.

Walking ahead of him on the hill was a little girl, who was pulling a sled loaded with a sack of flour. The beggar caught up with the girl and started talking with her.

“Such a little horse for such a big load,” he said.

The child turned around and looked at him. She was a little thing, twelve years old with piercing, sharp eyes and a pinched mouth.

“God grant that the horse were smaller and the load larger, then it would last that much longer,” the girl replied.

“Is this your own fodder you’re dragging home then?”

“God help me but I have to get my food myself, little as I am.”

The beggar took hold of the sled handle to push it.

The girl turned around and looked at him.

“You mustn’t think you’ll get anything for it,” she said.

The beggar started to laugh.

“You must be the daughter of the minister at Broby.”

“Yes, yes, so I am. Many a girl has a poorer father; no one has a worse one. That’s the plain truth, though it’s a shame that his own child should have to say it.”

“He sounds stingy and mean, this father of yours.”

“He is stingy, and he is mean, but his daughter will likely be even worse, if she lives, people say.”

“I think people are right. I would just like to know where you came across that sack of flour.”

“Well, there won’t be any harm in telling you about it. I took grain from Father’s grain bin this morning, and now I’ve been to the mill.”

“Won’t he see you when you come dragging it home with you?”

“You must have left your master too soon.