(1853)

IT is more than a hundred years ago! At the border of the wood, near a large lake, stood the old mansion¹: deep ditches surrounded it on every side, in which reeds and bulrushes grew. Close by the drawbridge, near the gate, there was an old willow² tree, which bent³ over the reeds.

From the narrow pass came the sound of bugles⁴ and the trampling⁵ of horses’ feet; therefore a little girl who was watching the geese hastened to drive them away from the bridge, before the whole hunting party came galloping⁶ up; they came, however, so quickly, that the girl, in order to avoid being run over, placed herself on one of the high corner-stones of the bridge. She was still half a child and very delicately built; she had bright blue eyes, and a gentle, sweet expression. But such things the baron⁷ did not notice; while he was riding past the little goose-girl, he reversed his hunting crop, and in rough play gave her such a push with it that she fell backward into the ditch.

“Everything in the right place!” he cried. “Into the ditch with you.”

Then he burst out laughing, for that he called fun; the others joined in—the whole party shouted and cried, while the hounds barked.

While the poor girl was falling she happily caught one of the branches of the willow tree, by the help of which she held herself over the water, and as soon as the baron with his company and the dogs had disappeared through the gate, the girl endeavoured to scramble⁸ up, but the branch broke off, and she would have fallen backward among the rushes, had not a strong hand from above seized her at this moment. It was the hand of a pedlar; he had witnessed what had happened from a short distance, and now hastened to assist her.

“Everything in the right place,” he said, imitating the noble baron, and pulling the little maid up to the dry ground. He wished to put the branch back in the place it had been broken off, but it is not possible to put everything in the right place; therefore he stuck the branch into the soft ground.

“Grow and thrive if you can, and produce a good flute⁹ for them yonder at the mansion,” he said; it would have given him great pleasure to see the noble baron and his companions well thrashed. Then he entered the castle—but not the banqueting hall; he was too humble¹⁰ for that. No; he went to the servants’ hall. The men-servants and maids looked over his stock of articles and bargained with him; loud crying and screaming were heard from the master’s table above: they called it singing—indeed, they did their best. Laughter and the howls of dogs were heard through the open windows: there they were feasting and revelling¹¹; wine and strong old ale were foaming¹² in the glasses and jugs¹³; the favourite dogs ate with their masters; now and then the squires¹⁴ kissed one of these animals, after having wiped its mouth first with the tablecloth¹⁵. They ordered the pedlar to come up, but only to make fun of him. The wine had got into their heads, and reason had left them. They poured beer into a stocking that he could drink with them, but quick. That’s what they called fun, and it made them laugh. Then meadows, peasants, and farmyards were staked on one card and lost.

“Everything in the right place!” the pedlar said when he had at last safely got out of Sodom and Gomorrah, as he called it. “The open high road is my right place; up there I did not feel at ease.”

The little maid, who was still watching the geese, nodded kindly¹⁶ to him as he passed through the gate.

Days and weeks passed, and it was seen that the broken willow-branch which the peddlar had stuck into the ground near the ditch remained fresh and green—nay, it even put forth¹⁷ fresh twigs¹⁸; the little goose-girl saw that the branch had taken root, and was very pleased; the tree, so she said, was now her tree. While the tree was advancing, everything else at the castle was going backward, through feasting and gambling²⁰, for these are two rollers upon which nobody stands safely. Less than six years afterwards the baron passed out of his castle-gate a poor beggar, while the baronial seat had been bought by a rich tradesman. He was the very pedlar they had made fun of and poured beer into a stocking for him to drink; but honesty and industry bring one forward, and now the pedlar was the possessor of the baronial estate. From that time forward no card-playing was permitted there.

“That’s a bad pastime,” he said; “when the devil saw the Bible for the first time he wanted to produce a caricature in opposition²¹ to it, and invented card-playing.”

The new proprietor²² of the estate took a wife, and whom did he take?—The little goose-girl, who had always remained good and kind, and who looked as beautiful in her new clothes as if she had been a lady of high birth. And how did all this come about? That would be too long a tale to tell in our busy time, but it really happened, and the most important events have yet to be told.

It was pleasant and cheerful to live in the old place now: the mother superintended the household, and the father looked after things out-of-doors, and they were indeed very prosperous.

Where honesty leads the way, prosperity is sure to follow. The old mansion was repaired and painted, the ditches were cleaned and fruit-trees planted; all was homely²³ and pleasant, and the floors were as white and shining as a pasteboard. In the long winter evenings the mistress and her maids sat at the spinning-wheel in the large hall; every Sunday the counsellor—this title the pedlar had obtained, although only in his old days—read aloud a portion from the Bible. The children (for they had children) all received the best education, but they were not all equally clever, as is the case in all families.

In the meantime the willow tree near the drawbridge had grown up into a splendid tree, and stood there, free, and was never clipped. “It is our genealogical tree,” said the old people to their children, “and therefore it must be honoured.”

A hundred years had elapsed. It was in our own days; the lake had been transformed into marsh²⁴ land; the whole baronial seat had, as it were, disappeared. A pool of water near some ruined walls was the only remainder of the deep ditches; and here stood a magnificent old tree with overhanging branches—that was the genealogical tree. Here it stood, and showed how beautiful a willow can look if one does not interfere²⁵ with it. The trunk, it is true, was cleft²⁶ in the middle from the root to the crown; the storms had bent it a little, but it still stood there, and out of every crevice²⁷ and cleft, in which wind and weather had carried mould, blades of grass and flowers sprang forth. Especially above, where the large boughs²⁸ parted, there was quite a hanging garden, in which wild raspberries and hart’s-tongue ferns throve, and even a little mistletoe had taken root, and grew gracefully²⁹ in the old willow branches, which were reflected in the dark water beneath when the wind blew the chickweed into the corner of the pool. A footpath³⁰ which led across the fields passed close by the old tree. High up, on the woody hillside, stood the new mansion. It had a splendid view, and was large and magnificent; its window panes³¹ were so clear that one might have thought there were none there at all. The large flight of steps which led to the entrance looked like a bower³² covered with roses and broad-leaved plants. The lawn was as green as if each blade of grass was cleaned separately morning and evening. Inside, in the hall, valuable oil paintings were hanging on the walls. Here stood chairs and sofas covered with silk and velvet³³, which could be easily rolled about on castors; there were tables with polished marble tops, and books bound in morocco with gilt³⁴ edges. Indeed, well-to-do and distinguished³⁵ people lived here; it was the dwelling³⁶ of the baron and his family. Each article was in keeping with its surroundings. “Everything in the right place” was the motto according to which they also acted here, and therefore all the paintings which had once been the honour and glory of the old mansion were now hung up in the passage which led to the servants’ rooms. It was all old lumber³⁷, especially two portraits—one representing a man in a scarlet³⁸ coat with a wig¹⁹, and the other a lady with powdered and curled hair holding a rose in her hand, each of them being surrounded by a large wreath of willow branches. Both portraits had many holes in them, because the baron’s sons used the two old people as targets for their crossbows. They represented the counsellor and his wife, from whom the whole family descended³⁹. “But they did not properly belong to our family,” said one of the boys; “he was a pedlar and she kept the geese. They were not like papa and mamma.” The portraits were old lumber, and “everything in its right place.” That was why the great-grandparents had been hung up in the passage leading to the servants’ rooms.

The son of the village pastor⁴⁰ was tutor at the mansion. One day he went for a walk across the fields with his young pupils and their elder sister, who had lately been confirmed. They walked along the road which passed by the old willow tree, and while they were on the road she picked a bunch of field-flowers. “Everything in the right place,” and indeed the bunch looked very beautiful. At the same time she listened to all that was said, and she very much liked to hear the pastor’s son speak about the elements and of the great men and women in history. She had a healthy mind, noble in thought and deed, and with a heart full of love for everything that God had created. They stopped at the old willow tree, as the youngest of the baron’s sons wished very much to have a flute from it, such as had been cut for him from other willow trees; the pastor’s son broke a branch off. “Oh, pray do not do it!” said the young lady; but it was already done. “That is our famous old tree. I love it very much. They often laugh at me at home about it, but that does not matter. There is a story attached to this tree.” And now she told him all that we already know about the tree—the old mansion, the pedlar and the goose-girl who had met there for the first time, and had become the ancestors of the noble family to which the young lady belonged.

“They did not like to be knighted, the good old people,” she said; “their motto was ‘everything in the right place,’ and it would not be right, they thought, to purchase a title for money. My grandfather, the first baron, was their son. They say he was a very learned man, a great favourite with the princes and princesses, and was invited to all court festivities. The others at home love him best; but, I do not know why, there seemed to me to be something about the old couple that attracts my heart! How homely, how patriarchal, it must have been in the old mansion, where the mistress sat at the spinning-wheel with her maids, while her husband read aloud out of the Bible!”

“They must have been excellent, sensible people,” said the pastor’s son. And with this the conversation turned naturally to noblemen and commoners; from the manner in which the tutor spoke⁴¹ about the significance of being noble, it seemed almost as if he did not belong to a commoner’s family.

“It is good fortune to be of a family who have distinguished themselves, and to possess as it were a spur in oneself to advance to all that is good. It is a splendid thing to belong to a noble family, whose name serves as a card of admission to the highest circles. Nobility is a distinction; it is a gold coin that bears the stamp of its own value. It is the fallacy of the time, and many poets express it, to say that all that is noble is bad and stupid, and that, on the contrary, the lower one goes among the poor, the more brilliant virtues⁴² one finds. I do not share this opinion, for it is wrong. In the upper classes one sees many touchingly⁴³ beautiful traits; my own mother has told me of such, and I could mention several. One day she was visiting a nobleman’s house in town; my grandmother, I believe, had been the lady’s nurse when she was a child. My mother and the nobleman were alone in the room, when he suddenly noticed an old woman on crutches⁴⁴ come limping into the courtyard; she came every Sunday to carry a gift away with her.

“‘There is the poor old woman,’ said the nobleman; ‘it is so difficult for her to walk.’

“My mother had hardly understood what he said before he disappeared from the room, and went downstairs, in order to save her the troublesome walk for the gift she came to fetch. Of course this is only a little incident, but it has its good sound like the poor widow’s two mites⁴⁵ in the Bible, the sound which echoes in the depth of every human heart; and this is what the poet ought to show and point out—more especially in our own time he ought to sing of this; it does good, it mitigates⁴⁶ and reconciles! But when a man, simply because he is of noble birth and possesses a genealogy⁴⁷, stands on his hind⁴⁸ legs and neighs in the street like an Arabian horse, and says when a commoner has been in a room: ‘Some people from the street have been here,’ there nobility is decaying; it has become a mask of the kind that Thespis created, and it is amusing when such a person is exposed in satire⁴⁹.”

Such was the tutor’s speech; it was a little long, but while he delivered it he had finished cutting the flute.

There was a large party at the mansion; many guests from the neighbourhood and from the capital had arrived. There were ladies with tasteful and with tasteless dresses; the big hall was quite crowded with people. The clergymen stood humbly⁵⁰ together in a corner, and looked as if they were preparing for a funeral, but it was a festival—only the amusement had not yet begun. A great concert was to take place, and that is why the baron’s young son had brought his willow flute with him; but he could not make it sound, nor could his father, and therefore the flute was good for nothing.

There was music and songs of the kind which delight most those that perform them; otherwise quite charming!

“Are you an artist?” said a cavalier, the son of his father; “you play on the flute, you have made it yourself; it is genius that rules—the place of honour is due to you.”

“Certainly not! I only advance with the time, and that of course one can’t help.”

“I hope you will delight us all with the little instrument—will you not?” Thus saying he handed to the tutor the flute which had been cut from the willow tree by the pool; and then announced in a loud voice that the tutor wished to perform a solo on the flute. They wished to tease him—that was evident, and therefore the tutor declined to play, although he could do so very well. They urged and requested him, however, so long, that at last he took up the flute and placed it to his lips.

That was a marvellous flute! Its sound was as thrilling as the whistle of a steam engine; in fact it was much stronger, for it sounded and was heard in the yard, in the garden, in the wood, and many miles round in the country; at the same time a storm rose and roared; “Everything in the right place.” And with this the baron, as if carried by the wind, flew out of the hall straight into the shepherd’s cottage, and the shepherd flew—not into the hall, thither⁵¹ he could not come—but into the servants’ hall, among the smart footmen who were striding about in silk stockings; these haughty⁵² menials looked horror-struck that such a person ventured to sit at table with them. But in the hall the baron’s daughter flew to the place of honour at the end of the table—she was worthy⁵³ to sit there; the pastor’s son had the seat next to her; the two sat there as if they were a bridal pair. An old Count, belonging to one of the oldest families of the country, remained untouched in his place of honour; the flute was just, and it is one’s duty to be so. The sharp-tongued cavalier who had caused the flute to be played, and who was the child of his parents, flew headlong into the fowl-house, but not he alone.

The flute was heard at the distance of a mile, and strange events took place. A rich banker’s family, who were driving in a coach and four, were blown out of it, and could not even find room behind it with their footmen. Two rich farmers who had in our days shot up higher than their own corn-fields, were flung into the ditch; it was a dangerous flute. Fortunately it burst at the first sound, and that was a good thing, for then it was put back into its owner’s pocket—“its right place.”

The next day, nobody spoke a word about what had taken place; thus originated the phrase, “to pocket the flute.” Everything was again in its usual order, except that the two old pictures of the peddlar and the goose-girl were hanging in the banqueting-hall. There they were on the wall as if blown up there; and as a real expert said that they were painted by a master’s hand, they remained there and were restored. “Everything in the right place,” and to this it will come. Eternity⁵⁴ is long, much longer indeed than this story.