Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter XXXVII. The Skjuts-boy and the courier-officer.
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310 THE SKJUTS-BOY.
step that I now if_tend to submit openly and frankly to the
jud#-zncnt of all present."
The lieutenant-colonel coughed; but ruade no endeavour to
interrupt him. ]3orgenstierna continued :
"I was born a nobleman: but my parents were very poor.
]3rought up among honesç peasants, and obliged to work like the
common daily labourcrs, I had hot the least idea of the fact that
my naine, or the noble blood of my ancestors could be dishonoured
by labour, by which I was forced to earn thc bread for myself
and family–as long as the method of gaining an existence was
only honest. I did hot believe that the exalted rank of nobility
was dependent upon a more or less faded coat. During the la’st
fourtecn ycars of my lif% I lived in almost total solitude in our
little forest-home, without having the society of any playmates
of my own age. I always was odd, and remember well now,
how my heart consumed within me by the longing for some
object #vhich I did not find in those around me, and which I
was unable to name. But whcn the storm raged through the
forest, then I was happy, and desired to be as free as the wind
itself.
" During that epoch in my existence I had a dearly beloved
friend, a friend with #vhom I faithfully divided every morsel of
bread, and who, on the other side, was attached fo me by the
strongest ries of gratitude. It was my father’s old horse ; our
faithful white pony. Only the one who has been poor himself,
and bas loved an animal–aside from which he could call nothing
else his own will be able #o truly imagine wha.t that white
I)ony was fo me. If #ras my poor parents’ only property, and
fo me it w# everything, the comp#nion of my days, and the
vision of my nights.
" One evening–the incident is still as vivid upon my mind as
though if had happened yesterday–I was fo drive a courier-
officer, who was travelling toward :Norway. tte was an im-
petuous, sevcre man, wîth whom a reasonable word could noç be
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