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48 BIOGRAPHY.
happy during these readings, until the conversations after
supper again froze her feelings.
As in many ancient country mansions in Sweden, there
was also an old tradition that the manor-house of Arsta
was haunted. One evening while our family was assembled
round the tea-table in the yellow drawing-room, the steward
came in and told my father that he could not prevail upon
any of the men to go up to the attic to fetch down some
empty bags which were wanted in the morning, on account
of their fear of ghosts. He added, that he knew there
stood in the attic a wooden chest, in which were lying a
cannon-ball and bloody garments, and that there were
hanging two swords, of which one was two-edged, and with
which somebody had been beheaded. My father gave the
steward orders how to act; but we soon heard that he had
not succeeded, and that he had to go himself up to the
much-dreaded attic and place the bags outside the door, so
that the men could fetch them thence in the morning, when
it was daylight. It was believed that the gory clothes lying
in the chest had belonged to Admiral Bjelkenstjerna, and
that the ball was the identical one with which he had been
wounded during the Thirty Years’ War. Afterwards, it was
ascertained that the clothes had belonged to an Admiral
Claes Fleming, who was killed during the war with Den-
mark, in the reign of Queen Christina, on board his ship
in the Sound, by a hostile ball, while he was making his
morning toilet, and this ball, it was said, was the one lying
in the chest.
On the broad, two-edged sword was engraved, that with it
John Fleming had been beheaded at the command of Charles
IX. The other sword was without any inscription, but un-
usually long. The old chest and the two swords were on
the following day sent to the Bjelkenstjerna Mausoleum, in
the church of Oster Hanninge, where they are now pre-
served. ; L
After our return from our long journey, my parents hired
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