When he had gone on so for a while, first one snore and then another began to sound behind the yellow-striped curtains. But most of them swore and bewailed themselves over him and his foolishness. “Friends,” he then says solemnly, “I see the green earth covered with the works of man or with the ruins of men’s work. The pyramids weigh down the earth, the tower of Babel has bored through the sky, the beautiful temples and the gray castles have fallen into ruins. But of all which hands have built, what is it which has not fallen, nor shall fall? Ah, friends, throw away the trowel and the mortar! Spread your mason’s aprons over your heads and lay you down to build bright palaces of dreams! What has the soul to do with temples of stone and clay? Learn to build everlasting palaces of dreams and visions!” Thereupon he went laughing to bed. When, shortly after, the countess heard that the major’s wife had been set free, she gave a dinner for the pensioners. And then began hers and Gösta Berling’s long friendship. CHAPTER XI GHOST-STORIES Oh, children of the present day! I have nothing new to tell you, only what is old and almost forgotten. I have legends from the nursery, where the little ones sat on low stools about the old nurse with her white hair, or from the log-fire in the cottage, where the laborers sat and chatted, while the steam reeked from their wet clothes, and they drew knives from leather sheaths at their necks to spread the butter on thick, soft bread, or from the hall where old men sat in their rocking-chairs, and, cheered by the steaming toddy, talked of old times. When a child, who had listened to the old nurse, to the laborers, to the old men, stood at the window on a winter’s evening, it saw no clouds on the horizon without their being the pensioners; the stars were wax-candles, which were lighted at the old house at Borg; and the spinning-wheel which hummed in the next room was driven by old Ulrika Dillner. For the child’s head was filled with the people of those old days; it lived for and adored them. But if such a child, whose whole soul was filled with stories, should be sent through the dark attic to the store-room for flax or biscuits, then the small feet scurried; then it came flying down the stairs, through the passage to the kitchen. For up there in the dark it could not help thinking of the wicked mill-owner at Fors,—of him who was in league with the devil. Sintram’s ashes have been resting long in Svartsjö churchyard, but no one believes that his soul has been called to God, as it reads on his tombstone.