“Let us go to Ekeby!” cries one in the crowd. “Let us go to Ekeby!” they all cry together. “Let us ask those pensioners why they let loose the dogs on one whose reason God had taken, why they drove a fool to despair. Our poor, hungry children weep; our clothes are torn; the potatoes rot in the ground; our horses are running loose; our cows get no care; we are nearly dead with fatigue—and the fault is theirs. Let us go to Ekeby and ask about this. “During this cursed year we have had to suffer everything. The winter will bring us starvation. Whom does God’s hand seek? It was not the Broby clergyman. His prayers could reach God’s ear. Who, then, if not these pensioners? Let us go to Ekeby! “They have ruined the estate, they have driven the major’s wife to beg on the highway. It is their fault that we have no work. The famine is their doing. Let us go to Ekeby!” So the dark, embittered men crowd down to Ekeby; hungry women with weeping children in their arms follow them; and last come the cripples and the old men. And the bitterness spreads like an ever-increasing storm from the old men to the women, from the women to the strong men at the head of the train. It is the autumn-flood which is coming. Pensioners, do you remember the spring-flood? A cottager who is ploughing in a pasture at the edge of the wood hears the people’s mad cries. He throws himself on one of his horses and gallops down to Ekeby. “Disaster is coming!” he cries; “the bears are coming, the wolves are coming, the goblins are coming to take Ekeby!” He rides about the whole estate, wild with terror. “All the devils in the forest are let loose!” he cries. “They are coming to take Ekeby! Save yourselves who can! The devils are coming to burn the house and to kill the pensioners!” And behind him can be heard the din and cries of the rushing horde. Does it know what it wants, that storming stream of bitterness? Does it want fire, or murder, or plunder? They are not human beings; they are wild beasts. Death to Ekeby, death to the pensioners! Here brandy flows in streams. Here gold lies piled in the vaults. Here the storehouses are filled with grain and meat. Why should the honest starve, and the guilty have plenty? But now your time is out, the measure is overflowing, pensioners. In the wood lies one who condemns you; we are her deputies. The pensioners stand in the big building and see the people coming. They know already why they are denounced. For once they are innocent. If that poor girl has lain down to die in the wood, it is not because they have set the dogs on her,—that they have never done,—but because Gösta Berling, a week ago, was married to Countess Elizabeth. But what good is it to speak to that mob? They are tired, they are hungry; revenge drives them on, plunder tempts them. They rush down with wild cries, and before them rides the cottager, whom fear has driven mad.