“You king of perdition!” they cry, “never again shall you make a blood-signed contract with that witch; she shall die! Christian Bergh, the mighty captain, has thrown over his shoulder the heaviest sledge-hammer in the smithy. He will bury it to the handle in the hag’s head. No more souls shall she sacrifice to you. “And you, you horned thing, we shall lay you on the anvil and let the forge-hammer loose. We shall hold you quiet with tongs under the hammer’s blows and teach you to go a-hunting for gentlemen’s souls.” He is a coward, the devil, as every one knows of old, and all this talk of the forge-hammer does not please him at all. He calls Christian Bergh back and begins to bargain with the pensioners. “Take the seven estates; take them yourselves, gentlemen, and give me the major’s wife!” “Do you think we are as base as she?” cries Master Julius. “We will have Ekeby and all the rest, but you must look after the major’s wife yourself.” “What does Gösta say? what does Gösta say?” asks the gentle Löwenborg. “Gösta Berling must speak. We must hear what he thinks of this important matter.” “It is madness,” says Gösta Berling. “Gentlemen, don’t let him make fools of you! What are you all against the major’s wife? It may fare as it will with our souls, but with my consent we will not be such ungrateful wretches as to act like rascals and traitors. I have eaten her food for too many years to deceive her now.” “Yes, you can go to hell, Gösta, if you wish! We would rather rule at Ekeby.” “But are you all raving, or have you drunk away your wits? Do you believe it is true? Do you believe that that thing is the devil? Don’t you see that it’s all a confounded lie?” “Tut, tut, tut,” says the black one; “he does not see that he will soon be ready, and yet he has been seven years at Ekeby. He does not see how far advanced he is.” “Begone, man! I myself have helped to shove you into the oven there.” “As if that made any difference; as if I were not as good a devil as another. Yes, yes, Gösta Berling, you are in for it. You have improved, indeed, under her treatment.” “It was she who saved me,” says Gösta. “What had I been without her?” “As if she did not know what she was about when she kept you here at Ekeby. You can lure others to the trap; you have great gifts. Once you tried to get away from her; you let her give you a cottage, and you became a laborer; you wished to earn your bread. Every day she passed your cottage, and she had lovely young girls with her. Once it was Marianne Sinclair; then you threw aside your spade and apron, Gösta Berling, and came back as pensioner.” “It lay on the highway, you fool.”