And when the stack is in flames, she cries: “Wake them now!” But the pensioners sleep behind well-closed doors. The whole mass of people begin to cry out that terrible “Fire, fire!” but the pensioners sleep on. The master-smith’s heavy sledge-hammer thunders against the door, but the pensioners sleep. A hard snowball breaks the window-pane and flies into the room, rebounding against the bed-curtains, but the pensioners sleep. They dream that a lovely girl throws a handkerchief at them, they dream of applause from behind fallen curtains, they dream of gay laughter and the deafening noise of midnight feasts. The noise of cannon at their cars, an ocean of ice-cold water were needed to awake them. They have bowed, danced, played, acted, and sung. They are heavy with wine, exhausted, and sleep a sleep as deep as death’s. This blessed sleep almost saves them. The people begin to think that this quiet conceals a danger. What if it means that the pensioners are already out to get help? What if it means that they stand awake, with finger on the trigger, on guard behind windows or door, ready to fall upon the first who enters? These men are crafty, ready to fight; they must mean something by their silence. Who can think it of them, that they would let themselves be surprised in their lairs like bears? The people bawl their “Fire, fire!” time after time, but nothing avails. Then when all are trembling, the major’s wife herself takes an axe and bursts open the outer door. Then she rushes alone up the stairs, throws open the door to the bachelors’ wing, and calls into the room: “Fire!” Hers is a voice which finds a better echo in the pensioners’ ears than the people’s outcry. Accustomed to obey that voice, twelve men at the same moment spring from their beds, see the flames, throw on their clothes, and rush down the stairs out into the yard. But at the door stands the great master-smith and two stout mill-hands, and deep disgrace then befalls the pensioners. Each, as he comes down, is seized, thrown to the ground, and his feet bound; thereupon he is carried without ceremony to the vehicle prepared for him. None escaped; they were all caught. Beerencreutz, the grim colonel, was bound and carried away; also Christian Bergh, the mighty captain, and Eberhard, the philosopher. Even the invincible, the terrible Gösta Berling was caught. The major’s wife had succeeded. She was still greater than the pensioners. They are pitiful to see, as they sit with bound limbs in the mouldy old vehicles. There are hanging heads and angry glances, and the yard rings with oaths and wild bursts of powerless rage. The major’s wife goes from one to the other. “You shall swear,” she says, “never to come back to Ekeby.” “Begone, hag!” “You shall swear,” she says, “otherwise I will throw you into the bachelors’ wing, bound as you are, and you shall burn up in there, for to-night I am going to burn down the bachelors’ wing.” “You dare not do that.”