The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson (25 page)

"Have you told Grayskin what I said to you when last we met?" asked the water-snake.

Karr only growled and tried to get at him.

"If you haven't told him, by all means do so!" insisted the snake. "You must see that the humans know of no cure for this plague."

"Neither do you!" retorted the dog, and ran on.

Karr found Grayskin, but the elk was so low-spirited that he scarcely greeted the dog. He began at once to talk of the forest.

"I don't know what I wouldn't give if this misery were only at an end!" he said.

"Now I shall tell you that 'tis said you could save the forest." Then
Karr delivered the water-snake's message.

"If any one but Helpless had promised this, I should immediately go into exile," declared the elk. "But how can a poor water-snake have the power to work such a miracle?"

"Of course it's only a bluff," said Karr. "Water-snakes always like to pretend that they know more than other creatures."

When Karr was ready to go home, Grayskin accompanied him part of the way. Presently Karr heard a thrush, perched on a pine top, cry:

"There goes Grayskin, who has destroyed the forest! There goes Grayskin, who has destroyed the forest!"

Karr thought that he had not heard correctly, but the next moment a hare came darting across the path. When the hare saw them, he stopped, flapped his ears, and screamed:

"Here comes Grayskin, who has destroyed the forest!" Then he ran as fast as he could.

"What do they mean by that?" asked Karr.

"I really don't know," said Grayskin. "I think that the small forest animals are displeased with me because I was the one who proposed that we should ask help of human beings. When the underbrush was cut down, all their lairs and hiding places were destroyed."

They walked on together a while longer, and Karr heard the same cry coming from all directions:

"There goes Grayskin, who has destroyed the forest!"

Grayskin pretended not to hear it; but Karr understood why the elk was so downhearted.

"I say, Grayskin, what does the water-snake mean by saying you killed the one he loved best?"

"How can I tell?" said Grayskin. "You know very well that I never kill anything."

Shortly after that they met the four old elk—Crooked-Back, Antler-Crown, Rough-Mane, and Big-and-Strong, who were coming along slowly, one after the other.

"Well met in the forest!" called Grayskin.

"Well met in turn!" answered the elk.

"We were just looking for you, Grayskin, to consult with you about the forest."

"The fact is," began Crooked-Back, "we have been informed that a crime has been committed here, and that the whole forest is being destroyed because the criminal has not been punished."

"What kind of a crime was it?"

"Some one killed a harmless creature that he couldn't eat. Such an act is accounted a crime in Liberty Forest."

"Who could have done such a cowardly thing?" wondered Grayskin.

"They say that an elk did it, and we were just going to ask if you knew who it was."

"No," said Grayskin, "I have never heard of an elk killing a harmless creature."

Grayskin parted from the four old elk, and went on with Karr. He was silent and walked with lowered head. They happened to pass Crawlie, the adder, who lay on his shelf of rock.

"There goes Grayskin, who has destroyed the whole forest!" hissed
Crawlie, like all the rest.

By that time Grayskin's patience was exhausted. He walked up to the snake, and raised a forefoot.

"Do you think of crushing me as you crushed the old water-snake?" hissed
Crawlie.

"Did I kill a water-snake?" asked Grayskin, astonished.

"The first day you were in the forest you killed the wife of poor old
Helpless," said Crawlie.

Grayskin turned quickly from the adder, and continued his walk with
Karr. Suddenly he stopped.

"Karr, it was I who committed that crime! I killed a harmless creature; therefore it is on my account that the forest is being destroyed."

"What are you saying?" Karr interrupted.

"You may tell the water-snake, Helpless, that Grayskin goes into exile to-night!"

"That I shall never tell him!" protested Karr. "The Far North is a dangerous country for elk."

"Do you think that I wish to remain here, when I have caused a disaster like this?" protested Grayskin.

"Don't be rash! Sleep over it before you do anything!"

"It was you who taught me that the elk are one with the forest," said
Grayskin, and so saying he parted from Karr.

The dog went home alone; but this talk with Grayskin troubled him, and the next morning he returned to the forest to seek him, but Grayskin was not to be found, and the dog did not search long for him. He realized that the elk had taken the snake at his word, and had gone into exile.

On his walk home Karr was too unhappy for words! He could not understand why Grayskin should allow that wretch of a water-snake to trick him away. He had never heard of such folly! "What power can that old Helpless have?"

As Karr walked along, his mind full of these thoughts, he happened to see the game-keeper, who stood pointing up at a tree.

"What are you looking at?" asked a man who stood beside him.

"Sickness has come among the caterpillars," observed the game-keeper.

Karr was astonished, but he was even more angered at the snake's having the power to keep his word. Grayskin would have to stay away a long long time, for, of course, that water-snake would never die.

At the very height of his grief a thought came to Karr which comforted him a little.

"Perhaps the water-snake won't live so long, after all!" he thought. "Surely he cannot always lie protected under a tree root. As soon as he has cleaned out the caterpillars, I know some one who is going to bite his head off!"

It was true that an illness had made its appearance among the caterpillars. The first summer it did not spread much. It had only just broken out when it was time for the larvae to turn into pupae. From the latter came millions of moths. They flew around in the trees like a blinding snowstorm, and laid countless numbers of eggs. An even greater destruction was prophesied for the following year.

The destruction came not only to the forest, but also to the caterpillars. The sickness spread quickly from forest to forest. The sick caterpillars stopped eating, crawled up to the branches of the trees, and died there.

There was great rejoicing among the people when they saw them die, but there was even greater rejoicing among the forest animals.

From day to day the dog Karr went about with savage glee, thinking of the hour when he might venture to kill Helpless.

But the caterpillars, meanwhile, had spread over miles of pine woods. Not in one summer did the disease reach them all. Many lived to become pupas and moths.

Grayskin sent messages to his friend Karr by the birds of passage, to say that he was alive and faring well. But the birds told Karr confidentially that on several occasions Grayskin had been pursued by poachers, and that only with the greatest difficulty had he escaped.

Karr lived in a state of continual grief, yearning, and anxiety. Yet he had to wait two whole summers more before there was an end of the caterpillars!

Karr no sooner heard the game-keeper say that the forest was out of danger than he started on a hunt for Helpless. But when he was in the thick of the forest he made a frightful discovery: He could not hunt any more, he could not run, he could not track his enemy, and he could not see at all!

During the long years of waiting, old age had overtaken Karr. He had grown old without having noticed it. He had not the strength even to kill a water-snake. He was not able to save his friend Grayskin from his enemy.

One afternoon Akka from Kebnekaise and her flock alighted on the shore of a forest lake.

Spring was backward—as it always is in the mountain districts. Ice covered all the lake save a narrow strip next the land. The geese at once plunged into the water to bathe and hunt for food. In the morning Nils Holgersson had dropped one of his wooden shoes, so he went down by the elms and birches that grew along the shore, to look for something to bind around his foot.

The boy walked quite a distance before he found anything that he could use. He glanced about nervously, for he did not fancy being in the forest.

"Give me the plains and the lakes!" he thought. "There you can see what you are likely to meet. Now, if this were a grove of little birches, it would be well enough, for then the ground would be almost bare; but how people can like these wild, pathless forests is incomprehensible to me. If I owned this land I would chop down every tree."

At last he caught sight of a piece of birch bark, and just as he was fitting it to his foot he heard a rustle behind him. He turned quickly. A snake darted from the brush straight toward him!

The snake was uncommonly long and thick, but the boy soon saw that it had a white spot on each cheek.

"Why, it's only a water-snake," he laughed; "it can't harm me."

But the next instant the snake gave him a powerful blow on the chest that knocked him down. The boy was on his feet in a second and running away, but the snake was after him! The ground was stony and scrubby; the boy could not proceed very fast; and the snake was close at his heels.

Then the boy saw a big rock in front of him, and began to scale it.

"I do hope the snake can't follow me here!" he thought, but he had no sooner reached the top of the rock than he saw that the snake was following him.

Quite close to the boy, on a narrow ledge at the top of the rock, lay a round stone as large as a man's head. As the snake came closer, the boy ran behind the stone, and gave it a push. It rolled right down on the snake, drawing it along to the ground, where it landed on its head.

"That stone did its work well!" thought the boy with a sigh of relief, as he saw the snake squirm a little, and then lie perfectly still.

"I don't think I've been in greater peril on the whole journey," he said.

He had hardly recovered from the shock when he heard a rustle above him, and saw a bird circling through the air to light on the ground right beside the snake. The bird was like a crow in size and form, but was dressed in a pretty coat of shiny black feathers.

The boy cautiously retreated into a crevice of the rock. His adventure in being kidnapped by crows was still fresh in his memory, and he did not care to show himself when there was no need of it.

The bird strode back and forth beside the snake's body, and turned it over with his beak. Finally he spread his wings and began to shriek in ear-splitting tones:

"It is certainly Helpless, the water-snake, that lies dead here!" Once more he walked the length of the snake; then he stood in a deep study, and scratched his neck with his foot.

"It isn't possible that there can be two such big snakes in the forest," he pondered. "It must surely be Helpless!"

He was just going to thrust his beak into the snake, but suddenly checked himself.

"You mustn't be a numbskull, Bataki!" he remarked to himself. "Surely you cannot be thinking of eating the snake until you have called Karr! He wouldn't believe that Helpless was dead unless he could see it with his own eyes."

The boy tried to keep quiet, but the bird was so ludicrously solemn, as he stalked back and forth chattering to himself, that he had to laugh.

The bird heard him, and, with a flap of his wings, he was up on the rock. The boy rose quickly and walked toward him.

"Are you not the one who is called Bataki, the raven? and are you not a friend of Akka from Kebnekaise?" asked the boy.

The bird regarded him intently; then nodded three times.

"Surely, you're not the little chap who flies around with the wild geese, and whom they call Thumbietot?"

"Oh, you're not so far out of the way," said the boy.

"What luck that I should have run across you! Perhaps you can tell me who killed this water-snake?"

"The stone which I rolled down on him killed him," replied the boy, and related how the whole thing happened.

"That was cleverly done for one who is as tiny as you are!" said the raven. "I have a friend in these parts who will be glad to know that this snake has been killed, and I should like to render you a service in return."

"Then tell me why you are glad the water-snake is dead," responded the boy.

"It's a long story," said the raven; "you wouldn't have the patience to listen to it."

But the boy insisted that he had, and then the raven told him the whole story about Karr and Grayskin and Helpless, the water-snake. When he had finished, the boy sat quietly for a moment, looking straight ahead. Then he spoke:

"I seem to like the forest better since hearing this. I wonder if there is anything left of the old Liberty Forest."'

"Most of it has been destroyed," said Bataki. "The trees look as if they had passed through a fire. They'll have to be cleared away, and it will take many years before the forest will be what it once was."

"That snake deserved his death!" declared the boy. "But I wonder if it could be possible that he was so wise he could send sickness to the caterpillars?"

"Perhaps he knew that they frequently became sick in that way," intimated Bataki.

"Yes, that may be; but all the same, I must say that he was a very wily snake."

The boy stopped talking because he saw the raven was not listening to him, but sitting with gaze averted. "Hark!" he said. "Karr is in the vicinity. Won't he be happy when he sees that Helpless is dead!"

The boy turned his head in the direction of the sound.

"He's talking with the wild geese," he said.

"Oh, you may be sure that he has dragged himself down to the strand to get the latest news about Grayskin!"

Both the boy and the raven jumped to the ground, and hastened down to the shore. All the geese had come out of the lake, and stood talking with an old dog, who was so weak and decrepit that it seemed as if he might drop dead at any moment.

"There's Karr," said Bataki to the boy. "Let him hear first what the wild geese have to say to him; later we shall tell him that the water-snake is dead."