The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, Selma Lagerlöf [best sales books of all time .txt] 📗

on a pleasant summer day, and look upward on all the soft green that fastens itself to the rugged mountainsides.

But now, when the wild geese and Smirre came to the river, it was cold and blustery spring-winter; all the trees were nude, and there was probably no one who thought the least little bit about whether the shore was ugly or pretty. The wild geese thanked their good fortune that they had found a sand-strip large enough for them to stand upon, on a steep mountain wall. In front of them rushed the river, which was strong and violent in the snow-melting time; behind them they had an impassable mountain rock wall, and overhanging branches screened them. They couldn’t have it better.

The geese were asleep instantly; but the boy couldn’t get a wink of sleep. As soon as the sun had disappeared he was seized with a fear of the darkness, and a wilderness-terror, and he longed for human beings. Where he lay⁠—tucked in under the goose-wing⁠—he could see nothing, and only hear a little; and he thought if any harm came to the goosey-gander, he couldn’t save him.

Noises and rustlings were heard from all directions, and he grew so uneasy that he had to creep from under the wing and seat himself on the ground, beside the goose.

Long-sighted Smirre stood on the mountain’s summit and looked down upon the wild geese. “You may as well give this pursuit up first as last,” he said to himself. “You can’t climb such a steep mountain; you can’t swim in such a wild torrent; and there isn’t the tiniest strip of land below the mountain which leads to the sleeping-place. Those geese are too wise for you. Don’t ever bother yourself again to hunt them!”

But Smirre, like all foxes, had found it hard to give up an undertaking already begun, and so he lay down on the extremest point of the mountain edge, and did not take his eyes off the wild geese. While he lay and watched them, he thought of all the harm they had done him. Yes, it was their fault that he had been driven from Skåne, and had been obliged to move to poverty-stricken Blekinge. He worked himself up to such a pitch, as he lay there, that he wished the wild geese were dead, even if he, himself, should not have the satisfaction of eating them.

When Smirre’s resentment had reached this height, he heard rasping in a large pine that grew close to him, and saw a squirrel come down from the tree, hotly pursued by a marten. Neither of them noticed Smirre; and he sat quietly and watched the chase, which went from tree to tree. He looked at the squirrel, who moved among the branches as lightly as though he’d been able to fly. He looked at the marten, who was not as skilled at climbing as the squirrel, but who still ran up and along the branches just as securely as if they had been even paths in the forest. “If I could only climb half as well as either of them,” thought the fox, “those things down there wouldn’t sleep in peace very long!”

As soon as the squirrel had been captured, and the chase was ended, Smirre walked over to the marten, but stopped two steps away from him, to signify that he did not wish to cheat him of his prey. He greeted the marten in a very friendly manner, and wished him good luck with his catch. Smirre chose his words well⁠—as foxes always do. The marten, on the contrary, who, with his long and slender body, his fine head, his soft skin, and his light brown neckpiece, looked like a little marvel of beauty⁠—but in reality was nothing but a crude forest dweller⁠—hardly answered him. “It surprises me,” said Smirre, “that such a fine hunter as you are should be satisfied with chasing squirrels when there is much better game within reach.” Here he paused; but when the marten only grinned impudently at him, he continued: “Can it be possible that you haven’t seen the wild geese that stand under the mountain wall? or are you not a good enough climber to get down to them?”

This time he had no need to wait for an answer. The marten rushed up to him with back bent, and every separate hair on end. “Have you seen wild geese?” he hissed. “Where are they? Tell me instantly, or I’ll bite your neck off!”

“No! you must remember that I’m twice your size⁠—so be a little polite. I ask nothing better than to show you the wild geese.”

The next instant the marten was on his way down the steep; and while Smirre sat and watched how he swung his snakelike body from branch to branch, he thought: “That pretty tree-hunter has the wickedest heart in all the forest. I believe that the wild geese will have me to thank for a bloody awakening.”

But just as Smirre was waiting to hear the geese’s death-rattle, he saw the marten tumble from branch to branch⁠—and plump into the river so the water splashed high. Soon thereafter, wings beat loudly and strongly and all the geese went up in a hurried flight.

Smirre intended to hurry after the geese, but he was so curious to know how they had been saved, that he sat there until the marten came clambering up. That poor thing was soaked in mud, and stopped every now and then to rub his head with his forepaws. “Now wasn’t that just what I thought⁠—that you were a booby, and would go and tumble into the river?” said Smirre, contemptuously.

“I haven’t acted boobyishly. You don’t need to scold me,” said the marten. “I sat⁠—all ready⁠—on one of the lowest branches and thought how I should manage to tear a whole lot of geese to pieces, when a little creature, no bigger than a squirrel, jumped up and threw a stone at my head with such force,