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

The boy himself thought it was strange that he could keep still and wait until the next morning to see the ships. He certainly had not slept five minutes before he slipped out from under the wing and slid down the lightning-rod and the waterspout all the way down to the ground.

Soon he stood on a big square which spread itself in front of the church. It was covered with round stones, and was just as difficult for him to travel over, as it is for big people to walk on a tufted meadow. Those who are accustomed to live in the open⁠—or way out in the country⁠—always feel uneasy when they come into a city, where the houses stand straight and forbidding, and the streets are open, so that everyone can see who goes there. And it happened in the same way with the boy. When he stood on the big Karlskrona square, and looked at the German church, and town hall, and the cathedral from which he had just descended, he couldn’t do anything but wish that he was back on the tower again with the geese.

It was a lucky thing that the square was entirely deserted. There wasn’t a human being about⁠—unless he counted a statue that stood on a high pedestal. The boy gazed long at the statue, which represented a big, brawny man in a three-cornered hat, long waistcoat, knee-breeches and coarse shoes, and wondered what kind of a one he was. He held a long stick in his hand, and he looked as if he would know how to make use of it, too⁠—for he had an awfully severe countenance, with a big, hooked nose and an ugly mouth.

“What is that long-lipped thing doing here?” said the boy at last. He had never felt so small and insignificant as he did that night. He tried to jolly himself up a bit by saying something audacious. Then he thought no more about the statue, but betook himself to a wide street which led down to the sea.

But the boy hadn’t gone far before he heard that someone was following him. Someone was walking behind him, who stamped on the stone pavement with heavy footsteps, and pounded on the ground with a hard stick. It sounded as if the bronze man up in the square had gone out for a promenade.

The boy listened after the steps, while he ran down the street, and he became more and more convinced that it was the bronze man. The ground trembled, and the houses shook. It couldn’t be anyone but he, who walked so heavily, and the boy grew panic-stricken when he thought of what he had just said to him. He did not dare to turn his head to find out if it really was he.

“Perhaps he is only out walking for recreation,” thought the boy. “Surely he can’t be offended with me for the words I spoke. They were not at all badly meant.”

Instead of going straight on, and trying to get down to the dock, the boy turned into a side street which led east. First and foremost, he wanted to get away from the one who tramped after him.

But the next instant he heard that the bronze man had switched off to the same street; and then the boy was so scared that he didn’t know what he would do with himself. And how hard it was to find any hiding places in a city where all the gates were closed! Then he saw on his right an old frame church, which lay a short distance away from the street in the centre of a large grove. Not an instant did he pause to consider, but rushed on toward the church. “If I can only get there, then I’ll surely be shielded from all harm,” thought he.

As he ran forward, he suddenly caught sight of a man who stood on a gravel path and beckoned to him. “There is certainly someone who will help me!” thought the boy; he became intensely happy, and hurried off in that direction. He was actually so frightened that the heart of him fairly thumped in his breast.

But when he came up to the man who stood on the edge of the gravel path, upon a low pedestal, he was absolutely thunderstruck. “Surely, it can’t have been that one who beckoned to me!” thought he; for he saw that the entire man was made of wood.

He stood there and stared at him. He was a thickset man on short legs, with a broad, ruddy countenance, shiny, black hair and full black beard. On his head he wore a wooden hat; on his body, a brown wooden coat; around his waist, a black wooden belt; on his legs he had wide wooden knee-breeches and wooden stockings; and on his feet black wooden shoes. He was newly painted and newly varnished, so that he glistened and shone in the moonlight. This undoubtedly had a good deal to do with giving him such a good-natured appearance, that the boy at once placed confidence in him.

In his left hand he held a wooden slate, and there the boy read:

Most humbly I beg you,
Though voice I may lack:
Come drop a penny, do;
But lift my hat!

Oh ho! the man was only a poor-box. The boy felt that he had been done. He had expected that this should be something really remarkable. And now he remembered that grandpa had also spoken of the wooden man, and said that all the children in Karlskrona were so fond of him. And that must have been true, for he, too, found it hard to part with the wooden man. He had something so old-timey about him, that one could well take him to be many hundred years old; and at the same time, he looked so strong and bold, and animated⁠—just as one might imagine that folks looked in olden times.

The boy