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Neither Birger nor Gerda had any heart to tell their friends the names of the different buildings which they saw from the deck of the boat, although Gerda said once, with a brave little effort to make Erik forget his shame, "We will go home through Erik-gatan." But Erik looked at her with troubled eyes and made no answer.
Nyköping was soon so severely pressed that the garrison brought up the dead bodies of the dukes and laid them under a dais outside the castle, saying to the besiegers: "Your siege will now answer no purpose, for the dukes are dead and King Birger is heir to all the kingdom." "No one can hope to win an inheritance by murder," they replied. "We now serve as our ruler, Lord Magnus, Duke Erik's son."
Gerda put on her fur coat and cap, Birger showed a fine new pair of skates which his father had given him, and Karen brought out a box of little cakes which her mother had sent for the party. But when the children formed in a long line and Fru Ekman led the way to the dining-room, their excitement knew no bounds. The table was a perfect bower of beautiful flowers.
Luleå was reached at last and Josef Klasson was transported from the train to the steamer, "Just as if he were a load of iron ore from the mines," Birger declared. "Not quite so bad as that," said his father, and took the twins to see the great hydraulic lift that takes up a car loaded with ore, as easily as a mother lifts her baby, and dumps the whole load into the hold of a vessel.
"It is hard to believe that we are forty miles from the ocean when we see such big ships in our harbor," said Birger. "How did it happen that Stockholm was built so far from the open sea? It would be easier for all these vessels if they didn't have to come sailing up among all the islands to find a landing-place."
People go there to dine in the open-air restaurants and listen to the bands; they go to walk along the beautiful, tree-shaded paths; or they go to visit Skansen, one of the most interesting museums in the world. It was to look at the Lapp encampment in Skansen that Birger and Gerda took Erik to the Djurgård.
I have made arrangements to-day for you to work in the ironworks at Göteborg, where they make steamers, engines and boilers. I have a friend there who will look after you, and see that you are taught a good trade." "But, Father," cried Birger, "Göteborg is a long way from Stockholm! How can Erik go so far alone?"
"I like those old fancies that the Vikings had about the sea and the sky and the winds," she said at last, stretching her arms wide and dancing from end to end of the deck. "They called the sea the 'necklace of the earth, and the sky the 'wind-weaver." "I wish I had the magic boat that Loki gave to Frey," answered Birger lazily, lying flat on his back and looking up into the "wind-weaver."
"If I didn't intend to be an admiral in the navy when I am a man," he said, "I should come here and take care of the farm. It really is the prettiest farmhouse and the best farm in Dalarne." "It certainly will be the prettiest by night, when we have it dressed up for the midsummer festival," Gerda declared. "Come, Birger! Come, Karen!
But Erik looked down the river to the tall chimneys of the iron-works and said to himself, "And here's the beginning of my work in the world." "Abroad is good but home is better," quoted Birger, as the railroad train whizzed across the country, bearing the twins toward home once more after four happy days of sight-seeing in Göteborg.
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