Let us now see how Tord Selamb had come to do this most unexpected thing: arranging for the banns to be read and going to church to be married.
The story really begins with the severing of Träskängen and the Quarry. Peter had in some way tricked Tord into being absent at the meeting when the sale was decided on. This put him into a fury which increased in violence when Tord saw the secret retreat of his youth defiled by boundary posts, trenches, blasting and disgusting hordes of insolent intruders. His protracted fury finally resulted in some immoderate and indignant articles in the yellow press. Tord was not, of course, indignant that people should be tricked into living on a marsh and on a refuse dump. No, he was furious because of this encroachment upon his dominion of boxes of lizards and frogs. He tried to enlist science in his cause by clamouring about some rare marsh flowers and an unique diving bug. It was a vehement defence of the wilderness and an infuriated battle cry against the town. And the whole concluded with some mixed reflections of a hermit’s spleen, pseudo-science, artist’s slang and bad nature-lyrics.
The articles were of course anonymous. But Peter recognised the author from certain attacks and exposures. He was not ungrateful for this valuable free advertisement of Majängen and Solberget, which must now appear to the uninitiated as a glorious paradise in the wilderness. But for the sake of order he made certain representations to his youngest brother, which resulted in a quarrel, during which Tord gave vent to his excitement by letting off his gun, into the air it is true, but still a gunshot.
Filled with a new indignation, Tord continued his articles and painted on the wall the devil of capitalistic greed despoiling nature, with features which resembled those of Peter the Boss to a nicety. He began to develop a taste for writing. He suddenly felt that he was meant to be a writer, and was at once seized with a violent contempt for the art of painting. It is true that all he wrote, except those violent articles of propaganda, was cast into the editor’s waste paper basket, but that only increased his irritation without in any way convincing him of his incapacity. After a quarrel with his old painter-friend over the relative values of the two arts he without further ado kicked out the disgusting parasite who had tricked him into wasting the most beautiful years of his youth with such rubbish as the crayon and the paint brush.