For several weeks they had been resting on the
wide plains around Falkoeping. As many other wild goose flocks also
stopped there, the grown geese had had a pleasant time visiting with old
friends, and there had been all kinds of games and races between the
younger birds.
Nils Holgersson had not been happy over the delay in Westergoetland. He
had tried to keep a stout heart; but it was hard for him to reconcile
himself to his fate.
"If I were only well out of Skane and in some foreign land," he had
thought, "I should know for certain that I had nothing to hope for, and
would feel easier in my mind."
Finally, one morning, the geese started out and flew toward Halland.
In the beginning the boy took very little interest in that province. He
thought there was nothing new to be seen there. But when the wild geese
continued the journey farther south, along the narrow coast-lands, the
boy leaned over the goose's neck and did not take his glance from the
ground.
He saw the hills gradually disappear and the plain spread under him, at
the same time he noticed that the coast became less rugged, while the
group of islands beyond thinned and finally vanished and the broad, open
sea came clear up to firm land. Here there were no more forests: here
the plain was supreme. It spread all the way to the horizon.
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