Book: The Emperor of Portugalia

S >> Selma Lagerlof >> The Emperor of Portugalia




Jan felt that Katrina was right. The hut was built of old lumber
and stood aslant on a poor foundation. Small and cramped it
certainly was, but just the same it seemed as if all would be over
for them if they lost it. Jan, for his part, could not think for a
second it would be as bad as that. Was not his Glory Goldie there?
And could he not see how her eyes were beginning to flash fire? In
a little while she would say something or do something that would
drive these tormentors away.

"Of course you've got to have time to think it over," said the new
owner. "But bear in mind that either you move on the first of
October or you pay the storekeeper at Broby the one hundred
rix-dollars you owe him on or before that date. Besides, I must
have another hundred for the land."

Old Katrina sat wringing her toil-gnarled hands. She was so wrought
up that she talked to herself, not caring who heard her.

"How can I go to church and how can I be seen among people when I'm
so poor I haven't even a hut to live in?"

Jan was thinking of something else. He called to mind all the
beautiful memories associated with the hut. It was here, near the
table, the midwife had laid the child in his arms. It was over
there, in the doorway, he had stood when the sun peeped out through
the clouds to name the little girl. The hut was one with himself;
with Katrina; with Glory Goldie. It could never be lost to them.

He saw Glory Goldie clench her fist, and felt that she would come
to their aid very soon.

Presently Lars Gunnarson and the shopkeeper's clerk got up and
moved toward the door. When they left they said "good-bye," but not
one of the three who remained in the hut rose or returned the
salutation.

The moment the men were gone the young girl, with a proud toss of
her head, sprang to her feet.

"If you would only let me go out in the world!" she said.

Katrina suddenly ceased mumbling and wringing her hands. Glory
Goldie's words had awakened in her a faint hope.

"It shouldn't be so very difficult to earn a couple of hundred
rix-dollars between now and the first of October," said the girl.
"This is only midsummer, so it's three whole months till then. If
you will let me go to Stockholm and take service there, I promise
you the house shall remain in your keeping."

When Jan of Ruffluck heard these words he grew ashen. His head sank
back as if he were about to swoon. How dear of the little girl! he
thought. It was for this he had waited the whole time--yet how, how
could he ever bear to let her go away from him?


ON THE MOUNTAIN-TOP

Jan of Ruffluck walked along the forest road where he and his
womenfolk, happy and content, had passed on the way home from
church a few hours earlier.

He and Katrina, after long deliberation, had decided that before
sending their daughter away or doing anything else in this matter
that Jan had better see Senator Carl Carlson of Storvik and ask him
whether Lars Gunnarson had the right to take the hut from them.

There was no one in the whole of Svartsjoe Parish who was so well
versed in the law and the statutes as was the senator from Storvik,
and those who had the good sense to seek his advice in matters of
purchase and sale, in making appraisals, or setting up an auction,
or drawing up a will, could rest assured that everything would be
done in a correct and legal manner and that afterward there was no
fear of their becoming involved in lawsuits or other entanglements.

The senator was a stern and masterful man, brusque of manner and
harsh of voice, and Jan was none too pleased at the thought of
having to talk with him.

"The first thing he'll do when I come to him will be to read me a
lecture because I've got no papers," thought Jan. "He has scared
some folks so badly at the very start that they never dared tell
him what they had come to consult him about."

Jan left home in such haste that he had no time to think about the
dreadful man he was going to see. But while passing through the
groves of the Ashdales toward the big forest the old dread came
over him. "It was mighty stupid in me not to have taken Glory
Goldie along!" he said to himself.

When leaving home he had not seen the girl about, so he concluded
that she had betaken herself to some lonely spot in the woods, to
weep away her grief, as she never wanted to be seen by any one when
she felt downhearted.

Just as Jan was about to turn from the road into the forest he
heard some one yodelling and singing up on the mountain, to right
of him. He stopped and listened. It was a woman's voice; surely it
could not be the one it sounded like! In any case, he must know for
a certainty before going farther.

He could hear the song clearly and distinctly, but the singer was
hidden by the trees. Presently he turned from the road and pushed
his way through some tangle-brush in the hope of catching a glimpse
of her; but she was not as near as he had imagined. Nor was she
standing still. On the contrary, she seemed to be moving farther
away--farther away and higher up.

At times the singing seemed to come from directly above him. The
singer must be going up to the peak, he thought.

She had evidently taken a winding path leading up the mountain,
where it was almost perpendicular. Here there was a thick growth of
young birches; so of course he could not see her. She seemed to be
mounting higher and higher, with the swiftness of a bird on the
wing, singing all the while.

Then Jan started to climb straight up the mountain; but in his
eagerness he strayed from the path and had to make his way through
the bewildering woods. No wonder he was left far behind! Besides he
had begun to feel as if he had a heavy weight on his chest; he
could hardly get his breath as he tramped uphill, straining his
ears to catch the song. Finally he went so slowly that he seemed
not to be moving at all.

It was not easy to distinguish voices out in the woods, where there
was so much that rustled and murmured and chimed in, as it were.
But Jan felt that he must get to where he could see the one who for
very joy went flying up the steep. Otherwise he would harbour
doubts and misgivings the rest of his life. He knew that once he
was on the mountain top, where it was barren of trees, the singer
could not elude him.

The view from the summit was glorious. From there could be seen the
whole of long Lake Loeven, the green vales encircling the lake and
all the blue hills that shelter the valley. When folks from the
shut-in Ashdales climbed to the towering peak they must have
thought of the mountain whither the Tempter had once taken Our
Lord, that he might show Him all the kingdoms of the world, and
their glories.

When Jan had at last left the dense woods behind him and had come
to a cleared place, he saw the singer. At the top of the highest
peak was a cairn, and on the topmost stone of this cairn
silhouetted against the pale evening sky stood Glory Goldie
Sunnycastle, in her scarlet dress.

If the folk in the dales and woodlands below had turned their eyes
toward the peak just then, they would have seen her standing there
in her shining raiment.

Glorv Goldie looked out over miles and miles of country. She saw
steep hills crowned with white churches on the shores of the lake,
manors and founderies surrounded by parks and gardens, rows of
farmhouses along the skirt of the woods, stretches of field and
meadow land, winding roads and endless tracts of forest.

At first she sang. But presently she hushed her singing and thought
only of gazing out over the wide, open world before her. Suddenly
she flung out her arms as if wanting to take it all into her
embrace--all this wealth and power and bigness from which she had
been shut out until that day.

Jan did not return until far into the night, and when he reached
home he could give no coherent account of his movements. He
declared he had seen and talked with the senator, but what the
senator had advised him to do he could not remember.

"It's no good trying to do anything," he said again and again.
That was all the satisfaction Katrina got.

Jan walked all bent over, and looked ill. Earth and moss clung to
his coat, and Katrina asked him if he had fallen and hurt himself.

"No," he told her, but he may have lain on the ground a while.

Then he must be ill, thought Katrina.

It was not that either. It was just that something had stopped the
instant it dawned on him that his little girl had offered to save
the home for her parents not out of love for them, but because she
longed to get away and go out in tine world. But this he would not
speak of.


THE EVE OF DEPARTURE

The evening before Glory Goldie of Ruffluck left for Stockholm Jan
discovered no end of things that had to be attended to all at once.
He had no sooner got home from his work than he must betake himself
to the forest to gather firewood, whereupon he set about fixing a
broken board in the gate that had been hanging loose a whole year.
When he had finished with that he dragged out his fishing tackle
and began to overhaul it.

All this time he was thinking how strange it seemed not to feel any
actual regret. Now he was the same as he had been seventeen years
before; he felt neither glad nor sad. His heart had stopped like a
watch that has received a hard blow when he had seen Glory Goldie
on the mountain-top, opening her arms to the whole world.

It had been like this with him once before. Then folks had wanted
him to be glad of the little girl's coming, but he had not cared a
bit about it; now they all expected him to be sad and disconsolate
over her departure, and he was not that, either.

The hut was full of people who had come to say good-bye to Glory
Goldie. Jan had not the face to go in and let them see that he
neither wept nor wailed; so he thought it best to stop outside.

At all events it was a good thing for him matters had taken this
turn, for if all had been as before he knew he should never have
been able to endure the separation, and all the heartache and
loneliness.

A while ago, in passing by the window, he had noticed that the hut
inside was decked with leaves and wild flowers. On the table were
coffee cups, as on the day of which he was thinking. Katrina was
giving a little party in honour of the daughter who was to fare
forth into the wide world to save the home. Every one seemed to be
weeping, both the housefolk and those who had come to bid the
little girl Godspeed. Jan heard Glory Goldie's sobs away out in the
yard, but they had no effect upon him.

"My good people," he mumbled to himself, "this is as it should be.
Look at the young birds! They are thrust out of the nest if they
don't leave it willingly. Have you ever watched a young cuckoo?
What could be worse than the sight of him lying in the nest, fat
and sleek, and shrieking for food the whole blessed day while his
parents wear themselves out to provide for him? It won't do to let
the young ones sit around at home and become a burden to us older
ones. They have got to go out into the world and shift for
themselves my good friends."

At last all was quiet in the house. The neighbours had left, so
that Jan could just as well have gone inside; but he went on
puttering with his fishing tackle a while longer. He would rather
that Glory Goldie and Katrina should be in bed and asleep before he
crossed the threshold.

By and by, when he had heard no sound from within for ever so long,
he stole up to the house as cautiously as a thief.

The womenfolk had not retired. As Jan passed by the open window he
saw Glory Goldie sitting with her arms stretched out across the
table, her head resting on them. It looked as if she were still
crying. Katrina was standing back in the room wrapping her big
shawl around Glory Goldie's bundle of clothing.

"You needn't bother with that, mother," said Glory Goldie without
raising her head. "Can't you see that father is mad at me because
I'm leaving?"

"Then he'll have to get glad again," returned Katrina, calmly.

"You say that because you don't care for him," said the girl,
through her sobs. "All you think about is the hut. But father
and I, we think of each other, and I'll not leave him!"

"But what about the hut?" asked Katrina.

"It can go as it will with the hut, if only father will care for me
again."

Jan moved quietly away from the door, where he had been standing a
moment, listening, and sat down on the step. He never thought for
an instant that Glory Goldie would remain at home. Indeed he knew
better than did any one else that she must go away. All the same it
was to him as if the soft little bundle had again been laid in his
arms. His heart had been set going once more. Now it was beating
away in his breast as if trying to make up for lost time. With that
he felt that his armour of defence was gone.

Then came grief and longing. He saw them as dark shadows in among
the trees. He opened his arms to them, a smile of happiness
lighting his face.

"Welcome! Welcome!" he cried.


AT THE PIER

When the steamer _Anders Fryxell_ pulled out from the pier at Borg
Point with Glory Goldie of Ruffluck on board, Jan and Katrina stood
gazing after it until they could no longer see the faintest outline
of either the girl or the boat. Every one else had left the pier,
the watchman had hauled down the flag and locked the freight shed,
but they still tarried.

It was only natural that the parents should stand there as long as
they could see anything of the boat, but why they did not go their
ways afterward they hardly knew themselves. Perhaps they dreaded
the thought of going home again, of stepping into the lonely but in
each other's company.

"I've got no one but him to cook for now!" mused Katrina, "no one
but him to wait for! But what do I care for him? He could just as
well have gone, too. It was the girl who understood him and all his
silly talk, not I. I'd be better off alone."

"It would be easier to go home with my grief if I didn't have that
sour-faced old Katrina sitting round the house," thought Jan. "The
girl knew so well how to get on with her, and could make her happy
and content; but now I suppose I'll never get another civil word
from that quarter."

Of a sudden Jan gave a start. Bending forward he clapped his hands
to his knees. His eyes kindled with new-found hope and his whole
face shone. He kept his gaze on the water and Katrina thought
something extraordinary must have riveted his attention, although
she, who stood beside him, saw nothing save the ceaseless play of
the gray-green waves, chasing each other across the surface of the
lake, with never a stop.

Jan ran to the far end of the pier and bent down over the water,
with the look on his face which he always wore whenever Glory
Goldie approached him, but which he could never put on when talking
to any one else. His mouth opened and his lips moved as though he
were speaking, but not a word was heard by Katrina. Smile after
smile crossed his face, just as when the girl used to stand and
rail at him.

"Why, Jan!" said Katrina, "what has come over you?"

He did not reply, but motioned to her to be still. Then he
straightened himself a little. His gaze seemed to be following
something that glided away over the gray-green waves. Whatever it
was, it moved quickly in the direction the boat had taken. Now Jan
no longer bent forward but stood quite upright, shading his eyes
with his hand that he might see the better. Thus he remained
standing till there was nothing more to be seen, apparently. Then,
turning to Katrina, he said:

"You didn't see anything, perhaps?"

"What can one see here but the lake and its waves?"

"The little girl came rowing back," Jan told her, his voice lowered
to a whisper. "She had borrowed a boat of the captain. I noticed it
was marked exactly like the steamer. She said there was something
she had forgotten about when she left; it was something she wanted
to say to us."

"My dear Jan, you don't know what you're talking about! If the girl
had come back then I, too, would have seen her."

"Hush now, and I'll tell you what she wants of us!" said Jan, in
solemn and mysterious whispers. "It seems she had begun to worry
about us; she was afraid we two wouldn't get on by ourselves.
Before she had always walked between us, she said, with one hand in
mine and the other in yours, and in that way everything had gone
well. But now that she wasn't here to keep us together she didn't
know what might happen, 'Now perhaps father and mother will go
their separate ways,' she said."

"Sakes alive!" gasped Katrina, "that she should have thought of
that!" The woman was so affected by what had just been said--for
the words were the echo of her own thoughts--that she quite forgot
that the daughter could not possibly have come back to the pier and
talked with Jan without her seeing it.

"'So now I've come back to join your hands,' said he, 'and you
mustn't let go of each other, but keep a firm hold for my sake till
I return and link hands with you again.' As soon as she had said
this she rowed away."

There was silence for a moment on the pier.

"And here's my hand," Jan said presently, in an uncertain voice
that betrayed both shyness and anxiety--and put out a hand, which
despite all his hard toil had always remained singularly soft. "I
do this because the girl wants me to," he added.

"And here's mine," said Katrina. "I don't understand what it could
have been that you saw, but if you and the girl want us to stick
together, so do I."

Then they went all the way home to their but, hand in hand.


THE LETTER

0ne morning when Glory Goldie had been gone about a fortnight, Jan
was out in the pasture nearest the big forest, mending a wattled
fence. He was so close to the woods that he could hear the murmur
of the pines and see the grouse hen walking about under the trees,
scratching for food-along line of grouse chicks trailing after her.

Jan had nearly finished his work when he heard a loud bellowing
from the wooded heights! It sounded so weird and awful he began to
be alarmed. He stood still a moment and listened. Soon he heard it
again. Then he knew it was nothing to be afraid of, but on the
contrary, it seemed to be a cry for help.

He threw down his pickets and branches and hurried through the
birch grove into the dense fir woods, where he had not gone far
before he discovered what was amiss. Up there was a big,
treacherous marsh. A cow belonging to the Falla folk had gone down
in a quagmire and Jan saw at once that it was the best cow they had
on the farm, one for which Lars Gunnarson had been offered two
hundred rix-dollars. She had sunk deep in the mire and was now so
terrified that she lay quite still and sent forth only feeble and
intermittant bellowings. It was plain that she had struggled
desperately for she was covered with mud clear to her horns, and
round about her the green moss-tufts had been torn up. She had
bellowed so loud that Jan thought every one in Ashdales must have
heard her, yet no one but himself had come up to the marsh. He did
not tarry a second, but ran straight to the farm for help.

It was slow work setting poles in the marsh, laying out boards and
slipping ropes under the cow, to draw her up by. For when the men
reached her she had sunk to her back, so that only her head was
above the mire. After they had finally dragged her back onto firm
ground and carted her home to Falla the housewife invited all who
had worked over the animal to come inside for coffee.

No one had been so zealous in the rescue work as had Jan of
Ruffluck. But for him the cow would have been lost. And just think!
She was a cow worth at least two hundred rix-dollars.

To Jan this seemed a rare stroke of luck. Surely the new master and
mistress could not fail to recognize so great a service. Something
of a similar nature once happened in the old master's time. Then it
was a horse that had been impaled on a picket fence. The one who
found the horse and had it carted home received from Eric of Falla
a reward of ten rix-dollars; And that despite the fact that the
beast was so badly injured that Eric had to shoot it.

But the cow was alive and in nowise harmed. So Jan pictured himself
going on the morrow to the sexton, or to some other person who
could write, to ask him to write to Glory Goldie and tell her to
come home.

When Jan came into the living-room at Falla he naturally drew
himself up a bit. The old housewife was pouring coffee and he did
not wonder at it when she handed him his cup before even Lars
Gunnarson had been served. Then, while they were all having their
coffee, every one spoke of how well Jan had done, that is, every
one but the farmer and his wife; not a word of praise came from
them.

But now that Jan felt so confident his hard times were over and his
luck was coming back, it was easy for him to find grounds for
comfort. It might be that Lars was silent because he wished to make
what he would say all the more impressive. But he was certainly
withholding his thanks a distressingly long while.

The situation had become embarrassing. The others had stopped
talking and looked a little uncomfortable. When the old mistress
went round to refill the coffee cups some of the men hesitated; Jan
among them.

"Oh, have another wee drop, Jan!" she said. "If you hadn't been so
quick to act we would have lost a cow that's worth her two hundred
rix-dollars."

This was followed by a dead silence, and now every one's eyes
turned toward the man of the house. All were waiting for some
expression of appreciation from him.

Lars cleared his throat two or three times, as if to give added
weight to what he was about to say.

"It strikes me there's something queer about this whole business,"
he began. "You all know that Jan owes two hundred rix-dollars and
you also know that last spring I was offered just that sum for the
cow. It seems to fit in altogether too well with Jan's case that
the cow should have gone down in the marsh to-day and that he
should have rescued her."

Lars paused and again cleared his throat. Jan rose and moved toward
him; but neither he nor any of the others had an answer ready.

"I don't know how Jan happened to be the one who heard the cow
bellowing up in the marsh," pursued Lars. "Perhaps he was nearer
the scene when the mishap occurred than he would have us think.
Maybe he saw a possibility of getting out of debt and deliberately
drove the cow--"

Jan brought his fist down on the table with a crash that made the
cups jump in their saucers.

"You judge others by yourself, you!" he said, "That's the sort of
thing you might do, but not I. You must know that I can see through
your tricks. One day last winter you--"

But just when Jan was on the point of saying something that could
only have ended in an irreparable break between himself and his
employer, the old housewife tipped him by the coat sleeve.

"Look out, Jan!" said she.

Jan did so. Then he saw Katrina coming toward the house with a
letter in her hand.

That was surely the letter from Glory Goldie which they had been
longing for every day since her departure. Katrina, knowing how
happy Jan would be to get this, had come straight over with it the
moment it arrived.

Jan glanced about him, bewildered. Many ugly words were on the tip
of his tongue, but now he had no time to give vent to them. What
did he care about being revenged on Lars Gunnarson? Why should he
bother to defend himself? The letter drew him away with a power
that was irresistible. He was out of the house and with Katrina
before the people inside had recovered from their dread of what he
might have hurled at his employer in the way of accusation.


AUGUST DAER NOL

0ne evening, when Glory Goldie had been gone about a month, August
Daer Nol came down to the Ashdales. August and Glory had been
comrades at the Oestanby school and had been confirmed the same
summer.

A fine, manly lad was August Daer Nol, and a favourite with every
one. His parents were people of means and no one had a brighter or
more assured future to look forward to than had he. Having been
absent from home for six months, he had only learned on his return
that Glory Goldie had gone away in order to earn money to save her
old home. It was his mother who told him of this, and before she
had finished talking he snatched up his cap and rushed out, never
pausing until he had reached the gate at Ruffluck Croft; there he
stopped and looked toward the hut.

Katrina saw August standing there and made a pretext of going to
the well for water in order to speak to him; but the lad did not
appear to see her, so Katrina immediately went back into the house.

Then in a little while Jan came down from the forest with an armful
of wood, and when August saw him coming he stepped to one side
until he, too, had gone in; then he went back to the gate.

Presently the window of the hut swung open, disclosing Jan seated
at one side of the window-table smoking his pipe, and Katrina at
the other side, knitting.

"Well, Katrina dear," said Jan, "now we're having a real cosy
evening. There's only one thing I wish for."

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