AN OLD TROLL
The second winter of the little girl's absence from home was an extremely severe one. By the middle of January it had grown so unbearably cold that snow had to be banked around all the little huts in the Ashdales as a protection against the elements, and every night the cows had to be covered with straw, to keep them from freezing to death.
It was so cold that the bread froze; the cheese froze, and even the butter turned to ice. The fire itself seemed unable to hold its warmth. It mattered not how many logs one laid in the fireplace, the heat spread no farther than to the edge of the hearth.
One day, when the winter was at its worst, Jan decided that instead of going out to his work he would stay at home and help Katrina keep the fire alive. Neither he nor the wife ventured outside the hut that day, and the longer they remained indoors the more they felt the cold. At five o'clock in the afternoon, when it began to grow dark, Katrina said they might as well "turn in"; it was no good their sitting up any longer, torturing themselves.
During the afternoon Jan had gone over to the window, time and again, and peered out through a little corner of a pane that had remained clear, though the rest of the glass was thickly crusted with frost flowers. And now he went back there again.
"You can go to bed, Katrina dear," he said as he stood looking out, "but I've got to stay up a while longer."
"Well I never!" ejaculated Katrina. "Why should you stay up? Why can't you go to bed as well as I?"
But Jan did not reply to her questions. "It's strange I haven't seen Agrippa Prästberg pass by yet," he said.
"Is it him you're waiting for!" snapped Katrina. "He hasn't been so extra nice to you that you need feel called upon to sit up and freeze on his account!"
Jan put up his hand with a sweep of authority – this being the only mannerism acquired during his emperorship which had not been dropped. There was no fear of Prästberg coming to them, he told her. He had heard that the old man had been invited to a drinking bout at a fisherman's but here in the Ashdales, but so far he had not seen him go by.
"I suppose he has had the good sense to stay at home," said Katrina.
It grew colder and colder. The corners of the house creaked as if the freezing wind were knocking to be let in. All the bushes and trees were covered with such thick coats of snow and rim frost they looked quite shapeless. But bushes and trees, like humans, had to clothe themselves as well as they could, in order to be protected against the cold.
In a little while Katrina observed: "I see by the clock it's only half after five, but all the same I'll put on the porridge pot and prepare the evening meal. After supper, you can sit up and wait for Prästberg or go to bed, whichever you like."
All this time Jan had stood at the window. "It can't be that he has come this way without my seeing him?" he said.
"Who cares whether a brute like him comes or doesn't come!" returned Katrina sharply, for she was tired of hearing about that old tramp.
Jan heaved a deep sigh. Katrina was more right than she herself knew. He did not care a bit whether or not old "Grippie" had passed. His saying that he was expected was merely an excuse for standing at the window.
No word or token had he received from the great Empress, the little girl of Ruffluck, since the day Lars wrested from him his majesty and glory. He felt that such a thing could never have happened without her sanction, and inferred from this that he had done something to incur her displeasure; but what he could not imagine! He had brooded over this all through the long winter evenings; through the long dark mornings, when threshing in the barn at Falla; through the short days, when carting wood from the big forest.
Everything had passed off so happily and well for him for three whole months, so of course he could not think she had been dissatisfied with his emperorship. He had then known a time such as he had never dreamed could come to a poor man like himself. But surely Glory Goldie was not offended at him for that!
No. He had done or said something which was displeasing to her, that was why he was being punished. But could it be that she was so slow to forget as never to forgive him? If she would only tell him what she was angry about! He would do anything he could to pacify her. She must see for herself how he had put on his working clothes and gone out as a day labourer as soon as she let him know that such was her wish.
He could not speak of this matter to either Katrina or the seine-maker. He would be patient and wait for some positive sign from Glory Goldie. Many times he had felt it to be so near that he had only to put out his hand and take it. That very day, shut in as he was, he had the feeling that there was a message from her on the way. This was why he stood peering out through the little clear corner of the window. He knew, also, that unless it came very soon he could not go on living.
It was so dark now that he could hardly see as far as the gate, and his hopes for that day were at an end. He had no objection to retiring at once, he said presently. Katrina dished out the porridge, the evening meal was hurridly eaten, and by a quarter after six they were abed.
They dropped off to sleep, too; but their slumbers were of short duration. The hands of the big Dalecarlian clock had barely got round to six-thirty when Jan sprang out of bed; he quickly freshened the fire, which was almost burned out, then proceeded to dress himself.
Jan tried to be as quiet as possible, but for all that Katrina was awakened; raising herself in bed she asked if it was already morning.
No, indeed it wasn't, but the little girl had called to Jan in a dream, and commanded him to go up to the forest.
Now it was Katrina's turn to sigh! It must be the madness come back, thought she. She had been expecting it every day for some little time, for Jan had been so depressed and restless of late.
She made no attempt to persuade him to stay at home, but got up, instead, and put on her clothes.
"Wait a minute!" she said, when Jan was at the door. "If you're going out into the woods to-night, then I want to go with you."
She feared Jan would raise objections, but he didn't; he remained at the door till she was ready. Though apparently anxious to be off, he seemed more controlled and rational than he had been all day.
And what a night to venture out into! The cold came against them like a rain of piercing and cutting glass-splinters. Their skins smarted and they felt as if their noses were being torn from their faces; their fingertips ached and their toes were as if they had been cut off; they hardly knew they had any toes.
Jan uttered no word of complaint, neither did Katrina; they just tramped on and on. Jan turned in on the winter-road across the heights, the one they had traversed with Glory Goldie one Christmas morning when she was so little she had to be carried.
There was a clear sky and in the west gleamed a pale crescent moon, so that the night was far from pitch dark. Still it was difficult to keep to the road because everything was so white with snow; time after time they wandered too close to the edge and sank deep into a drift. Nevertheless, they managed to make their way clear to the huge stone that had once been hurled by a giant at Svartsjö church. Jan had already got past it when Katrina, who was a little way behind him, gave a shriek.
"Jan!" she cried out. And Jan had not heard her sound so frightened since the day Lars threatened to take their home away from them. "Can't you see there's some one sitting here?"
Jan turned and went back to Katrina. And now the two of them came near taking to their heels; for, sure enough, propped against the stone and almost covered with rim frost sat a giant troll, with a bristly beard and a beak-like nose!
The troll, or whatever it was, sat quite motionless. It had become so paralyzed from the cold that it had not been able to get back to its cave, or wherever else it kept itself nowadays.
"Think that there really are such creatures after all!" said Katrina. "I should never have believed it, for all I've heard so much about them."
Jan was the first to recover his senses and to see what it was they had come upon.
"It's no troll, Katrina," he said. "It's Agrippa Prästberg."
"Sakes alive!" gasped Katrina. "You don't tell me! From the look of him he could easily be mistaken for a troll."
"He has just fallen asleep here," observed Jan. "He can't be dead, surely!"
They shouted the old man's name and shook him; but he never stirred.
"Run back for the sled, Katrina," said Jan, "so we can draw him home. I'll stay here and rub him with snow till he wakes up."
"Just so you don't freeze to death yourself!"
"My dear Katrina," laughed Jan, "I haven't felt as warm as I feel now in many a day. I'm so happy about the little girl! Wasn't it dear of her to send us out here to save the life of him who has gone around spreading so many lies about her?"
A week or two later, as Jan was returning from his work one evening, he met Agrippa Prästberg.
"I'm right and fit again," Agrippa told him. "But I know well enough that if you and Katrina had not come to the rescue there wouldn't have been much left of Johan Utter Agrippa Prästberg by now. So I've wondered what I could do for you in return."
"Oh, don't give that a thought my good Agrippa Prästberg!" said
Jan, with that upward imperial sweep of the hand.
"Hush now, while I tell you!" spoke Prästberg. "When I said I'd thought of doing you a return service, it wasn't just empty chatter. I meant it. And now it has already been done. The other day I ran across the travelling salesman who gave that lass of yours the red dress."
"Who?" cried Jan, so excited he could hardly get his breath.
"That blackguard who gave the girl the red dress and who afterward sent her to the devil in Stockholm. First I gave him, on your account, all the thrashing he could take, and then I told him that the next time he showed his face around here he'd get just as big a dose of the same kind of medicine."
Jan would not believe he had heard aright. "But what did he say?" he questioned eagerly. "Didn't you ask him about Glory Goldie? Had he no greetings from her?"
"What could he say? He took his punishment and held his tongue. Now
I've done you a decent turn, Jan Anderson, and we're even. Johan
Utter Agrippa Prästberg wants no unpaid scores."
With that he strode on, leaving Jan in the middle of the road, lamenting loudly. The little girl had wanted to send him a message! That merchant had come with greetings from her, but not a thing had he learned because the man had been driven away.
Jan stood wringing his hands. He did not weep, but he ached all over worse than if he were ill. He felt certain in his own mind that Glory Goldie had wanted Prästberg to take a message from her brought by the merchant and convey it to her father. But it was with Prästberg as with the trolls – whether they wanted to help or hinder they only wrought mischief.
THE SUNDAY AFTER MIDSUMMER
The first Sunday after Midsummer Day there was a grand party at the seine-maker's to which every one in the Ashdales had been invited. The old man and his daughter-in-law were in the habit of entertaining the whole countryside on this day of each year.
Folks wondered, of course, how two people who were so pitiably poor could afford to give a big feast, but to all who knew the whys and wherefores it seemed perfectly natural.
As a matter of fact, when the seine-maker was a rich man he gave his two sons a farmstead each. The elder son wasted his substance in much the same way as Ol' Bengtsa himself had done, and died poor. The younger son, who was the more steady and reliable, kept his portion and even increased it, so that now he was quite well-to-do. But what he owned at the present time was as nothing to what he might have had if his father had not recklessly made away with both money and lands, to no purpose whatever. If such wealth had only come into the hands of the son in his younger days, there is no telling to what he might have attained. He could have been owner of all the woodlands in the Lovsjö district, had a shop at Broby, and a steamer plying Lake Löven; he might even have been master of the ironworks at Ekeby. Naturally he found it difficult to excuse the father's careless business methods, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
When the crash came for Ol' Bengtsa, a good many persons, Bengtsa among them, expected the son to come to his aid by the sacrifice of his own property. But what good would that have done? It would only have gone to the creditors. It was with the idea in mind that the father should have something to fall back upon when all his possessions were gone, that the son had held on to his own.
It was not the fault of the younger son that Ol' Bengtsa had taken up his abode with the widow of the elder son, for he had begged the father more than a hundred times to come and live with him. The father's refusal to accept this offer seemed almost like an act of injustice; for because of it the son got the name of being mean and hard-hearted among those who knew the old man was badly off. Still, there was no ill-feeling between the two.
The son, accompanied by his wife and children, always drove down to the Ashdales over the steep and perilous mountain road once every summer, just to spend a day with his father.
If people had only known how badly he and his wife felt every time they saw the wretched hovel, the ramshackle outhouse, the stony potato patch, and the sister-in-law's ragged children, they would have understood how his heart went out to his father. The worst of all was that the father persisted in giving a big party in their honour. Every time they bade the old man good-bye they begged him not to invite all the neighbours in when they came again the next year; but he was obdurate; he would not forego his yearly feast, though he could ill afford the expense. Seeing how aged and broken he looked, one would hardly have thought there was so much of the old happy-go-lucky Ol' Bengtsa of Lusterby still left in him, but the desire to do things on a grand scale still clung to him. It had caused him misfortune from which he could never recover.
The son had learned inadvertently that the old man and the sister-in-law scrimped the whole year just to be able to give a grand spread on the day he was at home. And then it was nothing but eat, eat the whole time! He and his family were hardly out of the wagon before they were served with coffee and all kinds of tempting appetizers. And later came the dinner to all the neighbours with a fish course, a meat course, and game, and rice-cakes, and fruit-mold with whipped cream, and quantities of wines and spirits. It was enough to make one weep! He and his wife did nothing to encourage this foolishness. On the contrary, they brought with them only such plain fare as they were accustomed to have every day; but for all that they could not escape the feasting. Sometimes they felt that rather than let the old man ruin himself on their account they might better remain away altogether. Yet they feared to do so, lest their good intentions should be misinterpreted.
And what a strange company they were thrown in with at these Parties – old blacksmiths and fishermen and backwoodsmen! If such good, substantial folk as the Falla family had not been in the habit of coming, too, there would have been no one there with whom they could have exchanged a word.
Ol' Bengtsa's son had liked the late Eric of Falla best, but he also entertained in a high regard for Lars Gunnarson, the present master of Falla. Lars Gunnarson came of rather obscure people, but he was a man who had the good sense to marry well, and who would doubtless forge ahead and gain for himself both wealth and position. When the old man told his son that Lars Gunnarson was not likely to come to the party this year, the latter was very much disappointed.
"But it's no fault of mine," Ol' Bengsta declared. "Lars isn't exactly my kind, but all the same, on your account, I went down to Falla yesterday and invited him."
"Maybe he's weary of these parties," said the son.
"Oh, no," returned Ol' Bengtsa. "I'm sure he'd be only too glad to come, but there's something that's keeping him away." He did not explain further just then, but while they were having their coffee, he went back to the subject. "You mustn't feel so badly because Lars isn't coming this evening," he said. "I don't believe you'd care for his company any more."
"You don't mean that he has taken to drink?"
"That wasn't such a bad guess! He took to it suddenly in the spring, and since Midsummer Day he hasn't drawn a sober breath."
During these visits the father and son immediately they had finished their coffee always went fishing. The old man usually kept very still on these occasions, so as not to scare the fish away, but this year was the exception. He spoke to the son time and again. His words came with difficulty, as always, still there seemed to be more life in him now than ordinarily. Evidently there was something special he wanted to say, or rather something he wished to draw from his son. He was like one who stands outside an empty house shouting and calling, in the hope that somebody will come and open the door to him.
He harked back to Lars Gunnarson several times, relating in part what had occurred at the catechetical meeting, and he even dragged in all the gossip that had been circulated about Lars in the Ashdales since Eric's death.
The son granted that Lars might not be altogether blameless; if he had now begun drinking it was a bad sign.
"I'm curious to see how he'll get through this day," said Ol'
Bengtsa.
Just then the son felt a nibble, and did not have to answer. There was nothing in this whole story that had any bearing upon the common interests of himself and his father, yet he could not but feel there was some hidden intent back of the old man's words.
"I hope he'll drive over to the parsonage this evening," pursued Ol' Bengtsa. "There is forgiveness of sins for him who will seek it."
A long silence ensued. The son was too busy baiting his hook to think of replying. Besides, this was not anything which called for a response. Presently there came from the old man such a heavy sigh that he had to look over toward him.
"Father! Can't you see you've got a nibble? I believe you are letting the perch jerk the rod away from you."
The old man quickly pulled up his line and released the fish from the hook. His fingers seemed to be all thumbs and the perch slipped from his hands back into the water.
"It isn't meant that I shall catch any fish to-day, however much I may want to."
Yes, there was certainly something he wished the son to say – to Confess – but surely he did not expect him to liken himself to one who was suspected of having caused the death of his father-in-law?
Ol' Bengtsa did not bait his hook again. He stood upon a stone, with his hands folded – his half-dead eyes fixed on the smooth water.
"Yes – there is pardon for all," he said musingly, "for all who let their old parents lie waiting and freezing in icy chilliness – pardon even to this day. But afterward it will be too late!"
Surely this could never have been said for the son's benefit. The father was no doubt thinking aloud, as is the habit of old people.
Anyhow, the son thought he would try to make the old man talk about something else. So he said:
"How is the man who went crazy last year getting on?"
"Oh, you mean Jan of Ruffluck! Well, he has been in his right mind since last fall. He'll not be at the party, either. He's only a poor crofter like myself; so him you'll not miss, of course."
This was true enough. However, the son was so glad of an excuse to speak of some one other than Lars Gunnarson, that he asked with genuine concern what was wrong with Jan of Ruffluck.
"Oh, he's just sick from pining for a daughter who went away about two years ago, and who never writes to him."
"The girl who went wrong?"
"So you knew about it, eh? But it isn't because of that he's grieving himself to death. It is the awful hardness and lack of love that he can't bear up under."
This forced colloquy was becoming intolerable. It made the son feel all the more uncomfortable.
"I'm going over to the stone farthest out," he said. "I see a lot of fish splashing round it."
By that move he was out of earshot of his father, and there was no further conversation between them for the remainder of the forenoon. But go where he would, he felt that the dim, lustreless eyes of the old man were following him. And this time he was actually glad when the guests arrived.
The dinner was served out of doors. When Ol' Bengtsa had taken his place at the board he tried to cast off all worry and anxiety. When acting as host at a party, so much of the Ol' Bengtsa of bygone days came to the fore it was easy to guess what manner of man he had once been.
No one from Falla was present. But it was plain that Lars Gunnarson was in every one's thoughts; which was not surprising since this was the day he had been warned to look out for. Now of course Ol' Bengtsa's son had to listen to further talk about the catechetical meeting at Falla, and he heard more about the pastor's extraordinary dissertation on the duties of children toward their parents than he cared to hear. However, he said nothing; but Ol' Bengtsa must have noticed that he was beginning to be bored, for he turned to him with the remark:
"What do you say to all this, Nils? I suppose you're sitting there thinking to yourself it's very strange Our Lord hasn't written a commandment for parents on how they shall treat their children?"
This was wholly unexpected. The son could feel the blood mounting to his face. It was as if he had done something dreadful, and been caught at it.
"But my dear father!" he protested, "I've never said or thought – "
"True," the old man struck in, turning now to his guests. "I know you will hardly believe what I tell you, but it's a fact that this son of mine has never spoken an unkind word to me; neither has his wife."
These remarks were not addressed to any one in particular, nor did any one feel disposed to respond to them.
"They have been put to some pretty hard tests," Ol' Bengtsa went on. "It was a large property they were deprived of. They could have been landed proprietors by this time if I had only done the right thing. Yet they have never uttered a word of complaint and every summer they pay me a visit, just to show they are not angry with me."
The old man's face looked so dead now, and his voice sounded so hollow! The son could not tell whether he was trying to come out with something or whether he talked merely for talk's sake.
"Now it's altogether different with Lisa," said Ol' Bengtsa, pointing at the daughter-in-law with whom he lived. "She scolds me every day for not holding on to my property."
The daughter-in-law, not in the least perturbed, retorted with a good-natured laugh: "And you scold me because I can't find time to patch all the holes in the boys' clothes."
"That's true," the old man admitted. "You see, we're not shy; we say right out what we think and tell each other everything. What I've got is hers, and what she's got is mine; so I'm beginning to think it is she who is my real child."
Again the son felt embarrassed, and troubled as well.
There was something the old man wanted to force from him – something of a personal nature; but surely he could not expect it to be forthcoming here, before all this company?
It was a great relief to the son of Ol' Bengtsa when on looking up he saw Lars Gunnarson and his wife standing at the gate. Not he alone, but every one was glad to see them. Now it was as if all their gloomy misgivings had suddenly been dispelled.
Lars and his wife made profuse apologies for being so late. Lars had been suffering from a bad headache and had feared he would not be able to come at all; but it had abated somewhat so he decided to come to the party, thinking he would forget about his aches and pains if he got out among people.
He looked a bit hollow-eyed, but he was as jolly and sociable as he had been the year before. He had barely got down the first mouthful of food when he and the son of Ol' Bengtsa fell to talking of the lumber business, of big profits and interest on loans.
The poor rustics round about them, aghast at the mere mention of these large figures, were afraid to open their mouths. Ol' Bengtsa was the only one who wanted to have his say in the matter.
"Since you're talking of money," he said, "I wonder, Nils, if you remember that note for 17,000 rix-dollars I got from the old ironmaster at Doveness? It was mislaid, if you recollect, and couldn't be found at the time when I was in such hard straits. Just the same, I wrote to the ironmaster requesting immediate payment; but received the reply that he was dying. Later on, after his death, the administrators of the estate declared they could find no record of my claim. I was informed that it wasn't possible for them to pay me unless I produced the note. We searched high and low for it, both I and my sons, but we couldn't find it."
"You don't mean to tell me that you've come across it at last!" the son exclaimed.
"It was the strangest thing imaginable!" the old man went on. "Jan of Ruffluck came over here one morning and told me he knew for a certainty that the note was in the secret drawer of my cedar chest. He had seen me take it out in a dream, he said."
"But you must have looked there?"
"Yes, I did search through the secret drawer on the left-hand side. But Jan said it was in the drawer on the right, and then, when I looked more carefully, I found a secret drawer that I'd never known about; and in that lay the note."
"You probably put it there some time when you were in your cups."
"Very likely I did."
The son laid down his knife and fork for a moment, then took them up again. Something in the old man's tone made him a bit wary. "Maybe it's just a hoax," he thought to himself. Aloud he said, "it was outlawed, of course?"
"Oh, yes," replied the old man, "it would doubtless have been so regarded by any other debtor. But I rowed across to Doveness one day and took the note to the new ironmaster, who admitted at once that it was good. 'It's as clear as day that I must pay my father's debt, Ol' Bengtsa,' he said. 'But you'll have to give me a few weeks' grace. It is a large sum to pay out all at once.'"
"That was spoken like a man of honour!" said the son, bringing his hand down heavily on the table. A sense of gladness stole in upon him in spite of his suspicions. To think that it was something so splendid the old man had been holding back from him the whole day!
"I told the ironmaster that he needn't pay me just then; that if he would only give me a new note the money could remain in his safekeeping."
"That was well," said the son approvingly. There was a strong, glad ring in his voice, that betrayed an eagerness he would rather not have shown, for he knew of old that one could never be quite sure of Ol' Bengtsa – in the very next breath he might say it was just a yarn.
"You don't believe me," observed the old man. "Would you like to see the note? Run in and get it, Lisa!"
Almost immediately the son had the note before his eyes. First he glanced at the signature, and recognized the firm, legible hand of the ironmaster. Then he looked at the figures, and found them correct. He nodded to his wife, who sat opposite him, that it was all right, at the same time passing the note to her, knowing how interested she would be to see it.
The wife examined the note carefully. "What does this mean?" she asked – "'Payable to Lisa Persdotter of Lusterby' – is Lisa to have the money?"
"Yes," the old man answered. "She gets this money because she has been a good daughter to me."
"But this is unfair – "
"No, it is not unfair," drawled the old man in a tired voice. "I have squared myself and owe nobody anything. I might have had one other creditor," he added turning to this son, "but after looking into matters, I find that I haven't."
"You mean me, I suppose," said the son. "But you don't seem to think I – " All that the son had wanted to say to the father was left unsaid, as he was interrupted by a piercing shriek from the opposite side of the table.
Lars Gunnarson had just seized a bottle of brandy and put it to his mouth. His wife, screaming from terror, was trying to take it from him. He held her back until he had emptied half the contents, whereupon he set the bottle down and turned to his wife, his face flushed, his eyes staring wildly, his hands clenched.
"Didn't you hear it was Jan who found the note?" he said in a hoarse voice. "All his dreams come true! Can't you comprehend that the man has the gift of second sight? You'll see that something dreadful will happen to me this day, as he has predicted."
"Why he has only cautioned you to be on your guard," said the wife.
"You begged and teased me to come here so that I should forget what day it was, and now I get this reminder!"
Again Lars raised the brandy bottle to his lips. This time, however, the wife cast herself upon him with prayers and tears. Replacing the bottle on the table, he said with a laugh: "Keep it! Keep it for all of me!" With that he rose and kicked the chair out of his way. "Good-bye to you, Ol' Bengtsa," he said to the host. "I hope you will pardon my leaving, but to-day I must go to a place where I can drink in peace."
He rushed toward the gate, his wife following. When he was passing out into the road, he pushed her back. "Why can't you let me be!" he cried fiercely. "I've had my warning, and I go to meet my doom!"