AGRIPPA
The little girl was certainly a marvel! When she was only ten years old she could manage even Agrippa Prästberg, the sight of whom was enough to scare almost any one out of his wits.
Agrippa had yellow red-lidded eyes, topped with bushy eyebrows, a frightful nose, and a wiry beard that stood out from his face like raised bristles. His forehead was covered with deep wrinkles and his figure was tall and ungainly. He always wore a ragged military cap.
One day when the little girl sat all by herself on the flat stone in front of the hut, eating her evening meal of buttered bread, she espied a tall man coming down the lane whom she soon recognized as Agrippa Prästberg. However, she kept her wits about her, and at once broke and doubled her slice of bread buttered side in – then slipped it under her apron.
She did not attempt to run away or to lock up the house, knowing that that would be useless with a man of his sort; but kept her seat. All she did was to pick up an unfinished stocking Katrina had left lying on the stone when starting out with Jan's supper a while ago, and go to knitting for dear life.
She sat there as if quite calm and content, but with one eye on the gate. No, indeed, there was not a doubt about it – Agrippa intended to pay them a visit, for just then he lifted the gate latch.
The little girl moved farther back on the stone and spread out her skirt. She saw now that she would have to guard the house.
Glory Goldie knew, to be sure, that Agrippa Prästberg was not the kind of man who would steal, and he never struck any one unless they called him Grippie, or offered him buttered bread, nor did he stop long at a place where folk had the good luck not to have a Darlecarlian clock in the house.
Agrippa went about in the parish "doctoring" clocks, and once he set foot in a house where there was a tall, old-fashioned chimney clock he could not rest until he had removed the works, to see if there was anything wrong with them. And he never failed to find flaws which necessitated his taking the whole clock apart. That meant he would be days putting it together again. Meantime, one had to house and feed him.
The worst of it was that if Agrippa once got his hands on a clock it would never run as well as before, and afterward one had to let him tinker it at least once a year, or it would stop going altogether. The old man tried to do honest and conscientious work, but just the name he ruined all the clocks he touched.
Therefore it was best never to let him fool with one's clock. That
Glory Goldie knew, of course, but she saw no way of saving the
Dalecarlian timepiece, which was ticking away inside the hut.
Agrippa knew of the clock being there and had long watched for an opportunity to get at it, but at other times when he was seen thereabout, Katrina had been at home to keep him at a safe distance.
When the old man came up he stopped right in front of the little girl, struck the ground with his stick, and rattled off:
"Here comes Johan Utter Agrippa Prästberg, drummer-boy to His Royal Highness and the Crown! I have faced shot and shell and fear neither angels nor devils. Anybody home?"
Glory Goldie did not have to reply, for he strode past her into the house and went straight over to the big Dalecarlian clock.
The girl ran in after him and tried to tell him what a good clock it was, that it ran neither too fast nor too slow and needed no mending.
"How can a clock run well that has not been regulated by Johan
Utter Agrippa Prästberg!" the old man roared.
He was so tall he could open the clock-case without having to stand on a chair. In a twinkling he removed the face and the works and placed them on the table. Glory Goldie clenched the hand under her apron, and tears came to her eyes; but what could she do to stop him?
Agrippa was in a fever of a hurry to find out what ailed the clock, before Jan or Katrina could get back and tell him it needed no repairing. He had brought with him a small bundle, containing work-tools and grease jars, which he tore open with such haste that half its contents fell to the floor.
Glory Goldie was told to pick up everything that had dropped. And any one who has seen Agrippa Prästberg must know she would not have dared do anything but obey him. She got down on all fours and handed him a tiny saw and a mallet.
"Anything more!" he bellowed. "Be glad you're allowed to serve His
Majesty's and the Kingdom's drummer-boy, you confounded crofter-brat!"
"No, not that I see," replied the little girl meekly. Never had she felt so crushed and unhappy. She was to look after the house for her mother and father, and now this had to happen!
"But the spectacles?" snapped Agrippa. "They must have dropped, too?"
"No," said the girl, "there are no spectacles here." Suddenly a faint hope sprang up in her. What if he couldn't do anything to the clock without his glasses? What if they should be lost? And just then her eye lit on the spectacle-case, behind a leg of the table.
The old man rummaged and searched among the cog-wheels and springs in his bundle. "I don't see but I'll have to get down on the floor myself, and hunt," he said presently. "Get up, crofter-brat!"
Quick as a flash the little girl's hand shot out and closed over the spectacle-case, which she hid under her apron.
"Up with you!" thundered Agrippa. "I believe you're lying to me.
What are you hiding under your apron? Come! Out with it!"
She promptly drew out one hand. The other hand she had kept under her apron the whole time. Now she had to show that one, too. Then he saw the buttered bread.
"Ugh! It's buttered bread!" Agrippa shrank back as if the girl were holding out a rattlesnake.
"I sat eating it when you came, and then I put it out of sight for,
I know you don't like butter."
The old man got down on his hands and knees and began to search, but to no purpose, of course.
"You must have left them where you were last," said Glory Goldie.
He had wondered about that himself, though he thought it unlikely.
At all events he could do nothing to the clock without his glasses.
He had no choice but to gather up his tools and replace the works in the clock-case.
While his back was turned the little girl slipped the spectacles into his bundle, where he found them when he got to Lövdala Manor – the last place he had been to before coming to Ruffluck Croft. On opening the bundle to show they were not there, the first object that caught his eye was the spectacle-case.
Next time he saw Jan and Katrina in the pine grove outside the church, he went up to them.
"That girl of yours, that handy little girl of yours is going to be a comfort to you," he told them.
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
There were many who said to Jan of Ruffluck that his little girl would be a comfort to him when she was grown. Folks did not seem to understand that she already made him happy every day and every hour that God granted them. Only once in the whole time of her growing period did Jan have to suffer any annoyance or humiliation on her account.
The summer the little girl was eleven her father took her to Lövdala Manor on the seventeenth of August, which was the birthday of the lord of the manor, Lieutenant Liljecrona.
The seventeenth of August was always a day of rejoicing that was looked forward to all the year by every one in Svartsjö and in Bro, not only by the gentry, who participated in all the festivities, but also by the young folk of the peasantry, who came in crowds to Lövdala to look at the smartly dressed people and to listen to the singing and the dance music.
There was something else, too, that attracted the young people to Lövdala on the seventeenth of August, and that was all the fruit that was to be found in the orchard at that time. To be sure, the children had been taught strict honesty in most matters, but when it came to a question of such things as hang on bushes and trees, out in the open, they felt at liberty to take as much as they wanted, just so they were careful not to be caught at it.
When Jan came into the orchard with his Glory Goldie he noticed how the little girl opened her eyes when she saw all the fine apple trees, laden with big round greenings. And Jan would not have denied her the pleasure of tasting of the fruit had he not seen Superintendent Söderlind and two other men walking about in the orchard, on the lookout for trespassers.
He hurried Glory Goldie over to the lawn in front of the manor-house, out of temptation's way. It was plain that her thoughts were still on the apple trees and the gooseberry bushes, for she never even glanced at the prettily dressed children of the upper class or at the beautiful flowers. Jan could not get her to listen to the fine speeches delivered by the Dean of Bro and Engineer Boraeus of Borg, in honour of the day. Why she would not even listen to Sexton Blackie's congratulatory poem!
Anders Öster's clarinet could be heard from the house. It was playing such lively dance music just then that folks were hardly able to hold themselves still, but the little girl only tried to find a pretext for getting back to the orchard.
Jan kept a firm grip on her hand all the while and no matter what excuse she would hit upon to break away, he never relaxed his hold. Everything went smoothly for him until evening, when dusk fell.
Then coloured lanterns were brought out and set in the flower beds and hung in the trees and in among the clinging ivy that covered the house wall. It was such a pretty sight that Jan, who had never before seen anything of that kind, quite lost his head and hardly knew whether he was still on earth; but just the same he did not let go of the little hand.
When the lanterns had been lighted, Anders Öster and his nephew and the village shopkeeper and his brother-in-law struck up a song. While they sang the air seemed to vibrate with a strange sort of rapture that took away all sadness and depression. It came so softly and caressingly on the balmy night air that Jan just gave up to it, as did every one else. All were glad to be alive; glad they had so beautiful a world to live in.
"This must be the way folks feel who live in Paradise," said a youth, looking very solemn.
After the singing there were fireworks, and when the rockets went up into the indigo night-sky and broke into showers of red, blue, and yellow stars, Jan was so carried away that for the moment he forgot about Glory Goldie. When he came back to himself she was gone.
"It can't be helped now," thought Jan. "I only hope all will go well with her, as usual, and that Superintendent Söderlind or any of the other watchers won't lay hands on her."
It would have been futile for Jan to try to find her out in the big, dark orchard: he knew that the sensible thing for him to do was to remain where he was, and wait for her. And he did not have to wait very long! There was one more song; the last strains had hardly died away when he saw Superintendent Söderlind come up, with Glory Goldie in his arms.
Lieutenant Liljecrona was standing with a little group of gentlemen at the top of the steps, listening to the singing, when Superintendent Söderlind stopped in front of him and set the little girl down on the ground.
Glory Goldie did not scream or try to run away. She had picked her apron full of apples and thought of nothing save to hold it up securely, so that none of the apples would roll out.
"This youngster has been up in an apple tree," said Superintendent
Söderlind, "and your orders were that if I caught any apple thieves
I was to bring them to you."
Lieutenant Liljecrona glanced down at the little girl, and the fine wrinkles round his eyes began to twitch. It was impossible to tell whether he was going to laugh or cry in a second. He had intended to administer a sharp reprimand to the one who had stolen his apples. But now when he saw the little girl tighten her hands round her apron, he felt sorry for her. Only he was puzzled to know how he should manage this thing so that she could keep her apples; for if he were to let her off without further ado, it might result in his having his whole orchard stripped.
"So you've been up in the apple trees, have you?" said the lieutenant. "You have gone to school and read about Adam and Eve, so you ought to know how dangerous it is to steal apples."
At that moment Jan came forward and placed himself beside his daughter; he felt quite put out with her for having spoiled his pleasure, but of course he had to stand by her.
"Don't do anything to the little girl, Lieutenant!" he said. "For it was I who gave her leave to climb the tree for the apples."
Glory Goldie sent her father a withering glance, and broke her silence. "That isn't true," she declared. "I wanted the apples. Father has been standing here the whole evening holding onto my hand so I shouldn't go pick any."
Now the lieutenant was tickled. "Good for you, my girl!" said he. "You did right in not letting your father shoulder the blame. I suppose you know that when Our Lord was so angry at Adam and Eve it wasn't because they had stolen an apple, but because they were cowards and tried to shift the blame, the one onto the other. You may go now, and you can keep your apples because you were not afraid to tell the truth."
With that he turned to one of his sons, and said:
"Give Jan a glass of punch. We must drink to him because his girl spoke up for herself better than old Mother Eve. It would have been well for us all if Glory Goldie had been in the Garden of Eden instead of Eve."
BOOK TWO
LARS GUNNARSON
One cold winter day Eric of Falla and Jan were up in the forest cutting down trees. They had just sawed through the trunk of a big spruce, and stepped aside so as not to be caught under its branches when it came crashing to the ground.
"Look out, Boss!" warned Jan. "It's coming your way."
There was plenty of time for Eric to have escaped while the spruce still swayed; but he had felled so many trees in his lifetime that he thought he ought to know more about this than Jan did, and stood still. The next moment he lay upon the ground with the tree on top of him. He had not uttered a sound when the tree caught him and now he was completely hidden by the thick spruce branches.
Jan stood looking round not knowing what had become of his employer. Presently he heard the old familiar voice he had always obeyed; but it sounded so feeble he could hardly make out what it was saying.
"Go get a team and some men to take me home," said the voice.
"Shan't I help you from under first?" asked Jan.
"Do as I tell you!" said Eric of Falla.
Jan, knowing his employer to be a man who always demanded prompt obedience, said nothing further but hurried back to Falla as fast as he could. The farm was some distance away, so that it took time to get there.
On arriving, the first person Jan came upon was Lars Gunnarson, the husband of Eric's eldest daughter and prospective master of Falla, which he was destined to take over upon the decease of the present owner.
When Lars Gunnarson had received his instructions he ordered Jan to go straight to the house and tell the mistress of what had occurred; then he was to call the hired boy. Meantime Lars himself would run down to the barn and harness a horse.
"Perhaps I needn't be so very particular about telling the womenfolk just yet?" said Jan. "For if they once start crying and fretting it will only mean delay. Eric's voice sounded so weak from where he lay that I think we'd best hurry along."
But Lars Gunnarson, since coming to the farm, had made it a point to assert his authority. He would no more take back an order once given than would his father-in-law.
"Go into mother at once!" he commanded. "Can't you understand that she must get the bed ready so we'll have some place to put him when we come back with him?"
Then of course Jan was obliged to go inside and notify the mistress. Try as he would to make short work of it, it took time to relate what had happened and how it had happened.
When Jan returned to the yard he heard Lars thundering and swearing in the stable. Lars was a poor hand with animals. The horses would kick if he went anywhere near them and he had not been able to get one of the beasts out of its stall the whole time that Jan had been inside talking with the housewife.
It would not have been well for Jan had he offered to help Lars. Knowing this he went immediately on his other errand, and fetched the hired boy. He thought it mighty strange that Lars had not told him to speak to Börje, who was threshing in the barn close by, instead of sending him after the hired boy, who was at work out in the birch-grove, a good way from the farmyard.
And while Jan ran these needless errands, the faint voice under the spruce branches rang in his ears. The voice was not so imperative now, but it begged and implored him to hasten. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" Jan whispered back. He had the sensation of one in a nightmare who tries to run but who cannot take a step.
Lars had at last managed to get a horse into the shafts. Then the womenfolk came and told him to be sure to take along straw and blankets. This was all very well, but it meant still further delay.
Finally Lars and Jan and the hired boy drove away from the farm.
But they had got no farther than to the edge of the forest, when
Lars stopped the horse.
"One gets sort of rattled when one receives news of this kind," said he. "I never thought of it till just now – but Börje is back at the barn."
"It would have been well to have taken him along," said Jan, "for he's twice as strong as any of us."
Then Lars sent the hired boy back to the farm to get Börje; which meant a long wait.
While Jan sat in the sledge, powerless to act, he felt as though within him opened a big, empty ice-cold void. It was the awful certainty that they would be too late!
Then at last came Börje and the boy, all out of breath from running, and now they drove on into the woods. They went very slowly, though, for Lars had harnessed the old spavined bay to the sledge. What he had said about his being rattled must have been true, for all at once he wanted to turn in on the wrong road.
"If you go in that direction, we'll come to Great Peak," Jan told him; "and we must get to the woods beyond Loby."
"Yes, I know," returned Lars, "but farther up there's a crossroad where it's better driving."
"What road might that be? I've never seen it."
"Wait, and I'll show you," said Lars, determined to continue up the mountain.
Now Börje sided with Jan, so Lars had to give in of course; but precious time had been consumed while they argued with him, and Jan felt as if all the life had gone out of his body.
"Nothing matters now," thought he. "Eric of Falla will be beyond our help when we arrive."
The old bay jogged along the forest road as well as it could, but it had not the strength for a heavy pull like this. It was poorly shod, and stumbled time after time. When going uphill the men had to get down from the sledge and walk, and when they came upon trackless unbeaten ground in the thick of the forest the horse was almost more of a hindrance than a help.
At all events they got there finally. Strange to say, they found Eric of Falla in fairly good condition; he was not much hurt and no bones were broken. One of his thighs had been lacerated by a branch, and there he had an ugly wound; still it was nothing but what he could recover from.
When Jan went back to his work the next morning he learned that Eric had a high fever and was suffering intense pain. While lying on the frozen ground he had caught a severe cold, which developed into pneumonia, and within a fortnight he was dead.
THE RED DRESS
The summer the young girl was in her seventeenth year she went to church one Sunday with her parents. On the way she had worn a shawl, which she slipped off when she came to the church knoll. Then everybody noticed that she was wearing a dress such as had never before been seen in the parish.
A travelling merchant, one of the kind that goes about with a huge pack on his back, had found his way to the Ashdales, and on seeing Glory Goldie in all the glow and freshness of her youth he had taken from his pack a piece of dress goods which he tried to induce her parents to buy for her. The cloth was a changeable red, of a texture almost like satin and as costly as it was beautiful. Of course Jan and Katrina could not afford to buy for their girl a dress of that sort, though Jan, at least, would have liked nothing better.
Fancy! When the merchant had vainly pressed and begged the parents for a long while he grew terribly excited because he could not have his way. He said he had set his heart on their daughter having the dress, that he had not seen another girl in the whole parish who would set it off as well as she could. Whereupon he had measured and cut off as much of the cloth as was needed for a frock, and presented it to Glory Goldie. He did not want any payment, all he asked was to see the young girl dressed in the red frock the next time he came to Ruffluck.
Afterward the frock was made up by the best seamstress in the parish, the one who sewed for the young ladies at Lövdala Manor, and when Glory Goldie tried it on the effect was so perfect that one would have thought the two had blossomed together on one of the lovely wild briar bushes out in the forest.
The Sunday Glory Goldie showed herself at church in her new dress, nothing could have kept Jan and Katrina at home, so curious were they to hear what folks would say.
And it turned out, as has been said, that everybody noticed the red dress. When the astonished folk had looked at it once they turned and looked again; the second time, however, they glanced not only at the dress but at the young girl who wore it.
Some had already heard the story of the dress. Others wanted to know how it happened that a poor cotter's lass stood there in such fine raiment. Then of course Katrina and Jan had to tell them all about the travelling merchant's visit, and when they learned how it had come about they were all glad that Fortuna had thought of taking a little peep into the humble home down in the Ashdales.
There were sons of landed proprietors who declared that if this girl had been of less humble origin they would have proposed to her then and there. And there were daughters of landed proprietors – some of them heiresses – who said to themselves that they would have given half of their possessions for a face as rosy and young and radiant with health as hers.
That Sunday the Dean of Bro preached at the Svartsjö church, instead of the regular pastor. The dean was an austere, old fashioned divine who could not abide extravagance in any form, whether in dress or other things.
Seeing the young girl in the bright red frock he must have thought she was arrayed in silk, for immediately after the service he told the sexton to call the girl and her parents, as he wished to speak with them. Even he noticed that the girl and the dress went well together, but for all that he was none the less displeased.
"My child," he said, laying his hand on Glory Goldie's shoulder, "I have something I want to say to you. Nobody could prevent me from wearing the vestments of a bishop, if I so wished; but I never do it because I don't want to appear to be something more than what I am. For the same reason you should not dress as though you were a young lady of quality, when you are only the daughter of a poor crofter."
These were cutting words, and poor Glory Goldie was so dismayed she could not answer. But Katrina promptly informed him that the girl had received the cloth as a gift.
"Be that as it may," spoke the dean. "But parents, can't you comprehend that if you allow your daughter to array herself once or twice in this fashion she will never again want to put on the kind of clothes you are able to provide for her?"
Now that the dean had spoken his mind in plain words he turned away; but before he was out of earshot Jan was ready with a retort.
"If this little girl could be clothed as befits her, she would be as gorgeous as the sun itself," said he. "For a sunbeam of joy she has been to us since the day she was born."
The dean came back and regarded the trio thoughtfully. Both Katrina and Jan looked old and toil worn, but the eyes in their furrowed faces shone when they turned them toward the radiant young being standing between them.
Then the dean felt it would be a shame to mar the happiness of these two old people. Addressing himself to the young girl, he said in a mild voice:
"If it is true that you have been a light and a comfort to your poor parents, then you may well wear your fine dress with a good grace. For a child that can bring happiness to her father and mother is the best sight that our eyes may look upon."