THE NEW MASTER
When the Ruffluck family came home from church the Sunday the dean had spoken so beautifully to Glory Goldie they found two men perched on their fence, close to the gate. One of the men was Lars Gunnarson, who had become master of Falla after Eric's death, the other was a clerk from the store down at Broby, where Katrina bought her coffee and sugar.
They looked so indifferent and unconcerned sitting there that Jan could hardly think they wanted to see him; so he simply raised his cap as he went past them into the house, without speaking.
The men remained where they were. Jan wished they would go sit where he could not see them. He knew that Lars had harboured a grudge against him since that ill-fated day in the forest and had hinted more than once that Jan was getting old and would not be worth his day's wage much longer.
Katrina brought on the midday meal, which was hurriedly eaten. Lars Gunnarson and the clerk still sat on the fence, laughing and chatting. They reminded Jan of a pair of hawks biding their time to swoop down upon helpless prey. Finally the men got down off the fence, opened the gate, and went toward the house.
Then, after all, they had come to see him!
Jan had a strong presentment that they wished him ill. He glanced anxiously about, as if to find some corner where he might hide. Then his eyes fell on Glory Goldie, who also sat looking out through the window, and instantly his courage came back.
Why should he be afraid when he had a daughter like her? he thought. Glory Goldie was wise and resourceful, and afraid of nothing. Luck was always on her side, so that Lars Gunnarson would find it far from easy to get the best of her!
When the two men came in they seemed as unconcerned as before. Yet Lars said that after sitting so long on the fence looking at the pretty little house they had finally taken a notion to step inside.
They lavished praises upon everything in the house and Lars remarked that Jan and Katrina had reason to feel very thankful to Eric of Falla; for of course it was he who had made it possible for them to build a home and to marry.
"That reminds me," he said quickly, looking away from Jan and Katrina. "I suppose Eric of Falla had the foresight to give you a deed to the land on which the hut stands?"
Neither Jan nor Katrina said a word. Instantly they knew that Lars had now come to the matter he wanted to discuss with them.
"I understand there are no papers in existence," continued Lars, "but I can't believe it is so bad as all that. For in that event the house would fall to the owner of the land."
Still Jan said nothing, but Katrina was too indignant to keep silent any longer.
"Eric of Falla gave us the lot on which this house stands," she said, "and no one has the right to take it away from us!"
"And no one has any intention of doing so," said the new owner in a pacifying tone. He only wanted to have everything regular, that was all. If Jan could let him have a hundred rix-dollars by October fairtime —
"A hundred rix-dollars!" Katrina broke in, her voice rising almost to a shriek.
Lars drew his head back and tightened his lips.
"And you, Jan, you don't say a word!" said Katrina reproachfully. "Don't you hear that Lars wants to squeeze from us one hundred rix-dollars?"
"It won't be so easy, perhaps, for Jan to come up with one hundred rix-dollars," returned Lars Gunnarson, "but just the same I've got to know what's mine."
"And so you're going to steal our hut?"
"Nothing of the kind!" said Lars. "The hut is yours. It's the land
I'm after."
"Then we can move the hut off of your land," said Katrina.
"It would hardly be worth your while to go to the bother of moving something you'll not be able to keep."
"Well, I never!" gasped Katrina. "Then you really do mean to lay hands on our property?"
Lars Gunnarson made a gesture of protest.
No, of course he did not want to put a lien on the house, not he! Had he not already told them as much? But it so happened that the storekeeper at Broby had sent his clerk with some accounts that had not been settled.
The clerk now produced the bills and laid them on the table. Katrina pushed them over to Glory Goldie and told her to figure up the total amount due.
It was no less than one hundred rix-dollars that they owed!
Katrina went white as a sheet. "I see that you mean to turn us out of house and home," she said, faintly.
"Oh, no," answered Lars, "not if you pay what you owe."
"You ought to think of your own parents, Lars," Katrina reminded him. "They, too, had their struggles before you became the son-in-law of a rich farmer."
Katrina had to do all the talking, as Jan would not say anything; he only sat and looked at Glory Goldie – looked and waited. To his mind this affair was just something that had been planned for her special benefit, that she might prove her worth.
"When you take the hut away from the poor man he's done for," wailed Katrina.
"I don't want to take the hut," said Lars Gunnarson, on the defensive. "All I want is a settlement."
But Katrina was not listening. "As long as the poor man has his home he's as good as anybody else, but the homeless man knows he's nobody."
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 Svartsjö 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 Löven, 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 time 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 hut 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 hut, hand in hand.