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.