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.