It was so cold that the bread froze; the cheese froze, and even the b.u.t.ter 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 gla.s.s 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 Prastberg pa.s.s 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 Prastberg 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 Prastberg 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 pa.s.sed. 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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s-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 Svartsjo 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 Prastberg."
"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 Prastberg.
"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 Prastberg by now. So I"ve wondered what I could do for you in return."
"Oh, don"t give that a thought my good Agrippa Prastberg!" said Jan, with that upward imperial sweep of the hand.
"Hush now, while I tell you!" spoke Prastberg. "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 la.s.s 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."