There was something out of the common about this poor old man and Glory Goldie was anxious to win his approval.
“You may take the fish of and stick the worms on the hooks, if you like,” said she, “and you can have all the tackle and everything.”
“Thanks,” returned the old man. “But I’ll not deprive you of your pleasure.”
Glory Goldie was determined not to go until she had thought out a way of satisfying him.
“Would you like me to come and call for you every morning,” she asked him, “so that we could draw up the lines together and divide the catch—you to get half, and I half?”
Then the old man stopped chopping and rested on his axe. He turned his strange, half-dead eyes toward the child, and the shadow of a smile crossed his face.
“Ah, now you put out the right bait!” he said. “That proposition I’ll not say no to.”
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 anyone 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 anyone 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 same 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 anyone 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
