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 “goodbye,” 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 Mountaintop
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 anyone when she felt downhearted.
Just as Jan was about to turn from the road into the forest he heard someone 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
