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 hurriedly 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 tonight, 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 someone 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
