“You don’t mean to tell me that you’ve come across it at last!” the son exclaimed.
“It was the strangest thing imaginable!” the old man went on. “Jan of Ruffluck came over here one morning and told me he knew for a certainty that the note was in the secret drawer of my cedar chest. He had seen me take it out in a dream, he said.”
“But you must have looked there?”
“Yes, I did search through the secret drawer on the left-hand side. But Jan said it was in the drawer on the right, and then, when I looked more carefully, I found a secret drawer that I’d never known about; and in that lay the note.”
“You probably put it there some time when you were in your cups.”
“Very likely I did.”
The son laid down his knife and fork for a moment, then took them up again. Something in the old man’s tone made him a bit wary. “Maybe it’s just a hoax,” he thought to himself. Aloud he said, “it was outlawed, of course?”
“Oh, yes,” replied the old man, “it would doubtless have been so regarded by any other debtor. But I rowed across to Doveness one day and took the note to the new ironmaster, who admitted at once that it was good. ‘It’s as clear as day that I must pay my father’s debt, Ol’ Bengtsa,’ he said. ‘But you’ll have to give me a few weeks’ grace. It is a large sum to pay out all at once.’ ”
“That was spoken like a man of honour!” said the son, bringing his hand down heavily on the table. A sense of gladness stole in upon him in spite of his suspicions. To think that it was something so splendid the old man had been holding back from him the whole day!
“I told the ironmaster that he needn’t pay me just then; that if he would only give me a new note the money could remain in his safekeeping.”
“That was well,” said the son approvingly. There was a strong, glad ring in his voice, that betrayed an eagerness he would rather not have shown, for he knew of old that one could never be quite sure of Ol’ Bengtsa—in the very next breath he might say it was just a yarn.
“You don’t believe me,” observed the old man. “Would you like to see the note? Run in and get it, Lisa!”
Almost immediately the son had the note before his eyes. First he glanced at the signature, and recognized the firm, legible hand of the ironmaster. Then he looked at the figures, and found them correct. He nodded to his wife, who sat opposite him, that it was all right, at the same time passing the note to her, knowing how interested she would be to see it.
The wife examined the note carefully. “What does this mean?” she asked—“ ‘Payable to Lisa Persdotter of Lusterby’—is Lisa to have the money?”
“Yes,” the old man answered. “She gets this money because she has been a good daughter to me.”
“But this is unfair—”
“No, it is not unfair,” drawled the old man in a tired voice. “I have squared myself and owe nobody anything. I might have had one other creditor,” he added turning to this son, “but after looking into matters, I find that I haven’t.”
“You mean me, I suppose,” said the son. “But you don’t seem to think I—” All that the son had wanted to say to the father was left unsaid, as he was interrupted by a piercing shriek from the opposite side of the table.
Lars Gunnarson had just seized a bottle of brandy and put it to his mouth. His wife, screaming from terror, was trying to take it from him. He held her back until he had emptied half the contents, whereupon he set the bottle down and turned to his wife, his face flushed, his eyes staring wildly, his hands clenched.
“Didn’t you hear it was Jan who found the note?” he said in a hoarse voice. “All his dreams come true! Can’t you comprehend that the man has the gift of second sight? You’ll see that something dreadful will happen to me this day, as he has predicted.”
“Why he has only cautioned you to be on your guard,” said the wife.
“You begged and teased me to come here so that I should forget what day it was, and now I get this reminder!”
Again Lars raised the brandy bottle to his lips. This time, however, the wife cast herself upon him with prayers and tears. Replacing the bottle on the table, he said with a laugh: “Keep it! Keep it for all of me!” With that he rose and kicked the chair out of his way. “Goodbye to you, Ol’ Bengtsa,” he said to the host. “I hope you will pardon my leaving, but today I must go to a place where I can drink in peace.”
He rushed toward the gate, his wife following. When he was passing out into the road, he pushed her back. “Why can’t you let me be!” he cried fiercely. “I’ve had my warning, and I go to meet my doom!”
Summer Night
All day, while the party was going on at the seine-maker’s, Jan of Ruffluck kept to his hut. But at evening he went out and sat down up on the flat stone in front of the house, as was his wont. He was not ill exactly, but he felt weak and tired. The hut had become so overheated during the long, hot sunny day that he thought it
