The Emperor of Portugallia

LARS GUNNARSON

One cold winter day Eric of Falla and Jan were up in the forest cutting down trees. They had just sawed through the trunk of a big spruce, and stepped aside so as not to be caught under its branches when it came crashing to the ground.

"Look out, Boss!" warned Jan. "It's coming your way."

There was plenty of time for Eric to have escaped while the spruce still swayed; but he had felled so many trees in his lifetime that he thought he ought to know more about this than Jan did, and stood still. The next moment he lay upon the ground with the tree on top of him. He had not uttered a sound when the tree caught him and now he was completely hidden by the thick spruce branches.

Jan stood looking round not knowing what had become of his employer. Presently he heard the old familiar voice he had always obeyed; but it sounded so feeble he could hardly make out what it was saying.

"Go get a team and some men to take me home," said the voice.

"Shan't I help you from under first?" asked Jan.

"Do as I tell you!" said Eric of Falla.

Jan, knowing his employer to be a man who always demanded prompt obedience, said nothing further but hurried back to Falla as fast as he could. The farm was some distance away, so that it took time to get there.

On arriving, the first person Jan came upon was Lars Gunnarson, the husband of Eric's eldest daughter and prospective master of Falla, which he was destined to take over upon the decease of the present owner.

When Lars Gunnarson had received his instructions he ordered Jan to go straight to the house and tell the mistress of what had occurred; then he was to call the hired boy. Meantime Lars himself would run down to the barn and harness a horse.

"Perhaps I needn't be so very particular about telling the womenfolk just yet?" said Jan. "For if they once start crying and fretting it will only mean delay. Eric's voice sounded so weak from where he lay that I think we'd best hurry along."

But Lars Gunnarson, since coming to the farm, had made it a point to assert his authority. He would no more take back an order once given than would his father-in-law.

"Go into mother at once!" he commanded. "Can't you understand that she must get the bed ready so we'll have some place to put him when we come back with him?"

Then of course Jan was obliged to go inside and notify the mistress. Try as he would to make short work of it, it took time to relate what had happened and how it had happened.

When Jan returned to the yard he heard Lars thundering and swearing in the stable. Lars was a poor hand with animals. The horses would kick if he went anywhere near them and he had not been able to get one of the beasts out of its stall the whole time that Jan had been inside talking with the housewife.

It would not have been well for Jan had he offered to help Lars. Knowing this he went immediately on his other errand, and fetched the hired boy. He thought it mighty strange that Lars had not told him to speak to Börje, who was threshing in the barn close by, instead of sending him after the hired boy, who was at work out in the birch-grove, a good way from the farmyard.

And while Jan ran these needless errands, the faint voice under the spruce branches rang in his ears. The voice was not so imperative now, but it begged and implored him to hasten. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" Jan whispered back. He had the sensation of one in a nightmare who tries to run but who cannot take a step.

Lars had at last managed to get a horse into the shafts. Then the womenfolk came and told him to be sure to take along straw and blankets. This was all very well, but it meant still further delay.

Finally Lars and Jan and the hired boy drove away from the farm.

But they had got no farther than to the edge of the forest, when

Lars stopped the horse.

"One gets sort of rattled when one receives news of this kind," said he. "I never thought of it till just now – but Börje is back at the barn."

"It would have been well to have taken him along," said Jan, "for he's twice as strong as any of us."

Then Lars sent the hired boy back to the farm to get Börje; which meant a long wait.

While Jan sat in the sledge, powerless to act, he felt as though within him opened a big, empty ice-cold void. It was the awful certainty that they would be too late!

Then at last came Börje and the boy, all out of breath from running, and now they drove on into the woods. They went very slowly, though, for Lars had harnessed the old spavined bay to the sledge. What he had said about his being rattled must have been true, for all at once he wanted to turn in on the wrong road.

"If you go in that direction, we'll come to Great Peak," Jan told him; "and we must get to the woods beyond Loby."

"Yes, I know," returned Lars, "but farther up there's a crossroad where it's better driving."

"What road might that be? I've never seen it."

"Wait, and I'll show you," said Lars, determined to continue up the mountain.

Now Börje sided with Jan, so Lars had to give in of course; but precious time had been consumed while they argued with him, and Jan felt as if all the life had gone out of his body.

"Nothing matters now," thought he. "Eric of Falla will be beyond our help when we arrive."

The old bay jogged along the forest road as well as it could, but it had not the strength for a heavy pull like this. It was poorly shod, and stumbled time after time. When going uphill the men had to get down from the sledge and walk, and when they came upon trackless unbeaten ground in the thick of the forest the horse was almost more of a hindrance than a help.

At all events they got there finally. Strange to say, they found Eric of Falla in fairly good condition; he was not much hurt and no bones were broken. One of his thighs had been lacerated by a branch, and there he had an ugly wound; still it was nothing but what he could recover from.

When Jan went back to his work the next morning he learned that Eric had a high fever and was suffering intense pain. While lying on the frozen ground he had caught a severe cold, which developed into pneumonia, and within a fortnight he was dead.

THE RED DRESS

The summer the young girl was in her seventeenth year she went to church one Sunday with her parents. On the way she had worn a shawl, which she slipped off when she came to the church knoll. Then everybody noticed that she was wearing a dress such as had never before been seen in the parish.

A travelling merchant, one of the kind that goes about with a huge pack on his back, had found his way to the Ashdales, and on seeing Glory Goldie in all the glow and freshness of her youth he had taken from his pack a piece of dress goods which he tried to induce her parents to buy for her. The cloth was a changeable red, of a texture almost like satin and as costly as it was beautiful. Of course Jan and Katrina could not afford to buy for their girl a dress of that sort, though Jan, at least, would have liked nothing better.

Fancy! When the merchant had vainly pressed and begged the parents for a long while he grew terribly excited because he could not have his way. He said he had set his heart on their daughter having the dress, that he had not seen another girl in the whole parish who would set it off as well as she could. Whereupon he had measured and cut off as much of the cloth as was needed for a frock, and presented it to Glory Goldie. He did not want any payment, all he asked was to see the young girl dressed in the red frock the next time he came to Ruffluck.

Afterward the frock was made up by the best seamstress in the parish, the one who sewed for the young ladies at Lövdala Manor, and when Glory Goldie tried it on the effect was so perfect that one would have thought the two had blossomed together on one of the lovely wild briar bushes out in the forest.

The Sunday Glory Goldie showed herself at church in her new dress, nothing could have kept Jan and Katrina at home, so curious were they to hear what folks would say.

And it turned out, as has been said, that everybody noticed the red dress. When the astonished folk had looked at it once they turned and looked again; the second time, however, they glanced not only at the dress but at the young girl who wore it.

Some had already heard the story of the dress. Others wanted to know how it happened that a poor cotter's lass stood there in such fine raiment. Then of course Katrina and Jan had to tell them all about the travelling merchant's visit, and when they learned how it had come about they were all glad that Fortuna had thought of taking a little peep into the humble home down in the Ashdales.

There were sons of landed proprietors who declared that if this girl had been of less humble origin they would have proposed to her then and there. And there were daughters of landed proprietors – some of them heiresses – who said to themselves that they would have given half of their possessions for a face as rosy and young and radiant with health as hers.

That Sunday the Dean of Bro preached at the Svartsjö church, instead of the regular pastor. The dean was an austere, old fashioned divine who could not abide extravagance in any form, whether in dress or other things.

Seeing the young girl in the bright red frock he must have thought she was arrayed in silk, for immediately after the service he told the sexton to call the girl and her parents, as he wished to speak with them. Even he noticed that the girl and the dress went well together, but for all that he was none the less displeased.

"My child," he said, laying his hand on Glory Goldie's shoulder, "I have something I want to say to you. Nobody could prevent me from wearing the vestments of a bishop, if I so wished; but I never do it because I don't want to appear to be something more than what I am. For the same reason you should not dress as though you were a young lady of quality, when you are only the daughter of a poor crofter."

These were cutting words, and poor Glory Goldie was so dismayed she could not answer. But Katrina promptly informed him that the girl had received the cloth as a gift.

"Be that as it may," spoke the dean. "But parents, can't you comprehend that if you allow your daughter to array herself once or twice in this fashion she will never again want to put on the kind of clothes you are able to provide for her?"

Now that the dean had spoken his mind in plain words he turned away; but before he was out of earshot Jan was ready with a retort.

"If this little girl could be clothed as befits her, she would be as gorgeous as the sun itself," said he. "For a sunbeam of joy she has been to us since the day she was born."

The dean came back and regarded the trio thoughtfully. Both Katrina and Jan looked old and toil worn, but the eyes in their furrowed faces shone when they turned them toward the radiant young being standing between them.

Then the dean felt it would be a shame to mar the happiness of these two old people. Addressing himself to the young girl, he said in a mild voice:

"If it is true that you have been a light and a comfort to your poor parents, then you may well wear your fine dress with a good grace. For a child that can bring happiness to her father and mother is the best sight that our eyes may look upon."

THE NEW MASTER

When the Ruffluck family came home from church the Sunday the dean had spoken so beautifully to Glory Goldie they found two men perched on their fence, close to the gate. One of the men was Lars Gunnarson, who had become master of Falla after Eric's death, the other was a clerk from the store down at Broby, where Katrina bought her coffee and sugar.

They looked so indifferent and unconcerned sitting there that Jan could hardly think they wanted to see him; so he simply raised his cap as he went past them into the house, without speaking.

The men remained where they were. Jan wished they would go sit where he could not see them. He knew that Lars had harboured a grudge against him since that ill-fated day in the forest and had hinted more than once that Jan was getting old and would not be worth his day's wage much longer.

Katrina brought on the midday meal, which was hurriedly eaten. Lars Gunnarson and the clerk still sat on the fence, laughing and chatting. They reminded Jan of a pair of hawks biding their time to swoop down upon helpless prey. Finally the men got down off the fence, opened the gate, and went toward the house.

Then, after all, they had come to see him!

Jan had a strong presentment that they wished him ill. He glanced anxiously about, as if to find some corner where he might hide. Then his eyes fell on Glory Goldie, who also sat looking out through the window, and instantly his courage came back.

Why should he be afraid when he had a daughter like her? he thought. Glory Goldie was wise and resourceful, and afraid of nothing. Luck was always on her side, so that Lars Gunnarson would find it far from easy to get the best of her!

When the two men came in they seemed as unconcerned as before. Yet Lars said that after sitting so long on the fence looking at the pretty little house they had finally taken a notion to step inside.

They lavished praises upon everything in the house and Lars remarked that Jan and Katrina had reason to feel very thankful to Eric of Falla; for of course it was he who had made it possible for them to build a home and to marry.

"That reminds me," he said quickly, looking away from Jan and Katrina. "I suppose Eric of Falla had the foresight to give you a deed to the land on which the hut stands?"

Neither Jan nor Katrina said a word. Instantly they knew that Lars had now come to the matter he wanted to discuss with them.

"I understand there are no papers in existence," continued Lars, "but I can't believe it is so bad as all that. For in that event the house would fall to the owner of the land."

Still Jan said nothing, but Katrina was too indignant to keep silent any longer.

"Eric of Falla gave us the lot on which this house stands," she said, "and no one has the right to take it away from us!"

"And no one has any intention of doing so," said the new owner in a pacifying tone. He only wanted to have everything regular, that was all. If Jan could let him have a hundred rix-dollars by October fairtime —

"A hundred rix-dollars!" Katrina broke in, her voice rising almost to a shriek.

Lars drew his head back and tightened his lips.

"And you, Jan, you don't say a word!" said Katrina reproachfully. "Don't you hear that Lars wants to squeeze from us one hundred rix-dollars?"

"It won't be so easy, perhaps, for Jan to come up with one hundred rix-dollars," returned Lars Gunnarson, "but just the same I've got to know what's mine."

"And so you're going to steal our hut?"

"Nothing of the kind!" said Lars. "The hut is yours. It's the land

I'm after."

"Then we can move the hut off of your land," said Katrina.

"It would hardly be worth your while to go to the bother of moving something you'll not be able to keep."