The Emperor of Portugallia Part 6

Think of it! After the first week she had no luck with the fishing.

The worms were gone from all the hooks, but no fish had fastened there. She shifted her tackle from rapid to still water, from still water to rippling falls, and she changed her hooks--but with no better results.

She asked the boys at Borje's and at Eric's if they were not the ones who got up with the lark and carried off her fish. But a question like that the boys would not deign to answer. For no boy would stoop to take fish from the brook, when he had the whole of Dove Lake to fish in. It was all right for little girls, who were not allowed to go down to the lake, to run about hunting fish in the woods, they said.

Despite the superior airs of the boys, the little girl only half-believed them. "Surely someone must take the fish off my hooks!" she said to herself. Hers were real hooks, too, and not just bent pins. And in order to satisfy herself she arose one morning before Jan or Katrina were awake, and ran over to the brook. When near to the stream she slackened her pace, taking very short cautious steps so as not to slip on the stones or to rustle the bushes. Then, all at once her, whole body became numb. For at the edge of the brook, on the very spot where she had set out her poles the morning before, stood a fish thief tampering with her lines. It was not one of the boys, as she had supposed, but a grown man, who was just then bending over the water, drawing up a fish.

Little Glory Goldie was never afraid. She rushed right up to the thief and caught him in the act.

"So you're the one who comes here and takes my fish!" she said.

"It's a good thing I've run across you at last so we can put a stop to this stealing."

The man then raised his head, and now Glory Goldie saw his face. It was the old seine-maker, who was one of their neighbours.

"Yes, I know this is your tackle," the man admitted, without getting angry or excited, as most folks do when taken to task for wrongdoing.

"But how can you take what isn't yours?" asked the puzzled youngster.

The man looked straight at her; she never forgot that look; she seemed to be peering into two open and empty caverns at the back of which were a pair of half-dead eyes, beyond reflecting either joy or grief.

"Well, you see, I'm aware that you get what you require from your parents and that you fish only for the fun of it, while at my home we are starving."

The little girl flushed. Now she felt ashamed.

The seine-maker said nothing further, but picked up his cap (it had dropped from his head while he was bending over the fishing-poles) and went his way. Nor did Glory Goldie speak. A couple of fish lay floundering on the ground, but she did not take them up; when she had stood a while looking at them, she kicked them back into the water.

All that day the little girl felt displeased with herself, without knowing why. For indeed it was not she who had done wrong. She could not get the seine-maker out of her thoughts. The old man was said to have been rich at one time; he had once owned seven big farmsteads, each in itself worth as much as Eric of Falla's farm.

But in some unaccountable way he had disposed of his property and was now quite penniless.

However, the next morning Glory Goldie went over to the brook the same as usual. This time no one had touched her hooks, for now there was a fish at the end of every line. She released the fishes from the hooks and laid them in her basket; but instead of going home with her catch she went straight to the seine-maker's cabin.

When the little girl came along with her basket the old man was out in the yard, cutting wood. She stood at the stile a moment, watching him, before stepping over. He looked pitifully poor and ragged. Even her father had never appeared so shabby.

The little girl had heard that some well-do-to people had offered the seine-maker a home for life, but in preference he had gone to live with his daughter-in-law, who made her home here in the Ashdales, so as to help her in any way that he could; she had many children, and her husband, who had deserted her, was now supposed to be dead.

"To-day there was fish on the hooks!" shouted the little girl from the stile.

"You don't tell me!" said the seine-maker. "But that was well."

"I'll gladly give you all the fish I catch," she told him, "if I'm only allowed to do the fishing myself." So saying, she went up to the seine-maker and emptied the contents of her basket on the ground, expecting of course that he would be pleased and would praise her, just as her father--who was always pleased with everything she said or did--had always done. But the seine maker took this attention with his usual calm indifference.

"You keep what's yours," he said. "We're so used to going hungry here that we can get on without your few little fishes."

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 Prastberg, the sight of whom was enough to scare almost any one 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 b.u.t.tered bread, she espied a tall man coming down the lane whom she soon recognized as Agrippa Prastberg. However, she kept her wits about her, and at once broke and doubled her slice of bread b.u.t.tered side in--then slipped it under her ap.r.o.n.

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 Prastberg was not the kind of man who would steal, and he never struck any one unless they called him Grippie, or offered him b.u.t.tered 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 name 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 Prastberg, drummer-boy to His Royal Highness and the Crown! I have faced shot and sh.e.l.l 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 Prastberg!" 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 ap.r.o.n, 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 any one who has seen Agrippa Prastberg 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!"