The Home in the Valley Part 17

Without speaking, but overwhelmed with her joyful emotions, she cast herself in Gottlieb's arms, and never was there a purer embrace given or returned than on this occasion. With tender gentleness Gottlieb imprinted his second kiss upon her lips, and then said softly:--

"Poor Nanna, poor child, you have at least one friend in your adversity."

"Then Gottlieb is acquainted with--" She blushingly withdrew herself from his embrace. She had not thought that her greeting had been contrary to customary usage.

"Yes, I know your sorrow; and you may rest a.s.sured that I will give myself no rest, during the few days that I remain here, until I see your father at liberty and safely in his own house again."

"O, if that were but possible!" she clasped her hands and lifted her eyes, confidingly, to the face of her youthful friend.

"It shall be possible, Nanna. You have my word for it. If I had been here it would not have happened."

"I thought so. An inner voice told me that if _he_ would only come to us all would be well again."

"I am grateful for your confidence and shall always remember it with pleasure."

"Remember it!" exclaimed Nanna, "are you going to leave us again?"

Nanna again clasped her hands, and this action and the mournful expression of her countenance spoke more than words could have expressed.

"Will you miss me, Nanna?"

"Always."

"And perhaps wish we had never met?" inquired Gottlieb earnestly.

"Ah, no," replied Nanna warmly, "the remembrance of you will perhaps work a happier future for me than I would have had without it."

"But tell me," said Gottlieb changing the subject to one less dangerous, "why did not your sister apply to the proprietor of Almvik."

"O, she would never apply to him. She would rather allow things to take their own course."

"Why so?"

"I know not whether I dare tell you. Papa and Magde, consider me a mere child, yet I can understand that Mr. H---- has sought her with wrong motives, and if I can believe my brother, Carl--"

"What then?" interrupted Gottlieb eagerly.

"Then I can believe that all of our troubles have originated in the fact that Magde refused to give that gentleman a kiss when he requested it."

"What, did he wish to purchase a kiss?"

"Yes, for Carl's pardon," and now Nanna related every circ.u.mstance connected with the theft of the game, in nearly the same words in which she had heard it from Carl.

After a short season of reflection, during which he compared the different circ.u.mstances, Gottlieb arrived at the same conclusion that Carl had expressed to his sister; and at the same time he also fancied that he had discovered a method for old Mr. Lonner's release, which could not fail of success. In the meantime he merely inquired whether Mr. Fabian H---- had visited the cottage since his discomfiture.

"I have several times observed him prowling about the premises," replied Nanna; "he probably hoped to have an opportunity of seeing Magde alone, which however he has never had, for even should he offer his a.s.sistance, she would not have dared to accept it, for if she did, Ragnar would be very angry."

When Gottlieb returned to Almvik, he learned that his worthy uncle, whom as he before knew had left the house early that morning, was not expected to return until late in the evening. In consequence of this unfortunate circ.u.mstance, Gottlieb saw nothing before him except a vexatious delay in his intended operations; but it soon entered his mind that Mr. Fabian's absence might be connected in some degree with his wayward love. The day on which he had visited Magde, in order to take advantage of Carl's theft, he had also departed from Almvik in the morning, for during the evening hours his wife was invariably on the watch.

The more Gottlieb considered this circ.u.mstance the more he was convinced that if his uncle had sown the seed it was done for his own benefit, and undoubtedly the time was now at hand when he should reap the harvest.

"Ah!" thought Gottlieb, "if I should only be so fortunate as to obtain a power over my uncle, my suspicions and conjectures would exert a powerful influence upon his yielding disposition, especially, if I should place his wife in the back-ground. But to surprise him, with my own eyes in forbidden grounds, would be as good as to have old Mr.

Lonner safe back in his cottage again."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PRISONER.

While the incidents last narrated were transpiring on the one side of the lake, Magde's boat had reached the other, and the occupants of the boat were about landing, yes, Carl had even secured the boat to the stake, when one of the little ones in attempting to reach the landing, fell overboard with a loud cry.

The young and always self-possessed mother, answered the boy's cry, not by crying out herself, but by springing into the water after him, and when Carl turned to learn the cause of the confusion, she had already reached her little boy, and was holding him up at arm's length out of the water. It was all done in a moment, without the least unnecessary confusion.

"Carl," said she quietly, "take the boy."

But Carl had lost his self-possession entirely. After he had literally thrown the boy on the landing, he inquired with a trembling voice:--

"Could you not wait for me? The boy would not have sunk immediately."

"You must not scold me, Carl, I am only a little wet."

She then quietly drew herself to the sh.o.r.e.

"How will you dry yourself now?" inquired Carl in a tone of uneasiness and vexation.

"O, easily, I will call on Mother Larsson and borrow a dress to wear while we visit our father, and my clothing will be dry by the time we return."

Carl was silent. He was displeased because Magde had not called him to her a.s.sistance. Meanwhile he proceeded with the children to the prison, that he might prepare the old man for the visit. Magde did not tarry long at Mother Larsson's. As soon as she had obtained the necessary garments, she hurried on, clothed in a neat peasant's frock which fitted her fine form gracefully.

The prison at Harad was located in the ruins of an old castle. Its outward appearance presented a dark and forbidding aspect. The heart of the beholder would contract within him as he gazed upon those ruins of fallen greatness, as they reposed before him, dark and deserted, like an evil omen in his path.

But the interior of the prison, with its tottering weather beaten projections, apparently ready to fall from their resting places, presented an appearance still more gloomy and forbidding. Dampness, and mould of a hundred years growth had obliterated all traces of the fresco paintings that had formerly ornamented the ceiling, on which the moisture had gathered and fell at regular intervals with a hollow patter upon the stone pavement below.

The places once occupied by glittering chandeliers were now shrouded with immense spider webs, in which a whole colony of spiders lived subsisting on the noisome vapors of this gloomy charnel like abode.

Aside from these poisonous insects, an occasional rat, and a few unfortunate prisoners, there were no other inhabitants in this dark prison. A flock of jackdaws had built their nest beneath the eaves of the old castle, and as they received good treatment from the prisoners they would pay them a pa.s.sing visit at their grated windows to look in upon them or to receive a few crumbs of bread. Old Mr. Lonner had already made their acquaintance and derived much pleasure from attending to their little wants, while he anxiously awaited the arrival of his children.

When Magde arrived she found Carl had prepared the way for her so that she, without hindrance, proceeded directly to the old man's cell. Mr.

Lonner was deeply moved by the visit of his children; but he appeared perfectly resigned. Magde's two children were seated upon his knees, while Carl was standing before him relating all that had transpired during his imprisonment. The cloud which had rested upon the old man's brow changed instantly to an expression of joy when he beheld Magde the wife of his beloved son, enter the room. His arms trembled as he embraced her, and his heart throbbed painfully when she described her sorrows and troubles, and told him that Nanna had nearly fainted as they were about entering the boat, at the mere thought of the second parting.

"It was right to leave her behind," said Mr. Lonner, "and if we can only find some means whereby I may be released before the autumn, that the cold may not increase my feebleness, then--"

"Means must be found, father, I think, of immediately going to the city, to take our cow and the two sheep with me, aside from those I will also take the piece of linen which I have made for Ragnar's shirts. By adding all these together I--"

"But, dear daughter, if you sell the cow, how will these little ones prosper?" He clasped his hands upon the two little white heads of the children who were sitting in his lap.