Emperor of Portugallia — 10 - The Eve of Departure - At the Pier
THE EVE OF DEPARTURE
The evening before Glory Goldie of Ruffluck left for Stockholm Jan discovered no end of things that had to be attended to all at once.
He had no sooner got home from his work than he must betake himself to the forest to gather firewood, whereupon he set about fixing a broken board in the gate that had been hanging loose a whole year.
When he had finished with that he dragged out his fishing tackle and began to overhaul it.
All this time he was thinking how strange it seemed not to feel any actual regret.
Now he was the same as he had been seventeen years before; he felt neither glad nor sad.
His heart had stopped like a watch that has received a hard blow when he had seen Glory Goldie on the mountain-top, opening her arms to the whole world.
It had been like this with him once before.
Then folks had wanted him to be glad of the little girl's coming, but he had not cared a bit about it; now they all expected him to be sad and disconsolate over her departure, and he was not that, either.
The hut was full of people who had come to say good-bye to Glory Goldie.
Jan had not the face to go in and let them see that he neither wept nor wailed; so he thought it best to stop outside.
At all events it was a good thing for him matters had taken this turn, for if all had been as before he knew he should never have been able to endure the separation, and all the heartache and loneliness.
A while ago, in passing by the window, he had noticed that the hut inside was decked with leaves and wild flowers.
On the table were coffee cups, as on the day of which he was thinking.
Katrina was giving a little party in honour of the daughter who was to fare forth into the wide world to save the home.
Every one seemed to be weeping, both the housefolk and those who had come to bid the little girl Godspeed.
Jan heard Glory Goldie's sobs away out in the yard, but they had no effect upon him.
"My good people," he mumbled to himself, "this is as it should be.
Look at the young birds!
They are thrust out of the nest if they don't leave it willingly.
Have you ever watched a young cuckoo?
What could be worse than the sight of him lying in the nest, fat and sleek, and shrieking for food the whole blessed day while his parents wear themselves out to provide for him?
It won't do to let the young ones sit around at home and become a burden to us older ones.
They have got to go out into the world and shift for themselves my good friends."
At last all was quiet in the house.
The neighbours had left, so that Jan could just as well have gone inside; but he went on puttering with his fishing tackle a while longer.
He would rather that Glory Goldie and Katrina should be in bed and asleep before he crossed the threshold.
By and by, when he had heard no sound from within for ever so long, he stole up to the house as cautiously as a thief.
The womenfolk had not retired.
As Jan passed by the open window he saw Glory Goldie sitting with her arms stretched out across the table, her head resting on them.
It looked as if she were still crying.
Katrina was standing back in the room wrapping her big shawl around Glory Goldie's bundle of clothing.
"You needn't bother with that, mother," said Glory Goldie without raising her head.
"Can't you see that father is mad at me because I'm leaving?"
"Then he'll have to get glad again," returned Katrina, calmly.
"You say that because you don't care for him," said the girl, through her sobs.
"All you think about is the hut.
But father and I, we think of each other, and I'll not leave him!"
"But what about the hut?"
asked Katrina.
"It can go as it will with the hut, if only father will care for me again."
Jan moved quietly away from the door, where he had been standing a moment, listening, and sat down on the step.
He never thought for an instant that Glory Goldie would remain at home.
Indeed he knew better than did any one else that she must go away.
All the same it was to him as if the soft little bundle had again been laid in his arms.
His heart had been set going once more.
Now it was beating away in his breast as if trying to make up for lost time.
With that he felt that his armour of defence was gone.
Then came grief and longing.
He saw them as dark shadows in among the trees.
He opened his arms to them, a smile of happiness lighting his face.
"Welcome!
Welcome!"
he cried.
AT THE PIER
When the steamer _Anders Fryxell_ pulled out from the pier at Borg Point with Glory Goldie of Ruffluck on board, Jan and Katrina stood gazing after it until they could no longer see the faintest outline of either the girl or the boat.
Every one else had left the pier, the watchman had hauled down the flag and locked the freight shed, but they still tarried.
It was only natural that the parents should stand there as long as they could see anything of the boat, but why they did not go their ways afterward they hardly knew themselves.
Perhaps they dreaded the thought of going home again, of stepping into the lonely hut in each other's company.
"I've got no one but him to cook for now!"
mused Katrina, "no one but him to wait for!
But what do I care for him?
He could just as well have gone, too.
It was the girl who understood him and all his silly talk, not I. I'd be better off alone."
"It would be easier to go home with my grief if I didn't have that sour-faced old Katrina sitting round the house," thought Jan.
"The girl knew so well how to get on with her, and could make her happy and content; but now I suppose I'll never get another civil word from that quarter."
Of a sudden Jan gave a start.
Bending forward he clapped his hands to his knees.
His eyes kindled with new-found hope and his whole face shone.
He kept his gaze on the water and Katrina thought something extraordinary must have riveted his attention, although she, who stood beside him, saw nothing save the ceaseless play of the gray-green waves, chasing each other across the surface of the lake, with never a stop.
Jan ran to the far end of the pier and bent down over the water, with the look on his face which he always wore whenever Glory Goldie approached him, but which he could never put on when talking to any one else.
His mouth opened and his lips moved as though he were speaking, but not a word was heard by Katrina.
Smile after smile crossed his face, just as when the girl used to stand and rail at him.
"Why, Jan!"
said Katrina, "what has come over you?"
He did not reply, but motioned to her to be still.
Then he straightened himself a little.
His gaze seemed to be following something that glided away over the gray-green waves.
Whatever it was, it moved quickly in the direction the boat had taken.
Now Jan no longer bent forward but stood quite upright, shading his eyes with his hand that he might see the better.
Thus he remained standing till there was nothing more to be seen, apparently.
Then, turning to Katrina, he said: "You didn't see anything, perhaps?"
"What can one see here but the lake and its waves?"
"The little girl came rowing back," Jan told her, his voice lowered to a whisper.
"She had borrowed a boat of the captain.
I noticed it was marked exactly like the steamer.
She said there was something she had forgotten about when she left; it was something she wanted to say to us."
"My dear Jan, you don't know what you're talking about!
If the girl had come back then I, too, would have seen her."
"Hush now, and I'll tell you what she wants of us!"
said Jan, in solemn and mysterious whispers.
"It seems she had begun to worry about us; she was afraid we two wouldn't get on by ourselves.
Before she had always walked between us, she said, with one hand in mine and the other in yours, and in that way everything had gone well.
But now that she wasn't here to keep us together she didn't know what might happen, 'Now perhaps father and mother will go their separate ways,' she said."
"Sakes alive!"
gasped Katrina, "that she should have thought of that!"
The woman was so affected by what had just been said--for the words were the echo of her own thoughts--that she quite forgot that the daughter could not possibly have come back to the pier and talked with Jan without her seeing it.
"'So now I've come back to join your hands,' said he, 'and you mustn't let go of each other, but keep a firm hold for my sake till I return and link hands with you again.'
As soon as she had said this she rowed away."
There was silence for a moment on the pier.
"And here's my hand," Jan said presently, in an uncertain voice that betrayed both shyness and anxiety--and put out a hand, which despite all his hard toil had always remained singularly soft.
"I do this because the girl wants me to," he added.
"And here's mine," said Katrina.
"I don't understand what it could have been that you saw, but if you and the girl want us to stick together, so do I." Then they went all the way home to their hut, hand in hand.
