The Emperor of Portugallia. Selma Lagerlöf
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spruce needles and snow. When the last measure of the first stanza died away, no one could have told that there was anything besides ordinary old spruce trees on the forest heights.
The torches that had lighted the Ashdales folk through the woods were burned out when they came to the highroad; but here they went on, guided by the lights from peasant huts. When one house was out of sight, they glimpsed another in the distance, and every house along the road had candles burning at all the windows, to guide the poor wanderers on their way to church.
At last they came to a hillock, from which the church could be seen. There stood the House of God, like acme gigantic lantern, light streaming out through all Its windows. When the foot-farers saw this, they held their breath. After all the little, low-windowed huts they had passed along the way, the church looked marvellously big and marvellously bright.
At sight of the sacred edifice Jan fell to thinking about some poor folk in Palestine, who had wandered in the night from Bethlehem to Jerusalem with a child, their only comfort and joy, who was to be circumcised in the Temple of the Holy City. These parents had to grope their way in the darkness of night, for there were many who sought the life of their child.
The people from the Ashdales had left home at an surly hour, so as to reach the church ahead of those who drove thither. But when they were quite near the church grounds, sleighs, with foaming horses and jingling bells, went flying past, forcing the poor foot-farers to fake to the snow banks, at the edge of the road.
Jan now carried the child. He was continually dodging vehicles, for the tramp along the road had become very difficult. But before them lay the shining temple; if they could only get to it they would be sheltered, and safe from harm.
Suddenly, from behind, there came a deafening noise of clanging bells and clamping hoofs. A huge sledge, drawn by two horses, was coming. On the front seat sat a young gentleman, in a fur coat and a high fur cap, and his young wife. The gentleman was driving; behind him stood his coachman, holding a burning torch so high that the draft blew the flame backward, leaving in its wake a long trail of smoke and flying sparks.
Jan, with the child in his arms, stood at the edge of the snowbank. All at once his foot sank deep in the snow, and he came near falling. Quickly the gentleman in the sledge drew rein and shouted to the peasant, whom he had forced from the road:
"Hand over the child and it shall ride to the church with us. It's risky carrying a little baby when there are so many teams out."
"Much obliged to you," said Jan Anderson, "but I can get along all right."
"We'll put the little girl between us, Jan," said the young wife.
"Thanks," he returned, "but you needn't trouble yourselves!"
"So you're afraid to trust us with the child?" laughed the man in the sledge, and drove on.
The foot-farers trudged along under ever-increasing difficulties. Sledge followed sledge. Every horse in the parish was in harness that Christmas morning.
"You might have let him take the girl," said Katrina. "I'm afraid you'll fall with her!"
"What, I let him have my child? What are you thinking of, woman! Didn't you see who he was?"
"What harm would there have been in letting her ride with the superintendent of the ironworks?"
Jan Anderson of Ruffluck stood stockstill. "Was that the superintendent at Doveness?" he said, looking as though he had just come out of a dream.
"Why of course! Who did you suppose it was?"
Yes, where had Jan's thoughts been? What child had he been carrying? Where had he intended going? In what land had he wandered? He stood stroking his forehead, and looked rather bewildered when he answered Katrina.
"I thought it was Herod, King of Judea, and his wife, Herodias," he said.
GLORY GOLDIE'S ILLNESS
When the little girl of Ruffluck was three years old she had an illness which must have been the scarlet fever, for her little body was red all over and burning hot to the touch. She would not eat, nor could she sleep; she just lay tossing in delirium. Jan could not think of going away from home so long as she was sick. He stayed in the hut day after day, and it looked as though Eric of Falla's rye would go unthreshed that year.
It was Katrina who nursed the little girl, who spread the quilt over her every time she cast it off, and who fed her a little diluted blueberry cordial, which the housewife at Falla had sent them. When the little maid was well Jan always looked after her; but as soon as she became ill he was afraid to touch her, lest he might not handle her carefully enough and would only hurt her. He never stirred from the house, but sat in a corner by the hearth all day, his eyes fixed on the sick child.
The little one lay in her own crib with only a couple of straw pillows under her, and no sheets. It must have been hard on the delicate little body, made sensitive by rash and inflammation, to lie upon the coarse tow-cloth pillow-casings.
Strange to say, every time the child began to toss on the bed Jan would think of the finest thing he had to his name—his Sunday shirt.
He possessed only one good shirt, which was of smooth white linen, with a starched front. It was so well made that it would have been quite good enough for the superintendent at Doveness. And Jan was very proud of that shirt. The rest of his wearing apparel, which was in constant use, was as coarse as were the pillow-casings the little girl lay on.
But maybe it was only stupid in him to be thinking of that shirt? Katrina would never in the world let him ruin it, for she had given it to him as a wedding present.
Anyhow, Katrina was doing all she could. She borrowed a horse from Eric of Falla, wrapped the little one in shawls and quilts and rode to the doctor's with her. That was courageous of Katrina—though Jan could not see that it did any good. Certainly no help came out of the big medicine bottle she brought back with her from the apothecary's, nor from any of the doctor's other prescriptions.
Perhaps he would not be allowed to keep so rare a jewel as the little girl, unless he was ready to sacrifice for her the best that he had, mused he. But it would not be easy to make a person of Katrina's sort understand this.
Old Finne-Karin came into the hut one day while the girl lay sick. She knew how to cure sickness in animals, as do all persons of her race, and she was not so bad, either, at conjuring away styes and boils and ringworms; but for other ailments one would scarcely think of consulting her. It was hardly the thing to expect help from a witch doctor for anything but trifling complaints.
The moment the old woman stepped into the room she noticed that the child was ill. Katrina informed her that it had the scarlet fever, but nobody sought her advice. That the parents were anxious and troubled she must have seen, of course, for as soon as Katrina had treated her to coffee and Jan had given her a piece of plug-tobacco, she said, entirely of her own accord:
"This sickness is beyond my healing powers; but as much I'm able to tell you; you can find out whether it's life or death. Keep awake till midnight, then, on the stroke of twelve, place the tip of the forefinger of your left hand against the tip of the little finger, eyelet-like, and look through at the young one. Notice carefully who lies beside her in the bed, and you'll know what to expect."
Katrina thanked her kindly, knowing it was best to keep on the good side of such folk; but she had no notion of doing as she had been told.
Jan attached no importance to the advice, either. He thought of nothing but the shirt. But how would he ever be able to muster courage enough to ask Katrina if he might tear up his wedding shirt? That the little girl would not get any better on that account he understood, to be sure, and if she must die anyhow, he would just be throwing it away.
Katrina went to bed that evening at her usual hour, but Jan felt too troubled to sleep. Seated in his corner, he could see how Glory Goldie was