The Emperor of Portugallia. Selma Lagerlöf
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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."
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