Part 18 (2/2)

Nils, who was just out of bed, was sitting on the threshold smoking his pipe and pitching a ball to little Hans, who laughed with delight whenever he caught it. Inga was bustling about inside the house, preparing breakfast, which was to consist of porridge, salt herring, and baked potatoes. It had rained during the night, and the sky was yet overcast, but the sun was struggling to break through the cloud-banks. A couple of thrushes in the alder-bushes about the cottage were rejoicing at the change in the weather, and Nils was listening to their song and to his son's merry prattle, when he caught sight of the twenty lumbermen marching up the hillside. He rose, with some astonishment, and went to meet them. Inga, hearing their voices, came to the door, and seeing the many men, s.n.a.t.c.hed up little Hans, and with a wildly palpitating heart ran into the cottage, bolting the door behind her. She had a vague foreboding that this unusual visit meant something hostile to herself, and she guessed that Nils had been only the spokesman of his comrades in demanding so eagerly the return of the boy to the river. She believed all their talk about his luck to be idle nonsense; but she knew that Nils had unwittingly spread this belief, and that the lumbermen were convinced that little Hans was their good genius, whose presence averted disaster. Distracted with fear and anxiety, she stood pressing her ear against the crack in the door, and sometimes peeping out to see what measures she must take for the child's safety. Would Nils stand by her, or would he desert her? But surely--what was Nils thinking about? He was extending his hand to each of the men, and receiving them kindly.

Next he would be inviting them to come in and take little Hans. She saw one of the men--Stubby Mons by name--step forward, and she plainly heard him say:

”We miss the little chap down at the river, Nils. The luck has been against us since he left.”

”Well, Mons,” Nils answered, ”I miss the little chap as much as any of you; perhaps more. But my wife--she's got a sort of crooked notion that the boy won't come home alive if she lets him go to the river. She got a bad scare last time, and it isn't any use arguing with her.”

”But won't you let us talk to her, Nils?” one of the lumbermen proposed.

”It is a tangled skein, and I don't pretend to say that I can straighten it out. But two men have been killed and one crippled since the little chap was taken away. And in the three years he was with us no untoward thing happened. Now that speaks for itself, Nils, doesn't it?”

”It does, indeed,” said Nils, with an air of conviction.

”And you'll let us talk to your wife, and see if we can't make her listen to reason,” the man urged.

”You are welcome to talk to her as much as you like,” Nils replied, knocking out his pipe on the heel of his boot; ”but I warn you that she's mighty cantankerous.”

He rose slowly, and tried to open the door. It was locked. ”Open, Inga,”

he said, a trifle impatiently; ”there are some men here who want to see you.”

II.

Inga sat crouching on the hearth, hugging little Hans to her bosom. She shook and trembled with fear, let her eyes wander around the walls, and now and then moaned at the thought that now they would take little Hans away from her.

”Why don't you open the door for papa?” asked little Hans, wonderingly.

Ah, he too was against her! All the world was against her! And her husband was in league with her enemies!

”Open, I say!” cried Nils, vehemently. ”What do you mean by locking the door when decent people come to call upon us?”

Should she open the door or should she not? Holding little Hans in her arms, she rose hesitatingly, and stretched out her hand toward the bolt. But all of a sudden, in a paroxysm of fear, she withdrew her hand, turned about, and fled with the child through the back door. The alder bushes grew close up to the walls of the cottage, and by stooping a little she managed to remain un.o.bserved. Her greatest difficulty was to keep little Hans from shouting to his father, and she had to put her hand over his mouth to keep him quiet; for the boy, who had heard the voices without, could not understand why he should not be permitted to go out and converse with his friends the lumbermen. The wild eyes and agitated face of his mother distressed him, and the little showers of last night's rain which the trees shook down upon him made him s.h.i.+ver.

”Why do you run so, mamma?” he asked, when she removed her hand from his mouth.

”Because the bad men want to take you away from me, Hans,” she answered, panting.

”Those were not bad men, mamma,” the boy e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”That was Stubby Mons and Stuttering Peter and Lars Skin-breeches. They don't, want to hurt me.”

He expected that his mamma would be much relieved at receiving this valuable information, and return home without delay. But she still pressed on, flushed and panting, and cast the same anxious glances behind her.

In the meanwhile Nils and his guests had entirely lost their patience.

Finding his persuasions of no avail, the former began to thump at the door with the handle of his axe, and receiving no response, he climbed up to the window and looked in. To his amazement there was no one in the room. Thinking that Inga might have gone to the cow-stable, he ran to the rear of the cottage, and called her name. Still no answer.

”Hans,” he cried, ”where are you?”

But Hans, too, was as if spirited away. It scarcely occurred to Nils, until he had searched the cow-stable and the house in vain, that his wife had fled from the harmless lumbermen. Then the thought shot through his brain that possibly she was not quite right in her head; that this fixed idea that everybody wanted to take her child away from her had unsettled her reason. Nils grew hot and cold in the same moment as this dreadful apprehension took lodgement in his mind. Might she not, in her confused effort to save little Hans, do him harm? In the blind and feverish terror which possessed her might she not rush into the water, or leap over a precipice? Visions of little Hans drowning, or whirled into the abyss in his mother's arms, crowded his fancy as he walked back to the lumbermen, and told them that neither his wife nor child was anywhere to be found.

”I would ask ye this, lads,” he said, finally: ”if you would help me search for them. For Inga--I reckon she is a little touched in the upper story--she has gone off with the boy, and I can't get on without little Hans any more than you can.”

The men understood the situation at a glance, and promised their aid.

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