The Golden House

"The roll of bank-notes was found in that coat, wrapped up in a bit of yellow paper," said the magistrate. "You may sit down, Pelle."

The magistrate then solemnly called on Frans to speak for himself.

"I know nothing at all about the money," he said. "I heard somebody coming in at the inn, and put down my head at once, and tipped my hat forward to hide my face. I did not look up again until I had heard the person beside me stir and then go out. I believe I had dozed a little, but I can't be sure."

Knut, when questioned, denied having seen old Pelle at all, and declared that it was probable the whole story had been made up after the old man had heard outside that the notes were found in Frans's pocket. As if anybody could see who was behind him by looking into his own spectacles! It had been a bad business going off with Frans, and he was very sorry for it. He had found Frans in such a taking about his bad report, ashamed and afraid to go home, and talking of working his way as a sailor over the ocean. "Of course I went with him, and tried to take care of him," said Knut, "and this is my reward! Frans and that old fellow have been regular 'chums.' I have often seen them together. Of course 'the quality' would have somebody to turn the world upside down to help them. Frans has his own father, but I" – here Knut sobbed audibly – "a poor widow's son, have nobody to stand by me. If my poor mother were here, what could she do for me? But she is far back in the country, not knowing what her boy has come to by trying to help a young scamp who had got into a tight place."

There was much sympathy for Knut in the little assembly, and "Poor fellow! poor fellow!" had been murmured by more than one listener as he went on.

"See out of the back of his head!" continued Knut, "or in his spectacles, as he says! Likely! Better try him," he boldly concluded.

"A good suggestion," said the magistrate.

The court-room seemed suddenly changed into a playroom for grown people. Pelle was placed on a chair, now here and now there, while different people were placed behind him, and he was called on to say who was leaning towards his shoulder.

Pelle looked and looked in vain. The spectacles told no tales. A sneer went round the room again and again, and Knut was heard to chuckle as he said, "Of course he made up the whole story. That any one in his senses could believe it!"

Pelle was discomfited. At last he said falteringly, "I have told the truth. I did see that face in my spectacles, but I don't see anything now. It has happened to me many times in church on Sunday morning. I am sure I could do it where I sit in the church."

"Why not let him try it in the church?" said the colonel. "I am sure the pastor would give his permission."

The experiment in the church was arranged for the next morning.

Frans and his companion were left in custody for the night, and the colonel went home with a sad heart, but not without some hope that his son would be proved to be innocent. For it was true that Frans had been much at the golden house, and was a great favourite there, and it was not impossible that the temptation to free him had been too strong for Pelle to resist.

The morning came, and at eleven o'clock there was an unusual gathering in the parish church. The stillness round the marble sleepers on the monumental tombs was broken, not by the sound of prayer and praise, but by the low hush of murmuring voices and the tramp of eager feet. Pelle came quietly in and took his usual seat. He bowed his head, just from habit, then followed a silent petition, not for a blessing on the services of the sanctuary, but that the innocent might be defended and the guilty brought to justice.

He raised himself up and sat down, intending to wait for further orders. He suddenly said in a sharp voice, "Take off your hat, Adam or Enos!" and then turned unconsciously to look behind him. Yes, there stood one of the twins, which he could not say, his mouth wide with delight, while a murmur went round, "He was right this time!"

"Of course it was all planned before at the cottage," said a dissenting voice.

"I don't plan to have boys stand in the church with their hats on," said Pelle.

"I ordered the boy to take his place there myself," said the magistrate.

Again and again the experiment was tried, and with success, even the pastor and the magistrate curiously taking their turn in the performance; Pelle then, most respectfully stating whom he had had the honour to see, bowing as he did so.

At last all present were fully convinced that Pelle had spoken the truth, and he was conducted in a kind of triumphal procession back to the cottage.

The question was everywhere agitated, "What is to 'come of' Pelle's testimony?" The fate of the boys was not to be altogether decided by him.

The authorized messengers who had been sent to the little inn where Pelle had stopped came back with the innkeeper and the owner of the boat that had been hired by the boys. From them it was easily learned that the culprits had been seen at the time mentioned by Pelle, and had been considered suspicious strangers, especially the older lad, who was foolishly free with his money, and had a bold, bad look about him. The younger boy was described as cast down, and evidently not on good terms with his companion.

The case did not come to a public trial. A large part of the money taken had been recovered, the note paid for the boat being identified as one of the missing bills. The merchant who had been robbed declined prosecuting the offender, as his loss was fully made good to him by the colonel. It was, however, exacted in the agreement that Knut should be sent out of the country at once.

The pastor took Knut home with him, and gave him such a kind, serious talk that the poor lad's heart was quite melted, and he, sincere for the time at least, promised to try to lead a better life.

"He will only go to ruin if he is sent to prison," Pelle had said. "May God help the boy in his own way! I will try to help him in mine. Who knows what I might have been if I had kept on as a sailor!" So Pelle, for the time a prominent man, went round in the neighbourhood and collected money enough to send the guilty boy over the Atlantic to begin life again in the far West.

Karin wrote a short letter to her "son in America," full of love to Erik, and with a request that he would do what he could for Knut to help him on in the right way. Oke penned a full description of the whole affair, which he declared was written so plainly that anybody ought to understand it, let alone a Swede like Erik, born in the best country in the world, though he did now seem to be more than half an American.

A neat suit of clothes had been sent to Frans by the careful housekeeper, so that he looked quite like himself when he took his seat beside his father for his homeward drive.

Oke had made haste to tell all the neighbourhood of the success of Pelle in the church, and Alma had had her share of the good news. Whether Frans would be allowed to return home with his father she had not yet heard. She sat anxiously watching at the window, when there was a sound of carriage-wheels in the avenue. There were two persons in the carriage! Yes, one was certainly Frans!

Alma ran down to the veranda. "Dear, dear Frans! I am so glad to see you!" she exclaimed, as she put her arm around him; and so they followed their father into the house.

"Thank you, sister!" he answered, with a quivering lip. He could say no more.

The colonel went into the library and closed the door, and Frans and his sister were left together. They went back to the veranda and sat down side by side, Frans still struggling to gain self-command.

"Dear brother," began Alma, "I am so sorry I have been a cross, disagreeable sister to you. I mean to be better. I shall try, and you must forgive me if I fail, and am cross to you sometimes."

"Don't speak so, sister," said Frans, interrupting her. "You do not know what you have been to me. You have kept me from much that is wrong. When I have been with the boys, and have been tempted to speak and do as some of them did, I have thought of you. 'What would Alma say to such talk and such doings?' would come into my mind and help me to resist temptation. I have thought of you as something higher, holier, purer than myself. And such a good scholar, too! I have always been proud of my sister. You found fault with me, of course. I deserved it, poor, thoughtless fellow that I have been. I cannot be like you, Alma, but I am really going to try to be better. I have done with idle ways and bad companions. I did not know what Knut really was until we came to be constantly together, and then, bad as I was, I thanked God that I had had such a father and such a sister and such a home. It is only God's mercy that has saved me from a prison. I had no way to prove my innocence. What I have suffered you can understand, but I deserved it all. I have been doing badly all the term. I tried to make it up at the last. All went well with me in the morning, but in the afternoon I was so worn out and so tired and dull that I could not command myself to say what I really knew. Of course I made a miserable failure. I was afraid to meet my father and ashamed to see your face when I had come out so badly. I did the worst thing I could do. I added wrong to wrong, not thinking of all the worry and trouble I was making. I was quite desperate when I met Knut, and he proposed that we should go off together. I caught at the plan. – Listen. When I was hanging, clinging to the boat, in that deep water, so far from the shore, my whole life came before me; and what a worthless life it was! I seemed shut out from heaven. I felt so miserable and hopeless and wretched! Then I saw you coming over the water. You looked so pale and slight, but you worked like a man. Then I understood that you loved me, that you really cared for me, and would forgive me. I did not know then of the dreadful thing of which I was suspected, but you did, and you and dear father were willing to forgive me. That helped me afterwards to understand that I might try to lead a new life, and to believe our heavenly Father too could forgive me, and willingly give me strength to do better."

Alma had several times tried to speak, but Frans had laid his hand pleadingly on hers as he went on. Now she said solemnly, "Thank God, Frans! we are to begin our new life together. I have not been the true Christian you seem to have thought me, in spite of my very wrong way towards you. I feel that I have set you a very bad example. We must help each other now."

"You must help me," said Frans soberly; then starting up, he exclaimed, "But I am forgetting Marie, who has always been so kind to me. You can't think how many messages she managed to send me when I was in town in disgrace, and little things to eat, too, that she thought I would like."

Marie was lingering in the hall, listening not to catch the words of the conversation going on without, but enjoying the satisfaction of hearing the voice of her "dear boy," as she called him, once more in his own home. She had made up her mind, however, to reprove him sharply for causing them all so much trouble. When, however, she saw him looking so humble and sorrowful, so little like himself, she had no reproaches for him, but took his offered hand affectionately, and exclaimed, "You dear boy!" as if he had been a little child.

And Frans felt like a child – a naughty child; but a child forgiven, and resolved to do better.

CHAPTER XVII.

QUESTIONINGS

Another spring had come to the golden house. Such a little family as Karin now had! She quite mourned over it. The twins had gone to America; Erik had written for them. He had now a good place on a farm, where there was work for two such "hands" as he was sure Adam and Enos must be, raised in such a home. The twins had been good teachers of the Swedish language in their way, the best way, by example; and Erik was soon able to write a letter again that could be understood at the golden house without a translator. He wrote that the twins were the admiration of the country round, and his pride too. So Karin was thankful; but she missed the big, boisterous fellows, and said she felt like an old table trying to stand on three legs, with only Thor and Sven and Nono at home.

Pelle and Nono still had many cozy talks together, for which the boy was much wiser and the old man much happier. But the time came when the little Italian had a real sorrow.

Up in Stockholm the solemn bells were ringing, and mourning garments and mourning hats were everywhere. In stately mansions and in dreary attics real tears of sorrow were shed. The good princess was dead. In the palace, in a grand apartment all draped in black, lay her silent, wasted body, on a pompous funeral bier. Throngs of the loftiest and the noblest of the land passed slowly by, in solemn procession, to pay their last respects to the humble princess and the true-hearted woman who had gone to her reward. Rough peasants and the poor of the city came too, with their tribute of real mourning, grateful to see once more the face of the loving friend who had cast sunlight into their shadowed lives.

Far away in the country little Nono's heart was sorrowful. His princess was dead! No one had been able to really comfort him. Suddenly he seemed to see her bright and glad in the Holy City. She was at home at last! She was where she belonged – where "the inhabitant shall no more say, I am sick;" where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest." Nono had now his princess in heaven, and he went about his work with something of the light in his face which he had seemed to see in hers.

From the hospital there came the news that little Decima was drooping and sad. She said she must cry because the princess would never take her on her knee again and call her "Decima Desideria." The child declared she was well now, and she wanted to go home. Indeed she was as well as she could ever be, the doctors said, but she would be a cripple for life. She must always walk with a crutch. A change would do the child good, was the universal opinion; so home came the little girl, to her mother's great delight.

"Such a dear little useful creature as she had learned to be," Karin said, and it was true. As to knitting and crochet-work, no one in that parish could match her. The little lame girl really brought sunshine back to the golden house. She had such sweet songs to sing, and such hymns for Sunday, that Jan said it was quite like going to church to hear her, or more like hearing the little angels doing their best up in heaven. To Pelle she particularly attached herself, laughing merrily, as she said they belonged together, as they both walked with a stick.

Decima was soon the soul of merriment. She seemed to have been provided with an extra stock of gladness, to bubble over, in spite of her misfortune, to be a joy to herself and all about her. Her resources for talk were inexhaustible. She had always stories to tell of her stay at the hospital, something that had happened to herself or the other little patients, whose biographies she had quite by heart.

Of the princess Decima never wearied of talking – how she played with the children, even let them cover her with hay, then rose up suddenly out of the silent heap, and smiled at them so friendly, just like an angel, they all thought. What sweet words she wrote to them, too, about the good Shepherd that would willingly lead them to the green pastures!

"Yes, little Decima is lame for life, but it has been her greatest blessing," said Pelle to Karin. Karin opened her eyes wide, and he went on: "We all spoiled Decima. The boys petted and teased her, and even you, Karin, seemed to think the world must be made all smooth for her. The princess has taught her the way to heaven, and has gone before, so the child understands what a real place heaven is. We mustn't spoil her again."

The caution was needed. When Decima was pleased to speak, all listened. Something was said one day in her presence about a monkey. She began to laugh cheerily, and told about a baby monkey that a hand-organ man brought once to the hospital in his pocket. She had seen him from the window. It was a queer man, they all thought, for he said he was looking for a golden house, where he left a baby long ago. Maybe it was Nono he meant. He only stayed a little while, and then went away, and never came back again.

Nono's eyes gleamed as he listened, and his mouth trembled so he could not speak. "It must have been my father!" he exclaimed at last, and his tears fell fast.