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Updated: June 9, 2025
As for Jan of Ruffluck, he was beginning to feel embarrassed and troubled. He no longer knew whether it was his own little girl who sat there or somebody else's. Of a sudden he left his place among the School Commissioners and moved nearer the door. At last the teacher was done examining the older pupils. Now came the turn of the little ones, those who had barely learnt their letters.
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. 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.
Anyhow, the son thought he would try to make the old man talk about something else. So he said: "How is the man who went crazy last year getting on?" "Oh, you mean Jan of Ruffluck! Well, he has been in his right mind since last fall. He'll not be at the party, either. He's only a poor crofter like myself; so him you'll not miss, of course." This was true enough.
The day Jan of Ruffluck visited the school, he and his little Glory Goldie walked hand in hand, as usual, all the way, like good friends and comrades; but as soon as they came in sight of the schoolhouse and Glory Goldie saw the children assembled outside, she dropped her father's hand and crossed to the other side of the road. Then, in a moment, she ran off and joined a group of children.
Turning his back upon all the merriment and splendour, he went on up the driveway. The people kept calling for him. They wanted him to come back and sing to them again. But he heard them not. As fast as he could go he hurried toward the woods, where he could be alone with his grief. Jan of Ruffluck had never had so many things to think about and ponder over as now, that he had become an emperor.
Of a sudden he dropped his spade and started for the parsonage just as he was taking the short cut across the heights, and running at top speed all the way. When Eric of Falla drove into the stable-yard of the parsonage the first person that met his eyes was Jan of Ruffluck.
The regular meeting was preceded by a roll call, and when the pastor called out "Jan Anderson of Ruffluck Croft," the latter answered "here" without the slightest hesitation as if Emperor Johannes of Portugallia had never existed. The clergyman sat at a table at the far end of the room, with the big church registry in front of him.
"At any rate, he doesn't seem to be working now," said Lady Liljecrona. "I have heard that he only runs about from place to place, showing his stars and singing." Lady Liljecrona was a serious-minded and dutiful woman who liked industrious and capable folk like Katrina of Ruffluck. She had sympathy for her and wanted to show it. But Katrina continued to stand up for her husband.
But the instant Katrina was back at the table with her girl the trouble started afresh. She could not hold the child still long enough for the sexton to make even a single incision. Now there was no one left to vaccinate but Glory Goldie of Ruffluck. Katrina was in despair because of her child's bad behaviour.
It was his mother who told him of this, and before she had finished talking he snatched up his cap and rushed out, never pausing until he had reached the gate at Ruffluck Croft; there he stopped and looked toward the hut.
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