_ The little girl was certainly a marvel! When she was only ten years old she could manage even Agrippa Praestberg, the sight of whom was enough to scare almost any one out of his wits.
Agrippa had yellow red-lidded eyes, topped with bushy eyebrows, a frightful nose, and a wiry beard that stood out from his face like raised bristles. His forehead was covered with deep wrinkles and his figure was tall and ungainly. He always wore a ragged military cap.
One day when the little girl sat all by herself on the flat stone in front of the hut, eating her evening meal of buttered bread, she espied a tall man coming down the lane whom she soon recognized as Agrippa Praestberg. However, she kept her wits about her, and at once broke and doubled her slice of bread buttered side in--then slipped it under her apron.
She did not attempt to run away or to lock up the house, knowing that that would be useless with a man of his sort; but kept her seat. All she did was to pick up an unfinished stocking Katrina had left lying on the stone when starting out with Jan's supper a while ago, and go to knitting for dear life.
She sat there as if quite calm and content, but with one eye on the gate. No, indeed, there was not a doubt about it--Agrippa intended to pay them a visit, for just then he lifted the gate latch.
The little girl moved farther back on the stone and spread out her skirt. She saw now that she would have to guard the house.
Glory Goldie knew, to be sure, that Agrippa Praestberg was not the kind of man who would steal, and he never struck any one unless they called him Grippie, or offered him buttered bread, nor did he stop long at a place where folk had the good luck not to have a Darlecarlian clock in the house.
Agrippa went about in the parish "doctoring" clocks, and once he set foot in a house where there was a tall, old-fashioned chimney clock he could not rest until he had removed the works, to see if there was anything wrong with them. And he never failed to find flaws which necessitated his taking the whole clock apart. That meant he would be days putting it together again. Meantime, one had to house and feed him.
The worst of it was that if Agrippa once got his hands on a clock it would never run as well as before, and afterward one had to let him tinker it at least once a year, or it would stop going altogether. The old man tried to do honest and conscientious work, but just the name he ruined all the clocks he touched.
Therefore it was best never to let him fool with one's clock. That Glory Goldie knew, of course, but she saw no way of saving the Dalecarlian timepiece, which was ticking away inside the hut.
Agrippa knew of the clock being there and had long watched for an opportunity to get at it, but at other times when he was seen thereabout, Katrina had been at home to keep him at a safe distance.
When the old man came up he stopped right in front of the little girl, struck the ground with his stick, and rattled off:
"Here comes Johan Utter Agrippa Praestberg, drummer-boy to His Royal Highness and the Crown! I have faced shot and shell and fear neither angels nor devils. Anybody home?"
Glory Goldie did not have to reply, for he strode past her into the house and went straight over to the big Dalecarlian clock.
The girl ran in after him and tried to tell him what a good clock it was, that it ran neither too fast nor too slow and needed no mending.
"How can a clock run well that has not been regulated by Johan Utter Agrippa Praestberg!" the old man roared.
He was so tall he could open the clock-case without having to stand on a chair. In a twinkling he removed the face and the works and placed them on the table. Glory Goldie clenched the hand under her apron, and tears came to her eyes; but what could she do to stop him?
Agrippa was in a fever of a hurry to find out what ailed the clock, before Jan or Katrina could get back and tell him it needed no repairing. He had brought with him a small bundle, containing work-tools and grease jars, which he tore open with such haste that half its contents fell to the floor.
Glory Goldie was told to pick up everything that had dropped. And any one who has seen Agrippa Praestberg must know she would not have dared do anything but obey him. She got down on all fours and handed him a tiny saw and a mallet.
"Anything more!" he bellowed. "Be glad you're allowed to serve His Majesty's and the Kingdom's drummer-boy, you confounded crofter-brat!"
"No, not that I see," replied the little girl meekly. Never had she felt so crushed and unhappy. She was to look after the house for her mother and father, and now this had to happen!
"But the spectacles?" snapped Agrippa. "They must have dropped, too?"
"No," said the girl, "there are no spectacles here." Suddenly a faint hope sprang up in her. What if he couldn't do anything to the clock without his glasses? What if they should be lost? And just then her eye lit tin the spectacle-case, behind a leg of the table.
The old man rummaged and searched among the cog-wheels and springs in his bundle. "I don't see but I'll have to get down on the floor myself, and hunt," he said presently. "Get up, crofter-brat!"
Quick as a flash the little girl's hand shot out and closed over the spectacle-case, which she hid under her apron.
"Up with you!" thundered Agrippa. "I believe you're lying to me. What are you hiding under your apron? Come! Out with it!"
She promptly drew out one hand. The other hand she had kept under her apron the whole time. Now she had to show that one, too. Then he saw the huttered bread.
"Ugh! It's buttered bread!" Agrippa shrank back as if the girl were holding out a rattlesnake.
"I sat eating it when you came, and then I put it out of sight for, I know you don't like butter."
The old man got down on his hands and knees and began to search, but to no purpose, of course.
"You must have left them where you were last," said Glory Goldie.
He had wondered about that himself, though he thought it unlikely. At all events he could do nothing to the clock without his glasses. He had no choice but to gather up his tools and replace the works in the clock-case.
While his back was turned the little girl slipped the spectacles into his bundle, where he found them when he got to Loevdala Manor-- the last place he had been to before coming to Ruffluck Croft. On opening the bundle to show they were not there, the first object that caught his eye was the spectacle-case.
Next time he saw Jan and Katrina in the pine grove outside the church, he went up to them.
"That girl of yours, that handy little girl of yours is going to be a comfort to you," he told them. _