I pulled Karl along, and we almost ran up the church aisle. The whole time I felt as if something was behind me that I must be on the watch against.

O dear, O dear, how frightened I was!

No, the windows were altogether too high up in the wall even to think of reaching. For an instant I had a desperate idea of piling seats up on top of the pulpit and trying to reach a window in that way, but all the seats were fastened to the floor, and, of course, to move the pulpit was impossible for me.

All at once the thought of the bells struck me--I could ring the bells!

I need only climb up to the tower, shove the shutters aside as I had seen Peter do many a time, and then just ring and ring till people came and unlocked the church.

But, O dear!--then the whole town would know of it and talk of it forever. How frightfully embarra.s.sing that would be!

No, no, I wouldn't ring the bells. I'd rather shout myself hoa.r.s.e. So Karl and I screamed: "Open the door for us! Open the door, open the door!" But the storm outside roared and howled louder than we could and no one heard us. We didn't keep quiet an instant. We ran back and forth screaming, and banging and kicking on all the doors.

Suddenly I thought of the vestry. Like a flash I darted in there. Oh!

what a relief--what a relief! The windows here were low--only a few feet above the ground; here it would be easy enough to get out. I rushed to a window--but would you believe it! there wasn't a sign of a hook or a hinge! These windows hadn't been opened in all the hundreds of years the church had stood. That's the way people built in old times.

Here I was right near the ground and yet couldn't get out. In my desperation I seized an old book with a clasp that lay there, and smashed a window-pane with it, and then I stuck my face through the broken pane and shouted out into the storm, "Open the door!"

Not a person was to be seen; but merely to feel the fresh air blowing on my face gave me more courage.

"Has G.o.d a knife?" suddenly asked Karl.

Yes, I thought He had.

"Well, if He has a knife, He could just cut the door to pieces, and then we could go out."

At that moment I saw old Jens pa.s.s the window as he came shambling through the churchyard. He is a dull-witted fellow who lives at the poorhouse.

I wasn't slow in getting my face to the window again, you may be sure!

"Jens, Jens-s-s! Come and open the door. I'm locked in the church."

Never in my life shall I forget how Jens looked when he heard me call.

He sank almost to his knees; his lips moved quickly but without a sound coming forth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: And smashed a window-pane with it.--_Page 165._]

At last, when he had quite got it into his head that it was my familiar face he saw at the vestry's broken window, he drew near very cautiously.

"Is she in the church?" was what came from him finally in the utmost amazement.

"Why, yes, you can see that I am," said I. "Run as fast as you can and get some one to open the door. Get the minister or the deacon or Peter, the bellows-blower."

Jens set down a tin pail he carried and seemed to be thinking deeply.

"But how came she in church?"

I had no wish to explain to him.

"Oh, never mind that! Just run and get the key, do please, Jens." Then Jens trudged away.

Oh, how long he was gone! I stared and stared at the lilac bushes swaying back and forth before the window, twisting and bending low in the storm, and I waited and waited, but no Jens appeared. It grew darker and darker and Karl cried in earnest now, and wanted to smash all the windows with the clasped book. The only thing that gave me comfort was Jens' tin pail. It lay on the ground shining through the dark. I reasoned that Jens was sure to come back to get his pail. Finally I heard footsteps and voices, a key was put in the lock, and there at the open door stood the deacon, Jens, and the deacon's eight children.

"Who is this disturbing the peace of the church?" asked the deacon with the corners of his mouth drawn down.

"I haven't disturbed anything," said I. "I only want to get out."

"There must be an explanation of this," said the deacon. "I have no orders to open the church at this time of the day."

I began to be afraid that the door would be shut again!

"Oh, but you will let me out!" said I pleadingly.

"Ah, in consideration of the circ.u.mstances," said the deacon. I did not wait to hear more, but squeezed myself and Karl out and through the deacon's flock of children.

Since that day when I meet old Jens, he bows to me in a very knowing way; and if I want to tease him I say, "Weren't you the 'fraid-cat that time I called to you from the church?"

I myself was more afraid than he was, but old Jens couldn't know that.

And what do you think of my having to pay for the pane of gla.s.s I broke in the vestry? Well--that was exactly what I had to do, if you please.

CHAPTER XII

AT GOODFIELDS

Now you shall hear about my summer vacation and all sorts of things.

We stayed at a farm in the country in a high valley. The farm was called Goodfields, and they certainly were good fields, for such fat horses, and such round cows, and such rich milk I never saw before in all my life. For the horses could hardly get between the shafts of the wagons--that is really true--and the cows were like trolls' cows; the trolls' cows (in the fairy stories) are so well taken care of that they shine so you can almost see your face in them, you know. The Goodfields cows could thank old Kari, the milkmaid, for their plumpness.

Kari is seventy and looks very, very old.

All through the week she never sat down, but went puttering about the whole day long; on Sunday evenings she sat out on the hill and smoked her clay pipe. I used to lie beside her on the gra.s.s.

"The horse and the man Have to bear all they can.

But the cow and the wife Fare the hardest in life,"

said old Kari. And therefore she always raked away the best hay from the horses and stuffed the cows with it.

It was out on the hill that Kari told about the Goodfields brownie in the old days. Old Kari's mother had often driven in a sledge over Goodfields hill while the brownie stood behind on the runner chuckling and laughing. But the queer thing was that when they stopped at the top of the hill or down in the valley, they didn't see him, but no sooner had they started off than there was the brownie on the runner again.

It is really horrid that there are no brownies in the world any more!

Goodfields lay high up among the mountains. There were great green hills and meadows stretching down towards the fjord, and dark spruce forests above on the mountain, and far below, the still, shining fjord. And behind each other as far as we could see there were just mountains, exquisite blue mountains, rising into the bright sunny air.

The buildings were very big; there was nothing small at Goodfields, two big main houses with big drawing-rooms and big canopied beds and big down puffs, and big goats' milk cheeses like mountains, and big milk-pans.