The young and always self-possessed mother, answered the boy’s cry, not by crying out herself, but by springing into the water after him, and when Carl turned to learn the cause of the confusion, she had already reached her little boy, and was holding him up at arm’s length out of the water.  It was all done in a moment, without the least unnecessary confusion.

“Carl,” said she quietly, “take the boy.”

But Carl had lost his self-possession entirely.  After he had literally thrown the boy on the landing, he inquired with a trembling voice:—­

“Could you not wait for me?  The boy would not have sunk immediately.”

“You must not scold me, Carl, I am only a little wet.”

She then quietly drew herself to the shore.

“How will you dry yourself now?” inquired Carl in a tone of uneasiness and vexation.

“O, easily, I will call on Mother Larsson and borrow a dress to wear while we visit our father, and my clothing will be dry by the time we return.”

Carl was silent.  He was displeased because Magde had not called him to her assistance.  Meanwhile he proceeded with the children to the prison, that he might prepare the old man for the visit.  Magde did not tarry long at Mother Larsson’s.  As soon as she had obtained the necessary garments, she hurried on, clothed in a neat peasant’s frock which fitted her fine form gracefully.

The prison at Harad was located in the ruins of an old castle.  Its outward appearance presented a dark and forbidding aspect.  The heart of the beholder would contract within him as he gazed upon those ruins of fallen greatness, as they reposed before him, dark and deserted, like an evil omen in his path.

But the interior of the prison, with its tottering weather beaten projections, apparently ready to fall from their resting places, presented an appearance still more gloomy and forbidding.  Dampness, and mould of a hundred years growth had obliterated all traces of the fresco paintings that had formerly ornamented the ceiling, on which the moisture had gathered and fell at regular intervals with a hollow patter upon the stone pavement below.

The places once occupied by glittering chandeliers were now shrouded with immense spider webs, in which a whole colony of spiders lived subsisting on the noisome vapors of this gloomy charnel like abode.

Aside from these poisonous insects, an occasional rat, and a few unfortunate prisoners, there were no other inhabitants in this dark prison.  A flock of jackdaws had built their nest beneath the eaves of the old castle, and as they received good treatment from the prisoners they would pay them a passing visit at their grated windows to look in upon them or to receive a few crumbs of bread.  Old Mr. Lonner had already made their acquaintance and derived much pleasure from attending to their little wants, while he anxiously awaited the arrival of his children.