He was silent, and in the storm the deep voice, which had been the voice of G.o.d for him, ceased. It was suddenly calm, with a sharp sun and a splashing as of oars and a gentle rustle as of stiff rushes. These sounds brought Unn"s image before him.--The outlaw cannot have anything, not riches, nor women, nor the esteem of men.
--If he should betray Berg, he would be taken under the protection of the law.--But Unn must love Berg, after what he had done for her. There was no way out of it all.
When the storm increased, he heard again steps behind him and sometimes a breathless panting. Now he did not dare to look back, for he knew that the white monk went behind him. He came from the feast at Berg Rese"s house, drenched with blood, with a gaping axe-wound in his forehead. And he whispered: "Denounce him, betray him, save his soul. Leave his body to the pyre, that his soul may be spared. Leave him to the slow torture of the rack, that his soul may have time to repent."
Tord ran. All this fright of what was nothing in itself grew, when it so continually played on the soul, to an unspeakable terror. He wished to escape from it all. As he began to run, again thundered that deep, terrible voice, which was G.o.d"s. G.o.d himself hunted him with alarms, that he should give up the murderer. Berg Rese"s crime seemed more detestable than ever to him.. An unarmed man had been murdered, a man of G.o.d pierced with shining steel. It was like a defiance of the Lord of the world. And the murderer dared to live!
He rejoiced in the sun"s light and in the fruits of the earth as if the Almighty"s arm were too short to reach him.
He stopped, clenched his fists and howled out a threat. Then he ran like a madman from the wood down to the valley.
Tord hardly needed to tell his errand; instantly ten peasants were ready to follow him. It was decided that Tord should go alone up to the cave, so that Berg"s suspicions should not be aroused. But where he went he should scatter peas, so that the peasants could find the way.
When Tord came to the cave, the outlaw sat on the stone bench and sewed. The fire gave hardly any light, and the work seemed to go badly. The boy"s heart swelled with pity. The splendid Berg Rese seemed to him poor and unhappy. And the only thing he possessed, his life, should be taken from him. Tord began to weep.
"What is it?" asked Berg. "Are you ill? Have you been frightened?"
Then for the first time Tord spoke of his fear. "It was terrible in the wood. I heard ghosts and raw spectres. I saw white monks."
""Sdeath, boy!"
"They crowded round me all the way up Broad mountain. I ran, but they followed after and sang. Can I never be rid of the sound? What have I to do with them? I think that they could go to one who needed it more."
"Are you mad to-night, Tord?"
Tord talked, hardly knowing what words he used. He was free from all shyness. The words streamed from his lips.
"They are all white monks, white, pale as death. They all have blood on their cloaks. They drag their hoods down over their brows, but still the wound shines from under; the big, red, gaping wound from the blow of the axe."
"The big, red, gaping wound from the blow of the axe?"
"Is it I who perhaps have struck it? Why shall I see it?"
"The saints only know, Tord," said Berg Rese, pale and with terrible earnestness, "what it means that you see a wound from an axe. I killed the monk with a couple of knife-thrusts."
Tord stood trembling before Berg and wrung his hands. "They demand you of me! They want to force me to betray you!"
"Who? The monks?"
"They, yes, the monks. They show me visions. They show me her, Unn.
They show me the shining, sunny sea. They show me the fishermen"s camping-ground, where there is dancing and merrymaking. I close my eyes, but still I see. "Leave me in peace," I say. "My friend has murdered, but he is not bad. Let me be, and I will talk to him, so that he repents and atones. He shall confess his sin and go to Christ"s grave. We will both go together to the places which are so holy that all sin is taken away from him who draws near them.""
"What do the monks answer?" asked Berg. "They want to have me saved. They want to have me on the rack and wheel."
"Shall I betray my dearest friend, I ask them," continued Tord. "He is my world. He has saved me from the bear that had his paw on my throat. We have been cold together and suffered every want together. He has spread his bear-skin over me when I was sick. I have carried wood and water for him; I have watched over him while he slept; I have fooled his enemies. Why do they think that I am one who will betray a friend? My friend will soon of his own accord go to the priest and confess, then we will go together to the land of atonement."
Berg listened earnestly, his eyes sharply searching Tord"s face.
"You shall go to the priest and tell him the truth," he said. "You need to be among people."
"Does that help me if I go alone? For your sin, Death and all his spectres follow me. Do you not see how I shudder at you? You have lifted your hand against G.o.d himself. No crime is like yours. I think that I must rejoice when I see you on rack and wheel. It is well for him who can receive his punishment in this world and escapes the wrath to come. Why did you tell me of the just G.o.d? You compel me to betray you. Save me from that sin. Go to the priest."
And he fell on his knees before Berg.
The murderer laid his hand on his head and looked at him. He was measuring his sin against his friend"s anguish, and it grew big and terrible before his soul. He saw himself at variance with the Will which rules the world. Repentance entered his heart.
"Woe to me that I have done what I have done," he said. "That which awaits me is too hard to meet voluntarily. If I give myself up to the priests, they will torture me for hours; they will roast me with slow fires. And is not this life of misery, which we lead in fear and want, penance enough? Have I not lost lands and home? Do I not live parted from friends and everything which makes a man"s happiness? What more is required?"
When he spoke so, Tord sprang up wild with terror. "Can you repent?" he cried. "Can my words move your heart? Then come instantly! How could I believe that! Let us escape! There is still time."
Berg Rese sprang up, he too. "You have done it, then--"
"Yes, yes, yes! I have betrayed you! But come quickly! Come, as you can repent! They will let us go. We shall escape them!"
The murderer bent down to the floor, where the battle-axe of his ancestors lay at his feet. "You son of a thief!" he said, hissing out the words, "I have trusted you and loved you."
But when Tord saw him bend for the axe, he knew that it was now a question of his own life. He s.n.a.t.c.hed his own axe from his belt and struck at Berg before he had time to raise himself. The edge cut through the whistling air and sank in the bent head. Berg Rese fell head foremost to the floor, his body rolled after. Blood and brains spouted out, the axe fell from the wound. In the matted hair Tord saw a big, red, gaping hole from the blow of an axe.
The peasants came rushing in. They rejoiced and praised the deed.
"You will win by this," they said to Tord.
Tord looked down at his hands as if he saw there the fetters with which he had been dragged forward to kill him he loved. They were forged from nothing. Of the rushes" green light, of the play of the shadows, of the song of the storm, of the rustling of the leaves, of dreams were they created. And he said aloud: "G.o.d is great."
But again the old thought came to him. He fell on his knees beside the body and put his arm under him head.
"Do him no harm," he said. "He repents; he is going to the Holy Sepulchre. He is not dead, he is but a prisoner. We were just ready to go when he fell. The white monk did not want him to repent, but G.o.d, the G.o.d of justice, loves repentance."
He lay beside the body, talked to it, wept and begged the dead man to awake. The peasants arranged a bier. They wished to carry the peasant"s body down to his house. They had respect for the dead and spoke softly in his presence. When they lifted him up on the bier, Tord rose, shook the hair back from his face, and said with a voice which shook with sobs,--
"Say to Unn, who made Berg Rese a murderer, that he was killed by Tord the fisherman, whose father is a wrecker and whose mother is a witch, because he taught him that the foundation of the world is justice."
THE LEGEND OF REOR
There was a man called Reor. He was from Fuglekarr in the parish of Svarteborg, and was considered the best shot in the county. He was baptized when King Olof rooted out the old belief, and was ever afterwards an eager Christian. He was freeborn, but poor; handsome, but not tall; strong, but gentle. He tamed young horses with but a look and a word, and could lure birds to him with a call. He dwelt mostly in the woods, and nature had great power over him. The growing of the plants and the budding of the trees, the play of the hares in the forest"s open places and the fish"s leap in the calm lake at evening, the conflict of the seasons and the changes of the weather, these were the chief events in his life. Sorrow and joy he found in such things and not in that which happened among men.
One day the skilful hunter met deep in the thickest forest an old bear and killed him with a single shot. The great arrow"s sharp point pierced the mighty heart, and he fell dead at the hunter"s feet. It was summer, and the bear"s pelt was neither close nor even, still the archer drew it off, rolled it together into a hard bundle, and went on with the bear-skin on his back.
He had not wandered far before he perceived an extraordinarily strong smell of honey. It came from the little flowering plants that covered the ground. They grew on slender stalks, had light-green, shiny leaves, which were beautifully veined, and at the top a little spike, thickly set with white flowers. Their petals were of the tiniest, but from among them pushed up a little brush of stamens, whose pollen-filled heads trembled on white filaments.
Reor thought, as he went among them, that those flowers, which stood alone and unnoticed in the darkness of the forest, were sending out message after message, summons upon summons. The strong, sweet fragrance of the honey was their cry; it spread the knowledge of their existence far away among the trees and high up towards the clouds. But there was something melancholy in the heavy perfume. The flowers had filled their cups and spread their table in expectation of their winged guests, but none came. They pined to death in the deep loneliness of the dark, windless forest thicket.
They seemed to wish to cry and lament that the beautiful b.u.t.terflies did not come and visit them. Where the flowers grew thickest, he thought that they sang together a monotonous song. "Come, fair guests, come to-day, for to-morrow we are dead, to-morrow we lie dead on the dried leaves."
Reor was permitted to see the joyous close of the flower adventure.
He felt behind him a flutter as of the lightest wind and saw a white b.u.t.terfly flitting about in the dimness between the thick trunks. He flew hither and thither in an uneasy quest, as if uncertain of the way. Nor was he alone; b.u.t.terfly after b.u.t.terfly glimmered in the darkness, until at last there was a host of white-winged honey seekers. But the first was the leader, and he found the flowers, guided by their fragrance. After him the whole b.u.t.terfly host came storming. It threw itself down among the longing flowers, as the conqueror throws himself on his booty. Like a snowfall of white wings it sank down over them. And there was feasting and drinking on every flowercl.u.s.ter. The woods were full of silent rejoicing.
Reor went on, but now the honey-sweet fragrance seemed to follow him wherever he went. And he felt that in the wood was hidden a longing, stronger than that of the flowers, that something there drew him to itself, just as the flowers lured the b.u.t.terflies. He went forward with a quiet joy in his heart, as if he was expecting a great, unknown happiness. His only fear was lest he should not be able to find the way to that which longed for him.
In front of him, on the narrow path, crawled a white snake. He bent down to pick up the luck-bringing animal, but the snake glided out of his hands and up the path. There it coiled itself and lay still; but when the huntsman again tried to catch it, glided slippery as ice between his fingers.