The other two Scotsmen ceased drinking and looked in alarm at Sir Archie, who thus laid aside all his manliness and yielded to remorse. For a moment they were perplexed, but then one of them went up to the bar, took the tallest tankard that stood there and filled it with red wine. He brought it to Sir Archie, clapped him on the shoulder and said: "Drink, brother! Herr Arne"s h.o.a.rd is not yet done. So long as we have coin to buy such wine as this, no cares need sit upon us."
But in the same instant as these words were spoken: "Drink, brother! Herr Arne"s h.o.a.rd is not yet done," Elsalill saw the dead girl rise from the bench and vanish.
And in that moment Elsalill saw before her eyes three men with great beards and rough coats of skin, struggling with Herr Arne"s servants. And now it was plain to her that they were the three who sat in the cellar--Sir Archie, Sir Philip, and Sir Reginald.
III
Elsalill came out of the closet where she had stood and rinsed the hostess"s cups, and softly closed the door behind her. In the narrow corridor outside she stopped and stood motionless leaning against the wall for nearly an hour.
As she stood there she thought to herself: "I cannot betray him.
Let him be guilty of what evil he may, I love him with all my heart. I cannot send him to be broken upon the wheel. I cannot see them burn away his hands and feet."
The storm that had raged all day became more and more violent as evening wore on, and Elsalill could hear its roar as she stood in the darkness.
"Now the first storms of spring have come," she thought. "Now they have come in all their might to set the waters free and break up the ice. In a few days we shall have open sea, and then Sir Archie will sail from hence, never to return. No more misdeeds can he commit in this land. What profits it then if he be taken and suffer for his crime? Neither the dead nor the living have any comfort of it."
Elsalill drew her cloak about her. She thought she would go home and sit quietly at her work without betraying her secret to any one.
But before she had raised a foot to go, she changed her purpose and stayed.
She stood still listening to the roaring of the gale. Again she thought of the coming of spring. The snow would disappear and the earth put on its garment of green.
"Merciful heaven, what a spring will this be for me!" thought Elsalill. "No joy and no happiness can bloom for me after the chills of this winter.
"No more than a year ago I was so happy when winter was past and spring came," she thought. "I remember one evening which was so fair that I could not sit within doors. So I took my foster sister by the hand, and we went out into the fields to fetch green boughs and deck the stove.
She recalled to mind how she and her foster sister had walked along a green pathway. And there by the side of the way they had seen a young birch that had been cut down. The wood showed that it had been cut many days before. But now they saw that the poor lopped tree had begun to put forth leaves and its buds were bursting.
Then her foster sister had stopped and bent over the tree. "Ah, poor tree," she said, "what evil can you have done, that you are not suffered to die, though you are cut down? What makes you put forth leaves, as though you still lived?"
And Elsalill had laughed at her and answered: "Maybe it grows so sweet and green that he who cut it down may see the harm he has wrought and feel remorse."
But her foster sister did not laugh with her, and there were tears in her eyes. "It is terrible for a dead man if he cannot rest in his grave. They who are dead have small comfort to look for; neither love nor happiness can reach them. All the good they yet desire is that they may be left to sleep in peace. Well may I weep when you say this birch cannot die for thinking of its murderer.
The hardest fate for one deprived of life is that he may not sleep in peace but must pursue his murderer. The dead have naught to long for but to be left to sleep in peace."
When Elsalill recalled these words she began to weep and wring her hands.
"My foster sister will not find rest in her grave," she said, "unless I betray my beloved. If I do not aid her in this, she must roam above ground without respite or repose. My poor foster sister, she has nothing more to hope for but to find peace in her grave, and that I cannot give her unless I send the man I love to be broken on the wheel."
IV
Sir Archie came out of the tavern and went through the long corridor. The lantern hanging from the roof had now been lighted again, and by its light he saw that a young maid stood leaning against the wall.
She was so pale and stood so still that Sir Archie was afraid and thought: "There at last before my eyes stands the dead girl who haunts me every day."
As Sir Archie went past Elsalill he laid his hand on hers to feel if it was really a dead girl standing there. And her hand was so cold that he could not say whether it belonged to the living or the dead.
But as Sir Archie touched Elsalill"s hand she drew it back, and then Sir Archie knew her again.
He thought she had come there for his sake, and great was his joy to see her. At once a thought came to him: "Now I know what I will do, that the dead girl may be appeased and cease to haunt me."
He took Elsalill"s hands within his own and raised them to his lips. "G.o.d bless you for coming to me this evening, Elsalill!" he said.
But Elsalill"s heart was sore afflicted. She could not speak for tears, even so much as to tell Sir Archie she had not come there to meet him.
Sir Archie stood silent a long while, but he held Elsalill"s hands in his the whole time. And the longer he stood thus, the clearer and more handsome did his face become.
"Elsalill," said Sir Archie, and he spoke very earnestly, "for many days I have not been able to see you, because I have been tormented by heavy thoughts. They have left me no peace, and I believed I should soon go out of my mind. But tonight it goes better with me and I no longer see before me the image that tormented me. And when I found you here, my heart told me what I had to do to be rid of my torment for all time."
He bent down to look into Elsalill"s eyes, but as she stood with drooping eyelids he went on: "You are angry with me, Elsalill, because I have not been to see you for many days. But I could not come, for when I saw you I was reminded even more of what tortured me. When I saw you I was forced to think even more of a young maid to whom I have done wrong. Many others have I wronged in my lifetime, Elsalill, but my conscience plagues me for naught else but what I did to this young maid."
As Elsalill still said nothing, he took her hands again and raised them to his lips and kissed them.
"Now, listen, Elsalill, to what my heart said to me when I saw you standing here and waiting for me. "You have done injury to one maiden," it said, "and for what you have made her suffer, you must atone to another. You shall take her to wife, and you shall be so good to her that she shall never know sorrow. Such faithfulness shall you show her that your love will be greater on the day of your death than on your wedding day.""
Elsalill stood still as before with downcast eyes. Then Sir Archie laid his hand on her head and raised it. "You must tell me, Elsalill, whether you hear what I say," he said.
Then he saw that Elsalill was weeping so violently that great tears ran down her cheeks.
"Why do you weep, Elsalill?" asked Sir Archie.
"I weep, Sir Archie," said Elsalill, "because I have too great love for you in my heart."
Then Sir Archie came yet closer to Elsalill and put his arm around her. "Do you hear how the wind howls without?" said he. "That means that soon the ice will break up, and that ships again will be free to sail over to my native land. Tell me now, Elsalill, will you come with me, so that I may make good to you the evil I have done to another?"
Sir Archie continued to whisper to Elsalill of the glorious life that awaited her, and Elsalill began to think to herself: "Alas, if only I did not know what evil he had done! Then I would go with him and live happily."
Sir Archie came closer and closer to her, and when Elsalill looked up she saw that his face was bending over her and that he was about to kiss her on the forehead. Then she remembered the dead girl who had so lately been with her and kissed her. She tore herself free from Sir Archie and said: "No, Sir Archie, I will never go with you."
"Yes," said Sir Archie, "you must come with me, Elsalill, or else I shall be drawn down to my destruction."
He began to whisper to the girl ever more tenderly, and again she thought to herself: "Were it not more pleasing to G.o.d and men that he be allowed to atone for his evil life and become a righteous man? Whom can it profit if he be punished with death?"
As these thoughts were in Elsalill"s mind two men came by on their way to the tavern. When Sir Archie marked that they cast curious eyes on him and the maid, he said to her: "Come, Elsalill, I will take you home. I would not that any should see you had come to the tavern for me."
Then Elsalill looked up, as though suddenly calling to mind that she had another duty to perform than that of listening to Sir Archie. But her heart smote her when she thought of betraying his crime. "If you deliver him to the hangman, I must break," her heart said to her. And Sir Archie drew the girl"s cloak more tightly about her and led her out into the street. He walked with her all the way to Torarin"s cabin, and she noticed that whenever the storm blew fiercely in their faces, he placed himself before her and screened her.
Elsalill thought, all the time they were walking: "My dead foster sister knew nothing of this, that he would atone for his crime and become a good man."
Sir Archie still whispered the tenderest words in Elsalill"s ear.
And the longer she listened to him, the more firmly she believed in him.
"It must have been that I might hear Sir Archie whisper such words as these in my ear that my foster sister called me forth," she thought. "She loves me so dearly. She desires not my unhappiness but my happiness."
And as they stopped before the cabin, Sir Archie asked Elsalill once more whether she would go with him across the sea. And Elsalill answered that with G.o.d"s help she would go.