The Treasure Part 3

But at the same instant the parson's man was at the horse's head; he caught him by the bridle and forced him to stand still. "Cease your obstinacy, Torarin!" said the man. "Herr Arne is not yet gone to bed, he sits waiting for you. And you should know full well that you can have as good a night's lodging here as anywhere in the parish."

Torarin was about to answer that he could not be served with lodging in a roofless house. But before speaking he raised his eyes to the dwelling house, and then he saw that the old timber hall stood unharmed and stately as before the fire. And yet that very morning Torarin had seen the naked rafters thrusting out into the air.

He looked and looked and rubbed his eyes, but there was no doubt of it, the parsonage stood there unharmed, with thatch and snow upon its roof. He saw smoke and sparks streaming up through the louver, and rays of light gleaming through the illclosed shutters upon the snow.

A man who travels far and wide on the cold highway knows no better sight than the gleam that steals out of a warm room. But the sight made Torarin even more terrified than before. He whipped up his horse till he reared and kicked, but not a step would he go from the stable door.

"Come in with me, Torarin!" said the groom. "I thought you had enough remorse already over this business."

Then Torarin remembered the promise he had made himself on the road and, though a moment before he had stood up and lashed his horse furiously, he was now meek as a lamb.

"Well, Olof groom, here am I!" he said, and sprang down from the sledge. "It is true that I wish to have no more remorse over this business. Take me in to Herr Arne!"

But it was with the heaviest steps he had ever known that Torarin went across the yard to the house.

When the door was opened Torarin closed his eyes to avoid looking into the room, but he tried to take heart by thinking of Herr Arne. "He has given you many a good meal. He has bought your fish, even when his own larder was full. He has always shown you kindness in his lifetime, and a.s.suredly he will not harm you after death. Mayhap he has a service to ask of you. You must not forget, Torarin, that we are to show grat.i.tude to the dead as to the living."

Torarin opened his eyes and looked down the room. He saw the great hall just as he had seen it before. He recognized the high brick stove and the woven tapestries that hung upon the walls. But he glanced many times from wall to wall before daring to raise his eyes to the table and the bench where Herr Arne had been wont to sit.

At last he looked there, and then he saw Herr Arne himself sitting in the flesh at the head of the table with his wife on one side and his curate on the other, as he had seen him a week before. He seemed to have just finished his meal, the dish was thrust away, and his spoon lay on the table before him. All the old men and women servants were sitting at the table, but only one of the young maids.

Torarin stood still a long time by the door and watched them that sat at table. They all looked anxious and mournful, and even Herr Arne was gloomy as the rest and supported his head in his hand.

At last Torarin saw him raise his head.

"Have you brought a stranger into the house with you, Olof groom?"

"Yes," answered the man, "it is Torarin the fish hawker, who has been this day at the a.s.size at Branehog."

Herr Arne's looks seemed to grow more cheerful at this, and Torarin heard him say: "Come forward then, Torarin, and give us news of the a.s.size! I have sat here and waited for half the night."

All this had such a real and natural air that Torarin began to feel more and more courageous. He walked quite boldly across the room to Herr Arne, asking himself whether the murder was not an evil dream and whether Herr Arne was not in truth alive.

But as Torarin crossed the room, his eyes from old habit sought the four-post bed, beside which the great money chest used to stand. But the ironbound chest was no longer in its place, and when Torarin saw that a shudder again pa.s.sed through him.

"Now Torarin is to tell us how things went at the a.s.size today,"

said Herr Arne.

Torarin tried to do as he was bid and tell of the a.s.size and the inquest, but he could command neither his lips nor his tongue, and his speech was faulty and stammering, so that Herr Arne stopped him at once. "Tell me only the main thing, Torarin. Were our murderers found and punished?"

"No, Herr Arne," Torarin had the boldness to answer. "Your murderers lie at the bottom of Hakefjord. How would you have any take revenge on them?"

When Torarin returned this answer Herr Arne's old temper seemed to be kindled within him and he smote the table hard. "What is that you say, Torarin? Has the Governor of Bohus been here with judges and clerks and held a.s.size and has no man had the wit to tell him where he may find my murderers?"

"No, Herr Arne," answered Torarin. "None among the living can tell him that."

Herr Arne sat awhile with a frown on his brow, staring dismally before him. Then he turned once more to Torarin.

"I know that you bear me affection, Torarin. Can you tell me how I may be revenged upon my murderers?"

"I can well understand, Herr Arne," said Torarin, "that you wish to be revenged upon those who so cruelly have deprived you of your life. But there is none amongst us who walk G.o.d's earth that can help you in this."

Herr Arne fell into a deep brooding when he heard this answer.

There was a long silence. After a while Torarin ventured to put forward a request. "I have now fulfilled your desire, Herr Arne, and told you how it went at the a.s.size. Have you aught else to ask me, or will you now let me go?"

"You are not to go, Torarin," said Herr Arne, "until you have answered me once more whether none of the living can give us vengeance."

"Not if all the men in Bohuslen and Norway came together to be revenged upon your murderers would they be able to find them,"

said Torarin.

Then said Herr Arne: "If the living cannot help us, we must help ourselves."

With this Herr Arne began in a loud voice to say a paternoster, not in Norse but in Latin, as had been the use of the country before his time. And as he uttered each word of the prayer he pointed with his finger at one of those who sat with him at the table. He went through them all in this way many times, until he came to Amen. And as he spoke this word his finger pointed at the young maid who was his niece.

The young maid rose at once from the bench, and Herr Arne said to her: "You know what you have to do."

Then the young maiden lamented and said: "Do not send me upon this errand! It is too heavy a charge to lay upon so tender a maid as I."

"You shall a.s.suredly go," said Herr Arne. "It is right that you go, since you have most to revenge. None of us has been robbed of so many years of life as you, who are the youngest among us."

"I desire not to be revenged on any man," said the maiden.

"You are to go at once," said Herr Arne. "And you will not be alone. You know that there are two among the living who sat with us here at table a week ago."

But when Torarin heard these words he thought they meant that Herr Arne charged him to contend with malefactors and murderers, and he cried out: "By the mercy of G.o.d I conjure you, Herr Arne--"

At that moment it seemed to Torarin that both Herr Arne and the parsonage vanished in a mist, and he himself sank down as though he had fallen from a giddy height, and with that he lost consciousness.

When he came to himself again dawn was breaking and he saw that he was lying on the ground in the yard of Solberga parsonage. His horse stood beside him with the sledge, and Grim barked and howled over him.

"It was all but a dream," said Torarin; "now I see that. The house is deserted and in ruin. I have seen neither Herr Arne nor any other. But I was so startled by the dream that I fell off the load."

CHAPTER IV

IN THE MOONLIGHT

When Herr Arne had been dead a fortnight there came some nights of clear, bright moonlight, and one evening Torarin was out with his sledge. He checked his horse time after time, as though he had difficulty in finding the way. Yet he was not driving through any trackless forest, but upon what looked like a wide and open plain, above which rose a number of rocky knolls.

The whole tract was covered with glittering white snow. It had fallen in calm weather and lay evenly, not in drifts and eddies.

As far as the eye could see there was nothing but the same even plain and the same rocky knolls.

"Grim, my dog," said Torarin, "if we saw this tonight for the first time we should think we were driving over a great heath. But still we should wonder that the ground was so even and the road free from stones and ruts. What sort of tract can this be, we should say, where there are neither ditches nor fences, and how comes it that no gra.s.s or bushes stick up through the snow? And why do we see no rivers and streams, which elsewhere are wont to draw their black furrows through the white fields even in the hardest frost?"