The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales by Various

V >> Various >> The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27

Another shot! A hand was stretched up through the earth as if to greet
the workers. "See there!" screamed Bruus. "He is holding out his hand
to me. Wait a little, Brother Niels! You will soon be avenged!"

The entire corpse was soon uncovered. It was the missing man. His face
was not recognizable, as decomposition had begun, and the nose was
broken and laid flat by a blow. But all the garments, even to the
shirt with his name woven into it, were known to those who stood
there. In one ear was a leaden ring, which, as we all knew, Niels
Bruus had worn for many years.

"Now, priest," cried Morten Bruus, "come and lay your hand on this
dead man if you dare to!"

"Almighty God!" sighed the rector, looking up to heaven, "Thou art my
witness that I am innocent. I struck him, that I confess, and I am
bitterly sorry for it. But he ran away. God Almighty alone knows who
buried him here."

"Jens Larsen knows also," cried Bruus, "and I may find more witnesses.
Judge! You will come with me to examine his servants. But first of all
I demand that you shall arrest this wolf in sheep's clothing."

Merciful God, how could I doubt any longer? The truth was clear to all
of us. But I was ready to sink into the earth in my shock and horror.
I was about to say to the rector that he must prepare to follow me,
when he himself spoke to me, pale and trembling like an aspen leaf.
"Appearances are against me," he said, "but this is the work of the
devil and his angels. There is One above who will bring my innocence
to light. Come, judge, I will await my fate in fetters. Comfort my
daughter. Remember that she is your betrothed bride."

He had scarcely uttered the words when I heard a scream and a fall
behind us. It was my beloved who lay unconscious on the ground. I
thought at first that she was dead, and God knows I wished that I
could lie there dead beside her. I raised her in my arms, but her
father took her from me and carried her into the house. I was called
to examine the wound on the dead man's head. The cut was not deep, but
it had evidently fractured the skull, and had plainly been made by a
blow from a spade or some similar blunt instrument.

Then we all entered the house. My beloved had revived again. She fell
on my neck and implored me, in the name of God, to help her father in
his terrible need. She begged me by the memory of our mutual love to
let her follow him to prison, to which I consented. I myself
accompanied him to Grenaa, but with a mournful heart. None of us spoke
a word on the sad journey. I parted from them in deep distress. The
corpse was laid in a coffin and will be buried decently to-morrow in
Veilbye churchyard.

To-morrow I must give a formal hearing to the witnesses. God be
merciful to me, unfortunate man!

Would that I had never obtained this position for which I--fool that I
am--strove so hard.

As the venerable man of God was brought before me, fettered hand and
foot, I felt as Pilate must have felt as they brought Christ before
him. It was to me as if my beloved--God grant her comfort, she lies
ill in Grenaa--had whispered to me, "Do nothing against that good
man!"

Oh, if he only were innocent, but I see no hope!

The three first witnesses repeated their testimony under oath, word
for word. Then came statements by the rector's two farm hands and the
dairy maid. The men had been in the kitchen on the fatal day, and as
the windows were open they had heard the quarrel between the rector
and Niels. As the widow had stated, these men had also heard the
rector say, "I will strike you dead at my feet!" They further
testified that the rector was very quick-tempered, and that when
angered he did not hesitate to strike out with whatever came into his
hand. He had struck a former hand once with a heavy maul.

The girl testified that on the night Jens Larsen claimed to have seen
the rector in the garden, she had lain awake and heard the creaking of
the garden door. When she looked out of the window she had seen the
rector in his dressing gown and nightcap go into the garden. She could
not see what he was doing there. But she heard the door creak again
about an hour later.

When the witnesses had been heard, I asked the unfortunate man whether
he would make a confession, or else, if he had anything to say in his
own defense. He crossed his hands over his breast and said, "So help
me God, I will tell the truth. I have nothing more to say than what I
have said already. I struck the dead man with my spade. He fell down,
but jumped up in a moment and ran away from the garden out into the
woods. What may have happened to him there, or how he came to be
buried in my garden, this I do not know. When Jens Larsen and my
servant testify that they saw me at night in the garden, either they
are lying, or Satan has blinded them. I can see this--unhappy man that
I am--that I have no one to turn to for help here on earth. Will He
who is in heaven be silent also, then must I bow to His inscrutable
will." He bowed his head with a deep sigh.

Some of those present began to weep, and a murmur arose that he might
possibly be innocent. But this was only the effect of the momentary
sympathy called out by his attitude. My own heart indeed spoke for
him. But the judge's heart may not dare to dictate to his brain or to
his conscience. My conviction forced me to declare that the rector had
killed Niels Bruus, but certainly without any premeditation or
intention to do so. It is true that Niels Bruus had often been heard
to declare that he would "get even with the rector when the latter
least expected it." But it is not known that he had fulfilled his
threat in any way. Every man clings to life and honor as long as he
can. Therefore the rector persists in his denial. My poor, dear Mette!
She is lost to me for this life at least, just as I had learned to
love her so dearly.

I have had a hard fight to fight to-day. As I sat alone, pondering
over this terrible affair in which it is my sad lot to have to give
judgment, the door opened and the rector's daughter--I may no longer
call her my betrothed--rushed in and threw herself at my feet. I
raised her up, clasped her in my arms and we wept together in silence.
I was first to control myself. "I know what you would say, dear heart.
You want me to save your father. Alas, God help us poor mortals, I
cannot do it! Tell me, dearest one, tell me truly, do you yourself
believe your father to be innocent?"

She crossed her hands on her heart and sobbed, "I do not know!" Then
she burst into tears again. "But he did not bury him in the garden,"
she continued after a few moments. "The man may have died in the wood
from the blow. That may have happened----"

"But, dearest heart," I said, "Jen Larsen and the girl saw your father
in the garden that night."

She shook her head slowly and answered, "The evil one blinded their
eyes." She wept bitterly again.

"Tell me, beloved," she began again, after a while, "tell me frankly
this much. If God sends us no further enlightenment in this
unfortunate affair, what sentence must you give?"

She gazed anxiously at me, her lips trembling.

"If I did not believe," I began slowly, "that anyone else in my place
would be more severe than I, then I would gladly give up my position
at once and refuse to speak the verdict. But I dare not conceal from
you that the mildest sentence that God, our king, and our laws demand
is, a life for a life."

She sank to her knees, then sprang up again, fell back several steps
as if afraid of me, and cried out: "Would you murder my father? Would
you murder your betrothed bride? See here! See this!" She came nearer
and held up her hand with my ring on it before my eyes. "Do you see
this betrothal ring? What was it my father said when you put this ring
upon my finger? 'I have given my maid unto thy bosom!' But you, you
thrust the steel deep into my bosom!"

Alas, every one of her words cut deep into my own heart. "Dearest
love," I cried, "do not speak so. You thrust burning irons into my
heart. What would you have me do? Acquit him, when the laws of God and
man condemn?"

She was silent, sobbing desperately.

"One thing I can do," I continued. "If it be wrong may God forgive me.
If the trial goes on to an end his life is forfeited, there is no hope
except in flight. If you can arrange an escape I will close my eyes. I
will not see or hear anything. As soon as your father was imprisoned,
I wrote to your brother in Copenhagen. He can arrive any moment now.
Talk to him, make friends with the jailer. If you lack money, all I
have is yours."

When I had finished her face flushed with joy, and she threw her arms
about my neck. "God bless you for these words. Were my brother but
here, he will know what to do. But where shall we go?" her tone
changed suddenly and her arms dropped. "Even should we find a refuge
in a foreign country I could never see you again!" Her tone was so sad
that my heart was near to breaking.

"Beloved," I exclaimed, "I will find you wherever you may hide
yourself! Should our money not be sufficient to support us I can work
for us all. I have learned to use the ax and the hoe."

She rejoiced again and kissed me many times. We prayed to God to bless
our undertaking and parted with glad hearts. I also hoped for the
best. Doubts assail me, but God will find for us some light in this
darkness.

Two more new witnesses. They bring nothing good, I fear, for Bruus
announced them with an expression I did not like. He has a heart of
stone, which can feel nothing but malice and bitterness. I give them a
hearing to-morrow. I feel as if they had come to bear witness against
me myself. May God strengthen my heart.

All is over. He has confessed.

The court was in session and the prisoner had been brought in to hear
the testimony of the new witnesses. These men stated as follows: On
the night in question they were walking along the path that led
between the woods and the rectory garden. A man with a large sack on
his back came out of the woods and walked ahead of them toward the
garden. They could not see his face, but in the bright moonlight his
figure was clearly visible, and they could see that he wore a loose
green garment, like a dressing gown, and a white nightcap. The man
disappeared through an opening in the rectory garden fence.

Scarcely had the first witness ended his statement when the rector
turned ghastly pale, and gasped, in a voice that could scarcely be
heard, "I am ill." They gave him a chair.

Bruus turned to his neighbor and exclaimed audibly, "That helped the
rector's memory."

The prisoner did not hear the words, but motioned to me and said,
"Lead me back to my prison. I will talk to you there." They did as he
demanded.

We set out at once for Grenaa. The rector was in the wagon with the
jailer and the gendarme, and I rode beside them.

When the door of the cell was opened my beloved was making up her
father's bed, and over a chair by the bedside hung the fatal green
dressing gown. My dear betrothed greeted me with a cry of joy, as she
believed that I was come to set her father free. She hung about the
old man's neck, kissing away the tears that rolled unhindered down his
cheeks. I had not the heart to undeceive her, and I sent her out into
the town to buy some things for us.

"Sit down, dear friend," said the rector, when we were alone. He
seated himself on the bed, staring at the ground with eyes that did
not see. Finally he turned toward me where I sat trembling, as if it
were my own sentence I was to hear, as in a manner it was. "I am a
great sinner," he sighed, "God only knows how great. His punishment
crushes me here that I may enter into His mercy hereafter."

He grew gradually calmer and began:

"Since my childhood I have been hot-tempered and violent. I could
never endure contradiction, and was always ready to give a blow. But I
have seldom let the sun go down upon my wrath, and I have never borne
hatred toward any man. As a half-grown boy I killed our good, kind
watchdog in one of my fits of rage for some trifling offense, and I
have never ceased to regret it. Later, as a student in Leipzig, I let
myself be carried away sufficiently to wound seriously my adversary in
one of our fencing bouts. A merciful fate alone saved me from becoming
a murderer then. It is for these earlier sins that I am now being
punished, but the punishment falls doubly hard, now that I am an old
man, a priest, a servant of the Lord of Peace, and a father! Ah, that
is the deepest wound!" He sprang up and wrung his hands in deep
despair. I would have said something to comfort him, but I could find
no words for such sorrow.

When he had controlled himself somewhat he sat down again and
continued: "To you, once my friend and now my judge, I will confess
this crime, which it seems beyond a doubt that I have committed,
although I am not conscious cf having done so." (I was startled at
this, as I had expected a remorseful confession.) "Listen well to what
I shall now tell you. That I struck the unfortunate man with the
spade, that he fell down and then ran away, this is all that I know
with full consciousness.... What followed then? Four witnesses have
seen that I fetched the body and buried it in my garden--and now at
last I am forced to believe that it must be true. These are my reasons
for the belief. Three or four times in my life I have walked in my
sleep. The last time--it may have been nine or ten years ago--I was to
have held a funeral service on the following day, over the body of a
man who had died a sudden and terrible death. I could not find a
suitable text, until suddenly there came to me the words of an old
Greek philosopher, 'Call no man fortunate until his death.' It was in
my mind that the same idea was expressed in different words in the
Holy Scriptures. I sought and sought, but could not find it. At last I
went to bed much fatigued, and slept soundly. Next morning, when I sat
down at my desk, to my great astonishment I saw there a piece of
paper, on which was written, 'Call no man happy until his end hath
come' (Sirach xi. 34), and following it was a funeral sermon, short,
but as good in construction as any I have ever written. And all this
was in my own handwriting. It was quite out of the question that
anyone could have entered the room during the night, as I had locked
it myself, and it had not been opened until I entered next day. I knew
what had happened, as I could remember one or two such occurrences in
my life before.

"Therefore, dear friend, when the last witnesses gave their testimony
to-day, I suddenly remembered my sleep-walking exploits, and I also
remembered, what had slipped my mind before, that on the morning after
the night the body was buried I had found my dressing gown in the hall
outside of my bedroom. This had surprised me, as I always hung it over
a chair near my bed. The unfortunate victim of my violence must have
died in the woods from his wound, and in my dream consciousness I must
have seen this and gone to fetch the body. It must be so. I know no
other explanation. God have mercy on my sinful soul." He was silent
again, covering his face with his hands and weeping bitterly.

I was stuck dumb with astonishment and uncertainty. I had always
suspected that the victim had died on the spot where he was buried,
although I could not quite understand how the rector had managed to
bury the body by day without being seen. But I thought that he might
have covered it lightly with earth and twigs and finished his work at
night. He was a man of sufficient strength of mind to have done this.
When the latest witnesses were telling their story, I noted the
possible contradiction, and hoped it might prove a loophole of escape.
But, alas, it was all only too true, and the guilt of the rector
proven beyond a doubt. It was not at all impossible for a man to do
such things in his sleep. Just as it was quite possible that a man
with a fractured skull could run some distance before he fell to die.
The rector's story bore the stamp of truth, although the doubt _will_
come that he desired thus to save a shred of honor for his name.

The prisoner walked up and down the room several times, then stopping
before me he said gravely: "You have now heard my confession, here in
my prison walls. It is your mouth that must speak my sentence. But
what says your heart?"

I could scarcely utter the words, "My heart suffers beyond expression.
I would willingly see it break if I could but save you from a shameful
death." (I dared not mention to him my last hope of escape in flight.)

"That is impossible," he answered. "My life is forfeited. My death is
just, and shall serve as a warning to others. But promise me that you
will not desert my poor daughter. I had thought to lay her in your
arms"--tears choked his voice--"but, alas, that fond hope is vanished.
You cannot marry the daughter of a sentenced murderer. But promise me
that you will watch over her as her second father." In deep sorrow and
in tears I held his hand in mine. "Have you any news from my son?" he
began again. "I hope it will be possible to keep him in ignorance of
this terrible affair until--until it is all over. I could not bear to
see him now. And now, dear friend, let us part, not to meet again
except in the hall of justice. Grant me of your friendship one last
service, let it end soon. I long for death. Go now, my kind,
sympathetic judge. Send for me to-morrow to speak my sentence, and
send to-day for my brother in God, the pastor in Aalsoe. He shall
prepare me for death. God be with you."

He gave me his hand with his eyes averted. I staggered from the
prison, hardly conscious of what I was doing. I would have ridden home
without seeing his daughter had she not met me by the prison door. She
must have seen the truth in my face, for she paled and caught at my
arm. She gazed at me with her soul in her eyes, but could not speak.
"Flee! Save your father in flight!" was all I could say.

I set spurs to my horse and rode home somehow.

To-morrow, then!

The sentence is spoken.

The accused was calmer than the judge. All those present, except his
bitter enemy, were affected almost to tears. Some whispered that the
punishment was too severe.

May God be a milder judge to me than I, poor sinner, am forced to be
to my fellow men.

She has been here. She found me ill in bed. There is no escape
possible. He will not flee. Everything was arranged and the jailer was
ready to help. But he refuses, he longs for death. God be merciful to
the poor girl. How will she survive the terrible day? I am ill in body
and soul, I can neither aid nor comfort her. There is no word from the
brother.

I feel that I am near death myself, as near perhaps as he is, whom I
sent to his doom. Farewell, my own beloved bride.... What will she do?
she is so strangely calm--the calm of wordless despair. Her brother
has not yet come, and to-morrow--on the Ravenshill----!

Here the diary of Erik Soerensen stopped suddenly. What followed can be
learned from the written and witnessed statements of the pastor of
Aalsoe, the neighboring parish to Veilbye.

II

It was during the seventeenth year of my term of office that the
terrible event happened in the neighborhood which filled all who heard
of it with shock and horror, and brought shame and disgrace upon our
holy calling. The venerable Soeren Quist, Rector of Veilbye, killed his
servant in a fit of rage and buried the body in his garden.

He was found guilty at the official trial, through the testimony of
many witnesses, as well as through his own confession. He was
condemned to death, and the sentence was carried out in the presence
of several thousand people on the little hill known as Ravenshill,
here in the field of Aalsoe.

The condemned man had asked that I might visit him in his prison. I
must state that I have never given the holy sacrament to a better
prepared or more truly repentant Christian. He was calm to the last,
full of remorse for his great sin. On the field of death he spoke to
the people in words of great wisdom and power, preaching to the text
from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, chap. ii., verse 6: "He hath
despised the priest in the indignation of his anger." He spoke of his
violence and of its terrible results, and of his deep remorse. He
exhorted his hearers to let his sin and his fate be an example to
them, and a warning not to give way to anger. Then he commended his
soul to the Lord, removed his upper garments, bound up his eyes with
his own hand, then folded his hands in prayer. When I had spoken the
words, "Brother, be of good cheer. This day shalt thou be with thy
Saviour in Paradise," his head fell by the ax.

The one thing that made death bitter for him was the thought of his
children. The son had been sent for from Copenhagen, but as we
afterwards learned, he had been absent from the city, and therefore
did not arrive until shortly after his father had paid the penalty for
his crime.

I took the daughter into my home, where she was brought, half
fainting, after they had led her father from the prison. She had been
tending him lovingly all the days of his trial. What made even greater
sorrow for the poor girl, and for the district judge who spoke the
sentence, was that these two young people had solemnly plighted their
troth but a few short weeks before, in the rectory of Veilbye. The son
arrived just as the body of the executed criminal was brought into my
house. It had been permitted to us to bury the body with Christian
rites, if we could do it in secret. The young man threw himself over
the lifeless body. Then, clasping his sister in his arms, the two wept
together in silence for some while. At midnight we held a quiet
service over the remains of the Rector of Veilbye, and the body was
buried near the door of Aalsoe church. A simple stone, upon which I
have carved a cross, still stands to remind the passer-by of the sin
of a most unfortunate man.

The next morning his two children had disappeared. They have never
been heard of since. God knows to what far-away corner of the world
they have fled, to hide their shame and their sorrow. The district
judge is very ill, and it is not believed that he will recover.

May God deal with us all after His wisdom and His mercy!

O Lord, inscrutable are thy ways!

In the thirty-eighth year of my service, and twenty-one years after my
unfortunate brother in office, the Rector of Veilbye had been beheaded
for the murder of his servant, it happened one day that a beggar came
to my door. He was an elderly man, with gray hair, and walked with a
crutch. He looked sad and needy. None of the servants were about, so I
myself went into the kitchen and gave him a piece of bread. I asked
him where he came from. He sighed and answered:

"From nowhere in particular."

Then I asked him his name. He sighed still deeper, looked about him as
if in fear, and said, "They once called me Niels Bruus."

I was startled, and said, "God have mercy on us! That is a bad name.
That is the name of a man who was killed many years back."

Whereat the man sighed still deeper and replied: "It would have been
better for me had I died then. It has gone ill with me since I left
the country."

At this the hair rose on my head, and I trembled in every limb. For it
seemed to me that I could recognize him, and also it seemed to me that
I saw Morten Bruus before me in the flesh, and yet I had laid the
earth over him three years before. I stepped back and made the sign of
the cross, for verily I thought it was a ghost I saw before me.

But the man sat down in the chimney corner and continued to speak.
"Reverend father, they tell me my brother Morten is dead. I have been
to Ingvorstrup, but the new owner chased me away. Is my old master,
the Rector of Veilbye, still alive?" Then it was that the scales fell
from my eyes and I saw into the very truth of this whole terrible
affair. But the shock stunned me so that I could not speak. The man
bit into his bread greedily and went on. "Yes, that was all Brother
Morten's fault. Did the old rector have much trouble about it?"

"Niels! Niels!" I cried from out the horror of my soul, "you have a
monstrous black sin upon your conscience! For your sake that
unfortunate man fell by the ax of the executioner!"

The bread and the crutch fell from his hand, and he himself was near
to falling into the fire. "May God forgive you, Morten!" he groaned.
"God knows I didn't mean anything like that. May my sin be forgiven
me! But surely you only mean to frighten me! I come from far away, and
have heard nothing. No one but you, reverend father, has recognized
me. I have told my name to no one. When I asked them in Veilbye if the
rector was still there, they said that he was."

"That is the new rector," I replied. "Not he whom you and your sinful
brother have slain."

He wrung his hands and cried aloud, and then I knew that he had been
but a tool in the hands of that devil, Morten. Therefore I set to work
to comfort him, and took him into my study that he might calm himself
sufficiently to tell me the detail of this Satan's work.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27