IV - From a Swedish Homestead - 12

IV

On the evening of All Saints' Day the moon shone bright and clear. The King had gone the round of the castle, had looked into stables and barns to see that all was well; he had even been to the house where the serfs dwelt to ascertain if they were well looked after. When he went back to the King's Hall, he saw a woman with a black kerchief over her head stealing towards the gateway. He thought he knew her, and therefore followed her. She went out of the gateway, over the Market Place, and stole down the narrow lanes to the river.

Olaf Haraldsson went after her as quietly as he could. He saw her go on to one of the landing-stages, stand still, and look down into the water. She stretched out her arms towards heaven, and, with a deep sigh, she went so near the edge that the King saw she meant to spring into the river.

The King approached her with the noiseless steps which a life full of danger had taught him. Twice the woman lifted her foot to make the spring, but she hesitated. Before she could make a new attempt, King Olaf had his arm round her waist and drew her back.

'Thou unhappy one!' he said. 'Thou wouldest do that which God hath prohibited.'

When the woman heard his voice she held her hands before her face as if to hide it. But King Olaf knew who she was. The rustle of her dress, the shape of her head, the golden rings on her arms had already told him that it was the Queen. The first moment Astrid had struggled to free herself, but she soon grew quiet, and tried to make the King believe that she had not intended to kill herself.

'King Olaf, why dost thou secretly come behind a poor woman who hath gone down to the river to see how she is mirrored in the water? What must I think of thee?'

Astrid's voice sounded composed and playful. The King stood silent.

'Thou hast frightened me so that I nearly fell into the river,' Astrid said. 'Didst thou think, perhaps, that I would drown myself?'

The King answered:

'I know not what to believe; God will enlighten me.'

Astrid laughed and kissed him.

'What woman would take her life who is as happy as I am? Doth one take one's life in Paradise?'

'I do not understand it,' said King Olaf, in his gentle manner. 'God will enlighten me. He will tell me if it be through any fault of mine that thou wouldest commit so great a sin.'

Astrid went up to him and stroked his cheek. The reverence she felt for King Olaf had hitherto deterred her from showing him the full tenderness of her love. Now she threw her arms passionately around him and kissed him countless times. Then she began to speak to him in gentle, bird-like tones.

'Wouldest thou know how truly my heart clings to thee?' she said.

She made the King sit down on an overturned boat. She knelt down at his feet.

'King Olaf,' she said, 'I will no longer be Queen. She who loves as greatly as I love thee cannot be a Queen. I wish thou wouldest go far into the forest, and let me be thy bondwoman. Then I should have leave to serve thee every day. Then I would prepare thy food, make thy bed, and watch over thy house whilst thou slept. None other should have leave to serve thee, except I. When thou returnest from the chase in the evening, I would go to meet thee, and kneel before thee on the road and say: "King Olaf, my life is thine." And thou wouldest laugh, and lower thy spear against my breast, and say: "Yes, thy life is mine. Thou hast neither father nor mother; thou art mine, and thy life is mine."'

As Astrid said this, she drew, as if in play, King Olaf's sword out of its sheath. She laid the hilt in the King's hand, but the point she directed towards her own heart.

'Say these words to me, King Olaf,' she said, 'as if we were alone in the forest, and I were thy bondwoman. Say: "Thy life is mine."'

'Thy life is God's,' said the King.

Astrid laughed lightly.

'My life is thine,' she repeated, in the tenderest voice, and the same moment King Olaf felt that she pressed the point of the sword against her breast.

But the King held the sword with a firm hand, even when in play. He drew it to him before Astrid had time to do herself any harm. And he sprang up. For the first time in his life he trembled from fear. The Queen would die at his hand, and she had not been far from attaining her wish. At the same moment he had an inspiration, and he understood what was the cause of her despair.

'She has committed a sin,' he thought. 'She has a sin upon her conscience.'

He bent down over Astrid.

'Tell me in what manner thou hast sinned,' he said.

Astrid had thrown herself down on the rough planks of the bridge, crying in utter despair.

'No one free from guilt would weep like this,' thought the King. 'But how can the honourable daughter of the King have brought such a heavy burden upon her?' he asked himself. 'How can the noble Ingegerd have a crime upon her conscience?'

'Ingegerd, tell me how thou hast sinned,' he asked again.

But Astrid was sobbing so violently that she could not answer, but instead she drew off her golden arm and finger rings, and handed them to the King with averted face. The King thought how unlike this was to the gentle King's daughter of whom Hjalte had spoken.

'Is this Hjalte's Ingegerd that lies sobbing at my feet?' he thought.

He bent down and seized Astrid by the shoulder.

'Who are thou? who art thou?' he said, shaking her arm. 'I see that thou canst not be Ingegerd. Who art thou?'

Astrid was still sobbing so violently that she could not speak. But in order to give the King the answer he asked for, she let down her long hair, twisted a lock of it round her arms, and held them towards the King, and sat thus bowed and with drooping head. The King thought:

'She wishes me to understand that she belongs to those who wear chains. She confesses that she is a bondwoman.'

A thought again struck the King; he now understood everything.

'Has not the Svea-King a daughter who is the child of a bondwoman?' he asked suddenly.

He received no answer to this question either, but he heard Astrid shudder as if from cold. King Olaf asked still one more question.

'Thou whom I have made my wife,' he said, 'hast thou so low a mind that thou wouldest allow thyself to be used as a means of spoiling a man's honour? Is thy mind so mean that thou rejoicest when his enemies laugh at his discomfiture?'

Astrid could hear from the King's voice how bitterly he suffered under the insult that had been offered him. She forgot her own sufferings, and wept no more.

'Take my life,' she said.

A great temptation came upon King Olaf.

'Slay this wicked bondwoman,' the old Adam said within him. 'Show the Svea-King what it costs to make a fool of the King of Norway.'

At that moment Olaf Haraldsson felt no love for Astrid. He hated her for having been the means of his humiliation. He knew everybody would think it right when he returned evil for evil, and if he did not avenge this insult, he would be held in derision by the Bards, and his enemies would no longer fear him. He had but one wish: to slay Astrid, to take her life. His anger was so violent that it craved for blood. If a fool had dared to put his fool's cap upon his head, would he not have torn it off, torn it to pieces, thrown it on the ground, trampled upon it? If he now laid Astrid a bloody corpse upon her ship, and sent her back to her father, people would say of King Olaf that he was a worthy descendant of Harald Haarfager.

But King Olaf still held his sword in his hand, and under his fingers he felt the hilt, upon which he had once had inscribed: 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' 'Blessed are the meek,' 'Blessed are the merciful.' And every time he, in this hour of anguish, grasped his sword firmly in order to slay Astrid, he felt these words under his hand. He thought he could feel every letter. He remembered the day when he had first heard these words.

'This I will write in letters of gold on the hilt of my sword,' he had said, 'so that the words may burn in my hand every time I would swing my sword in fury, or for an unjust cause.'

He felt that the hilt of the sword now burnt in his hand. King Olaf said aloud to himself:

'Formerly thou wert the slave of many lusts; now thou hast but one master, and that is God.'

With these words he put back the sword into its sheath, and began to walk to and fro on the bridge. Astrid remained lying in the same position. King Olaf saw that she crouched in fear of death every time he went past her.

'I will not slay thee,' he said; but his voice sounded hard from hatred.

King Olaf continued for awhile to walk backwards and forwards on the bridge; then he went up to Astrid, and asked her in the same hard voice what her real name was, and that she was able to answer him. He looked at this woman whom he had so highly treasured, and who now lay at his feet like a wounded deer—he looked down upon her as a dead man's soul looks with pity at the poor body which was once its dwelling.

'Oh, thou my soul,' said King Olaf, 'it was there thou dwelt in love, and now thou art as homeless as a beggar.' He drew nearer to Astrid, and spoke as if she were no longer living or could hear what he said. 'It was told me that there was a King's daughter whose heart was so pure and holy that she endued with peace all who came near her. They told me of her gentleness, that he who saw her felt as safe as a helpless child does with its mother, and when the beautiful woman who now lies here came to me, I thought that she was Ingegerd, and she became exceeding dear to me. She was so beautiful and glad, and she made my own heavy thoughts light. And did she sometimes act otherwise than I expected the proud Ingegerd to do, she was too dear to me to doubt her; she stole into my heart with her joyousness and beauty.'

He was silent for a time, and thought how dear Astrid had been to him and how happiness had with her come to his house.

'I could forgive her,' he said aloud. 'I could again make her my Queen, I could in love take her in my arms; but I dare not, for my soul would still be homeless. Ah, thou fair woman,' he said, 'why dost lying dwell within thee? With thee there is no security, no rest.'

The King went on bemoaning himself, but now Astrid stood up.

'King Olaf, do not speak thus to me,' she said; 'I will rather die. Understand, I am in earnest.'

Then she tried to say a few words to excuse herself. She told him that she had gone to Kungahälla not with the intention of deceiving him, but in order to be a Princess for a few weeks, to be waited upon like a Queen, to sail on the sea. But she had intended to confess who she was as soon as she came to Kungahälla. There she expected to find Hjalte and the other great men who knew Ingegerd. She had never thought of deceiving him when she came, but an evil spirit had sent all those away who knew Ingegerd, and then the temptation had come to her.

'When I saw thee, King Olaf,' she said, 'I forgot everything to become thine, and I thought I would gladly suffer death at thine hand had I but for one day been thy wife.'

King Olaf answered her:

'I see that what was deadly earnest to me was but a pastime to thee. Never hast thou thought upon what it was to come and say to a man: "I am she whom thou most fervently desirest; I am that high-born maiden whom it is the greatest honour to win." And then thou art not that woman; thou art but a lying bondwoman.'

'I have loved thee from the first moment I heard thy name,' Astrid said softly.

The King clenched his hand in anger against her.

'Know, Astrid, that I have longed for Ingegerd as no man has ever longed for woman. I would have clung to her as the soul of the dead clings to the angel bearing him upwards. I thought she was so pure that she could have helped me to lead a sinless life.'

And he broke out into wild longings, and said that he longed for the power of the holy ones of God, but that he was too weak and sinful to attain to perfection.

'But the King's daughter could have helped me,' he said; 'she the saintly and gentle one would have helped me. Oh, my God,' he said, 'whichever way I turn I see sinners, wherever I go I meet those who would entice me to sin. Why didst Thou not send me the King's daughter, who had not a single evil thought in her heart? Her gentle eye would have found the right path for my foot. Whenever I strayed from it her gentle hand would have led me back.'

A feeling of utter helplessness and the weariness of despair fell upon Olaf Haraldsson.

'It was this upon which I had set my hopes,' he said—'to have a good woman at my side, not to wander alone amongst wickedness and sin forever. Now I feel that I must succumb; I am unable to fight any longer. Have I not asked God,' he exclaimed, 'what place I shall have before His face? To what hast Thou chosen me, Thou Lord of souls? Is it appointed unto me to become the equal of apostles and martyrs? But now, Astrid, I need ask no longer; God hath not been willing to give me that woman who should have assisted me in my wandering. Now I know that I shall never win the crown of the Saints.'

The King was silent in inconsolable despair; then Astrid drew nearer to him.

'King Olaf,' she said, 'what thou now sayest both Hjalte and Ingegerd have told me long ago, but I would not believe that thou wert more than a good and brave knight and noble King. It is only now that I have lived under thy roof that my soul has begun to fear thee. I have felt that it was worse than death to appear before thee with a lie upon my lips. Never have I been so terrified,' Astrid continued, 'as when I understood that thou wast a Saint. When I saw thee burn the chips in thine hand, when I saw sickness flee at thy bidding, and the sword fall out of thine enemy's hand when he met thee, I was terrified unto death when I saw that thou wast a Saint, and I resolved to die before thou knewest that I had deceived thee.'

King Olaf did not answer. Astrid looked up at him; she saw that his eyes were turned towards heaven. She did not know if he had heard her.

'Ah,' she said, 'this moment have I feared every day and every hour since I came hither. I would have died rather than live through it.'

Olaf Haraldsson was still silent.

'King Olaf,' she said, 'I would gladly give my life for thee; I would gladly throw myself into the gray river so that thou shouldst not live with a lying woman at thy side. The more I saw of thy holiness the better I understood that I must go from thee. A Saint of God cannot have a lying bondwoman at his side.'

The King was still silent, but now Astrid raised her eyes to his face; then she cried out, terror-stricken:

'King Olaf, thy face shines.'

Whilst Astrid spoke, God had shown King Olaf a vision. He saw all the stars of heaven leave their appointed places, and fly like swarming bees about the universe. But suddenly they all gathered above his head and formed a radiant crown.

'Astrid,' said he, with trembling voice, 'God hath spoken to me. It is true what thou sayest. I shall become a Saint of God.'

His voice trembled from emotion, and his face shone in the night. But when Astrid saw the light that surrounded his head, she arose. For her the last hope had faded.

'Now I will go,' she said. 'Now thou knowest whom thou art. Thou canst never more bear me at thy side. But think gently of me. Without joy or happiness have I lived all my life. In rags have I gone; blows have I endured. Forgive me when I am gone. My love has done thee no harm.'

When Astrid in silent despair crossed over the bridge, Olaf Haraldsson awoke from his ecstasy. He hastened after her.

'Why wilt thou go?' he said. 'Why wilt thou go?'

'Must I not go from thee when thou art a Saint?' she whispered scarcely audibly.

'Thou shalt not go. Now thou canst remain,' said King Olaf. 'Before, I was a lowly man and must fear all sin; a poor earthly King was I, too poor to bestow on thee my grace; but now all the glory of Heaven has been given to me. Art thou weak? I am the Lord's knight. Dost thou fall? I can lift thee up. God hath chosen me, Astrid. Thou canst not harm me, but I can help thee. Ah! what am I saying? In this hour God hath so wholly and fully shed the riches of His love in my heart that I cannot even see thou hast done wrong.'

Gently and tenderly he lifted up the trembling form, and whilst lovingly supporting her, who was still sobbing and who could hardly stand upright, he and Astrid went back to the King's Castle.

III. [Old Agnete]

From a Swedish

Homestead

III

Old Agnete

An old woman went up the mountain-path with short, tripping steps. She was little and thin. Her face was pale and wizened, but neither hard nor furrowed. She wore a long cloak and a quilled cap. She had a Prayer-Book in her hand and a sprig of lavender in her handkerchief.

She lived in a hut far up the high mountain where no trees could grow. It was lying quite close to the edge of a broad glacier, which sent its river of ice from the snow-clad mountain peak into the depths of the valley. There she lived quite alone. All those who had belonged to her were dead.

It was Sunday, and she had been to church. But whatever might be the cause, her going there had not made her happy, but sorrowful. The clergyman had spoken about death and the doomed, and that had affected her. She had suddenly begun to think of how she had heard in her childhood that many of the doomed were tormented in the region of eternal cold on the mountain right above her dwelling. She could remember many tales about these wanderers of the glaciers—these indefatigable shadows which were hunted from place to place by the icy mountain winds.

All at once she felt a great terror of the mountain, and thought that her hut was dreadfully high up. Supposing those who moved about invisibly there wandered down the glaciers! And she who was quite alone! The word 'alone' gave to her thoughts a still sadder turn. She again felt the full burden of that sorrow which never left her. She thought how hard it was to be so far away from human beings.

'Old Agnete,' she said aloud to herself, as she had got into the habit of doing in the lonely waste, 'you sit in your hut and spin, and spin. You work and toil all the hours of the day so as not to perish from hunger. But is there anyone to whom you give any pleasure by being alive? Is there anyone, old Agnete? If any of your own were living——Yes, then, perhaps, if you lived nearer the village, you might be of some use to somebody. Poor as you are, you could neither take dog nor cat home to you, but you could probably now and then give a beggar shelter. You ought not to live so far away from the highroad, old Agnete. If you could only once in a while give a thirsty wayfarer a drink, then you would know that it was of some use your being alive.'

She sighed, and said to herself that not even the peasant women who gave her flax to spin would mourn her death. She had certainly striven to do her work honestly and well, but no doubt there were many who could have done it better. She began to cry bitterly, when the thought struck her that his reverence, who had seen her sitting in the same place in church for so many, many years, would perhaps think it a matter of perfect indifference whether she was dead or not.

'It is as if I were dead,' she said. 'No one asks after me. I would just as well lie down and die. I am already frozen to death from cold and loneliness. I am frozen to the core of the heart, I am indeed. Ah me! ah me!' she said, now she had been set a-thinking; 'if there were only someone who really needed me, there might still be a little warmth left in old Agnete. But I cannot knit stockings for the mountain goats, or make the beds for the marmots, can I? I tell Thee,' she said, stretching our her hands towards heaven, 'something Thou must give me to do, or I shall lay me down and die.'

At the same moment a tall, stern monk came towards her. He walked by her side because he saw that she was sorrowful, and she told him about her troubles. She said that her heart was nearly frozen to death, and that she would become like one of the wanderers on the glacier if God did not give her something to live for.

'God will assuredly do that,' said the monk.

'Do you not see that God is powerless here?' old Agnete said. 'Here there is nothing but an empty, barren waste.'

They went higher and higher towards the snow mountains. The moss spread itself softly over the stones; the Alpine herbs, with their velvety leaves, grew along the pathway; the mountain, with its rifts and precipices, its glaciers and snow-drifts, towered above them, weighing them down. Then the monk discovered old Agnete's hut, right below the glacier.

'Oh,' he said, 'is it there you live? Then you are not alone there; you have company enough. Only look!'

The monk put his thumb and first finger together, held them before old Agnete's left eye, and bade her look through them towards the mountain. But old Agnete shuddered and closed her eyes.

'If there is anything to see up there, then I will not look on any account,' she said. 'The Lord preserve us! it is bad enough without that.'

'Good-bye, then,' said the monk; 'it is not certain that you will be permitted to see such a thing a second time.'

Old Agnete grew curious; she opened her eyes and looked towards the glacier. At first she saw nothing remarkable, but soon she began to discern things moving about. What she had taken to be mist and vapour, or bluish-white shadows on the ice, were multitudes of doomed souls, tormented in the eternal cold.

Poor old Agnete trembled like an aspen leaf. Everything was just as she had heard it described in days gone by. The dead wandered about there in endless anguish and pain. Most of them were shrouded in something long and white, but all had their faces and their hands bared.

They could not be counted, there was such a multitude. The longer she looked, the more there appeared. Some walked proud and erect, others seemed to dance over the glacier; but she saw that they all cut their feet on the sharp and jagged edges of the ice.

It was just as she had been told. She saw how they constantly huddled close together, as if to warm themselves, but immediately drew back again, terrified by the deathly cold which emanated from their bodies.

It was as if the cold of the mountain came from them, as if it were they who prevented the snow from melting and made the mist so piercingly cold.

They were not all moving; some stood in icy stoniness, and it looked as if they had been standing thus for years, for ice and snow had gathered around them so that only the upper portion of their bodies could be seen.

The longer the little old woman gazed the quieter she grew. Fear left her, and she was only filled with sorrow for all these tormented beings. There was no abatement in their pain, no rest for their torn feet, hurrying over ice sharp as edged steel. And how cold they were! how they shivered! how their teeth chattered from cold! Those who were petrified and those who could move, all suffered alike from the snarling, biting, unbearable cold.

There were many young men and women; but there was no youth in their faces, blue with cold. It looked as if they were playing, but all joy was dead. They shivered, and were huddled up like old people.

But those who made the deepest impression on her were those frozen fast in the hard glacier, and those who were hanging from the mountain-side like great icicles.

Then the monk removed his hand, and old Agnete saw only the barren, empty glaciers. Here and there were ice-mounds, but they did not surround any petrified ghosts. The blue light on the glacier did not proceed from frozen bodies; the wind chased the snowflakes before it, but not any ghosts.

Still old Agnete was certain that she had really seen all this, and she asked the monk:

'Is it permitted to do anything for these poor doomed ones?'

He answered:

'When has God forbidden Love to do good or Mercy to solace?'

Then the monk went his way, and old Agnete went to her hut and thought it all over. The whole evening she pondered how she could help the doomed who were wandering on the glaciers. For the first time in many years she had been too busy to think of her loneliness.

Next morning she again went down to the village. She smiled, and was well content. Old age was no longer so heavy a burden. 'The dead,' she said to herself, 'do not care so much about red cheeks and light steps. They only want one to think of them with a little warmth. But young people do not trouble to do that. Oh no, oh no. How should the dead protect themselves from the terrible coldness of death did not old people open their hearts to them?

When she came to the village shop she bought a large package of candles, and from a peasant she ordered a great load of firewood; but in order to pay for it she had to take in twice as much spinning as usual.

Towards evening, when she got home again, she said many prayers, and tried to keep up her courage by singing hymns. But her courage sank more and more. All the same, she did what she had made up her mind to do.

She moved her bed into the inner room of her hut. In the front room she made a big fire and lighted it. In the window she placed two candles, and left the outer door wide open. Then she went to bed.

She lay in the darkness and listened.

Yes, there certainly was a step. It was as if someone had come gliding down the glacier. It came heavily, moaning. It crept round the hut as if it dared not come in. Close to the wall it stood and shivered.

Old Agnete could not bear it any longer. She sprang out of bed, went into the outer room and closed the door. It was too much; flesh and blood could not stand it.

Outside the hut she heard deep sighs and dragging steps, as of sore, wounded feet. They dragged themselves away further and further up the icy glacier. Now and again she also heard sobs; but soon everything was quiet.

Then old Agnete was beside herself with anxiety. 'You are a coward, you silly old thing,' she said. 'Both the fire and the lights, which cost so much, are burning out. Shall it all have been done in vain because you are such a miserable coward?' And when she had said this she got out of bed again, crying from fear, with chattering teeth, and shivering all over; but into the other room she went, and the door she opened.

Again she lay and waited. Now she was no longer frightened that they should come. She was only afraid lest she had scared them away, and that they dared not come back.

And as she lay there in the darkness she began to call just as she used to do in her young days when she was tending the sheep.

'My little white lambs, my lambs in the mountains, come, come! Come down from rift and precipice, my little white lambs!'

Then it seemed as if a cold wind from the mountain came rushing into the room. She heard neither step nor sob, only gusts of wind that came rushing along the walls of the hut into the room. And it sounded as if someone were continually saying:

'Hush, hush! Don't frighten her! don't frighten her! don't frighten her!'

She had a feeling as if the outside room was so overcrowded that they were being crushed against the walls, and that the walls were giving way. Sometimes it seemed as if they would lift the roof in order to gain more room. But the whole time there were whispers:

'Hush, hush! Don't frighten her! don't frighten her!'

Then old Agnete felt happy and peaceful. She folded her hands and fell asleep. In the morning it seemed as if the whole had been a dream. Everything looked as usual in the outer room; the fire had burnt out, and so had the candles. There was not a vestige of tallow left in the candlesticks.

As long as old Agnete lived she continued to do this. She spun and worked so that she could keep her fire burning every night. And she was happy because someone needed her.

Then one Sunday she was not in her usual seat in the church. Two peasants went up to her hut to see if there was anything the matter. She was already dead, and they carried her body down to the village to bury it.

When, the following Sunday, her funeral took place, just before Mass, there were but few who followed, neither did one see grief on any face. But suddenly, just as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, a tall, stern monk came into the churchyard, and he stood still and pointed to the snow-clad mountains. Then they saw the whole mountain-ridge shining in a red light as if lighted with joy, and round it wound a procession of small yellow flames, looking like burning candles. And these flames numbered as many as the candles which old Agnete had burned for the doomed. Then people said: 'Praise the Lord! She whom no one mourns here below has all the same found friends in the solitude above.'

IV. [The Fisherman's Ring]

From a Swedish

Homestead

The Fisherman's Ring

During the reign of the Doge Gradenigos there lived in Venice an old fisherman, Cecco by name. He had been an unusually strong man, and was still very strong for his age, but lately he had given up work and left it to his two sons to provide for him. He was very proud of his sons, and he loved them—ah, signor, how he loved them!

Fate had so ordered it that their bringing up had been almost entirely left to him. Their mother had died early, and so Cecco had to take care of them. He had looked after their clothes and cooked their food; he had sat in the boat with needle and cotton and mended and darned. He had not cared in the least that people had laughed at him on that account. He had also, quite alone, taught them all it was necessary for them to know. He had made a couple of able fishermen of them, and taught them to honour God and San Marco.

'Always remember,' he said to them, 'that Venice will never be able to stand in her own strength. Look at her! Has she not been built on the waves? Look at the low islands close to land, where the sea plays amongst the seaweed. You would not venture to tread upon them, and yet it is upon such foundation that the whole city rests. And do you not know that the north wind has strength enough to throw both churches and palaces into the sea? Do you not know that we have such powerful enemies, that all the princes in Christendom cannot vanquish them? Therefore you must always pray to San Marco, for in his strong hands rests the chains which hold Venice suspended over the depths of the sea.'

And in the evening, when the moon shed its light over Venice, greenish-blue from the sea-mist; when they quietly glided up the Canale Grande and the gondolas they met were full of singers; when the palaces shone in their white splendour, and thousands of lights mirrored themselves in the dark waters—then he always reminded them that they must thank San Marco for life and happiness.

But oh, signor! he did not forget him in the daytime either. When they returned from fishing and glided over the water of the lagoons, light-blue and golden; when the city lay before them, swimming on the waves; when the great ships passed in and out of the harbour, and the palace of the Doges shone like a huge jewel-casket, holding all the world's treasure—then he never forgot to tell them that all these things were the gift of San Marco, and that they would all vanish if a single Venetian were ungrateful enough to give up believing in and adoring him.

Then, one day, the sons went out fishing on the open sea, outside Lido. They were in company with several others, had a splendid vessel, and intended being away several days. The weather was fine, and they hoped for a goodly haul.

They left the Rialto, the large island where the city proper lies, one early morning, and as they passed through the lagoons they saw all the islands which, like fortifications, protect Venice against the sea, appear through the mist of the morning. There were La Gindecca and San Giorgio on the right, and San Michele, Muracco and San Lazzaro on the left. Then island followed upon island in a large circle, right on to the long Lido lying straight before them, and forming, as it were, the clasp of this string of pearls. And beyond Lido was the wide, infinite sea.

When they were well at sea, some of them got into a small boat and rowed out to set their nets. It was still fine weather, although the waves were higher here than inside the islands. None of them, however, dreamt of any danger. They had a good boat and were experienced men. But soon those left on the vessel saw that the sea and the sky suddenly grew darker in the north. They understood that a storm was coming on, and they at once shouted to their comrades, but they were already too far away to hear them.

The wind first reached the small boat. When the fishermen suddenly saw the waves rise around them, as herds of cattle on a large plain arise in the morning, one of the men in the boat stood up and beckoned to his comrades, but the same moment he fell backwards into the sea. Immediately afterwards a wave came which raised the boat on her bows, and one could see how the men, as it were, were shaken from off their seats and flung into the sea. It only lasted a moment, and everything had disappeared. Then the boat again appeared, keel upwards. The men in the vessel tried to reach the spot, but could not tack against the wind.

It was a terrific storm which came rushing over the sea, and soon the fishermen in the vessel had their work set to save themselves. They succeeded in getting home safely, however, and brought with them the news of the disaster. It was Cecco's two sons and three others who had perished.

Ah me! how strangely things come about! The same morning Cecco had gone down to the Rialto to the fish-market. He went about amongst the stands and strutted about like a fine gentleman because he had no need to work. He even invited a couple of old Lido fishermen to an asteri and stood them a beaker of wine. He grew very important as he sat there and bragged and boasted about his sons. His spirits rose high, and he took out the zecchine—the one the Doge had given him when he had saved a child from drowning in Canale Grande. He was very proud of this large gold coin, carried it always about him, and showed it to people whenever there was an opportunity.

Suddenly a man entered the asteri and began to tell about the disaster, without noticing that Cecco was sitting there. But he had not been speaking long before Cecco threw himself over him and seized him by the throat.

'You do not dare to tell me that they are dead!' he shrieked—'not my sons!'

The man succeeded in getting away from him, but Cecco for a long time went on as if he were out of his mind. People heard him shout and groan; they crowded into the asteri—as many as it could hold—and stood round him in a circle as if he were a juggler.

Cecco sat on the floor and moaned. He hit the hard stone floor with his fist, and said over and over again:

'It is San Marco, San Marco, San Marco!'

'Cecco, you have taken leave of your senses from grief,' they said to him.

'I knew it would happen on the open sea,' Cecco said; 'outside Lido and Malamocco, there, I knew it would happen. There San Marco would take them. He bore them a grudge. I have feared it, boy. Yes,' he said, without hearing what they said to quiet him, 'they once laughed at him, once when we were lying outside Lido. He has not forgotten it; he will not stand being laughed at.'

He looked with confused glances at the bystanders, as if to seek help.

'Look here, Beppo from Malamocca,' he said, stretching out his hand towards a big fisherman, 'don't you believe it was San Marco?'

'Don't imagine any such thing, Cecco.'

'Now you shall hear, Beppo, how it happened. You see, we were lying out at sea, and to while away the time I told them how San Marco had come to Venice. The evangelist San Marco was first buried in a beautiful cathedral at Alexandria in Egypt. But the town got into the possession of unbelievers, and one day the Khalifa ordered that they should build him a magnificent palace at Alexandria, and take some columns from the Christian churches for its decoration. But just at that time there were two Venetian merchants at Alexandria who had ten heavily-laden vessels lying in the harbour. When these men entered the church where San Marco was buried and heard the command of the Khalifa, they said to the sorrowful priests: "The precious body which you have in your church may be desecrated by the Saracens. Give it to us; we will honour it, for San Marco was the first to preach on the Lagoon, and the Doge will reward you." And the priests gave their consent, and in order that the Christians of Alexandria should not object, the body of another holy man was placed in the Evangelist's coffin. But to prevent the Saracens from getting any news of the removal of the body, it was placed at the bottom of a large chest, and above it were packed hams and smoked bacon, which the Saracens could not endure. So when the Custom-house officers opened the lid of the chest, they at once hurried away. The two merchants, however, brought San Marco safely to Venice; you know, Beppo, that this is what they say.'

'I do, Cecco.'

'Yes; but just listen now,' and Cecco half arose, and in his fear spoke in a low voice. 'Something terrible now happened. When I told the boys that the holy man had been hidden underneath the bacon, they burst out laughing. I tried to hush them, but they only laughed the louder. Giacomo was lying on his stomach in the bows, and Pietro sat with his legs dangling outside the boat, and they both laughed so that it could be heard far out over the sea.'

'But, Cecco, surely two children may be allowed to laugh.'

'But don't you understand that is where they have perished to-day—on the very spot? Or can you understand why they should have lost their lives on that spot?'

Now they all began to talk to him and comfort him. It was his grief which made him lose his senses. This was not like San Marco. He would not revenge himself upon two children. Was it not natural that when a boat was caught in a storm this would happen on the open sea and not in the harbour?

Surely his sons had not lived in enmity with San Marco. They had heard them shout, 'Eviva San Marco!' as eagerly as all the others, and had he not protected them to this very day. He had never, during the years that had passed, shown any sign of being angry with them.

'But, Cecco,' they said, 'you will bring misfortune upon us with your talk about San Marco. You, who are an old man and a wise man, should know better than to raise his anger against the Venetians. What are we without him?'

Cecco sat and looked at them bewildered.

'Then you don't believe it?'

'No one in his senses would believe such a thing.'

It looked as if they had succeeded in quieting him.

'I will also try not to believe it,' he said. He rose and walked towards the door. 'It would be too cruel, would it not?' he said. 'They were too handsome and too brave for anyone to hate them; I will not believe it.'

He went home, and in the narrow street outside his door he met an old woman, one of his neighbours.

'They are reading a Mass in the cathedral for the souls of the dead,' she said to Cecco, and hurried away. She was afraid of him; he looked so strange.

Cecco took his boat and made his way through the small canals down to Riva degli Schiavoni. There was a wide view from there; he looked towards Lido and the sea. Yes, it was a hard wind, but not a storm by any means; there were hardly any waves. And his sons had perished in weather like this! It was inconceivable.

He fastened his boat, and went across the Piazetta and the Market Place into San Marco. There were many people in the church, and they were all kneeling and praying in great fear; for it is much more terrible for the Venetians, you know, than any other people when there is a disaster at sea. They do not get their living from vineyards or fields, but they are all, everyone of them, dependent on the sea. Whenever the sea rose against any one of them they were all afraid, and hurried to San Marco to pray to him for protection.

As soon as Cecco entered the cathedral he stopped. He thought of how he had brought his little sons there, and taught them to pray to San Marco. 'It is he who carries us over the sea, who opens the gates of Byzance for us and gives us the supremacy over the islands of the East,' he said to them. Out of gratitude for all this the Venetians had built San Marco the most beautiful temple in the world, and no vessel ever returned from a foreign port without bringing a gift for San Marco.

Then they had admired the red marble walls of the cathedral and the golden mosaic ceiling. It was as if no misfortune could befall a city that had such a sanctuary for her patron Saint.

Cecco quickly knelt down and began to pray, the one Paternoster after the other. It came back, he felt. He would send it away by prayers. He would not believe anything bad about San Marco.

But it had been no storm at all. And so much was certain, that even if the Saint had not sent the storm, he had, in any case, not done anything to help Cecco's sons, but had allowed them to perish as if by accident. When this thought came upon him he began to pray; but the thought would not leave him.

And to think that San Marco had a treasury in this cathedral full of all the glories of fairyland! To think that he had himself prayed to him all his life, and had never rowed past the Piazetta without going into the cathedral to invoke him!

Surely it was not by a mere accident that his sons had to-day perished on the sea! Oh, it was miserable for the Venetians to have no one better to depend upon! Just fancy a Saint who revenged himself upon two children—a patron Saint who could not protect against a gust of wind!

He stood up, and he shrugged his shoulders, and disparagingly waved his hand when he looked towards the tomb of the Saint in the chancel.

A verger was going about with a large chased silver-gilt dish, collecting gifts for San Marco. He went from the one person to the other, and also came to Cecco.

Cecco drew back as if it were the Evil One himself who handed him the plate. Did San Marco ask for gifts from him? Did he think he deserved gifts from him?

All at once he seized the large golden zecchine he had in his belt, and flung it into the plate with such violence that the ring of it could be heard all over the church. It disturbed those who were praying, and made them turn round. And all who saw Cecco's face were terrified; he looked as if he were possessed of evil spirits.

Cecco immediately left the church, and at first felt it as a great relief that he had been revenged upon the Saint. He had treated him as one treats a usurer who demands more than he is entitled to. 'Take this too,' one says, and throws his last gold piece in the fellow's face so that the blood runs down over his eyes. But the usurer does not strike again—simply stoops and picks up the zecchine. So, too, had San Marco done. He had accepted Cecco's zecchine, having first robbed him of his sons. Cecco had made him accept a gift which had been tendered with such bitter hatred. Would an honourable man have put up with such treatment? But San Marco was a coward—both cowardly and revengeful. But he was not likely to revenge himself upon Cecco. He was, no doubt, pleased and thankful he had got the zecchine. He simply accepted it and pretended that it had been given as piously as could be.

When Cecco stood at the entrance, two vergers quickly passed him.

'It rises—it rises terribly!' the one said.

'What rises?' asked Cecco.

'The water in the crypt. It has risen a foot in the last two or three minutes.'

When Cecco went down the steps, he saw a small pool of water on the Market Place close to the bottom step. It was sea-water, which had splashed up from the Piazetta. He was surprised that the sea had risen so high, and he hurried down to the Riva, where his boat lay. Everything was as he had left it, only the water had risen considerably. It came rolling in broad waves through the five sea-gates; but the wind was not very strong. At the Riva there were already pools of sea-water, and the canals rose so that the doors in the houses facing the water had to be closed. The sky was all gray like the sea.

It never struck Cecco that it might grow into a serious storm. He would not believe any such thing. San Marco had allowed his sons to perish without cause. He felt sure this was no real storm. He would just like to see if it would be a storm, and he sat down beside his boat and waited.

Then suddenly rifts appeared in the dull-gray clouds which covered the sky. The clouds were torn asunder and flung aside, and large storm-clouds came rushing, black like warships, and from them scourging rain and hail fell upon the city. And something like quite a new sea came surging in from Lido. Ah, signor! they were not the swan-necked waves you have seen out there, the waves that bend their transparent necks and hasten towards the shore, and which, when they are pitilessly repulsed, float away again with their white foam-hair dispersed over the surface of the sea. These were dark waves, chasing each other in furious rage, and over their tops the bitter froth of the sea was whipped into mist.

The wind was now so strong that the seagulls could no longer continue their quiet flight, but, shrieking, were thrust from their course. Cecco soon saw them with much trouble making their way towards the sea, so as not to be caught by the storm and flung against the walls. Hundreds of pigeons on San Marco's square flew up, beating their wings, so that it sounded like a new storm, and hid themselves away in all the nooks and corners of the church roof.

But it was not the birds alone that were frightened by the storm. A couple of gondolas had already got loose, and were thrown against the shore, and were nearly shattered. And now all the gondoliers came rushing to pull their boats into the boathouses, or place them in shelter in the small canals.

The sailors on the ships lying in the harbour worked with the anchor-chains to make the vessels fast, in order to prevent them drifting on to the shore. They took down the clothes hanging up to dry, pulled their long caps well over their foreheads, and began to collect all the loose articles lying about in order to bring them below deck. Outside Canale Grande a whole fishing-fleet came hurrying home. All the people from Lido and Malamocco who had sold their goods at the Rialto were rushing homewards, before the storm grew too violent.

Cecco laughed when he saw the fishermen bending over their oars and straining themselves as if they were fleeing from death itself. Could they not see that it was only a gust of wind? They could very well have remained and given the Venetian women time to buy all their cattle, fish, and crabs.

He was certainly not going to pull his boat into shelter, although the storm was now violent enough for any ordinary man to have taken notice of it. The floating bridges were lifted up high and cast on to the shore, whilst the washerwomen hurried home shrieking. The broad-brimmed hats of the signors were blown off into the canals, from whence the street-boys fished them out with great glee. Sails were torn from the masts, and fluttered in the air with a cracking sound; children were knocked down by the strong wind; and the clothes hanging on the lines in the narrow streets were torn to rags and carried far away.

Cecco laughed at the storm—a storm which drove the birds away, and played all sorts of pranks in the street, like a boy. But, all the same, he pulled his boat under one of the arches of the bridge. One could really not allow what that wind might take it into its head to do.

In the evening Cecco thought that it would have been fun to have been out at sea. It would have been splendid sailing with such a fresh wind. But on shore it was unpleasant. Chimneys were blown down; the roofs of the boathouses were lifted right off; it rained tiles from the houses into the canals; the wind shook the doors and the window-shutters, rushed in under the open loggias of the palaces and tore off the decorations.

Cecco held out bravely, but he did not go home to bed. He could not take the boat home with him, so it was better to remain and look after it. But when anyone went by and said that it was terrible weather he would not admit it. He had experienced very different weather in his young days.

'Storm!' he said to himself—'call this a storm? And they think, perhaps, that it began the same moment I threw the zecchine to San Marco. As if he can command a real storm!'

When night came the wind and the sea grew still more violent, so that Venice trembled in her foundations. Doge Gradenigo and the Gentlemen of the High Council went in the darkness of the night to San Marco to pray for the city. Torch-bearers went before them, and the flames were spread out by the wind, so that they lay flat, like pennants. The wind tore the Doge's heavy brocade gown, so that two men were obliged to hold it.

Cecco thought this was the most remarkable thing he had ever seen—Doge Gradenigo going himself to the cathedral on account of this bit of a wind! What would those people have done if there had been a real storm?

The waves beat incessantly against the bulwarks. In the darkness of the night it was as if white-headed wresters sprang up from the deep, and with teeth and claws clung fast to the piles to tear them loose from the shore. Cecco fancied he could hear their angry snorts when they were hurled back again. But he shuddered when he heard them come again and again, and tear in the bulwarks.

It seemed to him that the storm was far more terrible in the night. He heard shouts in the air, and that was not the wind. Sometimes black clouds came drifting like a whole row of heavy galleys, and it seemed as if they advanced to make an assault on the city. Then he heard distinctly someone speaking in one of the riven clouds over his head.

'Things look bad for Venice now,' it said from the one cloud. 'Soon our brothers the evil spirits will come and overthrow the city.'

'I am afraid San Marco will not allow it to happen,' came as a response from the other cloud.

'San Marco has been knocked down by a Venetian, so he lies powerless, and cannot help anyone,' said the first.

The storm carried the words down to old Cecco, and from that moment he was on his knees, praying San Marco for grace and forgiveness. For the evil spirits had spoken the truth. It did indeed look bad for Venice. The fair Queen of the Isles was near destruction. A Venetian had mocked San Marco, and therefore Venice was in danger of being carried away by the sea. There would be no more moonlight sails or her sea and in her canals, and no more barcaroles would be heard from her black gondolas. The sea would wash over the golden-haired signoras, over the proud palaces, over San Marco, resplendent with gold.

If there was no one to protect these islands, they were doomed to destruction. Before San Marco came to Venice it had often happened that large portions of them had been washed away by the waves.

At early dawn San Marco's Church bells began to ring. People crept to the church, their clothes being nearly torn off them.

The storm went on increasing. The priests had resolved to go out and adjure the storm and the sea. The main doors of the cathedral were opened, and the long procession streamed out of the church. Foremost the cross was carried, then came the choir-boys with wax candles, and last in the procession were carried the banner of San Marco and the Sacred Host.

But the storm did not allow itself to be cowed; on the contrary, it was as if it wished for nothing better to play with. It upset the choir-boys, blew out the wax candles, and flung the baldachin, which was carried over the Host, on to the top of the Doge's palace. It was with the utmost trouble that they saved San Marco's banner, with the winged lion, from being carried away.

Cecco saw all this, and stole down to his boat moaning loudly. The whole day he lay near the shore, often wet by the waves and in danger of being washed into the sea. The whole day he was praying incessantly to God and San Marco. He felt that the fate of the whole city depended upon his prayers.

There were not many people about that day, but some few went moaning along the Riva. All spoke about the immeasurable damage the storm had wrought. One could see the houses tumbling down on the Murano. It was as if the whole island were under water. And also on the Rialto one or two houses had fallen.

The storm continued the whole day with unabated violence. In the evening a large multitude of people assembled at the Market Place and the Piazetta, although these were nearly covered with water. People dared not remain in their houses, which shook in their very foundations. And the cries of those who feared disaster mingled with the lamentations of those whom it had already overtaken. Whole dwellings were under water; children were drowned in their cradles. The old and the sick had been swept with the overturned houses into the waves.

Cecco was still lying and praying to San Marco. Oh, how could the crime of a poor fisherman be taken in such earnest? Surely it was not his fault that the saint was so powerless! He would let the demons take him and his boat; he deserved no better fate. But not the whole city!—oh, God in heaven, not the whole city!

'My sons!' Cecco said to San Marco. 'What do I care about my sons when Venice is at stake! I would willingly give a son for each tile in danger of being blown into the canal if I could keep them in their place at that price. Oh, San Marco, each little stone of Venice is worth as much as a promising son.'

At times he saw terrible things. There was a large galley which had torn itself from its moorings and now came drifting towards the shore. It went straight against the bulwark, and struck it with the ram's head in her bows, just as if it had been an enemy's ship. It gave blow after blow, and the attack was so violent that the vessel immediately sprang a leak. The water rushed in, the leak grew larger, and the proud ship went to pieces. But the whole time one could see the captain and two or three of the crew, who would not leave the vessel, cling to the deck and meet death without attempting to escape it.

The second night came, and Cecco's prayers continued to knock at the gate of heaven.

'Let me alone suffer!' he cried. 'San Marco, it is more than a man can bear, thus to drag others with him to destruction. Only send thy lion and kill me; I shall not attempt to escape. Everything that thou wilt have me give up for the city, that will I willingly sacrifice.'

Just as he had uttered these words he looked towards the Piazetta, and he thought he could no longer see San Marco's lion on the granite pillar. Had San Marco permitted his lion to be overthrown? old Cecco cried. He was nearly giving up Venice.

Whilst he was lying there he saw visions and heard voices all the time. The demons talked and moved to and fro. He heard them wheeze like wild beasts every time they made their assaults on the bulwarks. He did not mind them much; it was worse about Venice.

Then he heard in the air above him the beating of strong wings; this was surely San Marco's lion flying overhead. It moved backwards and forwards in the air; he saw and yet he did not see it. Then it seemed to him as if it descended on Riva degli Schiavoni, where he was lying, and prowled about there. He was on the point of jumping into the sea from fear, but he remained sitting where he was. It was no doubt he whom the lion sought. If that could only save Venice, then he was quite willing to let San Marco avenge himself upon him.

Then the lion came crawling along the ground like a cat. He saw it making ready to spring. He noticed that it beat its wings and screwed its large carbuncle eyes together till they were only small fiery slits.

Then old Cecco certainly did think of creeping down to his boat and hiding himself under the arch of the bridge, but he pulled himself together and remained where he was. The same moment a tall, imposing figure stood by his side.

'Good-evening, Cecco,' said the man; 'take your boat and row me across to San Giorgio Maggiore.'

'Yes, signor,' immediately replied the old fisherman.

It was as if he had awakened from a dream. The lion had disappeared, and the man must be somebody who knew him, although Cecco could not quite remember where he had seen him before. He was glad to have company. The terrible heaviness and anguish that had been over him since he had revolted against the Saint suddenly vanished. As to rowing across to San Giorgio, he did not for a moment think that it could be done.

'I don't believe we can even get the boat out,' he said to himself.

But there was something about the man at his side that made him feel he must do all he possibly could to serve him; and he did succeed in getting out the boat. He helped the stranger into the boat and took the oars.

Cecco could not help laughing to himself.

'What are you thinking about? Don't go out further in any case,' he said. 'Have you ever seen the like of these waves? Do tell him that it is not within the power of man.'

But he felt as if he could not tell the stranger that it was impossible. He was sitting there as quietly as if he were sailing to the Lido on a summer's eve. And Cecco began to row to San Giorgio Maggiore.

It was a terrible row. Time after time the waves washed over them.

'Oh, stop him!' Cecco said under his breath; 'do stop the man who goes to sea in such weather! Otherwise he is a sensible old fisherman. Do stop him!'

Now the boat was up a steep mountain, and then it went down into a valley. The foam splashed down on Cecco from the waves that rushed past him like runaway horses, but in spite of everything he approached San Giorgio.

'For whom are you doing all this, risking boat and life?' he said. 'You don't even know whether he can pay you. He does not look like a fine gentleman. He is no better dressed than you are.'

But he only said this to keep up his courage, and not to be ashamed of his tractability. He was simply compelled to do everything the man in the boat wanted.

'But in any case not right to San Giorgio, you foolhardy old man,' he said. 'The wind is even worse there than at the Rialto.'

But he went there, nevertheless, and made the boat fast whilst the stranger went on shore. He thought the wisest thing he could do would be to slip away and leave his boat, but he did not do it. He would rather die than deceive the stranger. He saw the latter go into the Church of San Giorgio. Soon afterwards he returned, accompanied by a knight in full armour.

'Row us now to San Nicolo in Lido,' said the stranger.

'Ay, ay,' Cecco thought; 'why not to Lido?' They had already, in constant anguish and death, rowed to San Giorgio; why should they not set out for Lido?

And Cecco was shocked at himself that he obeyed the stranger even unto death, for he now actually steered for the Lido.

Being now three in the boat, it was still heavier work. He had no idea how he should be able to do it. 'You might have lived many years yet,' he said sorrowfully to himself. But the strange thing was that he was not sorrowful, all the same. He was so glad that he could have laughed aloud. And then he was proud that he could make headway. 'He knows how to use his oars, does old Cecco,' he said.

They laid-to at Lido, and the two strangers went on shore. They walked towards San Nicolo in Lido, and soon returned accompanied by an old Bishop, with robe and stole, crosier in hand, and mitre on head.

'Now row out to the open sea,' said the first stranger.

Old Cecco shuddered. Should he row out to the sea, where his sons perished? Now he had not a single cheerful word to say to himself. He did not think so much of the storm, but of the terror it was to have to go out to the graves of his sons. If he rowed out there, he felt that he gave the stranger more than his life.

The three men sat silently in the boat as if they were on watch. Cecco saw them bend forward and gaze into the night. They had reached the gate of the sea at Lido, and the great storm-ridden sea lay before them.

Cecco sobbed within himself. He thought of two dead bodies rolling about in these waves. He gazed into the water for two familiar faces. But onward the boat went. Cecco did not give in.

Then suddenly the three men rose up in the boat; and Cecco fell upon his knees, although he still went on holding the oars. A big ship steered straight against them.

Cecco could not quite tell whether it was a ship or only drifting mist. The sails were large, spread out, as it were, towards the four corners of heaven; and the hull was gigantic, but it looked as if it were built of the lightest sea-mist. He thought he saw men on board and heard shouting; but the crew were like deep darkness, and the shouting was like the roar of the storm.

However it was, it was far too terrible to see the ship steer straight upon them, and Cecco closed his eyes.

But the three men in the boat must have averted the collision, for the boat was not upset. When Cecco looked up the ship had fled out to sea, and loud wailings pierced the night.

He rose, trembling to row further. He felt so tired that he could hardly hold the oars. But now there was no longer any danger. The storm had gone down, and the waves speedily laid themselves to rest.

'Now row us back to Venice,' said the stranger to the fisherman.

Cecco rowed the boat to Lido, where the Bishop went on shore, and to San Giorgio, where the knight left them. The first powerful stranger went with him all the way to the Rialto.

When they had landed at Riva degli Schiavoni he said to the fisherman:

'When it is daylight thou shalt go to the Doge and tell him what thou hast seen this night. Tell him that San Marco and San Giorgio and San Nicolo have to-night fought the evil spirits that would destroy Venice, and have put them to flight.'

'Yes, signor,' the fisherman answered, 'I will tell everything. But how shall I speak so that the Doge will believe me?'

Then San Marco handed him a ring with a precious stone possessed of a wonderful lustre.

'Show this to the Doge,' he said, 'then he will understand that it brings a message from me. He knows my ring, which is kept in San Marco's treasury in the cathedral.'

The fisherman took the ring, and kissed it reverently.

'Further, thou shalt tell the Doge,' said the holy man, 'that this is a sign that I shall never forsake Venice. Even when the last Doge has left Palazzo Ducali I will live and preserve Venice. Even if Venice lose her islands in the East and the supremacy of the sea, and no Doge ever again sets out on the Bucintoro, even then I will preserve the city beautiful and resplendent. It shall always be rich and beloved, always be lauded and its praises sung, always a place of joy for men to live in. Say this, Cecco, and the Doge will not forsake thee in thine old age.'

Then he disappeared; and soon the sun rose above the gate of the sea at Torcello. With its first beautiful rays it shed a rosy light over the white city and over the sea that shone in many colours. A red glow lay over San Giorgio and San Marco, and over the whole shore, studded with palaces. And in the lovely morning radiant Venetian ladies came out on to the loggias and greeted with smiles the rising day.

Venice was once again the beautiful goddess, rising from the sea in her shell of rose-coloured pearl. Beautiful as never before, she combed her golden hair, and threw the purple robe around her, to begin one of her happiest days. For a transport of bliss filled her when the old fisherman brought San Marco's ring to the Doge, and she heard how the Saint, now, and until the end of time, would hold his protecting hand over her.

V. [Santa Caterina of Siena]

From a Swedish

Homestead

Santa Caterina of Siena

At Santa Caterina's house in Siena, on a day towards the end of April, in the week when her fête is being celebrated, people come to the old house in the Street of the Dyers, to the house with the pretty loggia and with the many small chambers, which have now been converted into chapels and sanctuaries, bringing bouquets of white lilies; and the rooms are fragrant with incense and violets.

Walking through these rooms, one cannot help thinking that it is just as if she were dead yesterday, as if all those who go in and out of her home to-day had seen and known her.

But, on the other hand, no one could really think that she had died recently, for then there would be more grief and tears, and not only a quiet sense of loss. It is more as if a beloved daughter had been recently married, and had left the parental home.

Look only at the nearest houses. The old walls are still decorated as if for a fête. And in her own home garlands of flowers are still hanging beneath the portico and loggia, green leaves are strewn on the staircase and the doorstep, and large bouquets of flowers fill the rooms with their scent.

She cannot possibly have been dead five hundred years. It looks much more as if she had celebrated her marriage, and had gone away to a country from which she would not return for many years, perhaps never. Are not the houses decorated with nothing but red table-cloths, red trappings, and red silken banners, and are there not stuck red-paper roses in the dark garlands of oak-leaves? and the hangings over the doors and the windows, are they not red with golden fringes? Can one imagine anything more cheerful?

And notice how the old women go about in the house and examine her small belongings. It is as if they had seen her wear that very veil and that very shirt of hair. They inspect the room in which she lived, and point to the bedstead and the packets of letters, and they tell how at first she could not at all learn to write, but that it came to her all at once without her having learnt it. And only look at her writing—how good and distinct! And then they point to the little bottle she used to carry at her belt, so as always to have a little medicine at hand in case she met a sick person, and they utter a blessing over the old lantern she held in her hand when she went and visited the sick in the long weary nights. It is just as if they would say: 'Dear me—dear me! that our little Caterina Benincasa should be gone, that she will never come any more and look after us old people!' And they kiss her picture, and take a flower from the bouquets to keep as a remembrance.

It looks as if those who were left in the home had long ago prepared themselves for the separation, and tried to do everything possible to keep alive the memory of the one who had gone away. See, there they have painted her on the wall; there is the whole of her little history represented in every detail. There she is when she cut off her beautiful long hair so that no man could ever fall in love with her, for she would never marry. Oh dear—oh dear! how much ridicule and scoffing she had suffered on that account! It is dreadful to think how her mother tormented her and treated her like a servant, and made her sleep on the stone floor in the hall, and would not give her any food, all because of her being so obstinate about that hair. But what was she to do when they continually tried to get her married—she who would have no other bridegroom than Christ? And there she is when she was kneeling in prayer, and her father coming into the room without her knowing it saw a beautiful white dove hovering over her head whilst she was praying. And there she is on that Christmas Eve when she had gone secretly to the Madonna's altar in order the more fully to rejoice over the birth of the Son of God, and the beautiful Madonna leaned out of her picture and handed the Child to her that she might be allowed to hold it for a moment in her arms. Oh, what a joy it had been for her!

Oh dear, no; it is not at all necessary to say that our little Caterina Benincasa is dead. One need only say that she has gone away with the Bridegroom.

In her home one will never forget her pious ways and doings. All the poor of Siena come and knock at her door because they know that it is the marriage-day of the little virgin, and large piles of bread lie in readiness for them as if she were still there. They have their pockets and baskets filled; had she herself been there, she could not have sent them away more heavily laden. She who had gone away had left so great a want that one almost wonders the Bridegroom had the heart to take her away with him.

In the small chapels which have been arranged in every corner of the house they read Mass the whole day, and they invoke the bride and sing hymns in her praise.

'Holy Caterina,' they say, 'on this the day of thy death, which is thine heavenly wedding-day, pray for us!'

'Holy Caterina, thou who hadst no other love but Christ, thou who in life wert His affianced bride, and who in death wast received by Him in Paradise, pray for us!'

'Holy Caterina, thou radiant heavenly bride, thou most blessed of virgins, thou whom the mother of God exalted to her Son's side, thou who on this day wast carried by angels to the kingdom of glory, pray for us!'

It is strange how one comes to love her, how the home and the pictures and the love of the old and the poor seem to make her living, and one begins to wonder how she really was, whether she was only a saint, only a heavenly bride, and if it is true that she was unable to love any other than Christ. And then comes to one's mind an old story which warmed one's heart long ago, at first quite vague and without shape, but whilst one is sitting there under the loggia in the festively decorated home and watching the poor wander away with their full baskets, and hearing the subdued murmur from the chapels, the story becomes more and more distinct, and suddenly it is vivid and clear.

Nicola Tungo was a young nobleman of Perugia, who often came to Siena on account of the races. He soon found out how badly Siena was governed, and often said, both at the festive gatherings of the great and when he sat drinking in the inns, that Siena ought to rise against the Signoria and procure other rulers.

The Signoria had not been in power for more than half a year; they did not feel particularly firm in their office, and did not like the Perugian stirring up the people. In order promptly to put a stop to it, they had him imprisoned, and after a short trial he was sentenced to death. He was placed in a cell in the Palazzo Publico whilst preparations were being made for his execution, which was to take place the next morning in the Market Place.

At first he was strangely affected. To-morrow he would no more wear his green velvet doublet and his beautiful sword; he would no more walk down the street in his cap with the ostrich-feather and attract the glances of the young maidens, and he had a feeling of painful disappointment that he would never ride the new horse which he bought yesterday, and which he had only tried once.

Suddenly he called the gaoler, and asked him to go to the gentlemen of the Signoria and tell them that he could not possibly allow himself to be killed; he had no time. He had far too much to do. Life could not do without him. His father was old, and he was the only son; it was through his descendants that the family should be continued. It was he who should give away his sisters in marriage, he who should build the new palace, he who should plant the new vineyard.

He was a strong young man; he did not know what sickness was, had nothing but life in his veins. His hair was dark and his cheeks red. He could not realize that he should die.

When he thought of their wanting to take him away from pleasure and dancing, and the carnival, and from the races next Sunday, and from the serenade he was going to sing to the beautiful Giulietta Lombardi, he became furiously angry, and his wrath was roused against the councillors as though they were thieves and robbers. The scoundrels—the scoundrels that would take his life from him!

But as time went on his longings grew deeper; he longed for air and water and heaven and earth. He felt he would not mind being a beggar by the wayside; he would gladly suffer sickness and hunger and cold if only he were allowed to live.

He wished that everything might die with him, that nothing would be left when he was gone; that would have been a great consolation.

But that people should go to the Market Place and buy and sell, and that the women would fetch water from the well, and that the children would run in the streets the next day and all days, and that he would not be there to see, that he could not bear. He envied not only those who could live in luxury and pleasure, and were happy; he envied quite as much the most miserable cripple. What he wanted was life, solely life.

Then the priests and the monks came to see him. It made him almost happy, for now he had someone upon whom he could wreak his anger. He first allowed them to talk a little. It amused him to hear what they had to say to a man so deeply wronged as he was, but when they said that he ought to rejoice that he was permitted to leave this life and gain the bliss of heaven in the fulness of his youth, then he started up and poured forth his wrath upon them. He scoffed at God and the joys of heaven—he did not want them. He would have life, and the world, and its pomps and vanities. He regretted every day in which he had not revelled in earthly enjoyment; he regretted every temptation he had resisted. God need not trouble Himself in the least about him; he felt no longing for His heaven.

The priests continued to speak; he seized one of them by the throat, and would have killed him had not the gaoler thrown himself between them. They now bound and gagged him, and then preached to him; but as soon as he was allowed to speak he raged as before. They talked to him for many hours, but they saw that it was of no avail.

When they could think of nothing else to do, one of them suggested they should send for the young Caterina Benincasa, who had shown great power in subduing defiant spirits. When the Perugian heard the name he suddenly ceased his abuse. In truth, it pleased him. It was something quite different, having to do with a young, beautiful maiden.

'By all means send for the maiden,' he said.

He knew that she was the young daughter of a dyer, and that she went about alone and preached in the lanes and streets of the town. Some thought she was mad, others said that she had visions. For him she might, anyhow, be better company than these dirty monks, who made him completely beside himself.

The monks then went their way, and he was alone. Shortly afterwards the door was again opened, but if she for whom they had sent had really entered the cell, she must have walked with very light footsteps, for he heard nothing. He lay on the floor just as he had thrown himself down in his great anger; now he was too tired to raise himself, or make a movement, or even to look up. His arms were tied together with ropes, which cut deep into his flesh.

He now felt that someone began to loosen his bands; a warm hand touched his arm, and he looked up. Beside him lay a little figure in the white dress of the Dominicans, with head and neck so shrouded in a white veil that there was not more of her face to be seen than of that of a knight in helmet and closed visor.

She did not look so meek by any means; she was evidently a little annoyed. He heard her murmur something about the gaolers who had tightened the bands. It did not appear as if she had come for any other purpose than these knots. She was only taken up with loosening them so that they did not hurt. At last she had to bite in them, and then she succeeded. She untied the cord with a light hand, and then took the little bottle which was suspended from her belt and poured a few drops upon the chafed skin.

He lay the whole time and looked at her, but she did not meet his glance; it appeared as if she could think of nothing else but what she had between her hands. It was as if nothing were further from her thoughts than that she was there to prepare him for death. He felt so exhausted after his passion, and at the same time so quieted by her presence, that he only said:

'I think I will sleep.'

'It is a great shame that they have not given you any straw,' she said.

For a moment she looked about undecided. Then she sat down upon the floor, and placed his head in her lap.

'Are you better now?' she said.

Never in his whole life had he felt such a rest. Yet sleep he could not, but he lay and looked up in her face, which was like wax, and transparent. Such eyes he had never seen before. They were always looking far, far away, gazing into another world, whilst she sat quite motionless, so as not to disturb his sleep.

'You are not sleeping, Nicola Tungo,' she said, and looked uneasy.

'I cannot sleep,' he replied, 'because I am wondering who you can be.'

'I am a daughter of Luca Benincasa the dyer, and his wife Lapa,' she said.

'I know that,' he said, 'and I also know that you go about and preach in the streets. And I know that you have attired yourself in the dress of a nun, and have taken the vows of chastity. But yet I don't know who you are.'

She turned her head away a little. Then she said, whispering like one who confesses her first love:

'I am the Bride of Christ.'

He did not laugh. On the contrary, he felt quite a pang in his heart, as from jealousy.

'Oh, Christ!' he said, as if she had thrown herself away.

She heard that his tone was contemptuous, but she thought he meant that she had spoken too presumptuously.

'I do not understand it myself,' she said, 'but so it is.'

'Is it an imagination or a dream?' he said.

She turned her face towards him. The blood rose red behind the transparent skin. He saw suddenly that she was fair as a flower, and she became dear to him. He moved his lips as if to speak, but at first no sound came.

'How can you expect me to believe that?' he said defiantly.

'Is it not enough for you that I am here in the prison with you?' she asked, raising her voice. 'Is it any pleasure for a young girl like me to go to you and other evil-doers in their gloomy dungeons? Is it usual for a woman to stand and preach at the street corners as I do, and to be held in derision? Do I not require sleep as other people? And yet I must rise every night and go to the sick in the hospitals. Am I not timid as other women? And yet I must go to the high-born gentlemen at their castles and reason with them, I must go to the plague-smitten, I must see all vice and sin. When have you seen another maiden do all this? But I am obliged to do it.'

'Poor thing!' he said, and stroked her hand gently—'poor thing!'

'For I am not braver, or wiser, or stronger than others,' she said. 'It is just as hard for me as for other maidens. You can see that. I have come here to speak with you about your soul, but I do not at all know what I shall say to you.'

It was strange how reluctantly he would allow himself to be convinced.

'You may be mistaken all the same,' he said. 'How do you know that you can call yourself the Bride of Christ?'

Her voice trembled, and it was as if she should tear out her heart when she replied:

'It began when I was quite young; I was not more than six years old. It was one evening when I was walking with my brother in the meadow below the church of the Dominicans, and just as I looked up at the church I saw Christ sitting on a throne, surrounded by all His power and glory. He was attired in shining white garments like the Holy Father in Rome. His head was surrounded by all the splendour of Paradise, and around Him stood Pietro Paolo and the Evangelist Giovanni. And whilst I gazed upon Him my heart was filled with such a love and holy joy that I could hardly bear it. He lifted His hand and blessed me, and I sank down on the meadow, and was so overcome with bliss, that my brother had to take me in his arms and shake me. And ever since that time, Nicola Tungo, I have loved Jesus as a bridegroom.'

He again objected.

'You were a child then. You had fallen asleep in the meadow and were dreaming.'

'Dreaming?' she repeated. 'Have I been dreaming all the time I have seen Him? Was it a dream when He came to me in the church in the likeness of a beggar and asked for alms? Then I was wide awake, at any rate. And do you think that for the sake of a dream only I could have borne all the worries I have had to bear as a young girl because I would not marry?'

Nicola went on contradicting her because he could not bear the thought that her heart was filled with love to another.

'But even if you do love Christ, maiden, how do you know that He loves you?'

She smiled her very happiest smile and clapped her hands like a child.

'Now you shall hear,' she said. 'Now I will tell you the most important of all. It was the last night before Lent. It was after my parents and I had been reconciled, and I had obtained their permission to take the vow of chastity and wear the dress of a nun, although I continued to live in their house; and it was night, as I told you, the last night of the carnival, when everybody turns night into day. There were fêtes in every street. On the walls of the big palaces hung balconies like cages, completely covered with silken hangings and banners, and filled with noble ladies. I saw all their beauty by the light of the red torches in their bronze-holders, the one row over the other quite up to the roof; and in the gaily decorated streets there was a train of carriages, with golden towers, and all the gods and goddesses, and all the virtues and beauties went by in a long procession. And everywhere there was such a play of masks and so much merriment that I am sure that you, sir, have never taken part in anything more gay. And I took refuge in my chamber, but still I heard laughter from the street, and never before have I heard people laugh like that; it was so clear and bell-like that everyone was obliged to join in it. And they sang songs which, I suppose, were wicked, but they sounded so innocent, and caused such pleasure, that one's heart trembled. Then, in the middle of my prayers, I suddenly began to wonder why I was not out amongst them, and the thought fascinated and tempted me, as if I were dragged along by a runaway horse; but never before have I prayed so intensely to Christ to show me what was His will with me. Suddenly all the noise ceased, a great and wonderful silence surrounded me, and I saw a great meadow, where the Mother of God sat amongst the flowers, and on her lap lay the Child Jesus, playing with lilies. But I hurried thither in great joy, and knelt before the Child, and was at the same moment filled with peace and quietness, and then the Holy Child placed a ring on my finger, and said to me, "Know, Caterina, that to-day I celebrate My betrothal with thee, and bind thee to Me by the strongest faith."'

'Oh, Caterina!'

The young Perugian had turned himself on the floor, so that he could bury his face in her lap. It was as if he could not bear to see how radiant she was whilst she was speaking, and now her eyes became bright as stars. A shadow of pain passed over him. For whilst she spoke a great sorrow had sprung up in his heart. This little maiden, this little white maiden, he could never win. Her love belonged to another; it could never be his. It was of no use even to tell her that he loved her; but he suffered; his whole being groaned in love's agony. How could he bear to live without her? It almost became a consolation to remember that he was sentenced to death. It was not necessary for him to live and do without her.

Then the little woman beside him sighed deeply, and came back from the joys of heaven in order to think of poor human beings.

'I forgot to speak to you about your soul,' she said.

Then, he thought: 'This burden, at any rate, I can lighten for her.'

'Sister Caterina,' he said, 'I do not know how it is, but heavenly consolation has come to me. In God's name I will prepare for death. Now you may send for the priests and monks; now I will confess to them. But one thing you must promise me before you go: you must come to me to-morrow, when I shall die, and hold my head between your hands as you are doing now.'

When he said this she burst into tears, from a great feeling of relief, and an unspeakable joy filled her.

'How happy you must be, Nicola Tungo!' she said. 'You will be in Paradise before I am;' and she stroked his face gently.

He said again:

'You will come to me to-morrow in the Market Place? Perhaps I shall otherwise be afraid; perhaps I cannot otherwise die with steadfastness. But when you are there I shall feel nothing but joy, and all fear will leave me.'

'You do not seem to me any more as a poor mortal,' she said, 'but as a dweller of Paradise. You appear to me radiant with life, surrounded by incense. Bliss comes to me from you, who shall so soon meet my beloved Bridegroom. Be assured I shall come.'

She then led him to confession and the Communion. He felt the whole time as if he were asleep. All the fear of death and the longing for life had passed away from him. He longed for the morning, when he should see her again; he thought only of her, and of the love with which she had inspired him. Death seemed to him now but a slight thing compared with the pain of the thought that she would never love him.

The young maiden did not sleep much during the night, and early in the morning she went to the place of execution, to be there when he came. She invoked Jesu, Mother, Marie, and the Holy Caterina of Egypt, virgin and martyr, incessantly with prayers to save his soul. Incessantly she repeated: 'I will that he shall be saved—I will, I will.' But she was afraid that her prayers were unavailing, for she did not feel any longer that ecstasy which had filled her the evening before; she only felt an infinite pity for him who should die. She was quite overcome with grief and sorrow.

Little by little the Market Place filled with people. The soldiers marched up, the executioner arrived, and much noise and talking went on around her; but she saw and heard nothing. She felt as if she were quite alone.

When Nicola Tungo arrived, it was just the same with him. He had no thought for all the others, but saw only her. When he saw at the first glance that she was entirely overcome with sorrow, his face beamed, and he felt almost happy. He called loudly to her:

'You have not slept much this night, maiden?'

'No,' she said; 'I have watched in prayer for you; but now I am in despair, for my prayers have no power.'

He knelt down before the block, and she knelt so that she could hold his head in her hands.

'Now I am going to your Bridegroom, Caterina.'

She sobbed more and more.

'I can comfort you so badly,' she said.

He looked at her with a strange smile.

'Your tears are my best comfort.'

The executioner stood with his sword drawn, but she bade him with a movement stand on one side, for she would speak a few words with the doomed man.

'Before you came,' she said, 'I laid my head down on the block to try if I could bear it; and then I felt that I was still afraid of death, that I do not love Jesus enough to be willing to die in this hour; and I do not wish you to die either, and my prayers have no power.'

When he heard this he thought: 'Had I lived I should have won her'; and he was glad he should die before he had succeeded in drawing the radiant heavenly bride down to earth. But when he had laid his head in her hands, a great consolation came to them both.

'Nicola Tungo,' she said, 'I see heaven open. The angels descend to receive your soul.'

A wondering smile passed over his face. Could what he had done for her sake make him worthy of heaven? He lifted his eyes to see what she saw; the same moment the sword fell.

But Caterina saw the angels descend lower and lower, saw them lift his soul, saw them carry it to heaven.

All at once it seemed so natural that Caterina Benincasa has lived all these five hundred years. How could one forget that gentle little maiden, that great loving heart? Again and again they must sing in her praise, as they are now singing in the small chapels:

'Pia Mater et humilis,
Naturæ memor fragilis,
In hujus vitæ fluctibus
Nos rege tuis precibus.
Quem vidi, quem amavi,
In quem credidi, quem dilexi,
Ora pro nobis.
Ut digni efficiamur promessionibus Christi!
Santa Caterina, ora pro nobis!'[B]

[B] Pious and gentle Mother, thou who knowest our weak nature, guide us by thy prayers through this life's vicissitudes. Thou, whom I saw and loved, in whom I believed and whom I adored, pray for us, that we may be worthy of Christ's promises. Holy Caterina, pray for us!

VI. [The Empress's Money-Chest]

From a Swedish

Homestead

The Empress's Money-Chest

The Bishop had summoned Father Verneau to appear before him. It was on account of a somewhat unpleasant matter. Father Verneau had been sent to preach in the manufacturing districts around Charleroi, but he had arrived there in the midst of a strike, when the workmen were rather excited and unmanageable. He informed the Bishop that he had immediately on his arrival in the Black Country received a letter from one of the leaders of the men to the effect that they were quite willing to hear him preach, but if he ventured to mention the name of God either directly or indirectly, there would be a disturbance in the church.

'And when I went up into the pulpit and saw the congregation to whom I should preach,' said the Father, 'I felt no doubt but that the threat would be carried out.'

Father Verneau was a little dried-up monk. The Bishop looked down upon him as being of a lower order. Such an unshaven, not too clean monk, with the most insignificant face, was, of course, a coward. He was, probably, also afraid of the Bishop.

'I have been informed,' said the Bishop, 'that you carried out the workmen's wishes. But I need not point out——'

'Monseigneur,' interrupted Father Verneau in all humility, 'I thought the Church, if possible, would avoid everything that might lead to a disturbance.'

'But a Church that dare not mention the name of God——'

'Has Monseigneur heard my sermon?'

The Bishop walked up and down the floor to calm himself.

'You know it by heart, of course?' he said.

'Of course, Monseigneur.'

'Let me hear it, then, as it was delivered, Father Verneau, word for word, exactly as you preached it.'

The Bishop sat down in his arm-chair. Father Verneau remained standing.

'"Citizens and citizenesses," he began in the tone of a lecturer.

The Bishop started.

'Yes, that is how they will be addressed, Monseigneur.'

'Never mind, Father Verneau, only proceed.'

The Bishop shuddered slightly; these two words had suddenly shown him the whole situation. He saw before him this gathering of the children of the Black Country, to whom Father Verneau had preached. He saw many wild faces, many rags, much coarse merriment. He saw these people for whom nothing had been done.

'"Citizens and citizenesses," began Father Verneau afresh, "there is in this country an Empress called Maria Theresa. She is an excellent ruler, the best and wisest Belgium has ever had. Other rulers, my fellow-citizens, other rulers have successors when they die, and lose all power over their people. Not so the great Empress Maria Theresa. She may have lost the throne of Austria and Hungary; Brabant and Limburg may now be under other rulers, but not her good province of West Flanders. In West Flanders, where I have lived the last few years, no other ruler is known to this very day than Maria Theresa. We know King Leopold lives in Brussels, but that has nothing to do with us. It is Maria Theresa who still reigns here by the sea, more especially in the fishing villages. The nearer one gets to the sea, the mightier becomes her power. Neither the great Revolution, nor the Empire, nor the Dutch have had the power to overthrow her. How could they? They have done nothing for the children of the sea that can compare with what she has done. But what has she not done for the people on the dunes! What an invaluable treasure, my fellow-citizens, has she not bestowed upon them!

'"About one hundred and fifty years ago, in the early part of her reign, she made a journey through Belgium. She visited Brussels and Bruges, she went to Liege and Louvain, and when she had at last seen enough of large cities and profusely ornamented town-halls, she went to the coast to see the sea and the dunes.

'"It was not a very cheering sight for her. She saw the ocean, so vast and mighty that no man can fight against it. She saw the coast, helpless and unprotected. There lay the dunes, but the sea had washed over them before, and might do so again. There were also dams, but they had fallen down and were neglected.

'"She saw harbours filled with sand; she saw marshes overgrown with rushes and weeds; she saw, below the dunes, fishing-huts ravaged by the wind—huts looking as if they had been thrown there, a prey for the sea; she saw poor old churches that had been moved away from the sea, lying between quicksands and lyme-grass, in desolate wastes.

'"The great Empress sat a whole day by the sea. She was told all about the floods and the towns that had been washed away; she was shown the spot where a whole district had sunk under the sea; she was rowed out to the place where an old church stood at the bottom of the sea; and she was told about all the people who had been drowned, and of all the cattle that had been lost, the last time the sea had overflowed the dunes.

'"The whole day through the Empress sat thinking: 'How shall I help these poor people on the dunes? I cannot forbid the sea to rise and fall; I cannot forbid it to undermine the shore; nor can I stay the storm, or prevent it from upsetting the fishermen's boats; and still less can I lead the fish into their nets, or transform the lyme-grass into nutritious wheat. There is no monarch in the world so mighty that he can help these poor people in their need.'

'"The next day it was Sunday, and the Empress heard Mass at Blankenberghe. All the people from Dunkirk to Sluis had come to see her. But before Mass the Empress went about and spoke with the people.

'"The first person she addressed was the harbour-master from Nieuport. 'What news is there from your town?' asked the Empress. 'Nothing new,' answered the harbour-master, 'except that Cornelis Aertsen's boat was upset in the storm yesterday; and we found him this morning riding on the keel.' 'It was a good thing his life was saved,' said the Empress. 'Well, I don't know,' said the harbour-master, 'for he was out of his mind when he came on shore.' 'Was it from fear?' asked the Empress. 'Yes,' said the harbour-master; 'it is because we in Nieuport have nothing to depend upon in the hour of need. Cornelis knew that his wife and his small children would starve to death if he perished; and it was this thought, I suppose, that drove him out of his mind.' 'Then that is what you need here on the dunes—something to depend upon?' 'Yes, that is it,' said the harbour-master. 'The sea is uncertain, the harvest is uncertain, the fishing and the earnings are uncertain. Something to depend upon, that is what we need.'

'"The Empress then went on, and the next she spoke to was the priest from Heyst. 'What news from Heyst?' said she to him. 'Nothing new,' he answered, 'except that Jacob van Ravesteyn has given up making ditches in the marshes, and dredging the harbour, and attending to the lighthouses, and all other useful work he had to do.' 'How is that?' said the Empress. 'He has inherited a sum of money,' said the priest; 'but it was less than he had expected.' 'But now he has something certain,' said the Empress. 'Yes,' said the priest; 'but now he has got the money he dare not venture to do anything great for fear it will not be sufficient.' 'It is something infinitely great, then, that is needed to help you at Heyst?' said the Empress. 'It is,' said the priest; 'there is infinitely much to do. And nothing can be done until we know that we have something infinitely great to fall back upon.'

'"The Empress then went on until she came to the master-pilot from Middelkerke, whom she began to question about the news from his town. 'I do not know of anything new,' said the master-pilot, 'but that Ian van der Meer has quarrelled with Luca Neerwinden.' 'Indeed!' said the Empress. 'Yes, they have found the cod-bank they have both been looking for all their lives. They had heard about it from old people, and they had hunted for it all over the sea, and they have been the best of friends the whole time, but now they have found it they have fallen out.' 'Then it would have been better if they had never found it?' said the Empress. 'Yes,' answered the master-pilot, 'it would indeed have been better.' 'So, then, that which is to help you in Middelkerke,' said the Empress, 'must be hidden so well that no one can find it?' 'Just so,' said the master-pilot; 'well hidden it must be, for if anyone should find it, there would be nothing but quarrelling and strife over it, or else it would be all spent, and then it would be of no further use.'

'"The Empress sighed, and felt she could do nothing.

'"She then went to Mass, and the whole time she knelt and prayed that power might be given her to help the people. And—you must excuse me, citizens—when the Mass was finished, it had become clear to her that it was better to do a little than to do nothing. When all the people had come out of the church, she stood on the steps in order to address them.

'"No man or woman of West Flanders will ever forget how she looked. She was beautiful, like an Empress, and she was attired like an Empress. She wore her crown and her ermine mantle, and held the sceptre in her hand. Her hair was dressed high and powdered, and a string of large pearls was entwined amongst the curls. She wore a robe of red silk, which was entirely covered with Flemish lace, and red, high-heeled shoes, with large diamond buckles. That is how she appears, she who to this day still reigns over our West Flanders.

'"She spoke to the people of the coast, and told them her will. She told them of how she had thought of every way in which to help them. She said that they knew she could not compel the sea to quietness or chain the storm, that she could not lead the fish-shoals to the coast, or transform the lyme-grass into wheat; but what a poor mortal could do for them, that should be done.

'"They all knelt before her whilst she spoke. Never before had they felt such a gentle and motherly heart beat for them. The Empress spoke to them in such a manner about their hard and toilsome life that tears came into their eyes over her pity.

'"But now the Empress said she had decided to leave with them her Imperial money-chest, with all the treasures which it contained. That should be her gift to all those who lived on the dunes. That was the only assistance she could render them, and she asked them to forgive her that it was so poor; and the Empress herself had tears in her eyes when she said this.

'"She now asked them if they would promise and swear not to use any of the treasure until the need amongst them was so great that it could not become any greater. Next, if they would swear to leave it as an inheritance for their descendants, if they did not require it themselves. And, lastly, she asked every man singly to swear that he would not try to take possession of the treasure for his own use without having first asked the consent of all his fellow-fishermen.

'"If they were willing to swear? That they all were. And they blessed the Empress and cried from gratitude. And she cried and told them that she knew that what they needed was a support that would never fail them, a treasure that could never be exhausted, and a happiness that was unattainable, but that she could not give them. She had never been so powerless as here on the dunes.

'"My fellow-citizens, without her knowing it, solely by force of the royal wisdom with which this great Queen was endowed, the power was given her to attain far more than she had intended, and it is therefore one can say that to this day she reigns over West Flanders.

'"What a happiness, is it not, to hear of all the blessings which have been spread over West Flanders by the Empress's gift! The people there have now something to depend upon which they needed so badly, and which we all need. However bad things may be, there is never any despair.

'"They have told me at the dunes what the Empress's money-chest is like. They say it is like the holy shrine of Saint Ursula at Bruges, only more beautiful. It is a copy of the cathedral at Vienna, and it is of pure gold; but on the sides the whole history of the Empress is depicted in the whitest alabaster. On the small side-towers are the four diamonds which the Empress took from the crown of the Sultan of Turkey, and in the gable are her initials inlaid with rubies. But when I ask them whether they have seen the money-chest, they reply that shipwrecked sailors when in peril always see it swimming before them on the waves as a sign that they shall not be in despair for their wives and children, should they be compelled to leave them. But they are the only ones who have seen the treasure, otherwise no one has been near enough to count it. And you know, citizens, that the Empress never told anyone how great it was. But if any of you doubt how much use it has been and is, then I will ask you to go to the dunes and see for yourself. There has been digging and building ever since that time, and the sea now lies cowed by bulwarks and dams, and no longer does harm. And there are green meadows inside the dunes, and there are flourishing towns and watering-places near the shore. But for every lighthouse that has been built, for every harbour that has been deepened, for every ship of which the keel has been laid, for every dam that has been raised, they have always thought: 'If our own money should not be sufficient, we shall receive help from our Gracious Empress Maria Theresa.' But this has been but a spur to them: their own money has always sufficed.

'"You know, also, that the Empress did not say where the treasure was. Was not this well considered, citizens? There is one who has it in his keeping, but only, when all are agreed upon dividing it, will he who keeps the treasure come forward and reveal where it is. Therefore one is certain that neither now nor in the future will it be unfairly divided. It is the same for all. Everyone knows that the Empress thinks as much of him as of his neighbour. There can be no strife or envy amongst the people of the dunes as there is amongst other men, for they all share alike in the treasure."'

The Bishop interrupted Father Verneau.

'That is enough,' he said. 'How did you continue?'

'I said,' continued the monk, 'that it was very bad the good Empress had not also come to Charleroi. I pitied them because they did not own her money-chest. Considering the great things they had to accomplish, considering the sea which they had to tame, the quicksands which they had to bind, considering all this, I said to them surely there was nothing they needed so much.'

'And then?' asked the Bishop.

'One or two cabbages, your Eminence, a little hissing; but then I was already out of the pulpit. That was all.'

'They had understood that you had spoken to them about the providence of God?'

The monk bowed.

'They had understood that you would show them that the power which they deride because they do not see it must be kept hidden? that it will be abused immediately it assumes a visible form? I congratulate you, Father Verneau.'

The monk retired towards the door, bowing. The Bishop followed him, beaming benevolently.

'But the money-chest—do they still believe in it at the dunes?'

'As much as ever, Monseigneur.'

'And the treasure—has there ever been a treasure?'

'Monseigneur, I have sworn.'

'But for me,' said the Bishop.

'It is the priest at Blankenberghe, who has it in his keeping. He allowed me to see it. It is an old wooden chest with iron mountings.'

'And?'

'And at the bottom lie twenty bright Maria Theresa gold pieces.'

The Bishop smiled, but became grave at once.

'Is it right to compare such a wooden chest with God's providence?'

'All comparisons are incomplete, Monseigneur; all human thoughts are vain.'

Father Verneau bowed once again, and quietly withdrew from the audience-room.

VII [The Peace of God]

From a Swedish

Homestead

VII

The Peace of God

Once upon a time there was an old farmhouse. It was Christmas-eve, the sky was heavy with snow, and the north wind was biting. It was just that time in the afternoon when everybody was busy finishing their work before they went to the bath-house to have their Christmas bath. There they had made such a fire that the flames went right up the chimney, and sparks and soot were whirled about by the wind, and fell down on the snow-decked roofs of the outhouses. And as the flames appeared above the chimney of the bath-house, and rose like a fiery pillar above the farm, everyone suddenly felt that Christmas was at hand. The girl that was scrubbing the entrance floor began to hum, although the water was freezing in the bucket beside her. The men in the wood-shed who were cutting Christmas logs began to cut two at a time, and swung their axes as merrily as if log-cutting were a mere pastime.

An old woman came out of the pantry with a large pile of cakes in her arms. She went slowly across the yard into the large red-painted dwelling-house, and carried them carefully into the best room, and put them down on the long seat. Then she spread the tablecloth on the table, and arranged the cakes in heaps, a large and a small cake in each heap. She was a singularly ugly old woman, with reddish hair, heavy drooping eyelids, and with a peculiar strained look about the mouth and chin, as if the muscles were too short. But being Christmas-eve, there was such a joy and peace over her that one did not notice how ugly she was.

But there was one person on the farm who was not happy, and that was the girl who was tying up the whisks made of birch twigs that were to be used for the baths. She sat near the fireplace, and had a whole armful of fine birch twigs lying beside her on the floor, but the withes with which she was to bind the twigs would not keep knotted. The best room had a narrow, low window, with small panes, and through them the light from the bath-house shone into the room, playing on the floor and gilding the birch twigs. But the higher the fire burned the more unhappy was the girl. She knew that the whisks would fall to pieces as soon as one touched them, and that she would never hear the last of it until the next Christmas fire was lighted.

Just as she sat there bemoaning herself, the person of whom she was most afraid came into the room. It was her master, Ingmar Ingmarson. He was sure to have been to the bath-house to see if the stove was hot enough, and now he wanted to see how the whisks were getting on. He was old, was Ingmar Ingmarson, and he was fond of everything old, and just because people were beginning to leave off bathing in the bath-houses and being whipped with birch twigs, he made a great point of having it done on his farm, and having it done properly.

Ingmar Ingmarson wore an old coat of sheep's-skin, skin trousers, and shoes smeared over with pitch. He was dirty and unshaven, slow in all his movements, and came in so softly that one might very well have mistaken him for a beggar. His features resembled his wife's features and his ugliness resembled his wife's ugliness, for they were relations, and from the time the girl first began to notice anything she had learned to feel a wholesome reverence for anybody who looked like that; for it was a great thing to belong to the old family of the Ingmars, which had always been the first in the village. But the highest to which a man could attain was to be Ingmar Ingmarson himself, and be the richest, the wisest, and the mightiest in the whole parish.

Ingmar Ingmarson went up to the girl, took one of the whisks, and swung it in the air. It immediately fell to pieces; one of the twigs landed on the Christmas table, another on the big four-poster.

'I say, my girl,' said old Ingmar, laughing, 'do you think one uses that kind of whisk when one takes a bath at the Ingmar's, or are you very tender, my girl?'

When the girl saw that her master did not take it more seriously than that, she took heart, and answered that she could certainly make whisks that would not go to pieces if she could get proper withes to bind them with.

'Then I suppose I must try to get some for you, my girl,' said old Ingmar, for he was in a real Christmas humour.

He went out of the room, stepped over the girl who was scouring the floor, and remained standing on the doorstep, to see if there were anyone about whom he could send to the birch-wood for some withes. The farm hands were still busy cutting Yule logs; his son came out of the barn with the Christmas sheaf; his two sons-in-law were putting the carts into the shed so that the yard could be tidy for the Christmas festival. None of them had time to leave their work.

The old man then quietly made up his mind to go himself. He went across the yard as if he were going into the cowshed, looked cautiously round to make sure no one noticed him, and stole along outside the barn where there was a fairly good road to the wood. The old man thought it was better not to let anyone know where he was going, for either his son or his sons-in-law might then have begged him to remain at home, and old people like to have their own way.

He went down the road, across the fields, through the small pine-forest into the birch-wood. Here he left the road, and waded in the snow to find some young birches.

About the same time the wind at last accomplished what it had been busy with the whole day: it tore the snow from the clouds, and now came rushing through the wood with a long train of snow after it.

Ingmar Ingmarson had just stooped down and cut off a birch twig, when the wind came tearing along laden with snow. Just as the old man was getting up the wind blew a whole heap of snow in his face. His eyes were full of snow, and the wind whirled so violently around him that he was obliged to turn round once or twice.

The whole misfortune, no doubt, arose from Ingmar Ingmarson being so old. In his young days a snowstorm would certainly not have made him dizzy. But now everything danced round him as if he had joined in a Christmas polka, and when he wanted to go home he went in the wrong direction. He went straight into the large pine-forest behind the birch-wood instead of going towards the fields.

It soon grew dark, and the storm continued to howl and whirl around him amongst the young trees on the outskirts of the forest. The old man saw quite well that he was walking amongst fir-trees, but he did not understand that this was wrong, for there were also fir-trees on the other side of the birch-wood nearest the farm. But by-and-by he got so far into the forest that everything was quiet and still—one could not feel the storm, and the trees were high with thick stems—then he found out that he had mistaken the road, and would turn back.

He became excited and upset at the thought that he could lose his way, and as he stood there in the midst of the pathless wood he was not sufficiently clear-headed to know in which direction to turn. He first went to the one side and then to the other. At last it occurred to him to retrace his way in his own footprints, but darkness came on, and he could no longer follow them. The trees around him grew higher and higher. Whichever way he went, it was evident to him that he got further and further into the forest.

It was like witchcraft and sorcery, he thought, that he should be running about the woods like this all the evening and be too late for the bathing. He turned his cap and rebound his garter, but his head was no clearer. It had become quite dark, and he began to think that he would have to remain the whole night in the woods.

He leant against a tree, stood still for a little, and tried to collect his thoughts. He knew this forest so well, and had walked in it so much, that he ought to know every single tree. As a boy he had gone there and tended sheep. He had gone there and laid snares for the birds. In his young days he had helped to fell trees there. He had seen old trees cut down and new ones grow up. At last he thought he had an idea where he was, and fancied if he went that and that way he must come upon the right road; but all the same, he only went deeper and deeper into the forest.

Once he felt smooth, firm ground under his feet, and knew from that, that he had at last come to some road. He tried now to follow this, for a road, he thought, was bound to lead to some place or other; but then the road ended at an open space in the forest, and there the snowstorm had it all its own way; there was neither road nor path, only drifts and loose snow. Then the old man's courage failed him; he felt like some poor creature destined to die a lonely death in the wilderness.

He began to grow tired of dragging himself through the snow, and time after time he sat down on a stone to rest; but as soon as he sat down he felt he was on the point of falling asleep, and he knew he would be frozen to death if he did fall asleep, therefore he tried to walk and walk; that was the only thing that could save him. But all at once he could not resist the inclination to sit down. He thought if he could only rest, it did not matter if it did cost him his life.

It was so delightful to sit down that the thought of death did not in the least frighten him. He felt a kind of happiness at the thought that when he was dead the account of his whole life would be read aloud in the church. He thought of how beautifully the old Dean had spoken about his father, and how something equally beautiful would be sure to be said about him. The Dean would say that he had owned the oldest farm in the district, and he would speak about the honour it was to belong to such a distinguished family, and then something would be said about responsibility. Of course there was responsibility in the matter; that he had always known. One must endure to the very last when one was an Ingmar.

The thought rushed through him that it was not befitting for him to be found frozen to death in the wild forest. He would not have that handed down to posterity; and he stood up again and began to walk. He had been sitting so long that masses of snow fell from his fur coat when he moved. But soon he sat down again and began to dream.

The thought of death now came quite gently to him. He thought about the whole of the funeral and all the honour they would show his dead body. He could see the table laid for the great funeral feast in the large room on the first floor, the Dean and his wife in the seats of honour, the Justice of the Peace, with the white frill spread over his narrow chest; the Major's wife in full dress, with a low silk bodice, and her neck covered with pearls and gold; he saw all the best rooms draped in white—white sheets before the windows, white over the furniture; branches of fir strewn the whole way from the entrance-hall to the church; house-cleaning and butchering, brewing and baking for a fortnight before the funeral; the corpse on a bier in the inmost room; smoke from the newly-lighted fires in the rooms; the whole house crowded with guests; singing over the body whilst the lid of the coffin was being screwed on; silver plates on the coffin; twenty loads of wood burned in a fortnight; the whole village busy cooking food to take to the funeral; all the tall hats newly ironed; all the corn-brandy from the autumn drunk up during the funeral feast; all the roads crowded with people as at fair-time.

Again the old man started up. He had heard them sitting and talking about him during the feast.

'But how did he manage to go and get frozen to death?' asked the Justice of the Peace. 'What could he have been doing in the large forest?'

And the Captain would say that it was probably from Christmas ale and corn-brandy. And that roused him again. The Ingmars had never been drunkards. It should never be said of him that he was muddled in his last moments. And he began again to walk and walk; but he was so tired that he could scarcely stand on his legs. It was quite clear to him now that he had got far into the forest, for there were no paths anywhere, but many large rocks, of which he knew there were none lower down. His foot caught between two stones, so that he had difficulty in getting it out, and he stood and moaned. He was quite done for.

Suddenly he fell over a heap of fagots. He fell softly on to the snow and branches, so he was not hurt, but he did not take the trouble to get up again. He had no other desire in the world than to sleep. He pushed the fagots to one side and crept under them as if they were a rug; but when he pushed himself under the branches he felt that underneath there was something warm and soft. This must be a bear, he thought.

He felt the animal move, and heard it sniff; but he lay still. The bear might eat him if it liked, he thought. He had not strength enough to move a single step to get out of its way.

But it seemed as if the bear did not want to harm anyone who sought its protection on such a night as this. It moved a little further into its lair, as if to make room for its visitor, and directly afterwards it slept again with even, snorting breath.

In the meantime there was but scanty Christmas joy in the old farm of the Ingmars. The whole of Christmas-eve they were looking for Ingmar Ingmarson. First they went all over the dwelling-house and all the outhouses. They searched high and low, from loft to cellar. Then they went to the neighbouring farms and inquired for Ingmar Ingmarson.

As they did not find him, his sons and his sons-in-law went into the fields and roads. They used the torches which should have lighted the way for people going to early service on Christmas morning in the search for him. The terrible snowstorm had hidden all traces, and the howling of the wind drowned the sound of their voices when they called and shouted. They were out and about until long after midnight, but then they saw that it was useless to continue the search, and that they must wait until daylight to find the old man.

At the first pale streak of dawn everybody was up at Ingmar's farm, and the men stood about the yard ready to set out for the wood. But before they started the old housewife came and called them into the best room. She told them to sit down on the long benches; she herself sat down by the Christmas table with the Bible in front of her and began to read. She tried her best to find something suitable for the occasion, and chose the story of the man who was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves.

She read slowly and monotonously about the unfortunate man who was succoured by the good Samaritan. Her sons and sons-in-law, her daughters and daughters-in-law, sat around her on the benches. They all resembled her and each other, big and clumsy, with plain, old-fashioned faces, for they all belonged to the old race of the Ingmars. They had all reddish hair, freckled skin, and light-blue eyes with white eyelashes. They might be different enough from each other in some ways, but they had all a stern look about the mouth, dull eyes, and heavy movements, as if everything were a trouble to them. But one could see that they all, every one of them, belonged to the first people in the neighbourhood, and that they knew themselves to be better than other people.

All the sons and daughters of the house of Ingmar sighed deeply during the reading of the Bible. They wondered if some good Samaritan had found the master of the house and taken care of him, for all the Ingmars felt as if they had lost part of their own soul when a misfortune happened to anyone belonging to the family.

The old woman read and read, and came to the question: 'Who was neighbour unto him that fell amongst thieves?' But before she had read the answer the door opened and old Ingmar came into the room.

'Mother, here is father,' said one of the daughters; and the answer, that the man's neighbour was he who had shown mercy unto him, was never read.

Later in the day the housewife sat again in the same place, and read her Bible. She was alone; the women had gone to church, and the men were bear-hunting in the forest. As soon as Ingmar Ingmarson had eaten and drunk, he took his sons with him and went out to the forest; for it is every man's duty to kill a bear wherever and whenever he comes across one. It does not do to spare a bear, for sooner or later it will get a taste for flesh, and then it will spare neither man nor beast.

But after they were gone a great feeling of fear came over the old housewife, and she began to read her Bible. She read the lesson for the day, which was also the text for the Pastor's sermon; but she did not get further than this: 'Peace on earth, goodwill towards men.' She remained sitting and staring at these words with her dull eyes, now and again sighing deeply. She did not read any further, but she repeated time after time in her slow, drawling voice, 'Peace on earth, goodwill towards men.'

The eldest son came into the room just as she was going to repeat the words afresh.

'Mother!' he said softly.

She heard him, but did not take her eyes from the book whilst she asked:

'Are you not with the others in the forest?'

'Yes,' said he, still more softly, 'I have been there.'

'Come to the table,' she said, 'so that I can see you.'

He came nearer, but when she looked at him she saw that he was trembling. He had to press his hands hard against the edge of the table in order to keep them still.

'Have you got the bear?' she asked again.

He could not answer; he only shook his head.

The old woman got up and did what she had not done since her son was a child. She went up to him, laid her hand on his arm, and drew him to the bench. She sat down beside him and took his hand in hers.

'Tell me now what has happened, my boy.'

The young man recognised the caress which had comforted him in bygone days when he had been in trouble and unhappy, and he was so overcome that he began to weep.

'I suppose it is something about father?' she said.

'It is worse than that,' the son sobbed. 'Worse than that?'

The young man cried more and more violently; he did not know how to control his voice. At last he lifted his rough hand, with the broad fingers, and pointed to what she had just read: 'Peace on earth. . . .'

'Is it anything about that?' she asked.

'Yes,' he answered.

'Is it anything about the peace of Christmas?'

'Yes.'

'You wished to do an evil deed this morning?'

'Yes.'

'And God has punished us?'

'God has punished us.'

So at last she was told how it had happened. They had with some trouble found the lair of the bear, and when they had got near enough to see the heap of fagots, they stopped in order to load their guns. But before they were ready the bear rushed out of its lair straight against them. It went neither to the right nor to the left, but straight for old Ingmar Ingmarson, and struck him a blow on the top of the head that felled him to the ground as if he had been struck by lightning. It did not attack any of the others, but rushed past them into the forest.

In the afternoon Ingmar Ingmarson's wife and son drove to the Dean's house to announce his death. The son was spokesman, and the old housewife sat and listened with a face as immovable as a stone figure.

The Dean sat in his easy-chair near his writing-table. He had entered the death in the register. He had done it rather slowly; he wanted time to consider what he should say to the widow and the son, for this was, indeed, an unusual case. The son had frankly told him how it had all happened, but the Dean was anxious to know how they themselves looked at it. They were peculiar people, the Ingmars.

When the Dean had closed the book, the son said:

'We wanted to tell you, sir, that we do not wish any account of father's life to be read in church.'

The Dean pushed his spectacles over his forehead and looked searchingly at the old woman. She sat just as immovable as before. She only crumpled the handkerchief a little which she held in her hand.

'We wish to have him buried on a week day,' continued the son.

'Indeed!' said the Dean.

He could hardly believe his own ears. Old Ingmar Ingmarson to be buried without anyone taking any notice of it! The congregation not to stand on railings and mounds in order to see the display when he was being carried to the grave!

'There will not be any funeral feast. We have let the neighbours know that they need not think of preparing anything for the funeral.'

'Indeed, indeed!' said the Dean again.

He could think of nothing else to say. He knew quite well what it meant for such people to forego the funeral feast. He had seen both widows and fatherless comforted by giving a splendid funeral feast.

'There will be no funeral procession, only I and my brothers.'

The Dean looked almost appealingly at the old woman. Could she really be a party to all this? He asked himself if it could be her wishes to which the son had given expression. She was sitting there and allowing herself to be robbed of what must be dearer to her than gold and silver.

'We will not have the bells rung, or any silver plates on the coffin. Mother and I wish it to be done in this way, but we tell you all this, sir, in order to hear, sir, if you think we are wronging father.'

Now the old woman spoke:

'We should like to hear if your Reverence thinks we are doing father a wrong.'

The Dean remained silent, and the old woman continued, more eagerly:

'I must tell your Reverence that if my husband had sinned against the King or the authorities, or if I had been obliged to cut him down from the gallows, he should all the same have had an honourable funeral, as his father before him, for the Ingmars are not afraid of anyone, and they need not go out of their way for anybody. But at Christmas God has made peace between man and beast, and the poor beast kept God's commandment, whilst we broke it, and therefore we now suffer God's punishment; and it is not becoming for us to show any ostentatious display.'

The Dean rose and went up to the old woman.

'What you say is right,' he said, 'and you shall follow the dictates of your own conscience.' And involuntarily he added, perhaps most to himself: 'The Ingmars are a grand family.'

The old woman straightened herself a little at these words. At that moment the Dean saw in her the symbol of her whole race. He understood what it was that had made these heavy, silent people, century after century, the leaders of the whole parish.

'It behooves the Ingmars to set the people a good example,' she said. 'It behooves us to show that we humble ourselves before God.'

VIII [A Story from Halstanäs]

From a Swedish

Homestead

VIII

A Story from Halstanäs

In olden times there stood by the roadside an old country-house called Halstanäs. It comprised a long row of red-painted houses, which were of low structure, and right behind them lay the forest. Close to the dwelling-house was a large wild cherry-tree, which showered its black fruit over the red-tiled roof. A bell under a small belfry hung over the gable of the stables.

Just outside the kitchen-door was a dovecote, with a neat little trelliswork outside the holes. From the attic a cage for squirrels was hanging; it consisted of two small green houses and a large wheel, and in front of a big hedge of lilacs stood a long row of beehives covered with bark.

There was a pond belonging to the farm, full of fat carp and slim water-snakes; there was also a kennel at the entrance; there were white gates at the end of the avenue, and at the garden walks, and in every place where they could possibly have a gate. There were big lofts with dark lumber-rooms, where old-fashioned uniforms and ladies' head-gear a hundred years old were stored away; there were large chests full of silk gowns and bridal finery; there were old pianos and violins, guitars and bassoons. In bureaus and cabinets were manuscript songs and old yellow letters; on the walls of the entrance-hall hung guns, pistols and hunting-bags; on the floor were rugs, in which patches of old silken gowns were woven together with pieces of threadbare cotton curtains. There was a large porch, where the deadly nightshade summer after summer grew up a thin trelliswork; there were large, yellow front-doors, which were fastened with bolts and catches; the hall was strewn with sprigs of juniper, and the windows had small panes and heavy wooden shutters.

One summer old Colonel Beerencreutz came on a visit to this house. It is supposed to have been the very year after he left Ekeby. At that time he had taken rooms at a farm at Svartsjö, and it was only on rare occasions that he went visiting. He still had his horse and gig, but he scarcely ever used them. He said that he had grown old in earnest now, and that home was the best place for old people.

Beerencreutz was also loath to leave the work he had in hand. He was weaving rugs for his two rooms—large, many-coloured rugs in a rich and strangely-thought-out pattern. It took him an endless time, because he had his own way of weaving, for he used no loom, but stretched his wool from the one wall to the other right across the one room. He did this in order to see the whole rug at one time; but to cross the woof and afterwards bring the threads together to a firm web was no easy matter. And then there was the pattern, which he himself thought out, and the colours which should match. This took the Colonel more time than anyone would have imagined; for whilst Beerencreutz was busy getting the pattern right, and whilst he was working with warp and woof, he often sat and thought of God. Our Lord, he thought, was likewise sitting at a loom, still larger, and with an even more peculiar pattern to weave. And he knew that there must be both light and dark shades in that weaving. But Beerencreutz would at times sit and think so long about this, until he fancied he saw before him his own life and the life of the people whom he had known, and with whom he had lived, forming a small portion of God's great weaving; and he seemed to see that piece so distinctly that he could discern both outlines and colouring. And if one asked Beerencreutz what the pattern in his work really meant, he would be obliged to confess that it was the life of himself and his friends which he wove into the rug as a faint imitation of what he thought he had seen represented on God's loom.

The Colonel, however, was accustomed to pay a little visit to some old friends every year just after midsummer. He had always liked best to travel through the country when the fields were still scented with clover, and blue and yellow flowers grew along the roadside in two long straight rows.

This year the Colonel had hardly got to the great highroad before he met his old friend Ensign von Örneclou. And the Ensign, who was travelling about all the year round, and who knew all the country houses in Värmland, gave him some good advice.

'Go to Halstanäs and call upon Ensign Vestblad,' he said to the Colonel. 'I can only tell you, old man, I don't know a house in the whole country where one fares better.'

'What Vestblad are you speaking about?' asked the Colonel. 'I suppose you don't mean the old Ensign whom the Major's wife showed the door?'

'The very man,' said the Ensign. 'But Vestblad is not the same man he was. He has married a fine lady—a real stunning woman, Colonel—who has made a man of him. It was a wonderful piece of good luck for Vestblad that such a splendid girl should take a fancy to him. She was not exactly young any longer; but no more was he. You should go to Halstanäs, Colonel, and see what wonders love can work.'

And the Colonel went to Halstanäs to see if Örneclou spoke the truth. He had, as a matter of fact, now and then wondered what had become of Vestblad; in his young days he had kicked so recklessly over the traces that even the Major's wife at Ekeby could not put up with him. She had not been able to keep him at Ekeby more than a couple of years before she was obliged to turn him out. Vestblad had become such a heavy drinker that a Cavalier could hardly associate with him. And now Örneclou declared that he owned a country house, and had made an excellent match.

The Colonel consequently went to Halstanäs, and saw at the first glance that it was a real old country-seat. He had only to look at the avenue of birches with all the names cut on the fine old trees. Such birches he had only seen at good old country-houses. The Colonel drove slowly up to the house, and every moment his pleasure increased. He saw lime hedges of the proper kind, so close that one could walk on the top of them, and there were a couple of terraces with stone steps so old that they were half buried in the ground. When the Colonel drove past the pond, he saw indistinctly the dark carp in the yellowish water. The pigeons flew up from the road flapping their wings; the squirrel stopped its wheel; the watch-dog lay with its head on its paws, wagging its tail, and at the same time faintly growling. Close to the porch the Colonel saw an ant-hill, where the ants, unmolested, went to and fro—to and fro. He looked at the flower-beds inside the grass border. There they grew, all the old flowers: narcissus and pyrola, sempervivum and marigold; and on the bank grew small white daisies, which had been there so long that they now sowed themselves like weeds. Beerencreutz again said to himself that this was indeed a real old country-house, where both plants and animals and human beings throve as well as could be.

When at last he drove up to the front-door he had as good a reception as he could wish for, and as soon as he had brushed the dust off him he was taken to the dining-room, and he was offered plenty of good old-fashioned food—the same old cakes for dessert that his mother used to give him when he came home from school; and any so good he had never tasted elsewhere.

Beerencreutz looked with surprise at Ensign Vestblad. He went about quiet and content, with a long pipe in his mouth and a skull-cap on his head. He wore an old morning-coat, which he had difficulty in getting out of when it was time to dress for dinner. That was the only sign of the Bohemian left, as far as Beerencreutz could see. He went about and looked after his men, calculated their wages, saw how things were getting on in the fields and meadows, gathered a rose for his wife when he went through the garden, and he indulged no longer in either swearing or spitting. But what astonished the Colonel most of all was the discovery that old Ensign Vestblad kept his books. He took the Colonel into his office and showed him large books with red backs. And those he kept himself. He had lined them with red ink and black ink, written the headings with large letters, and put down everything, even to a stamp.

But Ensign Vestblad's wife, who was a born lady, called Beerencreutz cousin, and they soon found out the relationship between them; and they talked all their relatives over. At last Beerencreutz became so intimate with Mrs. Vestblad that he consulted her about the rug he was weaving.

It was a matter of course that the Colonel should stay the night. He was taken to the best spare room to the right of the hall and close to his host's bedroom, and his bed was a large four-poster, with heaps of eiderdowns.

The Colonel fell asleep as soon as he got into bed, but awoke later on in the night. He immediately got out of bed and went and opened the window-shutters. He had a view over the garden, and in the light summer night he could see all the gnarled old apple-trees, with their worm-eaten leaves, and with numerous props under the decayed branches. He saw the large wild apple-tree, which in the autumn would give barrels of uneatable fruit; he saw the strawberries, which had just begun to ripen under their profusion of green leaves.

The Colonel stood and looked at it as if he could not afford to waste his time in sleeping. Outside his window at the peasant farm where he lived all he could see was a stony hill and a couple of juniper-bushes; and it was natural that a man like Beerencreutz should feel more at home amongst well-trimmed hedges and roses in bloom.

When in the quiet stillness of the night one looks out upon a garden, one often has a feeling that it is not real and natural. It can be so still that one can almost fancy one's self in the theatre; one imagines that the trees are painted and the roses made of paper. And it was something like this the Colonel felt as he stood there. 'It cannot be possible,' he thought, 'that all this is real. It can only be a dream.' But then a few rose-leaves fell softly to the ground from the big rose-tree just outside his window, and then he realized that everything was genuine. Everything was real and genuine; both day and night the same peace and contentment everywhere.

When he went and laid down again he left the window-shutters open. He lay in the high bed and looked time after time at the rose-tree; it is impossible to describe his pleasure in looking at it. He thought what a strange thing it was that such a man as Vestblad should have this flower of Paradise outside his window.

The more the Colonel thought of Vestblad the more surprised he became that such a foal should end his days in such a stable. He was not good for much at the time he was turned away from Ekeby. Who would have thought he would have become a staid and well-to-do man?

The Colonel lay and laughed to himself, and wondered whether Vestblad still remembered how he used to amuse himself in the olden days when he was living at Ekeby. On dark and stormy nights he used to rub himself over with phosphorus, mount a black horse, and ride over the hills to the ironworks, where the smiths and the workmen lived; and if anyone happened to look out of his window and saw a horseman shining with a bluish-white light tearing past, he hastened to bar and bolt everywhere, saying it was best to say one's prayers twice that night, for the devil was abroad.

Oh yes, to frighten simple folks by such tricks was a favourite amusement in olden days; but Vestblad had carried his jokes further than anyone else the Colonel knew of.

An old woman on the parish had died at Viksta, which belonged to Ekeby. Vestblad happened to hear about this. He also heard that the corpse had been taken from the house and placed in a barn. At night Vestblad put on his fiery array, mounted his black horse, and rode to the farmstead; and people there who were about had seen a fiery horseman ride up to the barn, where the corpse lay, ride three times round it and disappear through the door. They had also seen the horseman come out again, ride three times round the house and then disappear. But in the morning, when they went into the barn to see the corpse, it was gone, and they thought the devil had been there and carried her off. This supposition had been enough for them. But a couple of weeks later they found the body, which had been thrown on to a hay-loft in the barn, and then there was a great outcry. They found out who the fiery horseman was, and the peasants were on the watch to give Vestblad a good hiding. But the Major's wife would not have him at her table or in her house any longer; she packed his knapsack and asked him to betake himself elsewhere. And Vestblad went out into the world and made his fortune.

A strange feeling of uneasiness came over the Colonel as he lay in bed. He felt as if something were going to happen. He had hardly realized before what an ugly story it was. He had no doubt even laughed at it at the time. They had not been in the habit of taking much notice of what happened to a poor old pauper in those days; but, great God! how furious one would have been if anybody had done that to one's own mother!

A suffocating feeling came over the Colonel; he breathed heavily. The thought of what Vestblad had done appeared so vile and hateful to him, it weighed him down like a nightmare. He was half afraid of seeing the dead woman, of seeing her appear from behind the bed. He felt as if she must be quite near. And from the four corners of the room the Colonel heard terrible words: 'God will not forgive it! God has never forgotten it!'

The Colonel closed his eyes, but then he suddenly saw before him God's great loom, where the web was woven with the fates of men; and he thought he saw Ensign Vestblad's square, and it was dark on three sides; and he, who understood something about weaving and patterns, knew that the fourth side would also have to be covered with the dark shade. It could not be done in any other way, otherwise there would be a mistake in the weaving.

A cold sweat broke out on his forehead; it seemed to him that he looked upon what was the hardest and the most immovable in all the world. He saw how the fate which a man has worked out in his past life will pursue him to the end. And to think there were actually people who thought they could escape it!

Escape it! escape! All was noted and written down; the one colour and the one figure necessitated the other, and everything came about as it was bound to come about.

Suddenly Colonel Beerencreutz sat up in bed; he would look at the flowers and the roses, and think that perhaps our Lord could forget after all. But at the moment Beerencreutz sat up in bed the bedroom door opened, and one of the farm-labourers—a stranger to him—put his head in and nodded to the Colonel.

It was now so light that the Colonel saw the man quite distinctly. It was the most hideous face he had ever seen. He had small gray eyes like a pig, a flat nose, and a thin, bristly beard. One could not say that the man looked like an animal, for animals have nearly always good faces, but still, he had something of the animal about him. His lower jaw projected, his neck was thick, and his forehead was quite hidden by his rough, unkempt hair.

He nodded three times to the Colonel, and every time his mouth opened with a broad grin; and he put out his hand, red with blood, and showed it triumphantly. Up to this moment the Colonel had sat up in bed as if paralyzed, but now he jumped up and was at the door in two steps. But when he reached the door, the fellow was gone and the door closed.

The Colonel was just on the point of raising the alarm, when it struck him that the door must be fastened on the inside, on his side, as he had himself locked it the night before; and on examining it, he found that it had not been unlocked.

The Colonel felt almost ashamed to think that in his old age he had begun to see ghosts. He went straight back to bed again.

When the morning came, and he had breakfasted, the Colonel felt still more ashamed. He had excited himself to such an extent that he had trembled all over and perspired from fear. He said not a word about it. But later on in the day he and Vestblad went over the estate. As they passed a labourer who was cutting sods on a bank Beerencreutz recognised him again. It was the man he had seen in the night. He recognised feature for feature.

'I would not keep that man a day longer in my service, my friend,' said Beerencreutz, when they had walked a short distance. And he told Vestblad what he had seen in the night. 'I tell you this simply to warn you, in order that you may dismiss the man.'

But Vestblad would not; he was just the man he would not dismiss. And when Beerencreutz pressed him more and more, he at last confessed that he would not do anything to the man, because he was the son of an old pauper woman who had died at Viksta close to Ekeby.

'You no doubt remember the story?' he added.

'If that's the case, I would rather go to the end of the world than live another day with that man about the place,' said Beerencreutz. An hour after he left, and was almost angry that his warning was not heeded. 'Some misfortune will happen before I come here again,' said the Colonel to Vestblad, as he took leave.

Next year, at the same time, the Colonel was preparing for another visit to Halstanäs. But before he got so far, he heard some sad news about his friends. As the clock struck one, a year after the very night he had slept there, Ensign Vestblad and his wife had been murdered in their bedroom by one of their labourers—a man with a neck like a bull, a flat nose, and eyes like a pig.

IX. [The Inscription on the Grave]

From a Swedish

Homestead

The Inscription on the Grave

Nowadays no one ever takes any notice of the little cross standing in the corner of Svartsjö Churchyard. People on their way to and from church go past it without giving it a glance. This is not so very wonderful, because it is so low and small that clover and bluebells grow right up to the arms of the cross, and timothy-grass to the very top of it. Neither does anyone think of reading the inscription which stands on the cross. The white letters are almost entirely washed out by the rain, and it never occurs to anyone to try and decipher what is still left, and try to make it out. But so it has not always been. The little cross in its time has been the cause of much surprise and curiosity. There was a time when not a person put his foot inside Svartsjö Churchyard without going up to look at it. And when one of the old people from those days now happens to see it, a whole story comes back to him of people and events that have been long forgotten. He sees before him the whole of Svartsjö parish in the lethargic sleep of winter, covered by even white snow, quite a yard deep, so that it is impossible to discern road or pathway, or to know where one is going. It is almost as necessary to have a compass here as at sea. There is no difference between sea and shore. The roughest ground is as even as the field which in the autumn yielded such a harvest of oats. The charcoal-burner living near the great bogs might imagine himself possessed of as much cultivated land as the richest peasant.

The roads have left their secure course between the gray fences, and are running at random across the meadows and along the river. Even on one's own farm one may lose one's way, and suddenly discover that on one's way to the well one has walked over the spirea-hedge and round the little rose-bed.

But nowhere is it so impossible to find one's way as in the churchyard. In the first place, the stone wall which separates it from the pastor's field is entirely buried under the snow, so with that it is all one; and secondly, the churchyard itself is only a simple large, white plain, where not even the smallest unevenness in the snow-cover betrays the many small mounds and tufts of the garden of the dead.

On most of the graves are iron crosses, from which hang small, thin hearts of tin, which the summer wind sets in motion. These little hearts are now all hidden under the snow, and cannot tinkle their sad songs of sorrow and longing.

People who work in the towns have brought back with them to their dead wreaths with flowers of beads and leaves of painted tin; and these wreaths are so highly treasured that they are kept in small glass cases on the graves. But now all this is hidden and buried under the snow, and the grave that possesses such an ornament is in no way more remarkable than any of the other graves.

One or two lilac bushes raise their heads above the snow-cover, but their little stiff branches look so alike, that it is impossible to tell one from the other, and they are of no use whatever to anyone trying to find his way in the churchyard. Old women who are in the habit of going on Sundays to visit their graves can only get a little way down the main walk on account of the snow. There they stand, trying to make out where their own grave lies—is it near that bush, or that?—and they begin to long for the snow to melt. It is as if the one for whom they are sorrowing has gone so far away from them, now that they cannot see the spot where he lies.

There are also a few large gravestones and crosses that are higher than the snow, but they are not many; and as these are also covered with snow, they cannot be distinguished either.

There is only one pathway kept clear in the churchyard. It is the one leading from the entrance to the small mortuary. When anyone is to be buried the coffin is carried into the mortuary, and there the pastor reads the service and casts the earth upon the coffin. It is impossible to place the coffin in the ground as long as such a winter lasts. It must remain standing in the mortuary until God sees fit to thaw the earth, and the ground can be digged and made ready.

Just when the winter was at its hardest, and the churchyard quite inaccessible, a child died at Sander's, the ironmaster at Lerum ironworks.

The ironworks at Lerum were large, and Sander, the ironmaster, was a great man in that part of the country. He had recently had a family grave made in the churchyard—a splendid grave, the position of which one could not easily forget, although the snow had laid its thick carpet over it. It was surrounded by heavy, hewn stones, with a massive chain between them, and in the middle of the grave stood a huge granite block, with their name inscribed upon it. There was only the one word 'Sander,' engraved in large letters, but it could be seen over the whole churchyard. But now that the child was dead, and was to be buried, the ironmaster said to his wife:

'I will not allow this child to lie in my grave.'

One can picture them both at that moment. It was in their dining-room at Lerum. The ironmaster was sitting at the breakfast-table alone, as was his wont. His wife, Ebba Sander, was sitting in a rocking-chair at the window, from where she had a wide view of the lake, with its small islands covered with birches.

She had been weeping, but when her husband said this, her eyes became immediately dry. Her little figure seemed to shrink from fear, and she began to tremble.

'What do you say? What are you saying?' she asked, and her voice sounded as if she were shivering from cold.

'I object to it,' he said. 'My father and my mother lie there, and the name "Sander" stands on the stone. I will not allow that child to lie there.'

'Oh,' she said, still trembling, 'is that what you have been thinking about? I always did think that some day you would have your revenge.'

He threw down his serviette, rose from the table, and stood before her, broad and big. It was not his intention to assert his will with many words, but she could see, as he stood there, that nothing could make him change his mind. Stern, immovable, obstinate he was from top to toe.

'I will not revenge myself,' he said, 'only I will not have it.'

'You speak as if it were only a question of removing him from one bed to the other,' she said. 'He is dead. It does not matter to him where he lies, I suppose; but for me it is ruin, you know.'

'I have also thought of that,' he said, 'but I cannot.'

When two people have been married, and have lived together for some years, they do not require many words to understand one another. She knew it would be quite useless to try and move him.

'Why did you forgive me, then?' she said, wringing her hands. 'Why did you let me stay with you as your wife and promise to forgive me?'

He knew that he would not do her any harm. It was not his fault that he had now reached the limit of his forbearance.

'Say to people what you like,' he said; 'I shall not say anything. You can say, if you like, that there is water in the vault, or that there is only room for father and mother and you and me.'

'And you imagine that they will believe that!'

'Well, you must manage that as best you can.'

He was not angry; she knew that he was not. It was only as he said: on that point he could not give way.

She went further into the room, put her hands at the back of her head, and sat gazing out of the window without saying anything. The terrible thing is that so much happens to one in life over which one has no control, and, above all, that something may spring up within one's self over which one is entirely powerless. Some years ago, when she was already a staid married woman, love came to her; and what a love—so violent that it was quite impossible for her to resist.

Was not the feeling which now mastered her husband—was not that, after all, a desire to be revenged?

He had never been angry with her. He forgave her at once when she came and confessed her sin.

'You have been out of your senses,' he said, and allowed her to remain with him at Lerum as if nothing had happened.

But although it is easy enough to say one forgives, it may be hard to do so, especially for one whose mind is slow and heavy, who ponders over but never forgets or gives vent to his feelings. Whatever he may say, and however much he may have made up his mind, something is always left within his heart which gnaws and longs to be satisfied with someone else's suffering. She had always had a strange feeling that it would have been better for her if he had been so enraged that he had struck her. Then, perhaps, things could have come right between them. All these years he had been morose and irritable, and she had become frightened. She was like a horse between the traces. She knew that behind her was one who held a whip over her, even if he did not use it; and now he had used it. He had not been able to refrain any longer. And now it was all over with her.

Those who were about her said they had never seen such sorrow as hers. She seemed to be petrified. The whole time before the funeral it was as if there were no real life in her. One could not tell if she heard what was said to her, if she had any idea who was speaking to her. She did not eat; it was as if she felt no hunger. She went out in the bitterest cold; she did not feel it. But it was not grief that petrified her—it was fear.

It never struck her for a moment to stay at home on the day of the funeral. She must go to the churchyard, she must walk in the funeral procession—must go there, feeling that all who were present expected that the body would be laid in the family vault of the Sanders. She thought she would sink into the ground at all the surprise and scorn which would rise up against her when the grave-digger, who headed the procession, led the way to an out-of-the-way grave. An outburst of astonishment would be heard from everybody, although it was a funeral procession: 'Why is the child not going to be buried in the Sanders' family vault?' Thoughts would go back to the vague rumours which were once circulated about her. 'There must have been something in them, after all,' people will whisper to each other. And before the mourners left the churchyard she would be condemned and lost. The only thing for her to do was to be present herself. She would go there with a quiet face, as if everything was as it ought to be. Then, perhaps, they might believe what she said to explain the matter. . . .

Her husband went with her to the church; he had looked after everything, invited people, ordered the coffin, and arranged who should be the bearers. He was kind and good now that he had got his own way.

It was on a Sunday. The service was over, and the mourners had assembled outside the porch, where the coffin was standing. The bearers had placed the white bands over their shoulders; all people of any position had joined in the procession, as did also many of the congregation. She had a feeling as if they had all gathered together in order to accompany a criminal to the scaffold.

How they would all look at her when they came back from the funeral! She was there to prepare them for what was to happen, but she had not been able to utter a single word. She felt quite unable to speak quietly and sensibly. There was only one thing she wanted: to scream and moan so violently and loudly that it could be heard all over the churchyard; and she had to bite her lips so as not to cry out.

The bells commenced to ring in the tower, and the procession began to move. Now all these people would find it out without the slightest preparation. Oh, why had she not spoken in time? She had to restrain herself to the utmost from shouting out and telling them that they must not go to the grave with the dead child. Those who are dead are dead and gone. Why should her whole life be spoiled for the sake of this dead child? They could put him in the earth, where they liked, only not in the churchyard. She had a confused idea that she would frighten them away from the churchyard; it was risky to go there; it was plague-smitten; there were marks of a wolf in the snow; she would frighten them as one frightens children.

She did not know where they had digged the child's grave. She would know soon enough, she thought; and when the procession entered the churchyard, she glanced around the snow-covered ground to see where there was a new grave; but she saw neither path nor grave—nothing but the white snow. And the procession advanced towards the small mortuary. As many as possibly could pressed into the building and saw the earth cast on to the coffin. There was no question whatever about this or that grave. No one found out that the little one which was now laid to rest was never to be taken to the family vault.

Had she but thought of that, had she not forgotten everything else in her fear and terror, then she need not have been afraid, not for a single moment.

'In the spring,' she thought, 'when the coffin has to be placed in the ground, there will probably be no one there except the grave-digger; everybody will think that the child is lying in the Sanders' vault.' And she felt that she was saved.

She sank down sobbing violently. People looked at her with sympathy. 'How terribly she felt it!' they said. But she herself knew that she cried like one who has escaped from a mortal danger.

A day or two after the funeral she was sitting in the twilight in her accustomed place in the dining-room, and as it grew darker she caught herself waiting and longing. She sat and listened for the child; that was the time when he always used to come in and play with her. Why did he not come that day? Then she started. 'Oh, he is dead, he is dead!'

The next day she sat again in the twilight, and longed for him, and day by day this longing grew. It grew as the light does in the springtime, until at last it filled all the hours both of day and night.

It almost goes without saying that a child like hers was more loved after death than whilst it was living. While it was living its mother had thought of nothing but regaining the trust and the love of her husband. And for him the child could never be a source of happiness. It was necessary to keep it away from him as much as possible; and the child had often felt he was in the way.

She, who had failed in and neglected her duty, would show her husband that she was worth something after all. She was always about in the kitchen and in the weaving-room. Where could there be any room, then, for the little boy?

But now, afterwards, she remembered how his eyes could beg and beseech. In the evening he liked so much to have her sitting at his bedside. He said he was afraid to lie in the dark; but now it struck her that that had probably only been an excuse to get her to stay with him. She remembered how he lay and tried not to fall asleep. Now she knew that he kept himself awake in order that he might lie a little longer and feel his hand in hers. He had been a shrewd little fellow, young as he was. He had exerted all his little brain to find out how he could get a little share of her love. It is incomprehensible that children can love so deeply. She never understood it whilst he was alive.

It was really first now that she had begun to love the child. It was first now that she was really impressed by his beauty. She would sit and dream of his big, strange eyes. He had never been robust and ruddy like most children, but delicate and slender. But how sweet he had been! He seemed to her now as something wonderfully beautiful—more and more beautiful for every day that went. Children were indeed the best of all in this world. To think that there were little beings stretching out their hands to everybody, and thinking good of all; that never ask if a face be plain or pretty, but are equally willing to kiss either, loving equally old and young, rich and poor. And yet they were real little people.

For every day that went she was drawn nearer and nearer to the child. She wished that the child had been still alive; but, on the other hand, she was not sure that in that case she would have been drawn so near to it. At times she was quite in despair at the thought that she had not done more for the child whilst he was alive. That was probably why he had been taken from her, she thought.

But it was not often that she sorrowed like this. Earlier in life she had always been afraid lest some great sorrow should overtake her, but now it seemed to her that sorrow was not what she had then thought it to be. Sorrow was only to live over and over again through something which was no more. Sorrow in her case was to become familiar with her child's whole being, and to seek to understand him. And that sorrow had made her life so rich.

What she was most afraid of now was that time would take him from her and wipe out the memory of him. She had no picture of him; perhaps his features little by little would fade for her. She sat every day and tried to think how he looked. 'Do I see him exactly as he was?' she said.

Week by week, as the winter wore away, she began to long for the time when he would be taken from the mortuary and buried in the ground, so that she could go to his grave and speak with him. He should lie towards the west, that was the most beautiful, and she would deck the grave with roses. There should also be a hedge round the grave, and a seat where she could sit often and often. People would perhaps wonder at it; but they were not to know that her child did not lie in the family grave; and they were sure to think it strange that she placed flowers on an unknown grave and sat there for hours. What could she say to explain it?

Sometimes she thought that she could, perhaps, do it in this way: First she would go to the big grave and place a large bouquet of flowers on it, and remain sitting there for some time, and afterwards she would steal away to the little grave; and he would be sure to be content with the little flower she would secretly give him. But even if he were satisfied with the one little flower, could she be? Could she really come quite near to him in this way? Would he not notice that she was ashamed of him? Would he not understand what a disgrace his birth had been to her? No, she would have to protect him from that. He must only think that the joy of having possessed him weighed against all the rest.

At last the winter was giving way. One could see the spring was coming. The snow-cover began to melt, and the earth to peep out. It would still be a week or two before the ground was thawed, but it would not be long now before the dead could be taken away from the mortuary. And she longed—she longed so exceedingly for it.

Could she still picture to herself how he looked? She tried every day; but it was easier when it was winter. Now, when the spring was coming, it seemed as if he faded away from her. She was filled with despair. If she were only soon able to sit by his grave and be near to him again, then she would be able to see him again, to love him. Would he never be laid in his little grave? She must be able to see him again, see him through her whole life; she had no one else to love.

At last all her fears and scruples vanished before this great longing. She loved, she loved; she could not live without the dead! She knew now that she could not consider anybody or anything but him—him alone. And when the spring came in earnest, when mounds and graves once again appeared all over the churchyard, when the little hearts of the iron crosses again began to tinkle in the wind, and the beaded wreaths to sparkle in their glass cases, and when the earth at last was ready to receive the little coffin, she had ready a black cross to place on his grave. On the cross from arm to arm was written in plain white letters,

'HERE RESTS MY CHILD,'

and underneath, on the stem of the cross, stood her name.

She did not mind that the whole world would know how she had sinned. Other things were of no consequence to her; all she thought about was that she would now be able to pray at the grave of her child.

X. [The Brothers]

From a Swedish

Homestead

The Brothers

It is very possible that I am mistaken, but it seems to me that an astonishing number of people die this year. I have a feeling that I cannot go down the street without meeting a hearse. One cannot help thinking about all those who are carried to the churchyard. I always feel as if it were so sad for the dead who have to be buried in towns. I can hear how they moan in their coffins. Some complain that they have not had plumes on the hearse; some count up the wreaths, and are not satisfied; and then there are some who have only been followed by two or three carriages, and who are hurt by it.

The dead ought never to know and experience such things; but people in towns do not at all understand how they ought to honour those who have entered into eternal rest.

When I really think over it I do not know any place where they understand it better than at home in Svartsjö. If you die in the parish of Svartsjö you know you will have a coffin like that of everyone else—an honest black coffin which is like the coffins in which the country judge and the local magistrate were buried a year or two ago. For the same joiner makes all the coffins, and he has only one pattern; the one is made neither better nor worse than the other. And you know also, for you have seen it so many times, that you will be carried to the church on a waggon which has been painted black for the occasion. You need not trouble yourself at all about any plumes. And you know that the whole village will follow you to the church, and that they will drive as slowly and as solemnly for you as for a landed proprietor.

But you will have no occasion to feel annoyed because you have not enough wreaths, for they do not place a single flower on the coffin; it shall stand out black and shining, and nothing must cover it; and it is not necessary for you to think whether you will have a sufficiently large number of people to follow you, for those who live in your town will be sure to follow you, every one. Nor will you be obliged to lie and listen if there is lamenting and weeping around your coffin. They never weep over the dead when they stand on the church hill outside Svartsjö Church. No, they weep as little over a strong young fellow who falls a prey to death just as he is beginning to provide for his old people as they will for you. You will be placed on a couple of black trestles outside the door of the parish room, and a whole crowd of people will gradually gather round you, and all the women will have handkerchiefs in their hands. But no one will cry; all the handkerchiefs will be kept tightly rolled up; not one will be applied to the eyes. You need not speculate as to whether people will shed as many tears over you as they would over others. They would cry if it were the proper thing, but it is not the proper thing.

You can understand that if there were much sorrowing over one grave, it would not look well for those over whom no one sorrowed. They know what they were about at Svartsjö. They do as it has been the custom to do there for many hundred years. But whilst you stand there, on the church hill, you are a great and important personage, although you receive neither flowers nor tears. No one comes to church without asking who you are, and then they go quietly up to you and stand and gaze at you; and it never occurs to anyone to wound the dead by pitying him. No one says anything but that it is well for him that it is all over.

It is not at all as it is in a town, where you can be buried any day. At Svartsjö you must be buried on a Sunday, so that you can have the whole parish around you. There you will have standing near your coffin both the girl with whom you danced at the last midsummer night's festival and the man with whom you exchanged horses at the last fair. You will have the schoolmaster who took so much trouble with you when you were a little lad, and who had forgotten you, although you remembered him so well; and you will have the old Member of Parliament who never before thought it worth his while to bow to you. This is not as in a town, where people hardly turn round when you are carried past. When they bring the long bands and place them under the coffin, there is not one who does not watch the proceedings.

You cannot imagine what a churchwarden we have at Svartsjö. He is an old soldier, and he looks like a Field-Marshal. He has short white hair and twisted moustaches, and a pointed imperial; he is slim and tall and straight, with a light and firm step. On Sundays he wears a well-brushed frock-coat of fine cloth. He really looks a very fine old gentleman, and it is he who walks at the head of the procession. Then comes the verger. Not that the verger is to be compared with the churchwarden. It is more than probable that his Sunday hat is too large and old-fashioned; as likely as not he is awkward—but when is a verger not awkward?

Then you come next in your coffin, with the six bearers, and then follow the clergyman and the clerk and the Town Council and the whole parish. All the congregation will follow you to the churchyard, you may be sure of that. But I will tell you something: All those who follow you look so small and poor. They are not fine town's-people, you know—only plain, simple Svartsjö folk. There is only one who is great and important, and that is you in your coffin—you who are dead.

The others the next day will have to resume their heavy and toilsome work. They will have to live in poor old cottages and wear old, patched clothes; the others will always be plagued and worried, and dragged down and humbled by poverty.

Those who follow you to your grave become far more sad by looking at the living than by thinking of you who are dead. You need not look any more at the velvet collar of your coat to see if it is not getting worn at the edges; you need not make a special fold of your silk handkerchief to hide that it is beginning to fray; you will never more be compelled to ask the village shopkeeper to let you have goods on credit; you will not find out that your strength is failing; you will not have to wait for the day when you must go on the parish.

While they are following you to the grave everyone will be thinking that it is best to be dead—better to soar heavenwards, carried on the white clouds of the morning—than to be always experiencing life's manifold troubles. When they come to the wall of the churchyard, where the grave has been made, the bands are exchanged for strong ropes, and people get on to the loose earth and lower you down. And when this has been done the clerk advances to the grave and begins to sing: 'I walk towards death.'

He sings the hymn quite alone; neither the clergyman nor any of the congregation help him. But the clerk must sing; however keen the north wind and however glaring the sun which shines straight in his face, sing he does.

The clerk, however, is getting old now, and he has not much voice left; he is quite aware that it does not sound as well now as formerly when he sang people into their graves; but he does it all the same—it is part of his duty. For the day, you understand, when his voice quite fails him, so that he cannot sing any more, he must resign his office, and this means downright poverty for him. Therefore the whole gathering stands in apprehension while the old clerk sings, wondering whether his voice will last through the whole verse. But no one joins him, not a single person, for that would not do; it is not the custom. People never sing at a grave at Svartsjö. People do not sing in the church either, except the first hymn on Christmas Day morning.

Still, if one listened very attentively, one could hear that the clerk does not sing alone. There really is another voice, but it sounds so exactly the same that the two voices blend as if they were only one. The other who sings is a little old man in a long, coarse gray coat. He is still older than the clerk, but he gives out all the voice he has to help him. And the voice, as I have told you, is exactly the same kind as the clerk's; they are so alike one cannot help wondering at it.

But when one looks closer, the little gray old man is also exactly like the clerk; he has the same nose and chin and mouth, only somewhat older, and, as it were, more hardly dealt with in life. And then one understands that the little gray man is the clerk's brother; and then one knows why he helps him. For, you see, things have never gone well with him in this world, and he has always had bad luck; and once he was made a bankrupt, and brought the clerk into his misfortunes. He knows that it is his fault that his brother has always had to struggle. And the clerk, you know, has tried to help him on to his legs again, but with no avail, for he has not been one of those one can help. He has always been unfortunate; and then, he has had no strength of purpose.

But the clerk has been the shining light in the family; and for the other it has been a case of receiving and receiving, and he has never been able to make any return at all. Great God! even to talk of making any return—he who is so poor! You should only see the little hut in the forest where he lives. He knows that he has always been dull and sad, only a burden—only a burden for his brother and for others. But now of late he has become a great man; now he is able to give some return. And that he does. Now he helps his brother, the clerk, who has been the sunshine and life and joy for him all his days. Now he helps him to sing, so that he may keep his office.

He does not go to church, for he thinks that everyone looks at him because he has no black Sunday clothes; but every Sunday he goes up to the church to see whether there is a coffin on the black trestles outside the parish room; and if there is one he goes to the grave, in spite of his old gray coat, and helps his brother with his pitiful old voice.

The little old man knows very well how badly he sings; he places himself behind the others, and does not push forward to the grave. But sing he does; it would not matter so much if the clerk's voice should fail on one or other note, his brother is there and helps him.

At the churchyard no one laughs at the singing; but when people go home and have thrown off their devoutness, then they speak about the service, and then they laugh at the clerk's singing—laugh both at his and his brother's. The clerk does not mind it, it is the same to him; but his brother thinks about it and suffers from it; he dreads the Sunday the whole week, but still he comes punctually to the churchyard and does his duty. But you in your coffin, you do not think so badly of the singing. You think that it is good music. Is it not true that one would like to be buried in Svartsjö, if only for the sake of that singing?

It says in the hymn that life is but a walk towards death, and when the two old men sing this—the two who have suffered for each other during their whole life—then one understands better than ever before how wearisome it is to live, and one is so entirely satisfied with being dead.

And then the singing stops, and the clergyman throws earth on the coffin and says a prayer over you. Then the two old voices sing: 'I walk towards heaven.' And they do not sing this verse any better than the former; their voices grow more feeble and querulous the longer they sing. But for you a great and wide expanse opens, and you soar upwards with tremulous joy, and everything earthly fades and disappears.

But still the last which you hear of things earthly tells of faithfulness and love. And in the midst of your trembling flight the poor song will awake memories of all the faithfulness and love you have met with here below, and this will bear you upwards. This will fill you with radiance and make you beautiful as an angel.

THE END.

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.