Fever burned in his veins; fever in his soul. It seemed a painful task to end this life. And he was tormented by dread lest his sufferings should after all not suffice to atone for his sin.
Sun and rain and hail took turns to follow him on this the hardest of all his wandering days. Clouds and sheets of hail passed before the face of the sun, making strange shadows on the hillsides, the contrast being more pronounced where dark stretches of lava and the lighter hue of cornfields alternated. One moment the sun’s rays warmed him, the next he was stung by the sudden lash of hailstones in his face. It was a day of contest between the powers of sun and shadow—a giant’s battle where summer and life were pitted against autumn and death. And the earth over which it raged was marked by each in turn.
His beggar’s staff changed constantly from a dry, gleaming white to a dripping grey. He swung it at each step, as it were a distorted extra limb. And the figure of the man standing against the changing background of the sky seemed hardly human; more like some fantastic creation of Nature herself.
And this man’s soul, maybe, was rugged and misshapen as his body. But the soul of a man is not so easy to see....
The first homestead he came to on this day’s march was a little place. A peasant and his wife came out to meet the stranger, the rest of their people following. They were at home today, by reason of the weather, and had, moreover, expected his arrival. All the district knew by now that Guest the One-eyed had come amongst them. The peasant and his household received him kindly, with many blessings. He felt their kindness without any need of words, and marked how they were glad to have him with them.
And talking with them, he spoke the name of Sera Ketill, once their priest, whom all remembered now with execration. Here, too, the tongues that had been ready with blessing for himself were quick to curse at the mention of that name; to their minds, Sera Ketill was a monster, a thing of dread. His very name made them shudder as if at the touch of some loathsome thing. He was a murderer, a hypocrite, and a cheat; they could not find in him the slightest link of charity and affection with his fellow-men. Even his death had been the act of a despicable creature, in that he had endeavoured to secure their regard by leaving all he had to the poor, and then flinging himself over the cliffs into the sea. This last was not even a fine thought of his own—a young poet had been the first to go that way, and by that very spot.
But the Devil had taken his body, and his soul, if any shred of soul he had, had doubtless gone with it. A thing of no use upon earth! He had not even had the courage to face the consequences of his acts. He was a stain upon mankind; in justice, he should have been burned at the stake before his soul went on its way to hell.
Guest the One-eyed listened pale as death to the bitter words. Strange, how a man’s character could thus outlive him in the memory of his fellows. Twenty years had not sufficed to bring oblivion for the wrongs this man had done. His body might have been reduced to ashes in a moment, but the fire of hate burned still about his memory.
The wanderer looked at the faces of those about him—faces that one moment shone with kindly pleasure and the next glowed fiercely with hate. He could not but smile, though his heart was heavy. Poor mortals, poor unseeing men, seeing good and evil as things absolute, unalterable.
But while his thoughts were busy, his soul cried all the time to God, praying forgiveness....