“Good God, he has just looked on death, and he blasphemes!”
“A truce to your sermons, old fool!” cried the host, in a loud, angry tone, “unless you would curse the angel of darkness who has brought us together twice in one day, in the same carriage and under the same roof. Imitate your friend the hermit, who is silent, for he longs to be back again in his cave at Lynrass. I thank you, brother monk, for the blessing which I see you bestow upon the Cursed Tower every morning as you cross the hill; but the fact is that you always seemed tall to me until now, and that black beard of yours looked white. Are you sure that you are the hermit of Lynrass,—the only hermit in the province of Throndhjem?”
“I am the only one,” said the hermit in a hollow voice.
“We are, then,” rejoined his host, “the two recluses of the district—Hollo, Becky, make haste with that roast lamb, for I am hungry. I was detained at Burlock village by that confounded Dr. Manryll, who would only give me twelve escalins for the corpse. That miserable fellow who keeps the Throndhjem Spladgest gets forty. Ha, Master Periwig, what’s the matter with you? Are you going to tumble over? By the way, Becky, have you finished the skeleton of that famous magician, Orgivius the poisoner? It is high time it was delivered to the Bergen Museum. Did you send one of your little pigs to the mayor of Loevig to get what he owes me,—four double crowns for boiling a witch and two alchemists, and for removing several chains from the cross-beams of his tribunal, which they disfigured; twenty escalins for hanging Ishmael Typhaine, a Jew against whom the good bishop entered a complaint; and a crown for putting a new wooden arm to the stone gallows of the tower.”
“Your wages,” replied his wife in sour tones, “remain in the mayor’s hands, because your son forgot to take a wooden spoon to receive the money, and none of the judge’s servants were willing to put it into his hand.”
The husband frowned.
“Only let their necks fall into my hands, and they shall see whether I need a wooden spoon to touch them. But we must manage the mayor carefully, for it is to him that robber Ivar complained that he was put to the rack by me, and not by a regular executioner, alleging that, as he had not yet been tried, he was not upon my level. By the way, wife, do keep the children from playing with my nippers and pincers; they have spoiled all my tools, so that I really could not use them to-day. Where are they, the little monsters?” added the man, going up to the heap of straw where Spiagudry had fancied that he saw three dead bodies. “Here they are in bed; they sleep through all our noise as soundly as if they had been hanged.”
From these words, whose grim horror was in strong contrast with the speaker’s mirth and fierce, frightful composure, the reader will have guessed who was the inhabitant of the Vygla tower. Spiagudry, who upon his first appearance recognized him from having often seen him act in his official capacity in the Throndhjem market-place, felt ready to faint, particularly when he considered his own powerful personal motive for dreading this awful personage. He leaned over to Ordener, and said in scarcely articulate tones, “It is Nychol Orugix, the hangman of the province of Throndhjem!”
Ordener, at first struck with horror, shuddered, and regretted both his journey and the storm. But soon a peculiar feeling of curiosity took possession of him, and although he pitied his old guide’s distress and terror, he devoted his entire attention to observing the speech and manners of the singular being before him,—just as a man might listen eagerly to the growl of a hyena or the roar of a tiger, brought from the desert to one of our great cities. Poor Benignus was far from being sufficiently easy in his mind to make psychological observations. Hidden behind Ordener, he drew his mantle closely about him, raised a restless hand to his plaster, pulled the back of his loose periwig over his face, and sighed heavily.
Meantime the hostess had dished up the joint of roast lamb, with its reassuring tail, on a large earthen platter. The hangman seated himself opposite Ordener and Spiagudry, between the two clergymen; and his wife, after putting upon the table a jug of sweetened beer, a piece of rindebrod,[8] and five wooden plates, sat down by the fire and busied herself in sharpening her husband’s dull tools.