Part 8
“Well,” replied the young man, without noticing it, “if your bundle does not tire you, keep it.”
The old man, although his fears were set at rest, made haste to change the conversation.
“It is hard to travel by night as fugitives, over a road which it would be so agreeable, sir, to take by day as observers of Nature. On the shores of the fjord, to our left, are a quantity of Runic stones, upon which may be studied inscriptions traced, they say, by gods and giants. On our right, behind the rocks at the edge of the road, lies the salt-marsh of Sciold, which undoubtedly communicates with the sea by some subterranean passage; for the sea lobworm is caught there, that strange fish, which, as your servant and guide discovered, eats sand. It was in the Vygla tower, which we are now approaching, that the pagan king Vermond roasted the breasts of Saint Etheldreda, that glorious martyr, with wood from the true cross, brought to Copenhagen by Olaf III., and conquered from him by the Norwegian king. They say that since then repeated attempts have been made to turn that cursed tower into a chapel; every cross placed there, is consumed in its turn by fire from heaven.”
At this instant a tremendous flash of lightning covered the fjord, the hill, the rocks, the tower, and faded before the two travellers could distinguish any of these objects. They instinctively paused, and the lightning was almost immediately followed by a violent peal of thunder, which echoed from cloud to cloud across the sky, and from rock to rock along the earth.
They raised their eyes. All the stars were hidden, huge clouds rolled rapidly over one another, and the tempest hung like an avalanche above their heads. The tremendous blast, before which all these masses fled, had not yet descended to the trees, which no breath stirred, and upon which no drop of rain had as yet fallen. The roar of the storm was heard aloft, and this, with the noise of the fjord, was the only sound to be heard in the darkness of the night, made doubly dark by the blackness of the tempest.
This tumultuous silence was suddenly interrupted, close beside the travellers, by a growl which made the old man tremble.
“Omnipotent God!” he cried, grasping the young man’s arm, “that is either the laugh of the Devil in the storm, or the voice of--”
A fresh flash, a fresh peal, cut short his words. The tempest then burst with fury, as if it had only waited this signal. The travellers drew their cloaks closer, to protect themselves alike from the rain falling in torrents from the clouds, and from the thick dust swept in whirlwinds from the dry earth by a howling blast.
“Old man,” said the youth, “a flash of lightning just now showed me Vygla tower on our right; let us leave the path and seek shelter there.”
“Shelter in the Cursed Tower!” exclaimed the old man; “may Saint Hospitius protect us! Think, young master; that tower is deserted.”
“So much the better, old man! We shall not be kept waiting at the door.”
“Think of the abominable act which polluted it!”
“Well, let it purify itself by sheltering us. Come, old man, follow me. I tell you that on such a night I would test the hospitality of a den of thieves.”
Then, in spite of the old man’s remonstrances, he grasped his arm and hastened toward the building, which, as the frequent flashes showed him, was close at hand. As they approached, they saw a light in one of the loopholes of the tower.
“You see,” said the young man, “that this tower is not deserted. You feel easier now, no doubt.”
“Oh, my God! my God!” cried the old man, “where are you taking me, master? Saint Hospitius forbid that I should enter that oratory of the Devil!”
They had now reached the foot of the tower. The young traveller knocked loudly at the new door of this much dreaded ruin.
“Calm yourself, old man. Some pious hermit has come hither to sanctify this profane abode by dwelling in it.”
“No,” said his comrade, “I will not enter. I’ll answer for it that no monk can live here, unless he has one of Beelzebub’s seven chains for a chaplet.”
However, a light had descended from one narrow window to another, and now shone through the key-hole.
“You are very late, Nychol!” cried a sharp voice; “the gallows was erected at noon, and it takes but six hours to come from Skongen to Vygla. Did you have an extra job?”
These questions were asked just as the door was opened. The woman who opened it, seeing two strange faces instead of the one which she expected, uttered a frightened, threatening shriek, and started back.
Her appearance was by no means reassuring. She was tall; she held above her head an iron lamp, which threw a bright light upon her face. Her livid features, her bony, angular figure, were corpse-like, and her hollow eyes emitted ominous flashes like those of a funeral torch. She wore a red serge petticoat, reaching to her bare feet, and apparently stained in spots with deeper red. Her fleshless breast was half covered by a man’s jacket of the same color, the sleeves of which were cut off at the elbow. The wind, coming in at the open door, blew about her head her long gray hair, which was insecurely fastened with a strip of bark, and lent an added ferocity to her savage face.
“Good lady,” said the younger of the new-comers, “the rain falls in floods; you have a roof, and we have gold.”
His aged comrade plucked him by the cloak, whispering, “Oh, master, what are you saying? If this be not the abode of the Devil, it is the habitation of some robber. Our money, instead of protecting us, will be our ruin.”
“Hush!” said the young man; and drawing a purse from his bosom, he displayed it to his hostess, repeating his request as he did so.
The woman, recovering from her surprise, studied them in turn with fixed and haggard eyes.
“Strangers,” she cried at last, as if she had not heard their voices, “have your guardian angels forsaken you? What would you with the cursed inhabitants of the Cursed Tower? Strangers, they were no mortals who sent you here for shelter, or they would have told you: Better are the lightning and the storm than the hearth within Vygla tower. The only living man who may enter here, enters the abode of no other human being; he only leaves solitude for a crowd; he lives only by death; he has no place save in the curses of men; he serves their vengeance only; he exists by their crimes alone; and the vilest criminal, in the hour of his doom, vents on him the universal scorn, and feels that he has a right to add to it his own contempt. Strangers! You must indeed be strangers, for your foot does not yet shrink with horror from the threshold of this tower. Disturb no longer the she-wolf and her cubs; return to the road travelled by the rest of mankind, and if you would not be shunned by your fellows, do not tell them that your face ever caught the rays of the lamp of the dwellers in Vygla tower.” With these words, pointing to the door, she advanced toward the two travellers. The old man trembled in every limb, and looked imploringly at the young man, who, understanding nothing of the tall woman’s words because of the great rapidity of her speech, thought her crazy, and was in no wise disposed to go out again into the rain, which still fell heavily.
“Faith, good hostess, you describe a strange character, whose acquaintance I would not lose this chance of making.”
“His acquaintance, young man, is soon made, sooner ended. If your evil spirit urge you to seek it, go kill some living man, or profane the dead.”
“Profane the dead!” repeated the old man, in a faltering voice, hiding himself in his companion’s shadow.
“I scarcely comprehend,” the latter said, “your suggestions, which seem somewhat indirect; it is shorter to stay here. No one but a madman would continue his journey in such weather.”
“Unhappy man!” exclaimed the woman, “do not knock at the door of one who can open no door save that of the tomb.”
“And if the door of the tomb should indeed open for me with that of your abode, woman, it shall not be said that I shrank from an ill-omened word. My sword is my safeguard. Come, close the door, for the wind is cold, and take this money.”
“Bah! what is your money to me!” rejoined their hostess; “precious in your hands, in mine it would become more vile than pewter. Well, stay if you will, and give me the gold. It may protect you from the storms of Heaven; it cannot save me from the scorn of men. Nay; you pay a higher price for hospitality than others pay for murder. Wait here an instant, and give me your gold. Yes, it is the first time that a man’s hands have entered here filled with gold, without being stained with blood.”
So saying, after putting down her lamp and barricading the door, she disappeared beneath the arch of a dark staircase built at the back of the room.
While the old man shuddered, and, invoking the glorious Saint Hospitius under every name, cordially, but in an undertone, cursed his young companion’s imprudence, the latter took the light and surveyed the large circular apartment in which they had been left. What he saw as he approached the wall, startled him; and the old man, who had watched him closely, exclaimed,--
“Good God, master! a gallows?”
A tall gallows, in fact, rested against the wall, reaching to the keystone of the damp, high, arched roof.
“Yes,” said the young man, “and here are saws of wood and iron, chains and iron collars; here is a rack, and huge pincers hanging over it.”
“Holy saints of Paradise!” cried the old man; “where are we?”
The young man calmly went on with his inspection.
“This is a roll of hempen cord; here are furnaces and caldrons; this part of the wall is covered with tongs and scalpels; here are leathern whips with steel tips, an axe and a mace.”
“This must be the wardrobe of hell!” interrupted the old man, terrified by this dreadful catalogue.
“Here,” continued the other, “are copper screws, wheels with teeth of bronze, a box of huge nails, and a lever. In truth, these are sorry furnishings. It may seem to you hard that my impatience should have brought you hither with me.”
“Really, you agree to that!”
The old man was more dead than alive.
“Do not be frightened. What matters it where you are? I am with you.”
“A fine protection!” muttered the old man, whose increasing terror modified his fear and respect for his young companion; “a sword three feet long against a gibbet nine feet high!”
The big, red woman returned, and again taking up the iron lamp, beckoned to the travellers to follow her. They cautiously climbed a narrow, rickety flight of stairs built in the thickness of the tower wall. At each loop-hole a blast of wind and rain threatened to extinguish the quivering flame of the lamp, which their hostess shielded with her long, transparent hands. After stumbling more than once upon a rolling stone, in which the old man’s alarmed fancy saw human bones scattered over the stairs, they reached the next floor, and found themselves in a circular hall like the one below. In the centre, according to Gothic custom, burned a huge fire, the smoke of which escaped through a hole in the roof, but not without perceptibly obscuring the atmosphere of the hall. It was the light from this fire, combined with that of the iron lamp, which had caught the notice of the two wayfarers. A spit, loaded with fresh-killed meat, revolved before the flames. The old man turned from it in disgust.
“It was upon that execrable hearth,” said he to his comrade, “that the embers of the true cross consumed the limbs of a saint.” A rude table stood some distance away from the fire. The woman invited the travellers to be seated at it.
“Strangers,” said she, placing the lamp before them, “supper will soon be ready, and my husband will probably make haste to get here, for fear the midnight ghost should carry him off as it passes the Cursed Tower.”
Ordener--for the reader has doubtless already guessed that he and his guide, Benignus Spiagudry, were the two travellers--could now examine at his leisure the strange disguise, in the concoction of which Benignus had exhausted all the resources of his fertile fancy, spurred on by a dread of recognition and capture. The poor fugitive had exchanged his reindeer-skin garments for a full suit of black, left at the Spladgest by a famous Throndhjem grammarian, who drowned himself in despair because he could not find out why “Jupiter” changed to “Jovis” in the genitive. His wooden shoes gave place to a stout pair of postilion boots, whose owner had been killed by his horses, in which his slender shanks had so much spare room that he could not have walked without the aid of half a truss of hay. The huge wig of an elegant young Frenchman, slain by thieves just outside the city gates, concealed his bald pate and floated over his sharp, crooked shoulders. One of his eyes was covered with a plaster, and, thanks to a pot of paint which he had found in the pocket of an old maid who died of disappointed love, his pale, hollow cheeks were tinged with an unwonted crimson, an ornament which the rain had now divided with his chin. Before seating himself, he carefully placed beneath him the pack which he carried on his back, first wrapping it in his old mantle, and while he absorbed his comrade’s entire attention, all his thoughts seemed centred in the roast which his hostess was watching, toward which he cast ever and anon a glance of anxiety and alarm. Broken ejaculations fell from his lips at intervals:
“Human flesh! _Horridas epulas!_ Cannibals! A feast for Moloch! _Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet!_ Where are we?--Atreus--Druidess--Irmensul--The Devil struck Lycaon with lightning--” Finally he exclaimed: “Good Heavens! God be thanked! I see a tail!”
Ordener, who, having watched and listened attentively, had closely followed the train of his thoughts, could not help smiling.
“That tail need not comfort you. It may be the Devil’s hind quarter.”
Spiagudry did not hear this pleasantry. His eyes were riveted on the back of the room. He trembled, and whispered in Ordener’s ear,--
“Master, look yonder, on that heap of straw, in the shadow!”
“Well, what is it?” said Ordener.
“Three naked bodies,--the corpses of three children!”
“Some one is knocking at the door,” cried the red woman, who was squatting by the fire.
In fact, a knock, followed by two louder raps, was heard above the ever-increasing din of the storm.
“It is he at last! It is Nychol!”
And seizing the lamp, their hostess hurried downstairs.
The two travellers had not had time to resume their conversation, when they heard a confused murmur of voices below, in the midst of which they caught these words, uttered in a voice which made Spiagudry start and shiver:
“Be quiet, woman; we shall stay. The thunderbolt enters without waiting for the door to be opened.”
Spiagudry pressed closer to Ordener.
“Master, master,” he quavered, “we are lost!”
The sound of footsteps was heard on the stairs, and two men in ecclesiastic dress entered the room, followed by the startled hostess.
One of these men was tall, and wore the black gown and close-clipped hair of a Lutheran minister; the other was shorter, and wore a hermit’s robe tied with a girdle of rope. The hood drawn over his face concealed all but his long black beard, and his hands were entirely hidden by his flowing sleeves.
When he saw these two peaceful strangers, Spiagudry recovered from the terror which the peculiar voice of one of them had caused.
“Don’t be alarmed, my good lady,” said the minister. “Christian ministers do good even to those who injure them; why should they harm those who help them? We humbly beg for shelter. If the reverend gentleman with me spoke harshly to you just now, he was wrong to forget the gentle voice recommended to us in our ordination vows. Alas! the most saintly may err. I lost my way on the road from Skongen to Throndhjem, and could find no guide through the darkness, no shelter from the storm. This reverend brother, whom I encountered, being like myself far from home, deigned to allow me to accompany him hither. He praised your kind hospitality, dear lady; doubtless he was not mistaken. Do not say to us, like the wicked shepherd, ‘_Advene, cur intras?_’ Take us in, worthy hostess, and God will save your crops from the storm, God will protect your flocks from the tempest, as you give a refuge to travellers who have gone astray!”
“Old man,” broke in the woman in a fierce voice, “I have neither crops nor flocks.”
“Well, if you are poor, God blesses the poor more than the rich. You and your husband shall live to a good old age, respected, not for your wealth, but for your virtues; your children shall grow up blessed in the esteem of all men, and be what their father was before them.”
“Silence!” cried the hostess. “If they continue to be what we are, our children must grow old as we have, scorned by all,--a scorn handed down from generation to generation. Silence, old man! Your blessing turns to curses on our heads.”
“Heavens!” returned the minister, “who then are you? Amid what crimes do you pass your life?”
“What do you call crime? What do you call virtue? We enjoy one privilege,--we can possess no virtue and commit no crime.”
“The woman’s reason wanders,” said the minister, turning to the little hermit, who was drying his coarse robe before the fire.
“No, priest!” replied the woman. “Learn where you are. I would rather inspire horror than pity. I am not mad, but the wife of--”
A prolonged and violent knocking at the door drowned her words, to the great disappointment of Spiagudry and Ordener, who had silently listened to the dialogue.
“Cursed,” muttered the red woman, “be the mayor and council of Skongen, who gave us this tower so near the high-road for our dwelling! Perhaps that is not Nychol, now.”
Still, she took up the lamp.
“After all, if it be another traveller, what matters it? The brook can flow where the torrent has passed.”
The four travellers, left alone, examined each other by the firelight. Spiagudry, terrified at first by the hermit’s voice, and then reassured by his black beard, might have trembled afresh if he had seen the piercing eye with which the monk observed him from beneath his cowl.
In the general silence the minister ventured a question: “Brother monk, I presume that you are one of the Catholic priests who escaped from the last persecution, and that you were returning to your retreat when I was fortunate enough to meet you. Can you tell me where we are?”
The broken door of the ruined staircase opened before the hermit could answer.
“Woman, let a storm but burst, and there is always a crowd to sit at our hated board and take shelter beneath our accursed roof.”
“Nychol,” replied the wife, “I could not help it!”
“What do I care how many guests you have, provided they pay? Money is as well earned by lodging a traveller as by strangling a thief.”
The speaker paused at the door, and the four strangers had ample opportunity to examine him. He was a man of colossal size, dressed, like their hostess, in red serge. His enormous head seemed to rest directly upon his broad shoulders, in strong contrast with his gracious lady’s long, bony neck. He had a low forehead, flat nose, and thick eyebrows; his eyes, rimmed with red, shone like burning coals in a pool of blood. The lower part of his face was shaved smooth, exposing his big mouth, whose black lips were parted in a hideous grin, like the gaping edges of a never-healing wound. Two wisps of frizzled beard, extending from his cheeks to his chin, made his face seem square when seen from the front. He wore a gray felt hat, which dripped with rain, and which he did not deign to remove in the presence of the four travellers.
As he looked at him, Benignus Spiagudry uttered a cry of fright, and the Lutheran minister turned away, struck with horror and surprise; while the master of the house, recognizing, addressed him thus: “What, are you here, minister! Indeed, I did not expect to have the pleasure of seeing your scared and woebegone face again to-day.”
The priest mastered his first feeling of repulsion. His face became serious and serene.
“And I, my son, rejoice at the chance which has brought together the shepherd and the lost sheep, to the end, no doubt, that the sheep may return to the fold.”
“Ah, by Haman’s gibbet,” rejoined the other with a loud laugh, “this is the first time that ever I was compared to a sheep! Believe me, Father, if you would flatter the vulture, you must not call him a dove.”
“He who can change the vulture to a dove, consoles, my son, and does not flatter. You think that I fear you, and I only pity you!”
“You must indeed have a goodly store of pity. I should have fancied that you had exhausted it all on that poor devil to whom you displayed your cross this morning in the hope of hiding my gallows from his eyes.”
“That unfortunate man,” replied the priest, “was less to be pitied than you; for he wept, and you laugh. Happy is he who learns in the moment of atonement how much less powerful is man’s arm than the word of God!”
“Well said, Father!” replied the host, with a horrid and ironical mirth. “Happy is he who weeps! That fellow to-day, moreover, had no other fault than that of loving the king so much that he could not live without making his Majesty’s picture upon little copper medals, which he then gilded artistically to render them more worthy of the royal effigy. Our gracious sovereign was not ungrateful, and rewarded him for such a display of affection with a fine hempen decoration, which, let me inform my worthy guests, was conferred upon him this very day, in Skongen market-place, by me, lord chancellor of the Order of the Gibbet, assisted by this gentleman here present, grand chaplain of the said order.”
“Stop, wretched man!” broke in the priest. “How can he who punishes forget that punishment awaits us all? Listen to the thunder--”
“Well, what is thunder? Satan’s laughter.”
“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.