ANDREAS THE HERMIT.
The same day Estein rowed across alone to Hrossey, and started
over the hills with his bow and arrows. He walked for some miles
through moorland ground, and paused at length on the top of a
range of hills, whence he had a wide view over the inland country.
There he sat down and mused for long. Below him he saw a valley
opening out into a sweep of low-lying land, watered by many lochs,
and bounded by heather hills. All round, in glimpses between the
highest hill-tops, and in wide, unbroken stretches over the lower
ranges, the open sea girdled the island. Gradually the stillness
of the place and the freshness of the air told upon him, and at
length he fell asleep. He began to dream, at first of confused
events and hurrying faces, and then more distinctly and vividly.
He had landed, he thought, on the Holy Isle. It was dark, but he
seemed to see plainly a figure, wrapped in a long cloak, walking
before him towards the cells. It was neither Andreas nor his
daughter, and with some wonder he quickened his steps and overtook
it just as it was about to enter the hermit's cell. Then all at
once it seemed to flash upon him that this was no mortal visitor,
and with a sudden thrill of fear he stopped. At that instant the
figure turned a shrouded face on him, and said sternly, and so
clearly that the words were ringing in his ears when he woke,--
"What doest THOU here, Estein Hakonson?"
He came to himself with a start, the sweat standing on his
forehead. It was the second time he had heard the voice. Once
before it had warned him when he first entered the hermit's cell,
but now as then he could find neither name nor circumstance to fit
it.
All at once the prophecy of Atli came into his mind--"You will be
warned, but you will heed not," and in spite of himself a feeling
of gloom settled over his mind.
A herd of deer browsed unheeded on a distant slope, the hours
passed, and the sun sank low in the west, while he sat there
alone.
At last he rose and retraced his steps back to the shore. The tide
was running strongly, he had a long and stiff pull to win his way
across, and the summer dusk that never reaches darkness in the
north was gathering when he landed.
He looked round as though he expected to see a cloaked figure
start up out of the gloaming, but the island was deserted and
still. Before the cell he paused for an instant. "You will not
heed the warning," he repeated. "Yet what is fated must be," and
then he entered.
The hermit was alone. Farmer Margad had come for Osla, for his
wife was unwell, and the credulous people thought the daughter of
the wizard, as they deemed Father Andreas, might have some healing
influence. Estein sat down and took his supper; and all the time
he was eating, Andreas paced the floor saying nothing aloud, but
muttering continually under his breath. Legends of shape-changing
and black magic came into the young Viking's mind. As he watched
the old man pass to and fro in the firelight, and the huge,
distorted shadow sweep across and across the cell, he fancied once
or twice that he could see the beginnings of some horrid
transformation.
All of a sudden the hermit stopped and looked at him earnestly.
"Sing to me a song of battle!" he cried; and Estein saw that a
change had indeed taken place. A fit of gloom had given way to a
period of strange excitement, and the spirit of the sea-rover was
returned.
Estein composed his mind, and sang the song of the Battle of
Dunheath, beginning:--
"Many the chiefs who drank the mead
As the sun rose over the plain,
But small the band who bound their wounds
When the heath was dark again."
As the last words died away the hermit began to talk excitedly and
volubly, and in a strain new to his guest.
"I once sang such songs," he said. "I sailed the seas in my long
ship, and men feared my name--feared me, Andreas, the man of God.
I was a heathen then, as thou art; I worshipped the gods of the
North, and the hammer of Thor was my symbol on the ocean. I spared
none who stood in my way. These hands have dripped with the blood
of my foes, and many a widow have I left desolate."
He paused, and a tongue of flame shot suddenly from the fire and
cast a bright light in the cell.
"Fire!" cried the old man--"fire like that have I brought on my
foes! I have burned them like rats; I have left their homesteads
smouldering! Listen, Vandrad, and I shall tell thee of a deed that
made my name known throughout all the Northland. Now," he added,
"I am a Christian man, and my soul is safe with Christ.
"Once I received an injury I swore I should avenge. Hakon, King of
Sogn, a proud man and a stern, banished my brother Kolskegg for
manslaughter. The deed was but an act of justice on one who had
beguiled our kinswoman; but the dead man had many friends, and the
king hearkened neither to Kolskegg's offers of atonement nor to my
petitions--to mine, who had never asked aught of mortal man
before! My brother was a dear friend of the king, foster-father
even to his eldest son Olaf, and he weakly bowed his head and left
the land. When I heard that he had gone, I pressed my sword-hilt
so tightly in my rage that the blood dripped from my nails, and I
cursed him aloud for idly suffering such insult to our house to
pass without revenge. Our race is as old and proud as the kings of
Sogn themselves, and I vowed that Hakon should rue that day. I was
a heathen then, Vandrad."
He said these last words with a gleam in his eyes and a tightening
of his lips, as if he gloated over the memory of his bygone faith.
With the same grim reminiscent pleasure, he went on: "I and two
others sent the cloven arrow through the dales, and gathered armed
men enough to fill three ships. Ay, the sailing of Thord the Tall,
Snaekol Gunnarson, and Thorfin of Skapstead is not forgotten yet
in Norway. We went to Laxafiord, for there dwelt Olaf, son of
Hakon. You have heard the tale?" he cried suddenly, "you know of
the burning?"
"Go on," said Estein, in a hard, dry voice; "I am listening," and
all the while his right hand sought his side.
"It was a deed," said the hermit, "that made all Norway ring. We
landed in the night time, and saw the lights of the hall between
the pine trees. They were feasting, and they heard not our
approach. We made a ring round the house and heaped faggots
against the walls, and still they heard us not. It was a dark
night, Vandrad, very dark, till we lit a fire that was seen by men
in the outer islands. Then they heard us, they smelt the smoke,
and they ran to the doors. The first man who came out I clove to
the waist, for none in Norway had greater skill at arms than I.
Then we drove them in and closed the door. Sometimes at night I
hear them shriek even now. There was never such a burning in
Norway; we spared not one soul, not one.
"They asked us to let the women out, but we had come there to slay
and not to spare. They shrieked, Vandrad; they cried till the roof
fell in, and then they died. My soul is safe with God, and they
are in outer darkness. There they will shriek for ever."
He paused for a moment, and then went on in the same strain of
high excitement,--
"Now you know me. I am Thord the Tall, the burner of Olaf
Hakonson."
"And where are Snaekol Gunnarson and Thorfin of Skapstead?" Estein
spoke with difficulty, and his right hand had closed on something
in his belt.
"Both are dead. They died heathens, and their souls are as
hopelessly lost as the soul of Olaf Hakonson. I am the last of the
burners."
The voice of Thord the Tall died away. Estein bent forward, his
hand left his side, and something in it gleamed in the firelight.
Suddenly the hermit started.
"Osla! I hear Osla!" he said.
Estein thrust his dagger into its sheath, and bending in the
doorway stepped out into the night. Below the cell he saw a boat
leaving the land, and right before him, in the clear, cool
twilight, the form of Osla.
"Have you tired of my father's company?" she asked, with a smile.
"I would be alone," he answered, and walked quickly past her.
Now he knew the twice-heard voice, and remembered the fleeting
face.
"You came to warn me, Olaf, and I knew you not!" he cried. "I know
you now--too late!"
He paced the turf with hurried steps. The sacred duty of revenge
called him with a vehemence we cannot now realize. He had sworn to
let slip no chance of taking vengeance on the burners of his
brother. Often he had sought news of them, and often renewed his
resolution; and now that he had found his foe, was he to idly
suffer him to escape?
Yet he had been this man's guest; he had eaten of his bread, and
slept in his dwelling. And his hands were tied by a stronger
chain. "Osla, Osla," he cried, "for your sake I am faithless to my
vows, and forgetful of my duty to my kindred!"
Then the memory of Thord the Tall, telling of the burning, rose
fresh and strong, and again his hand sought his side, and his
breath came fast, till the vision of Osla swept aside all other
thoughts.
The time went by until the hour was hard on midnight. Gradually
his mind grew more composed.
"I am in the hands of destiny," he said to himself. "Let fate do
with me what it will."
All the northern sky was still red with the afterglow of sunset,
creeping slowly eastwards against the dawn; land and sea lay clear
and yet dim, for the light was ghostly as a phosphorescent
chamber; the tide was slack, and lapped softly on the rocks; and
everything in the world seemed tranquil.
"The end has come," he said.
All at once, on the sheen of the sound, he spied a curious black
mark, far out and vague. Gradually it seemed to steal nearer, till
Estein, looking at it keenly, forgot his thoughts in a rising
curiosity. Then it took shape, and faintly across the water came
the splash of oars and the voices of men. As they drew nearer, he
crouched below a bank and watched their approach with growing
wonder and something too of awe.
"The gods have sent for me," he thought.
They were being carried by the current towards the place where he
stood, and presently they made a landing on the rocks. There
followed a consultation in low tones, and then one man left the
boat and came up the bank. He stood out clearly in the transparent
dusk--a tall, mail-clad figure, walking with a confident carriage.
Estein waited till he was opposite him, and then sprang up, dagger
in hand.
"Who art thou?" he demanded.
The man's hand went straight to his sword, but at the sound of
Estein's voice it fell again.
"Estein, my foster-brother!" he cried.
"Helgi!"
Helgi opened his arms and embraced him tenderly, speaking with an
emotion he made no effort to control. "Estein, my brother, I
thought thou wert in truth in Valhalla. I have wept for thee,
Estein; I have mourned thee as dead. Tell me that this is thy very
self, and not some island ghost come to mock me."
The friendly voice and grasp, coming in this his hour of trouble,
touched Estein to the heart.
"It is I, indeed, Helgi," he said; "and never have I felt more
glad to see a face and clasp a hand. How came you here? I thought
I had parted from my friends for ever. I have been so long alone
that they had begun to seem like dream-men."
Helgi told him briefly how he had swum ashore to another island,
and there been picked up by Ketill, the black-bearded captain of
one of Estein's scattered ships; how, giving up all hope, they had
sailed for the south, and after meeting head winds and little
luck, returned to the Orkneys, where, from a man who had been with
Margad, news of the stranger on the Holy Isle had reached their
ears.
"They say, Estein, that your hermit has a fair daughter. Methinks
she would like to see your foster-brother; would she not?"
"Nay, Helgi, ask me no more questions, but take me quickly away. I
am spell-bound here, and I dare not trust myself to stay one
moment longer."
"I know these spells, Estein; they have been cast on men by other
maids before now. Better take your sorceress with you. It is
unlucky to break such spells so rudely."
"Laugh not, Helgi," said Estein, taking his arm and hurrying him
down to the shore. "This spell has meant more to me than you can
guess."
"By the hammer of Thor!" exclaimed Helgi, stopping suddenly,
"there surely is the witch herself."
Estein looked round, and standing against the sky he saw the
slender form he knew so well.
"Wait for me, Helgi," he said, "the spell is on me still," and
starting away suddenly he ran up the bank again.
"Osla!" he cried, and stopped abruptly.
"What means this, Vandrad?" she asked.
Her eyes were wide open with troubled surprise, and looking into
her upturned face he thought she never was so fair before.
"They have come for me, Osla, and I must go. Farewell! remember me
not."
"Do you leave us in this way--without saying farewell, or telling
us you were going?"
"I knew not myself when they would come. I told you I must leave
you and seek the sea again. It has come true sooner than I
expected."
He took her hands.
"Farewell!" he said again.
She turned her face away.
"I feared you would tire of us," she said, her voice sinking very
low.
"Never, Osla, never! but fate has been too strong for me. They
wait for me now, and I must leave you."
"Farewell, Vandrad!" she said, looking up, and he saw that her
eyes were filled with tears.
"Osla!" he cried, drawing her towards him. She yielded an instant,
and then suddenly broke free and started away.
"Farewell!" she said again, and her voice sounded like a sob.
He did not trust himself to answer, but turned and hurried to the
boat.
They pushed off in silence, the oars dipped in the quiet sound,
and Estein left the Holy Isle.