might possibly be innocent. But this was only the effect of the
momentary sympathy called out by his attitude. My own heart indeed
spoke for him. But the judge's heart may not dare to dictate to
his brain or to his conscience. My conviction forced me to declare
that the rector had killed Niels Bruus, but certainly without any
premeditation or intention to do so. It is true that Niels Bruus
had often been heard to declare that he would "get even with the
rector when the latter least expected it." But it is not known
that he had fulfilled his threat in any way. Every man clings to
life and honor as long as he can. Therefore the rector persists in
his denial. My poor, dear Mette! She is lost to me for this life
at least, just as I had learned to love her so dearly.
I have had a hard fight to fight to-day. As I sat alone, pondering
over this terrible affair in which it is my sad lot to have to give
judgment, the door opened and the rector's daughter--I may no
longer call her my betrothed--rushed in and threw herself at my
feet. I raised her up, clasped her in my arms and we wept together
in silence. I was first to control myself. "I know what you would
say, dear heart. You want me to save your father. Alas, God help
us poor mortals, I cannot do it! Tell me, dearest one, tell me
truly, do you yourself believe your father to be innocent?"
She crossed her hands on her heart and sobbed, "I do not know!"
Then she burst into tears again. "But he did not bury him in the
garden," she continued after a few moments. "The man may have died
in the wood from the blow. That may have happened--"
"But, dearest heart," I said, "Jens Larsen and the girl saw your
father in the garden that night."
She shook her head slowly and answered, "The evil one blinded their
eyes." She wept bitterly again.
"Tell me, beloved," she began again, after a while, "tell me
frankly this much. If God sends us no further enlightenment in
this unfortunate affair, what sentence must you give?"
She gazed anxiously at me, her lips trembling.
"If I did not believe," I began slowly, "that anyone else in my
place would be more severe than I, then I would gladly give up my
position at once and refuse to speak the verdict. But I dare not
conceal from you that the mildest sentence that God, our king, and
our laws demand is, a life for a life."
She sank to her knees, then sprang up again, fell back several
steps as if afraid of me, and cried out: "Would you murder my
father? Would you murder your betrothed bride? See here! See
this!" She came nearer and held up her hand with my ring on it
before my eyes. "Do you see this betrothal ring? What was it my
father said when you put this ring upon my finger? 'I have given
my maid unto thy bosom!' But you, you thrust the steel deep into
my bosom!"
Alas, every one of her words cut deep into my own heart. "Dearest
love," I cried, "do not speak so. You thrust burning irons into my
heart. What would you have me do? Acquit him, when the laws of
God and man condemn?"
She was silent, sobbing desperately.
"One thing I can do," I continued. "If it be wrong may God forgive
me. If the trial goes on to an end his life is forfeited, there is
no hope except in flight. If you can arrange an escape I will
close my eyes. I will not see or hear anything. As soon as your
father was imprisoned, I wrote to your brother in Copenhagen. He
can arrive any moment now. Talk to him, make friends with the
jailer. If you lack money, all I have is yours."
When I had finished her face flushed with joy, and she threw her
arms about my neck. "God bless you for these words. Were my
brother but here, he will know what to do. But where shall we go?"
her tone changed suddenly and her arms dropped. "Even should we
find a refuge in a foreign country I could never see you again!"
Her tone was so sad that my heart was near to breaking.
"Beloved," I exclaimed, "I will find you wherever you may hide
yourself! Should our money not be sufficient to support us I can
work for us all. I have learned to use the ax and the hoe."
She rejoiced again and kissed me many times. We prayed to God to
bless our undertaking and parted with glad hearts. I also hoped
for the best. Doubts assail me, but God will find for us some
light in this darkness.
Two more new witnesses. They bring nothing good, I fear, for Bruus
announced them with an expression I did not like. He has a heart
of stone, which can feel nothing but malice and bitterness. I give
them a hearing to-morrow. I feel as if they had come to bear
witness against me myself. May God strengthen my heart.
All is over. He has confessed.
The court was in session and the prisoner had been brought in to
hear the testimony of the new witnesses. These men stated as
follows: On the night in question they were walking along the path
that led between the woods and the rectory garden. A man with a
large sack on his back came out of the woods and walked ahead of
them toward the garden. They could not see his face, but in the
bright moonlight his figure was clearly visible, and they could see
that he wore a loose green garment, like a dressing gown, and a
white nightcap. The man disappeared through an opening in the
rectory garden fence.
Scarcely had the first witness ended his statement when the rector
turned ghastly pale, and gasped, in a voice that could scarcely be
heard, "I am ill." They gave him a chair.
Bruus turned to his neighbor and exclaimed audibly, "That helped
the rector's memory."
The prisoner did not hear the words, but motioned to me and said,
"Lead me back to my prison. I will talk to you there." They did
as he demanded.
We set out at once for Grenaa. The rector was in the wagon with
the jailer and the gendarme, and I rode beside them.
When the door of the cell was opened my beloved was making up her
father's bed, and over a chair by the bedside hung the fatal green
dressing gown. My dear betrothed greeted me with a cry of joy, as
she believed that I was come to set her father free. She hung
about the old man's neck, kissing away the tears that rolled
unhindered down his cheeks. I had not the heart to undeceive her,
and I sent her out into the town to buy some things for us.
"Sit down, dear friend," said the rector, when we were alone. He
seated himself on the bed, staring at the ground with eyes that did
not see. Finally he turned toward me where I sat trembling, as if
it were my own sentence I was to hear, as in a manner it was. "I
am a great sinner," he sighed, "God only knows how great. His
punishment crushes me here that I may enter into His mercy
hereafter."
He grew gradually calmer and began:
"Since my childhood I have been hot-tempered and violent. I could
never endure contradiction, and was always ready to give a blow.
But I have seldom let the sun go down upon my wrath, and I have
never borne hatred toward any man. As a half-grown boy I killed
our good, kind watchdog in one of my fits of rage for some trifling
offense, and I have never ceased to regret it. Later, as a student
in Leipzig, I let myself be carried away sufficiently to wound
seriously my adversary in one of our fencing bouts. A merciful
fate alone saved me from becoming a murderer then. It is for these
earlier sins that I am now being punished, but the punishment falls
doubly hard, now that I am an old man, a priest, a servant of the
Lord of Peace, and a father! Ah, that is the deepest wound!" He
sprang up and wrung his hands in deep despair. I would have said
something to comfort him, but I could find no words for such
sorrow.
When he had controlled himself somewhat he sat down again and
continued: "To you, once my friend and now my judge, I will confess
this crime, which it seems beyond a doubt that I have committed,
although I am not conscious of having done so." (I was startled at
this, as I had expected a remorseful confession.) "Listen well to
what I shall now tell you. That I struck the unfortunate man with
the spade, that he fell down and then ran away, this is all that I
know with full consciousness. . . . What followed then? Four
witnesses have seen that I fetched the body and buried it in my
garden--and now at last I am forced to believe that it must be
true. These are my reasons for the belief. "Three or four times
in my life I have walked in my sleep. The last time--it may have
been nine or ten years ago--I was to have held a funeral service on
the following day, over the body of a man who had died a sudden and
terrible death. I could not find a suitable text, until suddenly
there came to me the words of an old Greek philosopher, 'Call no
man fortunate until his death.' It was in my mind that the same
idea was expressed in different words in the Holy Scriptures. I
sought and sought, but could not find it. At last I went to bed
much fatigued, and slept soundly. Next morning, when I sat down at
my desk, to my great astonishment I saw there a piece of paper, on
which was written, 'Call no man happy until his end hath come'
(Sirach xi. 34), and following it was a funeral sermon, short, but
as good in construction as any I have ever written. And all this
was in my own handwriting. It was quite out of the question that
anyone could have entered the room during the night, as I had
locked it myself, and it had not been opened until I entered next
day. I knew what had happened, as I could remember one or two such
occurrences in my life before.
"Therefore, dear friend, when the last witnesses gave their
testimony to-day, I suddenly remembered my sleepwalking exploits,
and I also remembered, what had slipped my mind before, that on the
morning after the night the body was buried I had found my dressing
gown in the hall outside of my bedroom. This had surprised me, as
I always hung it over a chair near my bed. The unfortunate victim
of my violence must have died in the woods from his wound, and in
my dream consciousness I must have seen this and gone to fetch the
body. It must be so. I know no other explanation. God have mercy
on my sinful soul." He was silent again, covering his face with
his hands and weeping bitterly.
I was struck dumb with astonishment and uncertainty. I had always
suspected that the victim had died on the spot where he was buried,
although I could not quite understand how the rector had managed to
bury the body by day without being seen. But I thought that he
might have covered it lightly with earth and twigs and finished his
work at night. He was a man of sufficient strength of mind to have
done this. When the latest witnesses were telling their story, I
noted the possible contradiction, and hoped it might prove a
loophole of escape. But, alas, it was all only too true, and the
guilt of the rector proven beyond a doubt. It was not at all
impossible for a man to do such things in his sleep. Just as it
was quite possible that a man with a fractured skull could run some
distance before he fell to die. The rector's story bore the stamp
of truth, although the doubt WILL come that he desired thus to save
a shred of honor for his name.
The prisoner walked up and down the room several times, then
stopping before me he said gravely: "You have now heard my
confession, here in my prison walls. It is your mouth that must
speak my sentence. But what says your heart?"
I could scarcely utter the words, "My heart suffers beyond
expression. I would willingly see it break if I could but save you
from a shameful death." (I dared not mention to him my last hope
of escape in flight.)
"That is impossible," he answered. "My life is forfeited. My
death is just, and shall serve as a warning to others. But promise
me that you will not desert my poor daughter. I had thought to lay
her in your arms"--tears choked his voice--"but, alas, that fond
hope is vanished. You cannot marry the daughter of a sentenced
murderer. But promise me that you will watch over her as her
second father." In deep sorrow and in tears I held his hand in
mine. "Have you any news from my son?" he began again. "I hope it
will be possible to keep him in ignorance of this terrible affair
until--until it is all over. I could not bear to see him now. And
now, dear friend, let us part, not to meet again except in the hall
of justice. Grant me of your friendship one last service, let it
end soon. I long for death. Go now, my kind, sympathetic judge.
Send for me to-morrow to speak my sentence, and send to-day for my
brother in God, the pastor in Aalso. He shall prepare me for
death. God be with you."
He gave me his hand with his eyes averted. I staggered from the
prison, hardly conscious of what I was doing. I would have ridden
home without seeing his daughter had she not met me by the prison
door. She must have seen the truth in my face, for she paled and
caught at my arm. She gazed at me with her soul in her eyes, but
could not speak. "Flee! Save your father in flight!" was all I
could say.
I set spurs to my horse and rode home somehow.
To-morrow, then!
The sentence is spoken.
The accused was calmer than the judge. All those present, except
his bitter enemy, were affected almost to tears. Some whispered
that the punishment was too severe.
May God be a milder judge to me than I, poor sinner, am forced to
be to my fellow men.
She has been here. She found me ill in bed. There is no escape
possible. He will not flee. Everything was arranged and the
jailer was ready to help. But he refuses, he longs for death. God
be merciful to the poor girl. How will she survive the terrible
day? I am ill in body and soul, I can neither aid nor comfort her.
There is no word from the brother.
I feel that I am near death myself, as near perhaps as he is, whom
I sent to his doom. Farewell, my own beloved bride. . . . What
will she do? she is so strangely calm--the calm of wordless
despair. Her brother has not yet come, and to-morrow--on the
Ravenshill--!
Here the diary of Erik Sorensen stopped suddenly. What followed
can be learned from the written and witnessed statements of the
pastor of Aalso, the neighboring parish to Veilbye.
II
It was during the seventeenth year of my term of office that the
terrible event happened in the neighborhood which filled all who
heard of it with shock and horror, and brought shame and disgrace
upon our holy calling. The venerable Soren Quist, Rector of
Veilbye, killed his servant in a fit of rage and buried the body in
his garden.
He was found guilty at the official trial, through the testimony of
many witnesses, as well as through his own confession. He was
condemned to death, and the sentence was carried out in the
presence of several thousand people on the little hill known as
Ravenshill, here in the field of Aalso.
The condemned man had asked that I might visit him in his prison.
I must state that I have never given the holy sacrament to a better
prepared or more truly repentant Christian. He was calm to the
last, full of remorse for his great sin. On the field of death he
spoke to the people in words of great wisdom and power, preaching
to the text from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, chap. ii., verse 6:
"He hath despised the priest in the indignation of his anger." He
spoke of his violence and of its terrible results, and of his deep
remorse. He exhorted his hearers to let his sin and his fate be an
example to them, and a warning not to give way to anger. Then he
commended his soul to the Lord, removed his upper garments, bound
up his eyes with his own hand, then folded his hands in prayer.
When I had spoken the words, "Brother, be of good cheer. This day
shalt thou be with thy Saviour in Paradise," his head fell by the
ax.
The one thing that made death bitter for him was the thought of his
children. The son had been sent for from Copenhagen, but as we
afterwards learned, he had been absent from the city, and therefore
did not arrive until shortly after his father had paid the penalty
for his crime.
I took the daughter into my home, where she was brought, half
fainting, after they had led her father from the prison. She had
been tending him lovingly all the days of his trial. What made
even greater sorrow for the poor girl, and for the district judge
who spoke the sentence, was that these two young people had
solemnly plighted their troth but a few short weeks before, in the
rectory of Veilbye. The son arrived just as the body of the
executed criminal was brought into my house. It had been permitted
to us to bury the body with Christian rites, if we could do it in
secret. The young man threw himself over the lifeless body. Then,
clasping his sister in his arms, the two wept together in silence
for some while. At midnight we held a quiet service over the
remains of the Rector of Veilbye, and the body was buried near the
door of Aalso church. A simple stone, upon which I have carved a
cross, still stands to remind the passer-by of the sin of a most
unfortunate man.
The next morning his two children had disappeared. They have never
been heard of since. God knows to what far-away corner of the
world they have fled, to hide their shame and their sorrow. The
district judge is very ill, and it is not believed that he will
recover.
May God deal with us all after His wisdom and His mercy!
O Lord, inscrutable are thy ways!
In the thirty-eighth year of my service, and twenty-one years after
my unfortunate brother in office, the Rector of Veilbye had been
beheaded for the murder of his servant, it happened one day that a
beggar came to my door. He was an elderly man, with gray hair, and
walked with a crutch. He looked sad and needy. None of the
servants were about, so I myself went into the kitchen and gave him
a piece of bread. I asked him where he came from. He sighed and
answered:
"From nowhere in particular."
Then I asked him his name. He sighed still deeper, looked about
him as if in fear, and said, "They once called me Niels Bruus."
I was startled, and said, "God have mercy on us! That is a bad
name. That is the name of a man who was killed many years back."
Whereat the man sighed still deeper and replied: "It would have
been better for me had I died then. It has gone ill with me since
I left the country."
At this the hair rose on my head, and I trembled in every limb.
For it seemed to me that I could recognize him, and also it seemed
to me that I saw Morten Bruus before me in the flesh, and yet I had
laid the earth over him three years before. I stepped back and
made the sign of the cross, for verily I thought it was a ghost I
saw before me.
But the man sat down in the chimney corner and continued to speak.
"Reverend father, they tell me my brother Morten is dead. I have
been to Ingvorstrup, but the new owner chased me away. Is my old
master, the Rector of Veilbye, still alive?" Then it was that the
scales fell from my eyes and I saw into the very truth of this
whole terrible affair. But the shock stunned me so that I could
not speak. The man bit into his bread greedily and went on. "Yes,
that was all Brother Morten's fault. Did the old rector have much
trouble about it?"
"Niels! Niels!" I cried from out the horror of my soul, "you have
a monstrous black sin upon your conscience! For your sake that
unfortunate man fell by the ax of the executioner!"
The bread and the crutch fell from his hand, and he himself was
near to falling into the fire. "May God forgive you, Morten!" he
groaned. "God knows I didn't mean anything like that. May my sin
be forgiven me! But surely you only mean to frighten me! I come
from far away, and have heard nothing. No one but you, reverend
father, has recognized me. I have told my name to no one. When I
asked them in Veilbye if the rector was still there, they said that
he was."
"That is the new rector," I replied. "Not he whom you and your
sinful brother have slain."
He wrung his hands and cried aloud, and then I knew that he had
been but a tool in the hands of that devil, Morten. Therefore I
set to work to comfort him, and took him into my study that he
might calm himself sufficiently to tell me the detail of this
Satan's work.
This was the story as he tells it: His brother Morten--truly a son
of Belial--cherished a deadly hatred toward pastor Soren Quist
since the day the latter had refused him the hand of his daughter.
As soon as he heard that the pastor's coachman had left him, he
persuaded Niels to take the place.
"Watch your chance well," he had said, "we'll play the black coat a
trick some day, and you will he no loser by it."
Niels, who was rough and defiant by nature, soon came to a quarrel
with his master, and when he had received his first chastisement,
he ran at once to Ingvorstrup to report it. "Let him strike you
just once again," said Marten. "Then come to me, and we will pay
him for it."
Then came the quarrel in the garden, and Niels ran off to
Ingvorstrup. He met his brother in the woods and told him what had
occurred.
"Did anyone see you on the way here?" asked Morten
Niels thought not. "Good," said Morten; "now we'll give him a
fright that he will not forget for a week or so."
He led Niels carefully to the house, and kept him hidden there the
rest of the day. When all the household else had gone to sleep the
two brothers crept out, and went to a field where several days
before they had buried the body of a man of about Niel's age, size,
and general appearance. (He had hanged himself, some said because
of ill-treatment from Morten, in whose service he was. Others said
it was because of unhappy love.) They dug up the corpse, although
Niels did not like the work, and protested. But Morten was the
stronger, and Niels had to do as he was ordered. They carried the
body back with them into the house.
Then Niels was ordered to take off all his clothes, piece by piece,
even to his shirt, and dress the dead man in them. Even his leaden
earring, which he had worn for many years, was put in the ear of
the corpse. After this was done, Morten took a spade and gave the
head of the corpse two crashing blows, one over the nose, the other
on the temple. The body was hidden in a sack and kept in the house
during the next day. At night the day following, they carried it
out to the wood near Veilbye.
Several times Niels had asked of his brother what all this
preparation boded. But Morten answered only, "That is my affair.
Do as I tell you, and don't ask questions."
When they neared the edge of the wood by Veilbye, Morten said, "Now
fetch me one of the coats the pastor wears most. If you can, get
the green dressing gown I have often seen him wear mornings."
"I don't dare," said Niels, "he keeps it in his bed chamber."
"Well, then, I'll dare it myself," said Morten. "And now, go your
way, and never show yourself here again. Here is a bag with one
hundred thalers. They will last you until you can take service
somewhere in another country. Go where no one has ever seen you,
and take another name. Never come back to Denmark again. Travel
by night, and hide in the woods by day until you are well away from
here. Here are provisions enough to last you for several days.
And remember, never show yourself here again, as you value your
life."
Niels obeyed, and has never seen his brother since that day. He
had had much trouble, had been a soldier and lost his health in the
war, and finally, after great trials and sufferings, had managed to
get back to the land of his birth. This was the story as told me
by the miserable man, and I could not doubt its truth.
It was now only too clear to me that my unfortunate brother in the
Lord had fallen a victim to the hatred of his fiendish enemy, to
the delusion of his judge and the witnesses, and to his own
credulous imagination.
Oh, what is man that he shall dare to sit in judgment over his
fellows! God alone is the Judge. He who gives life may alone give
death!
I did not feel it my duty to give official information against this
crushed and broken sinner, particularly as the district judge is
still alive, and it would have been cruelty to let him know of his
terrible error.
Instead, I gave what comfort my office permitted to the poor man,
and recommended him not to reveal his name or tell his story to
anyone in the district. On these conditions I would give him a
home until I could arrange for a permanent refuge for him in my
brother's house, a good distance from these parts.
The day following was a Sunday. When I returned from evening
service at my branch parish, the beggar had disappeared. But by
the evening of the next day the story was known throughout the
neighborhood.
Goaded by the pangs of conscience, Niels had gone to Rosmer and
made himself known to the judge as the true Niels Bruus. Upon the
hearing of the terrible truth, the judge was taken with a stroke
and died before the week was out. But on Tuesday morning they
found Niels Bruus dead on the grave of the late rector Soren Quist
of Veilbye, by the door of Aalso church.
Hungarian Mystery Stories
Ferencz Molnar
The Living Death
Here is a very serious reason, my dear sisters, why at last, after
an absence of twenty years in America, I am confiding to you this
strange secret in the life of our beloved and lamented father, and
of the old house where we were children together. The truth is, if
I read rightly the countenances of my physicians as they whisper to
each other by the window of the chamber in which I am lying, that
only a few days of this life remain to me.