The Outlaws by Selma Lagerlöf (beach read .TXT) 📕

ÊÊ When Tord entered the cave the outlaw sat upon the bench of stone, sewing. The fire gave but a pale light, and the work did not seem to progress satisfactorily. The boy’s heart swelled in pity. This superb Giant seemed all at once so poor and so unhappy.

ÊÊ “What is the matter?” asked Berg. “Are you ill? Have you been afraid?”

ÊÊ Then for the first time Tord spoke of his fear. “It was so strange in the forest. I heard the voices of spirits and I saw ghosts. I saw white monks.”

ÊÊ “Boy!”

ÊÊ “They sang to me all the way up the slope to the hilltop. I ran from them, but they ran after me, singing. Can I not lay the spirits? What have I to do with them? There are others to whom their appearance is more necessary.”

ÊÊ “Are you crazy to-night, Tord?”

ÊÊ Tord spoke without knowing what words he was using. His shyness had left him all at once, speech seemed to flow from his lips. “They were white monks, as pale as corpses. And their clothes are spotted with blood. They draw their hoods down over their foreheads, but I can see the wound shining there. The great, yawning, red wound from the ax.”

ÊÊ “Tord,” said the giant, pale and deeply grave, “the Saints alone know why you see wounds of ax thrusts. I slew the monk with a knife.”

ÊÊ Tord stood before Berg trembling and wringing his bands. “They demand you of me. They would compel me to betray you.”

ÊÊ “Who? The monks?”

ÊÊ “Yes, yes, the monks. They show me visions. They show me Unn. They show me the open, sunny ocean. They show me the camps of the fishermen, where there is dancing and merriment. I close my eyes, and yet I can see it all. ‘Leave me,’ I say to them. ‘My friend has committed a murder, but he is not bad. Leave me alone, and I will talk to him, that he may repent and atone. He will see the wrong he has done, and he will make a pilgrimage to the Holy Grave.’”

ÊÊ “And what do the monks answer?” asked Berg. “They do not want to pardon me. They want to torture me and to burn me at the stake.”

ÊÊ “‘Shall I betray my best friend?’ I ask them. He is all that I have in the world. He saved me from the bear when its claws were already at my throat. We have suffered hunger and cold together. He covered me with his own garments while I was ill. I have brought him wood and water, I have watched over his sleep and led his enemies off the trail. Why should they think me a man who betrays his friend? My friend will go to the priest himself, and will confess to him, and then together we will seek absolution.”

ÊÊ Berg listened gravely, his keen eyes searching in Tord’s face. “Go to the priest yourself, and tell him the truth. You must go back again among mankind.”

ÊÊ “What does it help if I go alone? The spirits of the dead follow me because of your sin. Do you not see how I tremble before you? You have lifted your hand against God himself. What crime is like unto yours? Why did you tell me about the just God? It is you yourself who compel me to betray you. Spare me this sin. Go to the priest yourself.” He sank down on his knees before Berg.

ÊÊ The murderer laid his hand on his head and looked at him. He measured his sin by the terror of his comrade, and it grew and grew to monstrous size. He saw himself in conflict with the Will that rules the world. Remorse entered his heart.

ÊÊ “Woe unto me that I did what I did,” he said. “And is not this miserable life, this life we lead here in terror, and in deprivation, is it not atonement enough? Have I not lost home and fortune? Have I not lost friends, and all the joys that make the life of a man? What more?”

ÊÊ As he heard him speak thus, Tord sprang up in wild terror. “You can repent!” he cried. “My words move your heart? Oh, come with me, come at once. Come, let us go while there is yet time.”

ÊÊ Berg the Giant sprang up also. “You Ñ did it Ñ?”

ÊÊ “Yes, yes, yes. I have betrayed you. But come quickly. Come now, now that you can repent. We must escape. We will escape.”

ÊÊ The murderer stooped to the ground where the battle-ax of his fathers lay at his feet. “Son of a thief,” he hissed. “I trusted you Ñ I loved you.”

ÊÊ But when Tord saw him stoop for the ax, he knew that it was his own life that was in peril now. He tore his own ax from his girdle, and thrust at Berg before the latter could rise. The Giant fell headlong to the floor, the blood spurting out over the cave. Between the tangled masses of hair Tord saw the great, yawning, red wound of an ax thrust.

ÊÊ Then the peasants stormed into the cave. They praised his deed and told him that he should receive full pardon.

ÊÊ Tord looked down at his hands, as if he saw there the fetters that had drawn him on to kill the man he loved. Like the chains of the Fenrir wolf, they were woven out of empty air. They were woven out of the green light amid the reeds, out of the play of shadows in the woods, out of the song of the storm, out of the rustling of the leaves, out of the magic vision of dreams. And he said aloud: “God is great.”

ÊÊ He crouched beside the body, spoke amid his tears to the dead, and begged him to awake. The villagers made a litter of their spears, on which to carry the body of the free peasant to his home. The dead man aroused awe in their souls, they softened their voices in his presence. When they raised him to the bier, Tord stood up, shook the hair from his eyes, and spoke in a voice that trembled:

ÊÊ “Tell Unn, for whose sake Berg the Giant became a murderer, that Tord the fisherman, whose father plunders wrecks, and whose mother is a witch Ñ tell her that Tord slew Berg because Berg had taught him that justice is the cornerstone of the world.”