Chapter 6. In The Town Cellars

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_ CHAPTER VI. IN THE TOWN CELLARS

One morning the hostess of the Town Cellars at Marstrand threw open her doors to sweep the steps and the lobby, and then she caught sight of a young maid sitting on one of the steps and waiting. She was dressed in a long gray garment which was fastened with a belt at the waist. Her hair was fair, and it was neither bound nor braided, but hung down on either side of her face.

As the door opened she went down the steps into the lobby, but it seemed to the hostess that she moved as though walking in her sleep. And all the time she kept her eyelids lowered and her arms pressed close to her side. The nearer she came, the more astonished was the hostess at the fragile slenderness of her form. Her face was fair, but it was delicate and transparent, as though it had been made of brittle glass.

When she came down to the hostess she asked whether there was any work she could do, and offered her services.

Then the hostess thought of all the wild companions whose habit it was to sit drinking ale and wine in her tavern, and she could not help smiling. "No, there is no place here for a little maid like you," she said.

The maiden did not raise her eyes nor make the slightest movement, but she asked again to be taken into service. She desired neither board nor wages, she said, only to have a task to perform.

"No," said the hostess, "if my own daughter were as you are, I should refuse her this. I wish you a better lot than to be servant here."

The young maid went quietly up the steps, and the hostess stood watching her. She looked so small and helpless that the woman took pity on her.

She called her back and said to her: "Maybe you run greater risks if you wander alone about the streets and alleys than if you come to me. You may stay with me today and wash the cups and dishes, and then I shall see what you are fit for."

The hostess took her to a little closet she had contrived beyond the hall of the tavern. It was no bigger than a cupboard and had neither window nor loophole, but was only lighted by a hatch in the wall of the public room.

"Stand here today," said the hostess to the maid, "and wash me all the cups and dishes I pass you through this hatch, then I shall see whether I can keep you in my service."

The maiden went into the closet, and she moved so silently that the hostess thought it was like a dead woman slipping into her grave.

She stood the whole day and spoke to none, nor ever leaned her head through the hatch to look at the folk who came and went in the tavern. And she did not touch the food that was set before her. Nobody heard her make a clatter as she washed, but whenever the hostess held out her hand to the hatch, she passed out clean cups and dishes without a speck on them.

But when the hostess took them to set them out on the table, they were so cold that she thought they would sear the skin off her fingers. And she shuddered and said: "It is as though I took them from the cold hands of Death himself."

II

One day there had been no fish to clean on the quays, so that Elsalill had stayed at home. She sat at the spinning-wheel and was alone in the cottage. A good fire was burning on the hearth, and it was light enough in the room.

In the midst of her work she felt a light breath, as though a cold breeze had swept over her forehead. She looked up and saw her dead foster sister standing beside her.

Elsalill laid her hand on the wheel to stop it, and sat still, looking at her foster sister. At first she was afraid, but she thought to herself: "It is unworthy of me to be afraid of my foster sister. Whether she be dead or alive, I am still glad to see her."

"Dear sister," she said to the dead girl, "is there aught you would have me do?"

The other said to her in a voice that had neither strength nor tone: "My sister Elsalill, I am in service at the tavern, and the hostess has made me stand and wash cups and dishes all day. Now the evening is come and I am so tired that I can hold out no longer. I have come hither to ask if you will not give me your help."

When Elsalill heard this it was as though a veil was drawn over her mind. She could no longer think nor wonder nor feel any fear. She only knew joy at seeing her foster sister again, and she answered: "Yes, dear sister, I will come straight and help you."

Then the dead girl went to the door, and Elsalill followed her. But as they stood on the threshold her foster sister paused and said to Elsalill: "You must put on your cloak. There is a strong wind outside." And as she said this her voice sounded clearer and less muffled than before.

Elsalill then took her cloak from the wall and wrapped it around her. She thought to herself: "My foster sister loves me still. She wishes me no evil. I am only happy that I may go with her wherever she may take me."

And then she followed the dead girl through many streets, all the way from Torarin's cabin, which stood on a rocky slope, down to the level streets about the harbour and the market place.

The dead girl always walked two paces in front of Elsalill. A heavy gale was blowing that evening, howling through the streets, and Elsalill noticed that when a violent gust would have flung her against the wall, the dead girl placed herself between her and the wind and screened her as well as she could with her slender body.

When at last they came to the town hall the dead girl went down the cellar steps and beckoned Elsalill to follow her. But as they were going down the wind blew out the light in the lantern that hung in the lobby and they were in darkness. Then Elsalill did not know where to turn her steps and the dead girl had to put her hand on hers to lead her. But the dead girl's hand was so cold that Elsalill started and began to quake with fear. Then the dead girl drew her hand away and wound it in a corner of Elsalill's cloak before she led her on again. But Elsalill felt the icy chill through fur and lining.

Now the dead girl led Elsalill through a long corridor and opened a door for her. They came into a little dark closet where a feeble light fell through a hatch in the wall. Elsalill saw that they were in a room where the scullery wench stood and scoured cups and dishes for the hostess to set out on the tables for her customers. Elsalill could just see that a pail of water stood upon a stool, and in the hatch were many cups and goblets that wanted rinsing.

"Will you help me with this work tonight, Elsalill?" said the dead girl.

"Yes, dear sister," said Elsalill, "you know I will help you with whatsoever you wish."

Elsalill then took off her cloak, rolled up her sleeves and began the work.

"Will you be very quiet and silent in here, Elsalill, so that the hostess may not know that I have found help?"

"Yes, dear sister," said Elsalill; "you may be sure I will."

"Then farewell, Elsalill," said the dead girl. "I have only one more thing to ask of you. And it is that you be not too angry with me for this thing."

"Wherefore do you bid me farewell?" said Elsalill. "I will gladly come every evening and help you."

"No, there is no need for you to come after this evening," said the dead girl. "I have good hope that tonight you will give me such help that my mission will now be ended."

As they spoke thus Elsalill was already leaning over her work. All was still for a while, but then she felt a light breath on her forehead, as when the dead girl had come to her in Torarin's cabin. She looked up and saw that she was alone. Then she knew what it was that had felt like a faint breeze upon her face, and said to herself: "My dead foster sister has kissed my forehead before she parted from me."

Elsalill now turned to her work and finished it. She rinsed out all the bowls and tankards and dried them. Then she looked in the hatch whether any more had been set in there, and finding none she stood at the hatch and looked out into the tavern.

It was an hour of the day when there was usually little custom in the cellars. The hostess was absent from her bar and none of her tapsters was to be seen in the room. The place was empty, save for three men, who sat at the end of a long table. They were guests, but they seemed well at their ease, for one of them, who had emptied his tankard, went to the bar, filled it from one of the great tuns of ale and wine that stood there, and sat down again to drink.

Elsalill felt as though she had come here from a strange world. Her thoughts were with her dead foster sister, and she could not clearly take in what she saw. It was a long while before she was aware that the three men at the table were well known and dear to her. For they who sat there were none other than Sir Archie and his two friends Sir Reginald and Sir Philip.

For some days past Sir Archie had not visited Elsalill, and she was glad to see him. She was on the point of calling to him that she was there at hand; but then the thought came to her, how strange it was that he had ceased to visit her, and she kept silence. "Maybe his fancy has turned to another," thought Elsalill. "Maybe it is of her he is thinking."

For Sir Archie sat a little apart from the others. He was silent and gazed steadily before him, without touching his drink. He took no part in the talk, and when his friends addressed a word to him, he was seldom at the pains to make them an answer.

Elsalill could hear that the others were trying to put life into him. They asked him why he had left drinking, and even sought to persuade him that he should go and talk with Elsalill and so recover his good humour.

"You are to pay no heed to me," said Sir Archie. "There is another that fills my thoughts. Still do I see her before me, and still do I hear the sound of her voice in my ears."

And then Elsalill saw that Sir Archie was gazing at one of the massive pillars that upheld the cellar roof. She saw, too, what till then she had not marked, that her foster sister stood beside that pillar and looked upon Sir Archie. She stood there quite motionless in her gray habit, and it was not easy to discover her, as she stood so close against the pillar.

Elsalill stood quite still looking into the room. She noted that her foster sister kept her eyes raised when she looked upon Sir Archie. During the whole time she was with Elsalill she had walked with her eyes upon the ground.

Now her eyes were the only thing about her that was ghastly. Elsalill saw that they were dim and filmed. They had no glance, and the light was not mirrored in them any more.

After a while Sir Archie began again to lament. "I see her every hour. She follows me wherever I go," he said.

He sat with his face toward the pillar where the dead girl stood, and stared at her. But Elsalill was sure that he did not see her. It was not of her he spoke, but of one who was ever in his thoughts.

Elsalill never left the hatch and followed with her eyes all that took place, thinking that most of all she wished to find out who it was that filled Sir Archie's thoughts.

Suddenly she was aware that the dead girl had taken her place on the bench beside Sir Archie and was whispering in his ear.

But still Sir Archie knew nothing of her being so close to him or of her whispering in his ear. He was only aware of her presence in the mortal dread that came over him.

Elsalill saw that when the dead girl had sat for a few moments whispering to Sir Archie, he hid his face in his hands and wept. "Alas, would I had never found the maid!" he said. "I regret nothing else but that I did not let the maiden go when she begged me."

The other two Scotsmen ceased drinking and looked in alarm at Sir Archie, who thus laid aside all his manliness and yielded to remorse. For a moment they were perplexed, but then one of them went up to the bar, took the tallest tankard that stood there and filled it with red wine. He brought it to Sir Archie, clapped him on the shoulder and said: "Drink, brother! Herr Arne's hoard is not yet done. So long as we have coin to buy such wine as this, no cares need sit upon us."

But in the same instant as these words were spoken: "Drink, brother! Herr Arne's hoard is not yet done," Elsalill saw the dead girl rise from the bench and vanish.

And in that moment Elsalill saw before her eyes three men with great beards and rough coats of skin, struggling with Herr Arne's servants. And now it was plain to her that they were the three who sat in the cellar--Sir Archie, Sir Philip, and Sir Reginald.

III

Elsalill came out of the closet where she had stood and rinsed the hostess's cups, and softly closed the door behind her. In the narrow corridor outside she stopped and stood motionless leaning against the wall for nearly an hour.

As she stood there she thought to herself: "I cannot betray him. Let him be guilty of what evil he may, I love him with all my heart. I cannot send him to be broken upon the wheel. I cannot see them burn away his hands and feet."

The storm that had raged all day became more and more violent as evening wore on, and Elsalill could hear its roar as she stood in the darkness.

"Now the first storms of spring have come," she thought. "Now they have come in all their might to set the waters free and break up the ice. In a few days we shall have open sea, and then Sir Archie will sail from hence, never to return. No more misdeeds can he commit in this land. What profits it then if he be taken and suffer for his crime? Neither the dead nor the living have any comfort of it."

Elsalill drew her cloak about her. She thought she would go home and sit quietly at her work without betraying her secret to any one.

But before she had raised a foot to go, she changed her purpose and stayed.

She stood still listening to the roaring of the gale. Again she thought of the coming of spring. The snow would disappear and the earth put on its garment of green.

"Merciful heaven, what a spring will this be for me!" thought Elsalill. "No joy and no happiness can bloom for me after the chills of this winter.

"No more than a year ago I was so happy when winter was past and spring came," she thought. "I remember one evening which was so fair that I could not sit within doors. So I took my foster sister by the hand, and we went out into the fields to fetch green boughs and deck the stove.

She recalled to mind how she and her foster sister had walked along a green pathway. And there by the side of the way they had seen a young birch that had been cut down. The wood showed that it had been cut many days before. But now they saw that the poor lopped tree had begun to put forth leaves and its buds were bursting.

Then her foster sister had stopped and bent over the tree. "Ah, poor tree," she said, "what evil can you have done, that you are not suffered to die, though you are cut down? What makes you put forth leaves, as though you still lived?"

And Elsalill had laughed at her and answered: "Maybe it grows so sweet and green that he who cut it down may see the harm he has wrought and feel remorse."

But her foster sister did not laugh with her, and there were tears in her eyes. "It is terrible for a dead man if he cannot rest in his grave. They who are dead have small comfort to look for; neither love nor happiness can reach them. All the good they yet desire is that they may be left to sleep in peace. Well may I weep when you say this birch cannot die for thinking of its murderer. The hardest fate for one deprived of life is that he may not sleep in peace but must pursue his murderer. The dead have naught to long for but to be left to sleep in peace."

When Elsalill recalled these words she began to weep and wring her hands.

"My foster sister will not find rest in her grave," she said, "unless I betray my beloved. If I do not aid her in this, she must roam above ground without respite or repose. My poor foster sister, she has nothing more to hope for but to find peace in her grave, and that I cannot give her unless I send the man I love to be broken on the wheel."

IV

Sir Archie came out of the tavern and went through the long corridor. The lantern hanging from the roof had now been lighted again, and by its light he saw that a young maid stood leaning against the wall.

She was so pale and stood so still that Sir Archie was afraid and thought: "There at last before my eyes stands the dead girl who haunts me every day."

As Sir Archie went past Elsalill he laid his hand on hers to feel if it was really a dead girl standing there. And her hand was so cold that he could not say whether it belonged to the living or the dead.

But as Sir Archie touched Elsalill's hand she drew it back, and then Sir Archie knew her again.

He thought she had come there for his sake, and great was his joy to see her. At once a thought came to him: "Now I know what I will do, that the dead girl may be appeased and cease to haunt me."

He took Elsalill's hands within his own and raised them to his lips. "God bless you for coming to me this evening, Elsalill!" he said.

But Elsalill's heart was sore afflicted. She could not speak for tears, even so much as to tell Sir Archie she had not come there to meet him.

Sir Archie stood silent a long while, but he held Elsalill's hands in his the whole time. And the longer he stood thus, the clearer and more handsome did his face become.

"Elsalill," said Sir Archie, and he spoke very earnestly, "for many days I have not been able to see you, because I have been tormented by heavy thoughts. They have left me no peace, and I believed I should soon go out of my mind. But tonight it goes better with me and I no longer see before me the image that tormented me. And when I found you here, my heart told me what I had to do to be rid of my torment for all time."

He bent down to look into Elsalill's eyes, but as she stood with drooping eyelids he went on: "You are angry with me, Elsalill, because I have not been to see you for many days. But I could not come, for when I saw you I was reminded even more of what tortured me. When I saw you I was forced to think even more of a young maid to whom I have done wrong. Many others have I wronged in my lifetime, Elsalill, but my conscience plagues me for naught else but what I did to this young maid."

As Elsalill still said nothing, he took her hands again and raised them to his lips and kissed them.

"Now, listen, Elsalill, to what my heart said to me when I saw you standing here and waiting for me. 'You have done injury to one maiden,' it said, 'and for what you have made her suffer, you must atone to another. You shall take her to wife, and you shall be so good to her that she shall never know sorrow. Such faithfulness shall you show her that your love will be greater on the day of your death than on your wedding day.'"

Elsalill stood still as before with downcast eyes. Then Sir Archie laid his hand on her head and raised it. "You must tell me, Elsalill, whether you hear what I say," he said.

Then he saw that Elsalill was weeping so violently that great tears ran down her cheeks.

"Why do you weep, Elsalill?" asked Sir Archie.

"I weep, Sir Archie," said Elsalill, "because I have too great love for you in my heart."

Then Sir Archie came yet closer to Elsalill and put his arm around her. "Do you hear how the wind howls without?" said he. "That means that soon the ice will break up, and that ships again will be free to sail over to my native land. Tell me now, Elsalill, will you come with me, so that I may make good to you the evil I have done to another?"

Sir Archie continued to whisper to Elsalill of the glorious life that awaited her, and Elsalill began to think to herself: "Alas, if only I did not know what evil he had done! Then I would go with him and live happily."

Sir Archie came closer and closer to her, and when Elsalill looked up she saw that his face was bending over her and that he was about to kiss her on the forehead. Then she remembered the dead girl who had so lately been with her and kissed her. She tore herself free from Sir Archie and said: "No, Sir Archie, I will never go with you."

"Yes," said Sir Archie, "you must come with me, Elsalill, or else I shall be drawn down to my destruction."

He began to whisper to the girl ever more tenderly, and again she thought to herself: "Were it not more pleasing to God and men that he be allowed to atone for his evil life and become a righteous man? Whom can it profit if he be punished with death?"

As these thoughts were in Elsalill's mind two men came by on their way to the tavern. When Sir Archie marked that they cast curious eyes on him and the maid, he said to her: "Come, Elsalill, I will take you home. I would not that any should see you had come to the tavern for me."

Then Elsalill looked up, as though suddenly calling to mind that she had another duty to perform than that of listening to Sir Archie. But her heart smote her when she thought of betraying his crime. "If you deliver him to the hangman, I must break," her heart said to her. And Sir Archie drew the girl's cloak more tightly about her and led her out into the street. He walked with her all the way to Torarin's cabin, and she noticed that whenever the storm blew fiercely in their faces, he placed himself before her and screened her.

Elsalill thought, all the time they were walking: "My dead foster sister knew nothing of this, that he would atone for his crime and become a good man."

Sir Archie still whispered the tenderest words in Elsalill's ear. And the longer she listened to him, the more firmly she believed in him.

"It must have been that I might hear Sir Archie whisper such words as these in my ear that my foster sister called me forth," she thought. "She loves me so dearly. She desires not my unhappiness but my happiness."

And as they stopped before the cabin, Sir Archie asked Elsalill once more whether she would go with him across the sea. And Elsalill answered that with God's help she would go. _

Read next: Chapter 7. Unrest

Read previous: Chapter 5. Haunted

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