6. 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.