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.
