The Snake Pit (15 page)

Ingunn had to set out for home about the hour of nones, to be sure of reaching Berg before evening. She had not been able to conquer Eirik’s shyness of the strange woman, and she had scarce heard his voice, except when he spoke to the other children out of doors. It was so sweet, so sweet.

Now Eirik was to have a ride on her horse as far as the forest. Ingunn walked, leading the horse and supporting the child with one arm, while she smiled and smiled at him, trying to coax forth a smile on his pretty little round and sunburned face.

They had passed through the gate: here no one could see them.
She lifted the boy down, hugged him in her arms, kissed and kissed again his face and neck and shoulder, while he struggled, making himself long and heavy in her embrace. When he began to kick her as hard as he could, his mother took a firm hold of his smooth bare calves—feeling with painful joy how firm and strong his little body was. At last she sank into a crouching attitude, and as she wept and muttered wild endearments over the child, she strove to coax and force him to sit in her lap.

When she was obliged for a moment to loosen her grip of him, the boy managed to wriggle away from her. He darted like a hare across the little clearing, was lost among the bushes—then she heard the gate close.

Ingunn stood up—she wailed aloud with pain. Then she staggered forward, bent double by sobs, with drooping arms. She came to a hedge, saw Eirik running over the turf so fast that his heels nearly reached his neck.

The mother stood there, weeping and weeping, as she bent over the hedge. The withered, rust-red branches of spruce had been felled to fence in a little field, where the corn had just begun to shoot—still soft and pinched like some kind of new-born life, it appeared ever after to her inner vision, when she thought of her sorrow, though now she had no idea of what her tear-blinded eyes looked upon.

But at last she had to go back to her horse.

I
N
the course of the autumn Sira Benedikt Bessesson fell sick. And one day a message came for Olav of Hestviken—the priest would bid him farewell.

Sira Benedikt did not look like a dying man as he lay propped up by pillows. But the wrinkles, which had seemed few and shallow in his fleshy, weatherbeaten face, were deeper and there were more of them. Nevertheless he predicted his approaching departure with certainty. When Olav had seated himself on the edge of the bed, as the other bade him, the priest, as though absently, took the riding-gloves out of the franklin’s hand, felt the leather,
and held them critically to his nose and eyes—Olav could not help a little smile.

They talked for a while of one thing and another—of Arne Torgilsson and his daughters. Two of them were now married in the neighbourhood, but Olav had seldom met them or their husbands of late.

“Folk see less and less of you, Olav,” said the priest; “and many wonder at it, that you always keep to yourself as you do.”

Olav reminded him that he had been at sea the last few summers, and every winter his wife had been sick.

Again the priest spoke of his imminent dissolution, asking Olav to be diligent in prayers for his soul. Olav gave him his promise. “But you have surely little need to fear what may await you, Sira Benedikt,” said he.

“I think there is none of us but needs must fear it,” replied the priest. “And I have always lived negligently, in that I took little thought of the small daily sins—I spoke and acted as my humour prompted me and consoled myself with the thought that it was no great and deadly sin—thinking it could be no such great matter what I did from frailty and natural imperfection, though I well knew that in God’s eyes all sin is more loathsome than sores. And you and I would not like to live with a man and take him in our arms if he were full of sores and scabs all over. Now I have every day partaken of the remedy that surely heals the leprosy of sin. But you know that even the surest remedy and the most precious ointment is slow to heal the sickness if every day a man shall scratch himself again and tear his skin anew. And so it is with us, when our Lord has washed away our sins with His blood and anointed us with His mercy, but we are careless to do the deeds to which we were anointed—thus we scratch ourselves as soon as He has healed us, and we must bide in purgatory, bound hand and foot, until we are cleansed from our scabs and taints.”

Olav sat in silence, twisting his gloves.

“Too great love have I borne to mine own, I fear. I thank God I have never been the cause of sin in them or backed them in an unrighteous cause—to that I was never tempted, for they were honest folk. But I ween I have been over-zealous sometimes for their advancement and wealth—it is written in my testament that it is to be given back.—And I have been headstrong with my enemies
and my kinsmen’s enemies—hasty and ready to believe evil of every man I liked not.”

“Nevertheless we others must have worse than ill to fear,” said Olav, trying to smile, “if you think your case stands thus.”

The priest turned his head upon the pillow and looked the young man in the eyes. Olav felt that he went pale under the other’s glance; a strangely impotent feeling came over him. He tried to say something, but could not find words.

“How you look at me—” he whispered at last. “How you look at me!” he said again a few moments later, and he seemed to be pleading for himself.

The priest turned his head again, and now he looked straight before him.

“Do you remember I always scoffed at Olav Half-priest for his talk of having seen so much of those things of which I had little knowledge? I think now that it may enter into God’s counsels to open the eyes of one man to that which He conceals from another. I was never permitted to
see
aught of those things with which we are surrounded in this life. But now and again I have had an inkling of them, I too.”

Olav looked at the priest attentively.

“Of
one
thing I have always had foreknowledge,” said Sira Benedikt. “I have always known—almost always, perhaps it were well to say—when folk were on the way to fetch me to the dying. Above all, to such as had greatest need of help—such as were burdened by an unshriven sin—”

Olav Audunsson gave a start. Unconsciously he raised one hand slightly.

“Such things set their mark upon a man. Few are they who become so hardened as to show no trace that an old priest can note. This befell me one evening in this room, as I was putting off my clothes. I was about to climb into bed when it was borne in upon me that one was on the way hither and encountered great difficulties, and that he had sore need of intercession. I knelt down and prayed that he who was faring hither might find safe guidance—and then I thought to lie down and take a little rest before I had to go out. But when I had laid me down, I felt ever more strongly that someone was in great danger. At last it was clear to me that there was one present in the room with me, who aroused terror in my heart, but I knew it to be holy awe—‘Speak, Lord,
Thy servant heareth,’ I prayed aloud. And immediately it was as though a voice had called within me: I arose, clothed myself and waked one of thy servants, an old and trustworthy man. I bade him go with me up to the church, enter the belfry, and ring the midmost bell. I myself went into the church and knelt on the steps of the altar—but first I took a taper from the altar of Mary, lighted it and carried it to the church door, which I set open wide. The taper burnt with a calm, clear flame, though the night was wet and raw, misty and somewhat tempestuous.

“’Twas not long before a man came and begged me to bring extreme unction and the viaticum to a sick man. The messenger had been so long on the road that he never thought he would arrive in time, for he had followed his own tracks in a ring and gone astray in bogs and rough ground. But we were able to bring succour in due time to one who needed it more sorely than most.

“Now I have been fain to think that even he who brought the message was one whose life had been such that evil spirits were more likely to guide his footsteps than his guardian angel, to whose voice he had ceased to listen. And it may well be that ’twas this angel, or the guardian spirit of the dying man, who turned to me and sent me to the church to ring the bell.

“But when I came home toward morning and went past the church, I saw that I had forgotten to close the door; the candle still stood there burning in its candlestick, and it was not consumed, nor had the wind and rain that drove in at the open door quenched it. I was afraid when I saw this sign, but I took courage and went in to bring the Virgin Mary back her candlestick and to close the door. Then I was ware that one bent over the candle and guarded the flame, for about it I saw as it were a reflection of the light falling upon something white—whether it was an arm or the lappet of a garment or a wing, I know not. I crept up the steps on my knees, and as I reached out my hand to take the candlestick, the light went out, and I fell upon my face, for I felt that one swept past me, whether it was an angel or a blessed soul—but I knew that this one had seen his and my Lord face to face.”

Olav sat motionless, with downcast eyes. But at last he looked up, he could do naught else. And again he met Sira Benedikt’s glance.

He knew not for how long they stayed thus, staring into each other’s eyes. But he felt time passing over them like a roaring
stream, and he and the other stood at the bottom beneath the stream, where was eternity, unchanging and motionless. He knew that the other could see the secret sore that preyed upon his soul and was eating its way out—but he was too cowardly to allow the healing hand to touch the festering cancer. In extreme terror lest the diseased spot might be disturbed, he summoned all his will and all his strength—he closed his eyes. He sank into darkness and stillness—time ceased to roar and sing, but he felt the room turning round with him. When again he opened his eyes, the room was as usual, and Sira Benedikt lay with averted head on the green-spotted pillow. He looked weary and sorrowful and old.

Olav stood up and took his leave—knelt down and kissed Sira Benedikt’s hand in farewell. The old man took his firmly and pressed it as he murmured some Latin words that were unknown to Olav.

Then he went out, and the priest did not attempt to hold him back.

A week after came the news of Sira Benedikt’s death. The folk of the parish counted it a loss—they had esteemed him as an able priest and a bold and upright man. But the franklins had never reckoned him to be endowed with any conspicuous mental gifts—he was like one of themselves in manners and disposition and had had no learning beyond what was necessary.

Olav Audunsson alone was strangely stricken in spirit when he heard the news. It had seemed as though a door stood open—and vaguely he had reckoned that one day he would be given courage to enter it. But as yet he had not had the courage. And now the door was closed for all time.

He had not had much talk with Ingunn about her visit to the Upplands, and the child had not been mentioned between them.

But toward Yule, Olav again had fears that the worst had happened—so he called it in his own mind when Ingunn was clearly with child.

Ever since Torhild Björnsdatter had been with them, Ingunn had shown a more active spirit than ever before in all the years they had been married. There was now no need for the mistress to do anything herself; Torhild was so capable that she accomplished all the household duties alone, and she had learned how everything was done at Hestviken. But it seemed that the other’s presence had
aroused a kind of ambition in Ingunn—Olav guessed that his wife had felt injured at his taking a housekeeper, and that without first consulting herself. And though Torhild was very accommodating, inquiring her mistress’s desires in everything, keeping out of the way as far as possible and living with her children in the little old house on the east of the courtyard, where Olav’s mother had once dwelt, the husband noticed that Ingunn did not like Torhild.

Fine needlework was the only thing in which Ingunn had excelled in her youth, and now she took it up again. She made a long kirtle for Olav—it was of foreign cloth, woven in black and green flowers, and she adorned it with broad borders. Her husband had little use for such a garment now—but she left the making of his working-clothes to Torhild. For the daily work about the manor she remained as useless as ever, but she insisted on taking part in it all, and for Yule she toiled at preparing the meat, brewing, and cleaning houses and clothes, running between the storehouses and the quay in driving snow-squalls that came in from the fiord and turned the whole courtyard and the road down to the sea into a mass of slippery green slush.

But the evening before Christmas Eve, when Olav came in, he found her standing by herself up on the bench, struggling with the old tapestry, which was to be hung on wooden hooks along the uppermost of the wall-logs. It was all in one piece and very heavy; Olav came up to help her, holding up a length at a time.

“I doubt if it be prudent for you to work so hard,” he said. “If you think it will be well this time, all the more reason to be careful of yourself—so that it may turn out as we both desire.”

Ingunn said: “’Twill fall out, sure enough, as ’tis fated—and rather will I face now the suffering I cannot escape than go through months of torment in the prospect of it. Think you not that I know I shall never see the day when any child calls me mother?”

Olav looked at her a moment—they were standing side by side on the bench. He jumped down, lifted her after him, and stood for a while with his hands on her hips.

“You must not talk in that way,” he said feebly. “You cannot be sure of it, Ingunn mine!”

He turned from her and began to clear away the hooks and pegs that were lying on the bench.

“I thought,” he asked in a low voice, “that you had a mind to go and see that boy—when you were at Berg in the summer?” Ingunn made no reply.

“I have sometimes wondered whether perchance you longed for him,” he said very softly. “Do you ever long for him?”

Ingunn was still silent.

“Is he dead mayhap, the child?” he asked gently.