"I know the coin," said Elsalill. "I have often seen it in Herr
Arne's hand. Yes, it is surely Herr Arne's money."
"Shout not so loudly, mistress!" said Sir Philip. "People run here already to know the cause of this outcry."
But Elsalill paid no heed to Sir Philip. She saw that the door of the warehouse stood open. A fire blazed in the midst of the floor and round about it sat a number of men conversing quietly and at leisure.
Elsalill hastened in to them, holding the coin aloft. "Listen to me, every man!" she cried. "Now I know that Herr Arne's murderers are alive. Look here! I have found one of Herr Arne's coins."
All the men turned toward her. She saw that Torarin the fish hawker sat among them.
"What is that you tell us so noisily, my girl?" Torarin asked.
"How can you know Herr Arne's moneys from any other?"
"Well may I know this very piece of silver from any other," said
Elsalill. "It is old and heavy, and it is chipped at the edge.
Herr Arne told us that it came from the time of the old kings of
Norway, and never would he part with it when he counted out money
to pay for his goods."
"Now you must tell us where you have found it, mistress," said another of the fishermen.
"I found it rolling before me in the street," said Elsalill. "One of the murderers has surely dropped it there."
"It may be as you say," said Torarin, "but what can we do in this matter? We cannot find the murderers by this alone, that you know they have walked in one of our streets."
The fishermen were agreed that Torarin had spoken wisely. They settled themselves again about the fire.
"Come home with me, Elsalill," said Torarin. "This is not an hour for a young maid to run about the streets of the town."
As Torarin said this, Elsalill looked about for her companions. But Sir Reginald and Sir Philip had stolen away without her noticing their departure.
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.
CHAPTER VII
UNREST
Next day the storm had ceased. The weather was now milder, but it had caused little shrinking of the ice and the sea was closed as fast as ever.
When Elsalill awoke in the morning she thought: "It is surely better that a wicked man repent and live according to God's commandments than that he be punished with death."
That day Sir Archie sent a messenger to Elsalill, and he brought her a heavy armlet of gold.
And Elsalill was glad that Sir Archie had thought of giving her pleasure, and she thanked the messenger and accepted the gift.
But when he was gone she fell to thinking that this armlet had been bought for her with Herr Arne's money. When she thought of this she could not endure to look on it. She plucked it from her arm and threw it far away.
"What will my life be, if I must always call to mind that I am living on Herr Arne's money?" she thought. "If I put a mouthful of food to my lips, must I not think of the stolen money? And if I have a new gown, will it not ring in my ears that it is bought with ill-gotten gold? Now at last I see that it is impossible for me to go with Sir Archie and join my life to his. I shall tell him this when he comes."
When evening was drawing on, Sir Archie came to her. He was in cheerful mood, he had not been plagued with evil thoughts, and he believed it was owing to his promise to make good to one maiden the wrong he had done another.
When Elsalill saw him and heard him speak she could not bring herself to tell him that she was sad at heart and would part from him.
All the sorrows which gnawed at her were forgotten as she sat listening to Sir Archie.
The next day was a Sunday, and Elsalill went to church. She was there both in the morning and in the evening.
As she sat during the morning service listening to the sermon, she heard someone weeping and sobbing close by.
She thought it was one of those who sat beside her in the pew, but whether she looked to right or left she saw none but calm and devout worshippers.
Nevertheless, she plainly heard a sound of weeping, and it seemed so near to her that she might have touched the one who wept by putting out her hand.
Elsalill sat listening to the sighing and sobbing, and thought to herself that she had never heard so sorrowful a sound.
"Who is it that is afflicted with such deep grief that she must shed these bitter tears?" thought Elsalill.
She looked behind her, and she leaned forward over the next pew to see. But all were sitting in silence, and no face was wet with tears.
Then Elsalill thought there was no need to ask or wonder, for indeed she had known from the first who it was that wept beside her. "Dear sister," she whispered, "why do you not show yourself to me, as you did but lately? For you must know that I would gladly do all I may to dry your tears."
She listened for an answer, but none came. All she heard was the sobbing of the dead girl beside her.
Elsalill tried to hearken to what the preacher was saying in the pulpit, but she could follow little of it. And she grew impatient and whispered: "I know one who has more cause to weep than any, and that is myself. Had not my foster sister revealed her murderer to me I might have sat here with a heart full of joy."
As she listened to the weeping she became more and more resentful, so that she thought: "How can my dead foster sister require of me that I shall betray the man I love? Never would she herself have done such a thing, if she had lived."
She was shut up in the pew, but she could scarcely sit still. She rocked backward and forward and wrung her hands. "Now this will follow me all day," she thought. "Who knows," she went on, growing more and more anxious, "who knows whether it will not follow me through life?"
But the sobbing beside her grew ever deeper and sadder, and at last her heart was touched in spite of herself, and she too began to weep. "She who weeps so must have a terribly heavy grief," she thought. "She must have to bear suffering heavier than any of the living can conceive."
When the service was over and Elsalill had come out of church, she heard the sobbing no longer. But all the way home she wept to herself because her foster sister could find no peace in her grave.
When the time of evensong came Elsalill went again to the church, being constrained to know whether her foster sister still sat there weeping.
And as soon as Elsalill entered the church she heard her, and her soul trembled within her when she caught the sound of the sobbing. She felt her strength forsaking her and she had but one desire—to help the dead girl who was wandering among the living and knew no rest.
When Elsalill came out of church it was still light enough for her to see that one of those who walked before her left bloody footprints in the snow.
"Who can it be so poor that he goes barefoot and leaves bloody footprints in the snow?" she thought.
All those who walked before her seemed to be well-to-do folk. They were neatly dressed and well shod.
But the red footprints were not old. Elsalill could see they were made by one of the group that walked before her. "It is someone who is footsore from a long journey," she thought. "God grant he may not have far to go ere he find shelter and rest."
She had a strong desire to know who it was that had made this weary pilgrimage, and she followed the footprints, though they led her away from her home.
But suddenly she saw that all the church-goers had gone another way and that she was alone in the street. Nevertheless, the blood-red footprints were there as plain as before. "It is my poor foster sister who is going before me," she thought; and she owned to herself that she had guessed it all the time.
"Alas, my poor foster sister, I thought you went so lightly upon earth that your feet did not touch the ground. But none among the living can know how painful your pilgrimage must be."
The tears started to her eyes, and she sighed: "Could she but find peace in her grave! Woe is me that she must wander here so long, till she has worn her feet to bleeding!"
"Stay, my dear foster sister!" she cried. "Stay, that I may speak to you!"
But as she cried thus, she saw that the footprints fell yet faster in the snow, as though the dead girl were hastening her steps.
"Now she flies from me. She looks no more for help from me," said
Elsalill.
The bloody footprints made her quite frantic, and she cried out: "My dear foster sister, I will do all you ask if only you may find rest in your grave!"
So soon as Elsalill had uttered these words a tall, big woman who had followed her came up and laid a hand on her arm.
"Who may you be, crying and wringing your hands here in the street?" the woman asked. "You call to my mind a little maid who came to me on Friday looking for a place and then ran away from me. Or perhaps you are the same?"
"No, I am not the same," said Elsalill, "but if, as I think, you are the hostess of the Town Cellars, then I know what maid it is you speak of."
"Then you can tell me why she took herself off and has not come back," said the hostess.
"She left you," said Elsalill, "because she did not choose to hear the talk of all the evildoers who gather in your tavern."
"Many a wild companion comes to my tavern," said the hostess, "but among them are no evildoers."
"Yet the maid heard three that sat there talking among themselves," said Elsalill, "and one of them said: 'Drink, brother! Herr Arne's hoard is not yet done.'"
When Elsalill had said these words she thought: "Now I have helped my foster sister and told what I heard. Now may God help me that this woman pay no heed to my words; so I shall be quit."
But when she saw in the hostess's face that she believed her, she was afraid and would have run away.
But before she had time to move, the hostess's heavy hand had taken firm hold of her so that she could not escape.
"If you can witness that such words have been uttered in my tavern, mistress," said the hostess, "then you were best not to run away. For you must go with me to those who have the power to seize the murderers and bring them to justice."
CHAPTER VIII
SIR ARCHIE'S FLIGHT
Elsalill came into the tavern wrapt in her long cloak and went straight to a table where Sir Archie sat drinking with his friends. A crowd of customers sat about the tables in the cellar, but Elsalill took no heed of all the wondering glances that followed her, as she went and sat down beside the man she loved. Her only thought was to be with Sir Archie in the few moments of freedom which were left to him.
When Sir Archie saw Elsalill come and sit by him, he rose and moved with her to a table that stood far down the room, hidden by a pillar. She could see that he was displeased at her coming to meet him in a place where it was not the custom for young maids to show themselves.
"I have no long message to bring you, Sir Archie," said Elsalill; "but I would have you know that I cannot go with you to your own country."
When Sir Archie heard Elsalill speak thus he was in despair, since he feared that, if he lost Elsalill, the evil thoughts would again take possession of him.
"Why will you not go with me, Elsalill?" he asked.
Elsalill was as pale as death. Her thoughts were so confused that she scarce knew what answer she made him.
"It is a perilous thing to follow a soldier of fortune," she said. "For none can tell whether such a man will keep his plighted troth."
Before Sir Archie had time to answer, a sailor came into the tavern.
He went up to Sir Archie and told him he was sent by the skipper of the great gallias which lay in the ice behind Klovero. The skipper prayed Sir Archie and all his men to make ready their goods and come aboard that evening. The storm had sprung up again and the sea was clearing far away to the westward. It might well be that before daybreak they would have open water and could sail for Scotland.
"You hear what this man says?" said Sir Archie to Elsalill. "Will you come with me?"
"No," said Elsalill, "I will not go with you."
But in her heart she was very glad, for she thought: "Now belike it will turn out so that he may escape ere the watch can come and seize him."
Sir Archie rose and went over to Sir Philip and Sir Reginald and spoke to them of the message. "Get you back to the inn before me," he said, "and make all ready. I have a word or two yet to say to Elsalill."
When Elsalill saw that Sir Archie was coming back to her, she waved her hands as though to prevent him. "Why do you come back, Sir Archie?" she said. "Why do you not hasten down to the sea as fast as your feet may carry you?"
For such was her love for Sir Archie. She had indeed betrayed him for her dear foster sister's sake, but her most fervent wish was that he might escape.
"No, first will I beg you once more to come with me," said Sir
Archie.
"But you know, Sir Archie, that I cannot come with you," said
Elsalill.
"Why can you not?" said Sir Archie. "You are a poor orphan, so forlorn and friendless that none will care what becomes of you. But if you come with me, I will make you a noble lady. I am a powerful man in my own country. You shall be clad in silk and gold, and you shall tread a measure at the King's court."
Elsalill was shaking with alarm at his delaying while flight was still open to him. She could scarce calm herself to answer: "Go hence, Sir Archie! You must tarry no longer to importune me." "There is something I would say to you, Elsalill," said Sir Archie, and his voice became more tender as he spoke. "When first I saw you, my only thought was of tempting and beguiling you. In the beginning I promised you riches in jest, but since two nights ago I have meant honestly by you. And now it is my purpose and desire to make you my wife. You may trust in me, as I am a gentleman and a soldier."
At that moment Elsalill heard the march of armed men in the square outside. "If I go with him now," she thought, "he may yet escape. If I refuse, I drive him to destruction. It is for my sake he tarries here so long that the watch will lay hands on him. But how can I go with the man who has murdered all my dear ones?"
"Sir Archie," said Elsalill, and she hoped her words might startle him, "Do you not hear the tramp of armed men in the square?"
"Oh, yes, I hear it," said Sir Archie; "there has been some alehouse brawl, I doubt not. Let it not fright you, Elsalill; it is but some fishermen that have come to clapper-claws over their cups."
"Sir Archie," said Elsalill, "do you not hear them stand before the town hall?"
Elsalill was trembling from head to foot, but Sir Archie took no note of it; he was quite calm.
"Where else would you have them stand?" said Sir Archie. "They must bring the brawlers here to lay them by the heels in the watch house. Listen not to them, Elsalill, but to me, who ask you to follow me over the sea!"
But Elsalill tried once more to put fear into Sir Archie. "Sir Archie," she said, "do you not hear the watch coming down the steps to the cellar?"
"Oh, yes, I hear them," said Sir Archie; "they will come here to empty a pot of ale, since their prisoners are safe under lock and key. Think not of them, Elsalill, but think how tomorrow you and I will be sailing the wide sea to my dear native land!"
But Elsalill was pale as a corpse, and she shook so that she could scarce speak. "Sir Archie," she said, "do you not see them speaking with the hostess yonder at the bar? They are asking her whether any of those they seek is within."
"I'll wager they are charging her to brew them a warm, strong drink this stormy night," said Sir Archie. "You need not quake and tremble so mightily, Elsalill. You can follow me without fear. I tell you that if my father would have me wed the noblest damsel in our land, I should now say her nay. Come with me over the sea in full security, Elsalill! Nothing awaits you there but joy and happiness."
More and more of the pikemen had collected about the door, and Elsalill was now beside herself with terror. "I cannot look on while they come and seize him," she thought. She leaned toward Sir Archie and whispered to him: "Do you not hear, Sir Archie? They are asking the hostess whether any of Herr Arne's murderers is here within."
Then Sir Archie threw a glance across the room and looked at the pikemen who were speaking with the hostess. But he did not rise and fly as Elsalill had expected: he bent down and looked deeply into her eyes. "Is it you, Elsalill, who have discovered and betrayed me?" he asked.
"I have done it for my dear foster sister's sake, that she might have peace in her grave," said Elsalill. "God knows what it has cost me to do it. But now fly, Sir Archie! There is yet time. They have not yet barred all doors and lobbies."
"You wolf's cub!" said Sir Archie. "When first I saw you on the quay I thought I ought to kill you."
But Elsalill laid her hand on his arm. "Fly, Sir Archie! I cannot sit still and see them come and take you. If you will not fly without me, then in God's name I will go with you. But do not stay longer here for my sake, Sir Archie! I will do all you ask of me, if only you will save your life."
But now Sir Archie was very angry, and he spoke scornfully to Elsalill. "Now, mistress, you shall never go in gold-embroidered shoes through lofty castle halls. Now you may stay in Marstrand all your days and gut herrings. Never shall you wed a man who has castle and lands, Elsalill. Your man shall be a poor fisherman and your dwelling a cabin on a cold rock."
"Do you not hear them setting guards before all the doors to bar the way with their pikes?" asked Elsalill. "Why do you not hasten hence? Why do you not fly out upon the ice and hide yourself in a ship?"
"I do not fly because I have a mind to sit and talk with Elsalill," said Sir Archie. "Are you thinking that now there is an end of all your joy, Elsalill? Are you thinking that now there is an end of my hope of atoning for my crime?"
"Sir Archie," whispered Elsalill, rising from her seat in her terror; "now the men are all posted. Now they will catch and seize you. Make haste and fly! I shall come out to your ship, Sir Archie, if only you will fly."
"You need not be so frightened, Elsalill," said Sir Archie. "We have some time left to talk together. These fellows have no stomach to set upon me here, where I can defend myself. They mean to take me in the narrow stair. They think to spit me on their long pikes. And that is what you have always wished me, Elsalill."
But the more her terror gained on Elsalill, the calmer became Sir Archie. She never ceased praying him to fly, but he laughed at her.
"You need not be so sure, mistress, that these fellows can take me. I have come through greater dangers than this. I'll warrant I was harder put to it some months since in Sweden. Some slanderers had told King John that his Scots guard was disloyal to him. And the King believed them. He threw the three commanders into dungeon and sent their men out of his realm, and had them guarded till they had passed the border."
"Fly, Sir Archie, fly!" begged Elsalill.
"You need not be troubled for me, Elsalill," said Sir Archie with a hard laugh. "This evening I am myself again, my old humour is come back. I see no more the young maid that haunted me, and I shall hold my own, never fear. I will tell you of those three who lay in King John's dungeon. They stole out of the tower one night, when their guards were drowsy with liquor, and ran their ways. And then they fled to the border. But so long as they were in the Swedish king's land they durst not betray themselves. They had no choice, Elsalill, but to make themselves rough coats of skin and give out that they were journeymen tanners travelling the country in search of work."
Now Elsalill began to mark how changed Sir Archie was toward her. And she knew he hated her, since he had found out that she had betrayed him.
"Speak not so, Sir Archie!" said Elsalill.
"Why should you play me false, just when I trusted you most?" said Sir Archie. "Now I am again the man I was. Now none shall find me merciful. And now you'll see, Fortune will favour me, as she has done hitherto. Were we not in bad case, I and my comrades, when at last we had walked through all Sweden and come down to the coast here? We had no money to buy us honourable clothes. We had no money to pay for our shipping to Scotland. We knew no remedy but to break into Solberga parsonage."
"Speak no more of that!" said Elsalill.
"Yes, now you must hear all, Elsalill," said Sir Archie. "There is one thing you know not, and it is that when first we came into the house we went to Herr Arne, roused him, and told him he must give us money. If he gave it freely, we would not harm him. But Herr Arne resisted us with force, and so we had to strike him down. And when we had dispatched him, we had to make an end of all his household."
Elsalill interrupted Sir Archie no more, but her heart felt cold and empty. She shuddered as she looked upon Sir Archie, for as he spoke a cruel and bloodthirsty look came over him. "What was I about to do?" she thought. "Have I been mad and loved the man who murdered all my dear ones? God forgive my sin!"
"When we thought all were dead," said Sir Archie, "we dragged the heavy money chest out of the house. Then we set fire about it, that men might think Herr had been burnt alive."
"I have loved a wolf of the woods," said Elsalill to herself. "And him I have tried to save from justice!"
"But we drove down to the ice and fled to sea," Sir Archie went on. "We had no fear so long as we saw the flames mounting to the sky, but when we saw them die down we took alarm. We knew then that neighbours had come and put out the fire, and that we should be pursued. So we drove back toward land, for we had seen the outlet of a stream where the ice was thin. We lifted the chest from the sledge and drove forward till the ice broke under the horse's hoofs. Then we let it drown and sprang off to one side. If you were aught but a little maid, Elsalill, you would see that this was bravely done. We acquitted ourselves like men."
Elsalill kept still; she felt a sharp pain tearing at her heart. But Sir Archie hated her and delighted to torment her. "Then we took our belts and fastened them to the chest and began to draw it. But as the chest left tracks in the ice, we went ashore and gathered twigs of spruce and laid them under the chest. Then we took off our boots and went over the ice without leaving a trace behind us."
Sir Archie paused to throw a scornful glance at Elsalill.
"Although we had prospered in all this, we were yet in bad case. Wherever we went our bloodstained clothes would betray us and we should be seized. But now listen, Elsalill, so that you may tell all those who would be at the pains to give us chase, that they may understand we are not of a sort to be lightly taken! Listen to this: As we came over the ice toward Marstrand here, we met our comrades and countrymen, who had been banished by King John from his land. They had not been able to leave Marstrand because of the ice, and they helped us in our need, so that we got clothes. Since then we have gone about here in Marstrand and been in no danger. And no danger would threaten us now, if you had not been faithless and played me false."
Elsalill sat still. This was too great a grief for her. She could scarce feel her heart beating.
But Sir Archie sprang up and cried: "And no ill shall befall us tonight either. Of that you shall be witness, Elsalill!"
In an instant he seized Elsalill in both his arms and raised her off her feet. And with Elsalill before him as a shield Sir Archie ran through the tavern to the doorway. And the men who were posted to guard the door levelled their long pikes at him, but they durst not use them for fear of hurting Elsalill.
When Sir Archie reached the narrow stair and the lobby, he held Elsalill before him in the same way. And she protected him better than the strongest armour, for the pikemen who were drawn up there could make no use of their weapons. Thus he came a good way up the steps, and Elsalill could feel the free air of heaven blowing about her.
But Elsalill's love for Sir Archie was changed to the most deadly hatred, and her only thought was that he was a villain and a murderer. And when she saw that her body shielded him, so that he was likely to escape, she stretched out her hand and took hold of one of the watchmen's pikes and aimed it at her heart. "Now I will serve my foster sister, so that her mission shall be fulfilled at last," thought Elsalill. And at the next step Sir Archie took up the stairs, the pike entered Elsalill's heart.
But then Sir Archie was already at the top of the stairway. And the pikemen fell back when they saw that one of them had hurt the maid. And he ran past them. When Sir Archie came out into the market-place he heard a Scottish war cry from one of the lanes: "A rescue! A rescue! For Scotland! For Scotland!"
It was Sir Philip and Sir Reginald, who had mustered the Scots and now came to relieve him.
And Sir Archie ran toward them and cried in a loud voice: "Hither to me! For Scotland! For Scotland!"
CHAPTER IX
OVER THE ICE
As Sir Archie walked out over the ice he still held Elsalill on his arm.
Sir Philip and Sir Reginald walked beside him. They tried to tell him how they had discovered the trap laid for them and how they had succeeded in getting the heavy treasure chest away to the gallias and in collecting their countrymen; but Sir Archie paid no heed to their words. He seemed to be conversing with her he carried on his arm.
"Who is that you carry there?" asked Sir Reginald.
"It is Elsalill," answered Sir Archie. "I shall take her with me to Scotland. I will not leave her behind. Here she would never be aught but a poor fish wench."
"No, that is like enough," said Sir Reginald.
"Here none would give her clothes but of the coarsest wool," said Sir Archie, "and a narrow bed of hard planks to sleep on. But I shall spread her couch with the softest cushions, and her resting-place shall be made of marble. I shall wrap her in the costliest furs, and on her feet she shall wear jewelled shoes."
"You intend her great honour," said Sir Reginald.
"I cannot let her stay behind here," said Sir Archie, "for who among them would be mindful of such a poor creature? She would be forgotten by all ere many months were past. None would visit her abode, none would relieve her loneliness. But when once I reach home, I shall rear a stately dwelling for her. There shall her name stand graven in the hard stone, that none may forget it. There I myself shall come to her every day, and all shall be so splendidly devised that folk from far away shall come to visit her. There shall be lamps and candles burning night and day, and the sound of music and song shall make it seem a perpetual festival."
The gale blew violently in their faces as they walked over the ice. It tore Elsalill's cloak loose and made it flutter like a banner.
"Will you help me to carry Elsalill a moment," said Sir Archie, "while I wind her cloak about her?"
Sir Reginald took Elsalill in his arms, but as he did so he was so terrified that he let her slip between his hands on to the ice. "I knew not that Elsalill was dead," he said.
CHAPTER X
THE ROAR OF THE WAVES
All night the skipper of the great gallias walked back and forth on his lofty poop. It was dark, and the gale howled around him, lashing him with sleet and rain. But the ice still lay firm and fast about the vessel, so that the skipper might just as well have slept quietly in his berth.
But he stayed up the whole night. Time after time he put his hand to his ear and listened.
It was not easy to say what he was listening for. He had all his crew on board, as well as all the passengers he was to carry over to Scotland. Every one of them lay below decks fast asleep, and there was no sound of talk to which the skipper might be listening.
As the storm came sweeping over the icebound gallias it threw itself upon the vessel, as though from old habit it would drive her through the water. And as the ship still stood fast the wind took hold of her again and again. It rattled all the little icicles that hung from her ropes and tackles, it made her timbers creak and groan. Her masts were strained and gave loud cracks, as though they would go by the board.
It was no quiet night. There was a muffled rustling in the air, as the snow came whizzing past; there was a patter and splash as the rain came pelting down.
And in the ice one crack after another opened with a noise like thunder, as though ships of war had been at sea exchanging heavy salvoes.
But to none of this was the skipper listening.
He stayed up the whole night, until a gray dawn spread over the sky; but still he did not hear the sound he was waiting for.
At last a singing, monotonous murmur was borne upon the night air, a rocking, caressing sound as of distant music.
Then the skipper hurried across the rowers' thwarts amidships to the lofty forecastle where his crew slept. "Turn out," he called to them, "and take your oars and boat-hooks! The time is almost come when we shall be free. I hear the roar of open water. I hear the song of the free waves."
The men left sleeping and came out at once. They posted themselves along the ship's sides, while the day slowly dawned.
When at last it was light enough for them to see what changes the night had brought, they found that all the creeks and channels were open far out to sea, but in the bay where they were frozen in not a fissure could be seen in the ice, which lay firm and unbroken.
And in the channel which led out of this bay the ice had piled itself up into a high wall. The waves in their free play outside continually cast up floating ice upon it.
In the sound between the skerries there was a swarm of sails. All the fishing-boats which had lain icebound off Marstrand were now streaming out. The sea ran high and blocks of ice still floated among the waves, but the fishermen seemed to think they had no time to wait for safe and calm water, and they had set sail. They stood in the bows of their boats and kept a sharp lookout. Small blocks of ice they fended off with an oar, but when the big ones came they put the helm over and bore away. On the high poop of the gallias the skipper stood and watched them. He could see that they had their troubles, but he saw too that one boat after another wriggled through and came out into the open sea.
And when the skipper saw the sails gliding over the blue water, he felt his disappointment so bitterly that tears came into his eyes.
But his ship lay still, and before him the wall of ice was piling up higher and higher.
The sea outside bore not only ships and boats, but sometimes small white icebergs came floating past. They were big ice-floes that had been thrown one upon another and were now sailing southward. They shone like silver in the morning sun, and now and then they showed as pink as though they had been strewed with roses.
But high up among the whistling of the wind loud cries were heard, now like singing voices, now like pealing trumpets. There was a sound of jubilation in these cries, swelling the heart of him who heard them. They came from a long flight of swans on their way from the south.
But when the skipper saw the icebergs moving southward and the swans flying to the north such longing seized him that he wrung his hands. "Woe's me, that I must lie here!" he said. "Will the ice never break up in this bay? I may lie waiting here many days yet."
Just as he said this, he saw a man come driving on the ice. He came out of a narrow channel on the Marstrand side, and he drove as calmly on the ice as if he did not know the waves had begun once more to carry ships and boats.
As he drove under the stern of the gallias he hailed the skipper: "Ho, you there, frozen in the ice, do you lack food aboard? Will you buy my salt herring or dried ling or smoked eel?"
The skipper did not trouble to answer him. He only shook his fist at him and swore.
Then the fish hawker stepped off his load. He took a bunch of hay from the sledge and laid it in front of his horse. Then he climbed up on the deck of the gallias. When he faced the skipper he said to him very earnestly:
"Today I have not come to sell fish. But I know that you are a God-fearing man. Therefore I have come to ask your help to find a maiden whom the Scotsmen brought out to your ship with them yester-night."
"I know naught of their bringing any maiden with them," said the skipper. "I have heard no woman's voice aboard the ship tonight."
"I am Torarin the fish hawker," said the other; "maybe you have heard of me? It was I who supped with Herr Arne at Solberga parsonage the same night he was murdered. Since then I have had Herr Arne's foster daughter under my roof, but last night she was stolen away by his murderers, and they have surely brought her with them to your vessel."
"Are Herr Arne's murderers aboard my vessel?" asked the skipper in dismay.
"You see that I am a poor and feeble man," said Torarin. "I have a palsied arm, and therefore I am fearful of taking upon myself any bold and hazardous thing. I have known these many days who were Herr Arne's murderers, but I have not dared to bring them to justice. And because I have held my peace they have made their escape and have found occasion to carry the maiden with them. But now I have said to myself that I will have no more of my conscience in this matter. At least I will try to save the little maid."
"If Herr Arne's murderers are on board my ship, why does not the watch come out and arrest them?"
"I have begged and prayed them all this night and morning," said Torarin, "but the watch durst not come out. They say there are a hundred men-at-arms on board, and with them they durst not contend. Then I thought, in God's name I must come out here alone and beg you help me to find the maiden, for I know you to be a God-fearing man."
But the skipper paid no heed to his question of the maiden; his mind was full of the other matter. "What makes you sure that the murderers are on board?" he said.
Torarin pointed to a great oaken chest which stood between the rowers' thwarts. "I have seen that chest too often in Herr Arne's house to be mistaken," he said. "In it is Herr Arne's money, and where his money is, there you will find his murderers."
"That chest belongs to Sir Archie and his two friends, Sir
Reginald and Sir Philip," said the skipper.
"Ay," said Torarin, looking at him fixedly; "that is so. It belongs to Sir Archie and Sir Philip and Sir Reginald."
The skipper stood silent awhile and looked this way and that.
"When think you the ice will break up in this bay?" he said to
Torarin.
"There is something strange in it this year," said Torarin. "In this bay we have always seen the ice break up early, for there is a strong current. But as it shapes now you must have a care that you be not thrust against the land when the ice begins to move."
"I think of naught else," said the skipper.
Again he stood silent for a while and turned his face toward the sea. The morning sun shone high in the sky, and the waves reflected its radiance. The liberated vessels scudded this way and that, and the sea birds came flying from the south with joyous cries. The fish lay near the surface and glittered in the sun as they leapt high out of the water, wanton after their long imprisonment under the ice. The gulls, which had been circling out beyond the edge of the ice, came in great flocks toward land to fish in their old waters.
The skipper could not endure this sight. "Shall I be counted the friend of murderers and evildoers?" he said. "Can I close my eyes and refuse to see why God keeps the gates of the sea barred against my vessel? Shall I be destroyed for the sake of the unrighteous who have taken refuge with me?"
And the skipper went forward and said to his men: "Now I know why we have been held back while all other ships have put to sea. It is because we have murderers and evildoers on board."
Then the skipper went to the Scottish men-at-arms, who still lay asleep in the ship's hold. "Listen," he said to them; "keep you quiet yet awhile, no matter what cries or tumult you may hear on board. We must follow God's commandment and not suffer evildoers amongst us. If you obey me I promise to bring you the chest which holds Herr Arne's money, and you shall share it among you."
But to Torarin the skipper said: "Go down to your sledge and cast your fish out on the ice. You shall have other freight anon."
Then the skipper and his men broke into the cabin where Sir Archie and his friends slept. And they threw themselves upon them to bind them while they still lay asleep.
And when the three Scotsmen tried to defend themselves, they smote them hard with their axes and handspikes, and the skipper said to them: "You are murderers and evildoers. How could you think to escape punishment? Know you not that it is for your sake God keeps all the gates of the sea closed?"
Then the three men cried aloud to their comrades, bidding them come and help them.
"You need not call to them," said the skipper. "They will not come. They have gotten Herr Arne's hoard to share amongst them, and are even now measuring out silver coin in their hats. For the sake of this money the evil deed was done, and this money has now brought retribution upon you."
And before Torarin had finished unloading the fish from his sledge, the skipper and his men came down on to the ice. They brought with them three men securely bound. They were grievously hurt and fainting from their wounds.
"God has not called on me in vain," said the skipper. "As soon as
His will was clear to me, I hearkened to it."
They laid the prisoners on the sledge, and Torarin drove with them by creeks and narrow sounds where the ice still lay firm, until he came to Marstrand.
Now late in the afternoon the skipper stood on the lofty poop of his vessel and looked out to seaward. Nothing was changed around the vessel, and the wall of ice towered ever higher before her.
Then the skipper saw a long procession of people coming out to his ship. All the women of Marstrand were there, both young and old. They all wore mourning weeds, and they brought with them a group of boys who carried a bier.
When they were come to the gallias, they said to the skipper: "We are come to fetch a young maiden who is dead. Those murderers have confessed that she gave her life to hinder their escape, and now we, all the women of Marstrand, are come to bring her to our town with all the honour that is her due."
Then Elsalill was found and brought down to the ice and borne in to Marstrand; and all the women in the place wept over the young maid, who had loved an evildoer and given her life to destroy him she loved. But even as the line of women advanced, the wind and waves broke in behind them and tore up the ice over which they had but lately passed; and when they came to Marstrand with Elsalill, all the gates of the sea stood open.
THE END
FOREWORD
The Treasure is an opposite fairy tale, presenting Prince Charming as he really is: an orphan girl is cleaning fish and foreseeing her life of poverty; a man well-dressed in seductive splendor woos her and offers her … forever after. There is only one catch: she must betray her sister.
Although Selma Lagerlof won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1909, her name is known in this country—if at all—as author of a children's book only. All her other works, including novels and feminist essays, have been unavailable in English for almost fifty years.
In 1911, she made a speech entitled "Home and State" to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance Congress. She argued, first, that the Home was the creation of woman and the place where the values of women were nourished and protected. The Home was a community where "punishment is not for the sake of revenge, but for training and education," where "there is a use for all talents, but [she] who is without can make [her] self as much loved as the cleverest." It was the "storehouse for the songs and legends of our fore-fathers," and, she said, "there is nothing more mobile, more merciful amongst the creations of [humankind]." Although not all homes are good, good and happy homes do sometimes exist. Men by themselves, on the other hand, were responsible for creating the State which "continually gives cause for discontent and bitterness." There has never been a State which could satisfy all its members, which did not ask to be reformed from its very foundations. Yet it is through the State that humankind will reach its highest hopes. Her conclusion: women must add their special virtues, what she calls "God's spirit," to the "law and order" goals of men.
Selma Lagerlof's own home was a community of family and servants, within which she experienced profound affections—for the nursemaid who carried her as a crippled child upon her back, for the old housekeeper, her younger sister, her grandmother who told the children stories every afternoon. She never married; she spent her entire life within communities of women, and her career could be described as the author being handed up to greatness by a procession of women who gave encouragement, advice, editorial help, criticism, contacts, companionship. She called Frederika Bremer the first feminist and "last old Mamsell" of Sweden, meaning that Frederika Bremer's life's work had banished the "old maid" from the realm of pitiful figures. Selma Lagerlof was herself proof of her statement.
In The Treasure, written midway between her farewell to Frederika Bremer and her plea for woman suffrage, the men are interested in money, murder, and revenge. They miss the evil apparent even to their dogs. When the old mistress (and who should know better that the home is threatened?) warns that knives are being sharpened two miles away, her lord refuses to believe that she could hear what he cannot. The fishpeddler's dog has instinct enough to balk and howl, sensing death; the fishpeddler's wife and the woman tavern-keeper respond to the supernatural however little they understand; the men turn their backs on understanding even when they are being implored.