er. She turned their faces towards her, that they
might forever remember her who had made their father a murderer.
But Unn stood calm and so beautiful that the men trembled. She
thanked me for the deed and told me to fly to the woods. She bade
me not to be robber, and not to use the knife until I could do it
for an equally just cause."

"Your deed had been to her honor," said Tord.

Berg Rese noticed again what had astonished him before in the boy.
He was like a heathen, worse than a heathen; he never condemned
what was wrong. He felt no responsibility. That which must be, was.
He knew of God and Christ and the saints, but only by name, as one
knows the gods of foreign lands. The ghosts of the rocks were his
gods. His mother, wise in witchcraft, had taught him to believe in
the spirits of the dead.

Then Berg Rese undertook a task which was as foolish as to twist a
rope about his own neck. He set before those ignorant eyes the
great God, the Lord of justice, the Avenger of misdeeds, who casts
the wicked into places of everlasting torment. And he taught him to
love Christ and his mother and the holy men and women, who with
lifted hands kneeled before God's throne to avert the wrath of the
great Avenger from the hosts of sinners. He taught him all that men
do to appease God's wrath. He showed him the crowds of pilgrims
making pilgrimages to holy places, the flight of self-torturing
penitents and monks from a worldly life.

As he spoke, the boy became more eager and more pale, his eyes grew
large as if for terrible visions. Berg Rese wished to stop, but
thoughts streamed to him, and he went on speaking. The night sank
down over them, the black forest night, when the owls hoot. God
came so near to them that they saw his throne darken the stars, and
the chastising angels sank down to the tops of the trees. And under
them the fires of Hell flamed up to the earth's crust, eagerly
licking that shaking place of refuge for the sorrowing races of
men.

***

The autumn had come with a heavy storm. Tord went alone in the
woods to see after the snares and traps. Berg Rese sat at home to
mend his clothes. Tord's way led in a broad path up a wooded
height.

Every gust carried the dry leaves in a rustling whirl up the path.
Time after time Tord thought that some one went behind him. He
often looked round. Sometimes he stopped to listen, but he
understood that it was the leaves and the wind, and went on. As
soon as he s