nded not to notice his thrust and began, "It shall be as you
say. Kirsten Mads' daughter, what is it that you know of this matter
in which Morten Bruus accuses your rector? Tell the truth, and the
truth only, as you would tell it before the judgment seat of the
Almighty. The law will demand from you that you shall later repeat
your testimony under oath."

The woman told the following story: The day on which Niels Bruus was
said to have run away from the rectory, she and her daughter were
passing along the road near the rectory garden a little after the noon
hour. She heard some one calling and saw that it was Niels Bruus
looking out through the garden hedge. He asked the daughter if she did
not want some nuts and told the women that the rector had ordered him
to dig in the garden, but that he did not take the command very
seriously and would much rather eat nuts. At that moment they heard a
door open in the house and Niels said, "Now I'm in for a scolding." He
dropped back behind the hedge and the women heard a quarrel in the
garden. They could hear the words distinctly but they could see
nothing, as the hedge was too high. They heard the rector cry, "I'll
punish you, you dog. I'll strike you dead at my feet!" Then they heard
several sounding slaps, and they heard Niels curse back at the rector
and call him evil names. The rector did not answer this, but the women
heard two dull blows and saw the head of a spade and part of the
handle rise and fall twice over the hedge. Then it was very quiet in
the garden, and the widow and her daughter were frightened and hurried
on to their cattle in the field. The daughter gave the same testimony,
word for word. I asked them if they had not seen Niels Bruus coming
out of the garden. But they said they had not, although they had
turned back several times to look.

This accorded perfectly with what the rector had told me. It was not
strange that the women had not seen the man run out of the garden, for
he had gone toward the wood which is on the opposite side of the
garden from the highroad. I told Morten Bruus that this testimony was
no proof of the supposed murder, especially as the rector himself had
narrated the entire occurrence to me exactly as the women had
described it. But he smiled bitterly and asked me to examine the third
witness, which I proceeded to do.

Jens Larsen testified that he was returning late one evening from
Tolstrup (as he remembered, it was not the evenin