Berg and Tord were busy with the same thoughts, for after a while Berg said:  “You should have seen her, Unn, when the white monk fell.  The mistress of the house gathered the small children about her and cursed her.  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 started on again, he heard some one come dancing on silken foot up the slope.  Small feet came tripping.  Elves and fairies played behind him.  When he turned round, there was no one, always no one.  He shook his fists at the rustling leaves and went on.