Seven Gothic Tales Read Free Page B

night, Mariechen.”
    It was not easy for the women to get from the boat into the loft. Miss Malin, though, was thin and strong, and the men lifted her and placed her in the doorway as one would plant a scarecrow in a field. The small and light girl followed her as lithely as a cat. The black dog, on seeing the Cardinal leave the boat, whined loudly and suddenly jumped from the rail to the loft, and the young girl hauled it in. It was now high time for the peasant family to get into the boat, but they would not go before they had, loudly weeping, kissed the hands of their relievers and piled blessings upon them. The old woman insisted on handing over to them a small stable lantern with a couple of spare tallow candles, a jug of water, and a keg of gin, together with a loaf of the hard black bread which the peasants of the Westerlands make.
    The men in the boat shoved off, and in a moment a belt of brown water lay between the house and the boat.
    From the door of the hayloft the derelicts watched the boat withdraw, very slowly, for it was heavily laden, across the heaving plane. The branches of tall poplars near the house floated upon the surface of the water and were washed about violently with it. The dark sky, which all day had lain like a leaden lid upon the world, suddenly colored deep down in the west, as if the lid had been lifted a little there, to a flaming red that was reflected in the sea below. All faces in the boat were turned toward the loft, and when they were nearly out of sight they lifted their arms in a farewellgreeting. The Cardinal, standing in the doorway of the loft, solemnly raised his arms to them in a blessing. Miss Malin waved a little handkerchief. Soon the boat, fading from their sight, became one with the sea and the air.
    As if they had been four marionettes, pulled by the same wire, the four people turned their faces to one another.
    “How will he do to dance with?” a young girl asks herself, when, at the ball, the
Chapeau
is presented to her. She may even add: “How will he do as a beau, an
Épouseur
, the Intended of my life?”
    “How will these people do to die with?” the castaways of the hayloft, scrutinizing each other’s faces, asked themselves. Miss Malin, always inclined toward a bright view of things, found herself satisfied with her partners.
    The Cardinal gave expression to these thoughts. The old man stood for a little while in deep silence, as if it took him time to get used again to the steadiness of a house, after a day spent in boats upon the restless seas, and to an atmosphere of comparative quiet after long hours of incessant danger—for nothing was likely to happen here at the moment—to get used, also, after his work with the broken-hearted peasants and fishermen around him, to the company of his equals. Slowly his manner changed from that of a commander to that of a convive. He smiled at his companions.
    “My sisters and my brother,” he said, “I congratulate myself upon being amongst brave people. I am looking forward to what hours I shall, under the favor of God, spend with you here. Madame,” he said to Miss Malin, “I am not surprised at your gallantry, for I know about your race. It was a Nat-og-Dag who, at Warberg, when the King’s horse was shot under him, jumped from his own horse and handed it to the King, with the words: To the King, my horse; to the enemy, my life; to the Lord, my soul.’ It was a Svinhoved, 1 if I am not wrong—your great-great-grandfather—who, at the sea battle of Koege, rather than exposethe rest of the Danish fleet to the danger of fire from his burning ship, chose to go on fighting with his last breath, until the fire reached the powder room, and he was blown up with his crew. Here,” he said, looking around him at the loft, “I may say it: Blessed are the pure in blood, for they shall see—” He paused, reflecting upon his theme. “Death,” he concluded. “They shall see, verily, the face of death. For this moment