The Trollfolk of Hånger
AH, THERE is surely no need to believe that any supernatural influence was at work. But for one who has heard close to his ear the low-toned whispering of the beloved dead, or marked, with an unrest so great that the heart seems ready to break under it, how a soft tide of gentle thoughts comes sweeping through the soul; has felt the softest hands guiding the weary pen to its end—such an one finds it hard to believe that there were not invisible hosts this day gathered about the unfortunate man who drove along over the broad, desolate mountain tracts.
For however hurt and betrayed, however deceived and humiliated he felt, however his thoughts turned toward vengeance and punishment, they were yet led again and again toward something else that seemed to draw them with even greater power.
And the thing that drew them so was Hånger, the home of his fathers, that he had never seen, with its red buildings set far up among the pine-woods, looking out over a landscape with ten long ridges, ten high peaks, ten glittering lakes, ten parishes—and hardly ten homesteads in all.
To him, the vision had never yet appeared—the vision of the old house at Hånger, with gatepost and orchard and cellar, as he knew it had appeared to others of his race. But over him, too, lay its secret power. And his thoughts turned now to his childhood, when he had dreamed that it should fall to his lot to lift the curse that rested on Hånger and the race of Hånger. He recalled his argument of the old days, that since the curse had come upon them through the murder of a priest, so it might be lifted from their heads if one of the Hånger folk became a priest and a holy man of God.
Later, in youth and manhood, he had lost those thoughts, it is true; yet, after all, it was that original idea which had determined the direction of his life.
When he had commenced his studies, and all had gone well in what he touched, he had ceased to believe that any ill-fate especially threatened the men of his race. It was all nothing but a wayward, unruly character, and a gloomy inability to keep what was their own. If a man were but wise, and knew how to control himself, the thought of suicide would surely disappear. “And I shall be the one to show them that a Rhånge from Hånger can die as others do,” he had sometimes thought. “And so, after all, it may be my lot to make an end of the old superstition.”
And indeed he had succeeded in resisting all the temptations common to youth, and in leading an orderly and blameless life, in all save his relations with his wife.
He started in his seat as if suddenly awakening. For a moment or two he had been freed from the consciousness of his misfortune, but now, at the thought of his wife, it came back to him in all its horror. The very fact that he was a priest, and should live blamelessly, made the coming shame more intolerable; the gossip and scandal cut him like the lash of ironbound thongs. “Better if she had never, never returned,” he thought in his bitterness of heart. “She has made life impossible for me at home here. We shall have to go and live abroad.”
Strangely enough, however, his thoughts soon turned from his wife, and settled again on the old homestead with its uncanny story.
It was his father who had told him of Hånger, and there was much besides the murder and the curse in what he said.
He had told how none knew where the Hånger folk had come from. Five brothers had suddenly appeared in the parish, all big, handsome, strong men, but of unknown family, from an unknown land, speaking an unknown tongue. It was generally believed that they were the offspring of trollfolk, by some woman who had fallen into their power, and, in truth, their wildness and violent character, their courage and sharpness, their strange ways and obstinate will, and, more than all, their extraordinary success in acquiring goods and property, gave further credence to the legend.
These men, who had come into the district as poor labourers, had in the course of a few years made themselves, first, masters of Hånger, where the eldest brother had settled down, and afterward, of four other estates.
It was comforting to think of those forefathers of his. They had never been like the other peasants round them. They had dressed grandly, and walked proudly; they might have been gentry themselves, but had never cared about it. He felt to-day the need of something to increase his self-respect, and he found a certain dignity in belonging to a richly gifted and famous race.
And all things considered, he was perhaps not so very unlike them after all. Lotta Hedman had herself compared him to a troll, and reminded him that he came of a race of wild men.
If only he had not been a priest, and forced to hold his own powerful nature constantly in check!
He called to mind the night when he had gone in pursuit of the frightened Bailie—it must have been the old trollfolk blood breaking out in him.
And this again brought him back to his home and his wife, and an agonizing pain wrung his soul anew. He remembered how he had suffered all that spring from sorrow and pangs of conscience. But bitter as this suffering had been, it was yet even more bitter to know that Sigrun had condemned him to it in cold blood, without any compelling reason. No, the bitterest and worst of all was that she had lowered herself to deceit, that she had freed herself in such a ghastly manner; had taken a miserable vagabond into her confidence, and fallen at last into the hands of such a man as Sven Elversson—a man whom he had himself driven forth from among his congregation. This it was that filled his cup of shame to overflowing.
“She came to the right man at last,” he thought. “She is dead, and he is an outcast, who dare not show himself among his fellows.”
But again he was led from the agony of his thoughts by the recollection of his forefathers and their home.
Over the treeless wastes where he now drove, the west wind, the strong wind from the sea, whined sharp and biting. “It is very cold up here,” he thought. “It must be better on the other side of the range. Hånger lies in shelter of the eastern slopes; it would be warm and spring-like on such an evening as this.”
Once again he was thinking of his race.
All of them had been marked by some trait which distinguished them from those around them.
One of them had had a horse which he loved beyond all else, and he was rarely seen except in the saddle. He went to his work and to his pleasures on horseback, and had even one Sunday ridden into the church and demanded to receive the Holy Sacrament without dismounting.
A faint smile passed over the priest’s face at the thought of that remarkable scene. It had often amused him in former days to imagine it to himself. But he had never thought such a thing could be true; he had always regarded it as invention and fable.
That same horseman had once had a quarrel with his wife. “Folks should use their wits at times,” she had said, “and not trust only to their strength.” But this had angered him, and he had hoisted her up and set her to ride astride of the roof-beam. “Now I’ve set you there by strength,” he said. “Let’s see if you can get down again by your wits.”
It must have been no easy matter at times to be the wife of one of those Hånger folk. They had been violent, jealous, and obstinate. Strong and able men, indeed, hospitable and magnificent, but given to coarse jesting that might well prove more trying than many other faults.
One of them once took it into his head to have everything he owned in pairs. It was not sufficient to have one bell in his room; he must have two. One window was never enough for a room; there must be two or four or six. Two chimneys, two doors, two barns, two haylofts. Never one lad or girl, but always two or four of them. It might seem an innocent whim enough, but he had nearly brought Hånger to ruin with his alterations and rebuilding.
Among the cattle, too, he would have as many bulls as cows, and he ordered his wife to bear him a boy and a girl, a boy and a girl, and so on in regular succession. And when she did not obey him, he was not to be trifled with.
Again the Pastor smiled. No, clearly it was no light matter at times to be mistress of Hånger.
One of the men there had been who was always singing. He came to church singing, and went away singing; he sang when he answered any who spoke to him; sang when he went to bed and when he got up.
But for all his singing, he had been a hard and unreasonable man, and it was with him that the misfortune had come. He had once tried to cheat his brother over some inheritance, but his own wife had discovered the fraud, and asked their priest to come to Hånger to talk over the matter with him. But the Master of Hånger thought there was something more behind the visit, and, inflamed with jealousy, had lain in wait for the priest on the way home and killed him.
Yes, it was true, as he had just said: no easy matter to be wife to one of the ancient race of Hånger.
And yet, none of their womenfolk had ever given themselves out for dead in order to escape.
He laughed a short, harsh laugh. It might seem as if he had been the worst of them all. Otherwise, his wife would hardly have had recourse to such desperate means.
And what had she to reproach him for after all? Nothing but having loved her too much. He had asked nothing of her but the one thing, that she should be his alone, entirely and without reserve.
But suppose that had been in itself too much to ask? If it had been harder to fulfil than that of the mad demands of those wild forefathers of his? Can one human being demand of another such utter and complete surrender of self? Not only in love, but in all else?
Pastor Rhånge remembered how he had often thought Sigrun was a being of a different sort, unlike all others; that she had seemed to have a nature of her own, though she could never find expression for it.
And that nature of hers, he knew now, was pity. To do good, to sacrifice herself for others, to care for the sick, that had been all her natural craving, but he had set himself against it. He could not endure it. He would have her all to himself, and not share her with any besides.
And the thing that had happened, that had seemed so abominable to him before, was there, after all, anything in it but what must necessarily come? It was the steel spring, long compressed, which had unfolded as soon as the pressure was released.
“Sigrun is pity itself,” he thought. “Mercy is her aim, her task. I should have realized it.”
The sudden acknowledgment of his own fault comforted him now. Sigrun no longer appeared to have sunk so low, to be so unspeakably hard and without feeling.
He turned the thought over in his mind. “Yes,” he said to himself. “That must be why we were never happy together. I hindered her from being what her nature commanded her to be.”
Then, suddenly, the old agony returned. “This fellow, Sven Elversson, he cares for her better than I. He too is given up to works of charity. And that is why she stays with him.”
He had not thought of Sven Elversson with any jealousy before. “Sigrun knows what he has done,” he had said to himself. “She could never love him.”
But now, the whole thing seemed more than suspicious. Why had Sven Elversson not told him at once that Sigrun had come to Hånger? Was he in love with her, and had he thought to keep her for himself?
But in the midst of his anger came one of those thoughts that seemed to hover in the air above that desolate land, and refreshed the soul of the unhappy man like cool summer rain.
“Have you any right to expect service and aid from Sven Elversson?” said the thought.
And the priest remembered how he had sinned against Sven Elversson, and ruined his life, and condemned him to nameless misery.
But this consciousness of his own guilt brought a strange soothing calm in the midst of his anger—at the wrong he had suffered from others. It was like a cooling drink to one in fever.
And a new humility, a self-knowledge, woke in his mind.
He no longer felt himself as the punishing avenger with all right on his side.
He was prepared now, not to forgive, but to search and examine with care before passing his final judgment.