In the Wilderness (12 page)

But in all these years he had believed himself to be a hard and stubborn, steadfast man; he had himself chosen the bitter lot of Cain, and he had chosen it of necessity, since he was to be the master and protector of the frail, weak-minded wife to whom he had been bound as a child.—And yet he had had to do violence to himself many a time before he could act as a hard man—gag the voice of his own conscience: do we not know how ready a man is to do wrong blindly when friendship and love are at stake, when joy and pleasure call?—He had said to himself he was playing
for a high stake—and he had not been playing, he had merely shuffled the draughtsmen like a witless child. He had not
chosen
the lot of Cain; he himself had never known
when
he made a choice.

Olav clenched his teeth; it was as though another had pronounced this judgment upon him, and he would still defend himself, deny it. But the memory of that evening in the garden came back to him: old as he was, it required no more than a false air of youth, and he let himself be carried away, ran to grasp at the first shadow that played before his eyes. True, he had not thought of sinning—he had thought of nothing. As for the blind lad at whose side he had heard mass day after day, he had not remembered his existence.

His mouth filled with water—as in his boyhood when he chanced to see anything that was alive with maggots.

Weak, hasty, short-sighted, sleek-skinned, and spiritually yet a babe—a man of near forty winters—Olav laughed despairingly. No, that judgment he would not accept.

In a fleeting vision he recalled the dream of his former night in the woods: a bed of leaves in the midst of the darkness, a naked white body lying in it, the slain child—as he had seen in pictures of a deathbed: the soul leaving the dying man’s mouth in the likeness of a little child, and angels and devils contending for it.

He trembled in extreme terror. Again the feeling came over him that he had had as a child on seeing maggots. And in the wild horror that seized him now that he saw what he had concealed from himself beneath his manifest sins, the temptation awoke—simply to throw more leaves over the murdered child, hide it completely, and fly.

And as though the words were spoken without him he heard: childish, soft, heedless—such a character he would scarcely be given by the neighbours at home. Weak—he? The memories roused by the fever of the dance returned, and now they seemed like a troop hastening to his succour. He could not judge his whole conduct as a grown man by the headlong follies he had committed on finding himself, a lad bereft of kinsfolk, charged with a cause that called for great resourcefulness if a full-grown man were to bring it to an honourable issue. Nor by the years he had spent at Hestviken, tied to a wife who was able neither to live nor to die. He had always been different in those periods of his life when he
had been able to act with free hands. Surely he need not call himself white-livered and soft-hearted for disliking his uncle Barnim’s fatuous and useless cruelty. Nor weak because it went against the grain to slay Teit; it was, as that youth himself had said, far too like hunting flies with a falcon. Had he not been just as brave, just as eager for the sword-play, as the boldest among the Earl’s men—a trusty comrade, well liked by his fellows, a friend with most, not too good a friend with any, loyal to defend his neighbour, cautious whom he trusted—? “God, my lot might have been so cast that I could lead a man’s life, perform manly deeds like my forefathers, achieve my meed of honourable exploits—Thou didst set me where I had to fight with sickness and misfortunes black as hell, till I felt myself sink to the knees in mire. Does it make me a coward if I know myself that I was oft afraid, though no man saw me flinch?

“Did I run blindly after my own desires when I renounced pardon, manor, and wife at the moment when all were within my reach, for the sake of following my banished lord in his outlawry?”

But at the bare thought of the Earl his heart began to quiver with the old, ardent loyalty—oh, nay! If at any time he had blindly followed his own desires, it was when he rejoined the Earl. At that time he had
forgotten
Ingunn almost—he knew he was bound to her; never would he abandon his claim that their relation that autumn had been a lawful one, the consummation of an agreed marriage; but he had not remembered his love for his wife. Of his affection for Earl Alf he had never spoken to a soul—fate had given him a woman for his only trusty friend, and how should
she
be able to grasp anything of a squire’s affection for his lord?

Olav drew himself up in agitation. About him loomed the trees; black and immensely high, they hid from him the starry heaven. He had a feeling that he was in flight, carrying himself off as booty into the woods. Here the path dropped so steeply that every moment he was in danger of falling headlong—it was dark as a badger’s hole under the huge masses of foliage, and the track was full of big stones and twisted roots. Olav guessed that he must have left the broad, beaten path that he had followed at first. This gave him a strange feeling of relief—now he was forced to have a care of his feet, and he had to think of where he was, and whether perhaps he might reach some habitation where he could obtain
a lodging for the night. In this country one could not enter the first house one came to along the road and ask for shelter, as at home.

Once, when he had to stop to empty his shoes of all the earth he had got in them, he came across the same smell of smoke as he had noticed before when he sat on the ridge. It must be the smoke of a watch-fire—’twas not likely that folk would keep the hearthfire burning in any house so late at night. So it seemed there were men abroad in the wood. Olav took his sword out of the slit in his kirtle and let it hang in readiness. With his wonted caution he tried if it were loose in the scabbard and then walked on, slowly and quietly, holding it in his left hand.

The path swung out round a sort of promontory where the slope of the valley was bare of trees. Right under him, farther down, he saw a fire burning among the brushwood.

The discovery filled him with unreflecting joy; none could tell what sort of men might frequent this place. But Olav rejoiced at the prospect of meeting no matter whom, if only he might escape from solitude.

Now he saw the flame through the trees, heard the crackling of the fire. It lighted up a little clearing under the wooded slope on the farther side of the river, casting a red reflection on the black, running water. Between him and the fire he made out the dark forms of two men and heard voices.

The path led down to a little plank bridge and across to the meadow. The men lying about the fire did not hear his approach as they had just thrown an armful of dry faggots into the blaze. They were three young fellows—dressed as men of the people, none of the worst sort, seemingly. So he called to them.

They started up. Olav held his cloak wrapped about him with his left hand. As he stepped into the light of the fire it struck him that it would have been just as wise if he had first taken off the two gold rings with gleaming stones that he wore on that hand, but now it was too late. He greeted the men and asked, as well as he could, if this was the way to London.

As far as he could make out from their answer, it was not—the men pointed in the direction of the stream and over the hill. It was evident that the road to town ran on the high ground toward the south-west, but the men thought he would not be able to find it in the dark and he had better stay with them till daylight. Olav
nodded and thanked them. Then they threw him some armfuls of leafy boughs they had cut. Olav spread them out and lay down by the fire.

It did him good—now he felt that he was ready to drop with tiredness and hollow with hunger; he had eaten no more than once that day, and that was many hours ago. So he wished these strangers would offer him something, but they did not; it seemed they had eaten their supper. Now they tied up the mouths of their bags again and stretched themselves on their beds of leaves, two of them. The third was to sit and watch. So Olav did not care to ask for food.

They lay chatting for a while, as well as they could. The men were from the west—nor was their speech like that of the London folk, Olav heard. To their questions he replied that he had been to the pilgrims’ church, he had lost his companions, he was a Norseman. But the conversation flagged. Then one of them began to snore, and soon after, Olav also fell asleep.

It was still night when he awoke, but the darkness seemed to have thinned; dawn was not far off. He had slept heavily and dreamlessly, but cold and hunger waked him. The fire had almost gone out, and the watchman seemed to be asleep.

Olav got up noiselessly and went down toward the river. At any rate he would have a drink of water. He knelt down and filled his hand—then he was on his feet again with a bound: he felt that someone was behind him. No time to draw his sword—he flung himself upon the man and felt the knife slash his cheek; it was lucky he did not get it in his eye. But he had got a good hold of the other and gripped his head under his arm, so that the man’s cries were half-stifled. “The knife,” thought Olav, but could not let go; so he raised his knee and drove it into the fellow’s ribs, scarcely noticing that he got a stab in the thigh as he tried to wrest the knife away. But this gave the stranger a chance to close with Olav; and, locked together, they rocked and wrestled in the darkness, each trying to throw the other into the river. The man’s smell and the firm, hot hug of a flesh-and-blood opponent filled Olav with a deep sense of voluptuous joy. He put forth all his strength—it was like pressing back the iron-bound gates of a castle against the assaults of the enemy.

Now he heard that the others were on their feet. At that moment he got a hold and succeeded in throwing his adversary; his
body crashed into the bushes. Olav drew his sword and ran to meet the other two, with never a thought that he was running into danger and not away—there they were! In the dark he knocked aside a weapon—an axe, no doubt—struck and felt that he got home, and well; there was a cry and something fell in a heap. His second blow found nothing but the empty air, and he ran on. The plank bridge was too far, so he took a run and leaped out into the stream.

He splashed a stroke or two, then found bottom. When he stood up, the water came to his middle, but the bottom was muddy and he sank into it. Then he got hold of something—overhanging branches and then a root; the turf broke away under his knee; mould and gravel or whatever it was rolled down into the water. A moment later he was standing on the other bank. They were howling and roaring yonder.

Olav threw off his drenched cloak and wound it about his left arm, broke into the thicket, and forced his way through the undergrowth, with his bare sword in his right hand. Only now did he notice that he had cut it in wresting the knife from the first robber; the blood poured from it. Now and then he stopped a moment to listen—they must be on the plank bridge now. It seemed they had no great heart to pursue him; perhaps they guessed it was too uncertain in the dark and the thick underwood—a cursed wood it was, nothing but thorns and brambles.

Olav made his way on up the slope protecting his face as well as he could with the cloak about his left arm.

Arrived on the high ground, he presently came upon a broad road that seemed to lead down the valley. The sky was growing lighter now and the stars were fewer and paler, the woods swelled darkly against the first signs of dawn.

Again he stood and listened—he heard nothing of any men now, no sound but the tiny rustling of some small animal low on the ground among fallen leaves; here were tall trees, beeches. Olav walked on, more slowly, and now he felt the whole weight of his soaking kirtle beating heavily against him as he walked—ay, he was wet from top to toe, and as soon as he had gone a little way at an even pace he began to shiver in his clothes, which clung to him, cold as ice.

It did him good in a way. Vaguely and with a strange indifference he remembered the rushing stream of inward experiences
that had carried him along from evening till darkest midnight—what had afterwards befallen him, his fight with the robbers and his flight through the thorn thicket, seemed to have placed an enormous distance between him and his hours of revelation. It was clear to him that he had not seen these visions with any faculty that dwelt within himself; a light had poured in upon him from without; and it was clear to him that he had called troops to his succour against this power, and help from that quarter where a man never seeks it in vain when he would defend himself against the truth—that help had surely been given him. He knew too that if at that moment he had had the power to see clearly and understand fully what it was that he had done—understand not only with the head, but also with the heart—then he must have been a desperate man. But he felt nothing but relief, and the cold from his clinging wet clothes wrapped itself around him and made him calm, as one puts out a fire with wet sails.

He wiped his face and found that it was scratched by the thorns, and bleeding, and blood was running down the inner side of his right thigh. After a while he was going lame, but kept on walking—it was as though he could not check his pace. So he walked and walked, stupid at times with sleep.

A mist rose from all low-lying lands on the approach of morning; all at once the fog surrounded him, dense and white, hiding the blue of heaven and putting out the last of the stars. Olav had been walking half-asleep for some time and stumbling now and again in the deep ruts that scored the turf of the road. Now he was wide awake for a moment.

Within the moist and muffling fog the trees loomed huge, beyond their natural size. Through Olav’s tired brain there flashed a last glimpse of that world of visions to which he had been admitted and from which he had fled. In an instant it was gone again.

The grass was soaked with dew, bent down and grey all over. The road led through a forest of great ancient oaks, and in the thick undergrowth every bush was wreathed in cobwebs, which were coated with dewdrops. Olav shivered as he stood—and when he moved on again, he felt his right leg heavy and painful and his hose stiff with blood.