he said. “I shall be rich. I have been the poorest and now I’ll be the richest. I am Morten’s brother Niels.” He gave a short laugh, the sound of which rung against the copper pans hanging upon the farther wall and echoed sharply back, with neither mirth nor friendship. The old woman lifted her head and drew back a step, exactly as if she had been struck in the face.
“So then,” she said with scorn. “Perhaps you were never with Wallenstein’s men, either. Perhaps I may forgive you that. A pig bit off your arm, doubtless, and you have come all the way from Aalborg, perhaps, but you have never been out of Jutland in all your life. This is a fine story about the brother of Morten Bruus, but you have come to the wrong house with it.” She pushed the door wide open and stood waiting for him to leave. The cold air poured in upon them from the blackness without. “You should be sent away for such lying,” she said, “but the pastor has said you might sleep with the beasts. Well, good night,” she added impatiently.
But the beggar stood his ground.
“I am not lying,” he said. “I am really the brother of Morten Bruus. I can prove it, since it’s true.”
“You are Niels Bruus?” said the old woman.
“Niels, the brother of Morten.”
“Oh, what a scurvy liar,” said the old woman with deeper scorn. “What a poor and pitiful liar. Listen to me. With my own eyes I saw the body of Niels Bruus dug out of the ground many, many years ago, and he was so long dead he stank. Yet you come and tell me that you are Niels Bruus.”
The effect of these words upon the beggar was strange. He stared at the old woman with eyes gone blank with astonishment, and his jaw sagged. Then he began to grin, a stupid evil grin, and then he broke into laughter. He struck his hat against his thigh to emphasize his enjoyment of her statement, and his laughter, filling the small room, seemed to her the most stupid, the most evil sound she had ever heard.
“Stop,” she cried. “Be quiet,” and stamped upon the brick floor with her wooden shoes, opposing one noise to another, in a kind of panic. “Are you gone crazy?”
The beggar paused in his laughter to ask, “And was my face all battered, mistress?” Then, as he saw her blench from him, “And did you see a fine lead earring in this ear?” and he pointed, with his hat, to his left ear.
The old woman’s face filled with horror. She lifted a hand and crossed herself, slowly.
“Tell me,” said the beggar, “did Parson Sören see me too? And smell me, ha? Tell me, who dug me up and where was I buried?”
The old woman, having retreated from him a few steps, stopped and, composing herself, her face full of loathing, placed both hands firmly on her hips and replied in a steady voice, as if she were exorcising a demon:
“I saw in Pastor Sören’s garden Morten Bruus himself strike the spade into the ground and uncover the body of Niels, his brother; I, and many others. It would take more than a beggar from Aalborg to make me think other than that Niels is dead and buried in Vejlby churchyard. Do you think to be rich with Morten’s money? Oh, what a fool!”
“But I know that the face was battered, and that the body wore my clothes, and that my lead earring was in the left ear, yes, just as I used to wear it. How do you think I know all that?”
The woman gave a shrug of the shoulders.
“Anyone can know all that,” she answered.
“Well, but I know more,” said the beggar. His voice became quiet and sly. “I know that Morten buried the body. That is why he could find it. It was,” he said, ever more sly and confidential, “a little joke that Morten played on Pastor Sören. Morten did not love the pastor, if you remember.”
His eyes were fixed upon the round blue eyes of the old woman, and he thought he saw a horrified belief grow slowly in those honest blue eyes.
“Yes,” he cried triumphantly, “a little joke that Morten played upon the pastor, and I can tell you all about it.”
The old woman turned her back upon him abruptly and crossed the kitchen to the pastor’s door. She knocked, her back still turned upon the beggar, then entered the pastor’s room and closed the door behind her.
The beggar could not stand still for excitement. He limped to the hearth and stood staring briefly at the golden embers under their veil of blue. Then he limped across the room to the wall in which once had been the door to the New Room. With that door gone, the kitchen seemed very small; aye, and with the door to the parson’s study closed. He looked at all the cupboards with shut doors and tried to remember in which one the old woman had locked the cheese; then, growing aware that his feet hurt him, he returned to the stool by the hearth and drew off his boots. The bricks were cold to his feet, but the air of the room was warmer than the wet and broken leather. He began to rub his feet with his hand, and was sitting so, stooped by the fire, when the door to the study swung open, and the old woman came back into the kitchen.
She was followed by an old man in a loose black gown that was furred at the neck but shabby. A fringe of white hair showed about the rim of his black skullcap. His face was lean and his figure slight and somewhat stooped. He moved forward silently, after the clacking footsteps of the housekeeper, because he was in his stockinged feet, and the quietness of his advance, together with his appearance of great age and gentleness, produced a certain awe within the beggar. The hilarity that had possessed him died away, although the excitement remained. He stood up and bobbed his head respectfully to the old man.
“Pastor Juste Pedersen,” said the old woman, “here is the man who claims to be the brother of Morten Bruus.”
“Sit down, my friend,” said the old man. “Sit down, Vibeke.”
He motioned toward the bench by the fire, and the housekeeper seated herself as she had been formerly. The pastor drew up a stool and seated himself so that he could face both the housekeeper and the beggar. The light from the hearth shone full upon him, gilding the shabby robe, the bosses of the high, bony forehead, the lean hands with heavy knuckles which lay quietly upon his knees.
“Now then,” said Pastor Juste sensibly, “let us get at the truth of this matter.” He looked the beggar over, unhurriedly, with the eye of a man who has had much experience at reading countenances, and the intense excitement held in check by the advance of authority did not escape him. “Vibeke Andersdaughter,” he said, “tells me that you claim to have been formerly of my parish, and that you now are come to demand the fortune of Morten Bruus. Tell me, how did it happen that you left this country in the first place?”
“Morten sent me away,” said the beggar.
“Ah! And when was it you left?”
The beggar considered.
“It was after harvest, and before snow. And the year, it was before Lutter-am-Barenberge. It was the autumn before the summer when the King was defeated at Lutter. Yes, that was it.”
“Were you perhaps at Lutter?” asked the pastor.
“I was at Lutter, yes.”
“Was it there that you lost your arm?”
“No, that was much later. I was at Lutter, with Wallenstein.”
“You mean to say that you fought against your
