WITCH MARY By GENEVIEVE LARSSON From Pictorial Review

“Has any one of you seen Witch Mary of late?” Wise Olaf, keeper of the country store, asked the question of the farmers gathered in a group on the “grocery side.” A curious, vivid silence followed. They had been rejoicing over their fields of grain, which stood, as one man had exultantly proclaimed, high as a man’s arms, and were heavy with promise. Some made as if to speak, shifted uneasily, sucked back the half-formed words.

“Well?” questioned Wise Olaf.

Through the summer stillness a wind swept up from the river, came sighing in through the open door, and rattled the loose papers about. There was something eery, electric, about it, as though it carried with it an unseen presence.

“Hush! The women will hear you!” cautioned one, glancing across the room.

“Not seen a sign of her all summer; but that’s a good sign,” nervously ventured a gnarled, bent old man, stooping over the counter to pick up a stray coffee bean. He rubbed it between his horny palms, and then fell to munching it, his long chin nearly meeting his nose in the process. Assuming an attitude of cheerfulness, he glanced around carelessly, and then slumped back into a chair.

The women across the room were busy examining the rolls of blue and brown denim that Wise Olaf’s Kaisa displayed upon the counter, and had been chattering together busily. The summer was a good one, and they could buy extra yards. Underlying their Northern speech, in which were represented various provincial dialects of Sweden, was an undercurrent of wistful melancholy, as though they feared to be too joyous, lest some unforeseen disaster come upon them in the midst of their plenty. Now, quick to note a change of feeling in the men’s talk, they stopped, broken sentences suspended in the air, reluctantly left the goods upon the counter, and crossed to the other side.

“But what is it?” asked Kaisa, looking around at the guilty faces.

“We were just talking about Witch Mary,” answered Wise Olaf.

“We agreed, long ago, not to talk of her.” Kaisa’s voice was high-pitched, nervous. Her keen, rather hard-featured face lit up with a curious, avid expression. “As long’s you’ve started, has any one seen her?”

“Not one time during the whole summer,” answered Olga, a fair, comely matron. “Though from my place I can see the top of the hill. Sometimes I run out, when the sun is high, thinking to catch a glimpse of her. The trees must have grown up about the hut. Every day, I remember, the year of the drought, I could see her standing there, waving her cane with one hand, and the other held to her brow, looking out over the valley.”

“The river, you mean,” put in Wise Olaf, carefully tying a package with his knotted hands.

A tremor passed over the crowd.

“I doubt not it was the river,” said Olga, rebuked. The men, some standing, others seated on chairs, placed conveniently about, puffed more heavily at their long corn-cob pipes.

“Sometimes,” Olga continued shamefacedly, “she looked so lonely standing there. Just as if she were turned to a statue of grief. I wanted to run up and comfort her. But I never dared. Besides, Sven would not permit me. And there is no road, only this path, leading down to the river.”

“A good thing for you that you didn’t go,” said the gnarled old man, trying to speak lightly. “Silent Sven would have been left a widower.” The men laughed relievedly, and the shy young giant standing beside the counter flushed to the roots of his yellow hair.

“Oh, I don’t know,” finished Olga, weakly. “I—I am sorry for her, poor old soul!”

“Some say she was seen the day Black Eric left,” Kaisa’s shrill voice broke in. “She stepped in front of him on the road, and the horses stopped dead. She cursed him as usual. ‘So you are going away,’ she screamed; ‘but I will follow you—I will follow you!’ He struck at her with his whip, but she avoided him. ‘I hope you die!’ he shouted at her, and she screamed back, ‘Ay, though I were dead a thousand years, my hate for you would bring me back!’”

“Ja, käre Gud!” sighed a wrinkled old crone. “Let us stop talking of this and finish our buying.” She turned to cross the store; nobody heeded her, and, as though reluctant to miss anything, she stayed.

“Perhaps Black Eric took her with him”—the man who spoke laughed hollowly—“for not once since, as near as I can figure, has she been seen.”

“That’s likely!” retorted Wise Olaf. “She’s the only thing he was ever afraid of.”

“I didn’t think he’d stay away this long,” said the old man, “He loved his power over us too much. And now he’s gone since last November.”

“Oh, he’ll be back soon enough,” answered Wise Olaf. “I saw Young Eric the other day. He’s expecting him any time.”

“I was having a good time,” grumbled the old crone, puffing away at her pipe, “and you’ve made me ill with your talk!”

“Always in the winters before,” continued Kaisa, “I have seen her coming down the path on her skis. At night, thinking no one would see her. There she’d come, swiftly, her skirts flying behind her, and straight down she would go, over the bank, and out to the spot where her daughter was drowned. You should have heard her moaning, and wringing her hands! And she would cry something terrible. Many times I’ve asked Olaf to build us a house elsewhere, and not live here in the store like heathen folk, where we had to see such a sight and listen to such things. ’Tis not good for the children.”

“I’ve heard,” said Olga, her voice soft and pitying, “that she was just like other people before she lost the girl. That they were very happy, even though they were so poor, with their little garden and their hut. Perhaps she is like others still, only we are afraid of her, and that makes her queer. Perhaps we should go up and see if anything has happened to her?” She looked around questioningly, her blue eyes pleading.

“I’ve often said so to Kaisa,” answered Wise Olaf. “It’s you women, I said, should go——”

“How can you expect us to go,” asked Kaisa angrily, “when you men are afraid?”

“And with good reason,” cackled the old man, his toothless gums still busy with the coffee bean. “I’m old here, and I know. I was with those that went up, shortly after we’d found the daughter, and Witch Mary had had her brought up there, and buried beside the hut——”

“Beside the hut—think of that! That was no Christian thing to do. You must have known then there was something wrong.”

“Why, no. We thought that natural enough, crazed with grief as she was. Never shall I forget when we found the body and carried it home. One of us could have carried her easily, so light she was. And beautiful, even when dead. Like an angel that’s been caught asleep.” His voice took on a dreamy, far-away tone. “Her hair was loose, and so long it swept the ground. It looked alive, and we dared not touch it, so we carried her high——”

The room was silent. Outside rang the voices of children playing among the willows.

“And the water fell from her hair, like great tears, all along the path——”

In the heavy silence the women stood motionless, eyes downcast. The men held their bodies rigidly. A burst of wind entered, passed through with a long, drawn-out sigh. It died with a moan. They started up apprehensively.

Kaisa rudely broke the silence. “But go on,” she said. “What happened when you went up afterward? After the girl was buried? We’ve never heard the real truth about that.”

“A week later, all in a friendly spirit, we went to her, thinking to buy her trees. The rest of us were cleaning out our timber. And she had the best trees of all, standing on the level stretch behind the hut, where they could easily be rolled right down to the river and taken to the mill. It would have relieved her poverty, and we thought that would help. We didn’t look for her to take on so, seeing we came for that——”

“Well?” questioned Kaisa, her black eyes snapping with curiosity.

“Black Eric was with us,” the old man went on. “That was a mistake, I suppose, seeing she blamed it all on him. Though I don’t know that he was guilty. He said she jumped right out of the boat, and that he couldn’t save her——”

“There are those,” said Olga, darkly, “that think he wouldn’t. That he’d coaxed her into the boat against her will, and that she had no choice. It was death—or something worse. That was like him!” Her breast heaved with excitement.

“What use to dig it up?” asked the old man gently. “No one really knows. Anyway, Black Eric went along, though he acted queer. One of the men had told him he daren’t. That’s how he came to go. Too much of a blusterer to take a dare. Everything was quiet when we got there. We rapped at the door, and no one answered. Then we went on to where the girl was buried, near the hut between two large oaks. There lay Mary, with the cloth tied around her head, and her red shawl around her shoulders, just as we’ve seen her dressed ever since. Lying flat down on the grave. I thought at first she was dead. So must the rest have thought, and Black Eric shrieked out, ‘O God, she’s dead!’ Then we heard a dreadful weeping, and she got up—no, I did not see her get up, but there she stood.

“In a few days she’d grown into an old woman, though she wasn’t young, even when the girl was born. But such a face as she turned to us! Like an old parchment containing saga lore. Wrinkled and mad with grief, but with a power! Almost as if she could have swept us away with one hand. Her eyes bored through us—they were like burnt-out cinders, dead, but yet terribly alive. When she saw Black Eric she went wild. She shrieked and whirled before us until I was dizzy. Some of the men were so afraid they didn’t even see her; she blinded them. She hurled her curses. Never, never have I seen such a sight!”

“Oh, poor thing, poor thing!” choked Olga, thinking, no doubt, of her own mother, lonely and bent with work in far-away Vermland.

“She drove us down the hill. Frightened as we all were, no one of us was shaken with terror as Black Eric was. Never has any one ventured near her since, though God knows how she lives. It’s not often we let a neighbour go without food. That’s not our way. But what could we do? There was a little clearing where she had her garden, and she and her girl used to work in the old days, but she’s old now, and even if she were able——”

“She has never so much as bought a pound of coffee here,” hastened Kaisa. “Half starved she must be, and frozen in the winter.”

“I hope he never comes back!” cried Olga passionately.

“He? Who?” questioned Kaisa.

“Black Eric. He’s evil—he’s——”

“Oh, as for that,” said the old man, “no one knew if he was guilty or not. There was no proof. And I’ve heard said he’s coming—soon. But one should not blame him too much. He was young when this happened, and he loved the girl——”

“Love? You call that love?” Olga’s tones were hot with wrath. She looked at her husband, Silent Sven, and her face changed and softened. Her little girl came running in through the open door, clasping a bunch of purplish-blue flowers in her hand. She pushed through the crowd and burrowed her golden head in her mother’s skirts.

“I am, afraid, Mamma; I am afraid,” she panted, trembling violently.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, lillä vannen,” comforted her mother, trying to steady her own voice. “We are right here where we can see you through the windows.”

“Where did you get those flowers?” Kaisa’s tones were sharper than usual. “Not on the river bank, surely.”

“Gerda and I—we went up—up the path a little ways just a little ways,” said the girl, “to pick them.”

“That’s blue vervain!” screamed Kaisa, raising her arms in horror. “Throw it away, child; it’s cursed!”

The little girl dropped the flowers.

“Pick it up and throw it out!” she ordered.

“Hush!” said Olga, stooping for the flowers. “Do not frighten the little one. That’s but an old foolish superstition.”

She crossed to the door and flung the blossoms far. Coming back, she asked Silent Sven if he had some candy for the children. He pulled a bulky bag from his pocket.

“Do not go up the path again,” cautioned Olga. “Stay on the river bank. Now run and play with the others. Mind you give some candy to the rest!”

The girl reached eagerly for the bag and started for the door, drying her eyes with one hand. She ran off the board platform, darted between the wagons hitched in front of the store, and on down to the river bank where the children were swinging on the young willows.

“I do believe some one else is coming,” cried Olga, going to the window and peering out. She uttered a dismayed cry, and the rest crowded behind her.

Black Eric dashed up in a smart new buggy, to which were hitched two slim, shining horses. A moment later, whip in hand, he entered the store. He looked around, smiling at the group, and began shaking hands, greeting each one jovially.

“And here’s Olga, too,” he cried, his black eyes snapping with delight as he stepped up to her. The young woman’s face flushed hotly. Silent Sven edged nearer.

“My name is Mrs. Nillson,” she said coldly, refusing to take his hand.

“Ven can I come for coffee and some of your good äppelkaka?” he smirked, laughing at her dismay.

“Talk Swede so I can understand,” croaked the old woman puffing viciously at her pipe, “and leave Olga alone. You needn’t put on airs, for all you’ve been to the city.”

“Well, old sourface!” he answered good-naturedly. “Anything to please such a beauty as you! Ta’ mej fan, but I’m glad to be back!” He looked around from face to face, but saw no gleam of welcome. “What’s the matter?” he asked abruptly. They shrank away, as if fearing the ring of command in his voice.

Olga touched her husband’s arm. “Let’s go, dear,” she coaxed. “Let’s go at once.”

“We’ll stay yet awhile,” answered Sven, flashing her a reassuring smile.

“He’ll get them all in his power,” she whispered. “Just as he had them before. Every one of us. I can feel it in his voice.” She tugged at his sleeve.

“I’m not in his power, and I said we’d stay awhile,” he answered quietly.

“What brought you back, Eric?” asked Wise Olaf. “Love for Young Eric, I suppose?” The crowd responded with a smothered laugh.

Black Eric chose not to take offence. “Why, as for that,” he said, “perhaps I did want to see Young Eric. It’s natural enough for a father to want to see his son, isn’t it? But that wasn’t the real reason. I came because I couldn’t sleep. Night after night I lay awake, and always I heard a curious sound, like a tapping, tapping, tapping. I thought if I came back here I could rest again——”

“A tapping!” cried Olga. “Then you did take Witch Mary with you!”

Black Eric’s face, pale before, lost the last vestige of colour. He wheeled upon her. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

“The tapping of her cane!” she answered. “She’s not been seen since you left.”

“I hope to God she’s dead!” There was a note of defiant relief in Black Eric’s voice. At the shout of protest that greeted his words he became placating. “Well, she’s done us all harm, hasn’t she? She brought the drought upon us with her curse. She cursed yet again, and the dam broke up the river, and the flood came and drowned many of our cattle. She——”

Swarming in through the door came the children, cutting short his speech. They ran, terrified, to their mothers.

“I knew it!” sobbed Olga’s girl. “I knew something awful would come!”

“But what is it? What’s the matter?” cried the women, alarmed.

Kaisa’s boy, the oldest of the children, answered. “The Witch! Witch Mary! She came down the path to the river. Didn’t you hear her clicking her old cane? Didn’t you hear her curse?”

“Will she—will she—come in here, I wonder?” faltered one woman.

“She said the serpent of the river would get him! She cried it out! She waved her cane and said that!”

“No,” protested another child, “she said she would kill him!”

“I could not see her—I was so—so scared!” a third added, with chattering teeth.

Black Eric stood silent, his face pale and twitching. He was evidently fighting for control.

“Where’d she go?” he asked.

“Down to the river!”

“No, she went back in the woods. She went fast, like the wind!”

They crowded to the windows, the children still clinging to their mothers. Beyond the river bank stretched a sandbar, gleaming white in the sun. The river coiled and twisted like sensuous green snakes writhing together.

“There she is, Mamma! See her through the willows!” cried Kaisa’s boy excitedly.

“O God, yes, there she is! Her clothes are frayed, they blow about her, she waves her cane in the air!”

“Where, where?” pleaded a voice.

“Red shawl dragging on her shoulder, cloth around her head!”

“Ja käre Gud!” gasped one.

“Can’t you hear her, Mamma?” wailed the little girl. “She’s muttering——”

A peculiar moaning broke upon them.

“’Tis but the river, child,” soothed Olga. “Hush, vännen, do not cry so!” Her own voice was wavering, full of a nameless fear.

“Muttering her curses, of course,” finished Black Eric, laughing hideously.

“She’ll bring some awful thing upon us, even now, with our harvests full!” sobbed the old crone. Her pipe fell unheeded to the floor.

“Ta’ mej fan if she will!” cried Black Eric, suddenly straightening his shoulders and throwing back his head. “It’s a good thing I came back just in time. What are you, a parcel of weaklings, to let her bring you bad luck with her curses?”

“She has done no harm,” ventured Olga, but her words sounded feeble.

“Done no harm!” shrieked Black Eric, cracking his whip. “There was the time when the spring was well on the way. The grain was already up from the ground. The wheat was doing bravely, and the rye was a foot tall. She hadn’t been seen for some time——”

“You’d been gone, then, too, I remember,” accused Olga. “You’d been gone, and we hadn’t seen her, and when you returned she——”

“That’s nothing to do with it!” he snapped. “She appeared, and cursed us——”

“She cursed you, you mean.” Olga hid behind her husband, peering out at Black Eric with hate in her eyes. “She has never troubled us——”

“The bad luck fell upon all alike, didn’t it? With the grain as green as could be, and no crows to speak of. Everything pointed to a good summer. And what happened, I ask you?” His tones rang out clearly now, swept over them with hypnotic spell.

“Come, Sven, before he gets us in his power,” she whispered.

“The rains came down and washed it all away. We had to sow the second time, and then it was too late, and we lost everything, even the seed. And the rains washed away much of our land, dragged it into the ravines——”

“That is true!” sighed the old man, looking even older and more wrinkled.

The faces of the men lengthened, became sad and thoughtful. Memories of long, hard years of heart-breaking toil lingered with them. Many were bent and broken in the struggle, their joints swollen and knotted with rheumatism from the cruel winters. Ah, it had taken years to win their small farms from the hold of the forests, here on the hilly slopes of Wisconsin. They had given their lives to it.

“It might have happened anyway,” pleaded Olga, gazing fearfully around upon the altered faces of the men. “We can’t expect all the years to be good as this one. Farmers everywhere have some bad years——”

“And there was the time,” Black Eric, his eyes gleaming evilly, went on, paying no attention to her interruption, “that the children were coming home from school. They had made wreaths of poison-ivy and hung them around their necks. Witch Mary met them, and told them they would die at sundown. Did they not nearly die?” he demanded, this time addressing the women.

“What are you saying?” cried Olga, drawing the little girl closer. “I have never heard of that.”

“We thought best not to speak of it, lest the children get too frightened,” said Kaisa. “Young Eric nearly died, as it was. And certain it is they would all have died if they had not come home in time for us to treat them.”

Olga stooped to lift the little girl, passionately folding her close.

“Each time she has cursed us it has been something more terrible,” Black Eric’s voice rang out. “God knows what it will be this time! And always it has happened when our crops were doing nicely and our hopes were high——”

“That is true; yes, yes, that is true!”

“So now, with your barns so full of hay it sticks out for yards at the open sides and your grain ready to harvest, now—she comes cursing again! And you men are weak enough to let her rob you of this! And you women! What are you, that you will let her curse your children? Such mothers! Bah! Even a dog will protect its young! Yes, like as not it will fall upon the children this time——”

“No, no, no!” The women shrank from him. Some staggered as though they would have fallen, and sat weakly down. A brutal look was dawning in the faces of the men. Silent Sven alone was not moved; his arms were folded in front, his head thrown back.

“Even in the old days,” Black Eric went on, “before people were civilized, they destroyed the witches that brought them harm. They drove them out! They burned them at the stake!”

“No, no!” Olga found her voice with a choking effort. “You will not be so cruel—you will not burn her!”

Black Eric’s eyes gleamed savagely. He towered above them, triumphantly.

“I shouldn’t advise that,” he agreed, “but—to drive her out——”

“Who is to do this?” quavered a voice.

“Look, Mamma,” cried the little girl. “She is running back to the woods!”

“Running back to the hut,” shrilled Kaisa, peering out, “with her plaid shawl hanging over her bones!”

“Now is the time!” cried Black Eric. “Now, when you can catch her in the hut! Go quickly, you men!”

“And what about you?” Silent Sven addressed Black Eric for the first time.

“Me?” cringed Black Eric. “It—would not—do for me——”

“Oh, you daren’t!” Silent Sven flung the challenge at him.

“Daren’t! You can’t say that word to me! Come on, all of you! I will lead you! I will show you if I dare!” He started for the door, the men preparing to follow him.

“I will go, too!” cried Olga. “You shall not burn her; I can at least see to that!”

“I would burn her,” retorted Kaisa. “I would help light the fagots! Olaf, you stay in the store.”

“Is that so?” said Olaf, with gleaming eyes. “I shall be needed, like as not. ’Tis a woman’s place to stay at home.”

“I’m not going to be cheated of this!” Kaisa turned to the old crone. “You stay,” she coaxed. “You couldn’t climb the hill, anyway. It’s a long hill.”

“I can climb the hill,” quavered the old woman. “I can climb it as well as anybody. I shall go with the others. See, everyone is going. I shall not stay behind.”

“I will give you a pound of coffee, the best in the store. I will give you two yards of cloth for an apron.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Five pounds of coffee,” she wheedled, “and five yards of your best goods, or I go with the rest!”

“Five pounds! No, that I will never——”

“And some tobacco! Yes, I think I must have some tobacco!”

“Oh, give it to her!” cried Wise Olaf. “Give it her, and let us be on!”

Cautioning the children to play on the bank until their return, they formed in a group at the base of the hill, where the path led up to Witch Mary’s hut. Black Eric cracked his whip. The men picked up long sticks, all except Silent Sven. Viking cruelty shone in their faces. The women would have clung to their arms, but the men shook them off and started ahead, Black Eric leading.

It was a tangled path, knotted across by roots of trees and shrubs. The branches of the trees interlaced above, forming a shady arch. All along, beside the way, slender spires of blue vervain lifted their purple blossoms to the random sun.

“See,” said Kaisa, awed by the luxuriant growth. “See how thick it is. And witches have always used it in their caldrons. No wonder it grows here!”

“But the vervain,” protested Olga, “the vervain grew on Mount Calvary, and it has the power of healing.”

“You will say next, I suppose,” Kaisa retorted, “that it has been watered by the old witch’s tears!”

“Come on, you women!” called Wise Olaf. “Do not lag behind!”

The women became silent, not stopping again to take note of the flowers beside the way. They panted after the men, who were climbing rapidly.

“Can you see the hut?” called Kaisa, pausing to get her breath.

“No, the trees have grown up about it. And don’t talk—she’ll hear us.”

“I’d no idea it was such a hard hill.” Kaisa’s face was red; her eyes were wildly excited.

“Do you think they will kill her?” whispered Olga. “Even Sven looked fierce.”

“’Twould serve her right.”

As they neared the top the women too picked up stout sticks. “Just to help us climb,” suggested one, as if ashamed.

“I want no stick,” said Olga, but she stopped for a moment with the others. “Oh, look! You can see the river from here—just the place, I believe, where the girl was drowned!”

The men called them again, and by the time they had caught up, the top of the hill was reached. They paused a moment at the edge of the clearing. Young trees had grown so high that they overshadowed the hut. The wind rattled through the leaves in hollow whispers. They saw the hut at last, sagging between the branches. The stovepipe had fallen, but still clung to the rotted shingles. The one window overlooking the river was broken and had not been repaired.

“It was a poor hut, at best,” said the old man. “Let us not be too hard on her.”

“Ho!” blustered Eric, swinging around to face the speaker savagely. “You are already weakening, are you?”

A debating silence followed, then the old man decided. “No, she must be driven out.”

They made their difficult way through tangled weeds and shrubs to the door, which faced the woods behind.

“You rap,” said Black Eric. “One of you, any one.”

“Not I.” Wise Olaf shook his head. The others shrank back.

“What about you?” Silent Sven again challenged the leader. “You—you are afraid to!”

“I am afraid, am I?” he sputtered. He walked unsteadily to the door, his face haggard with fear.

“Everything is silent—silent as the grave,” whispered Olga, clinging to her husband’s arm, openly afraid.

“What’s that?” a startled voice cut in. “Sobbing? Was that sobbing?” A wailing note swept through the trees.

“Hush!”

Black Eric raised his hand. The knob was rusty, the door sunken in. He rapped, feebly at first, his hands trembling like aspen-leaves. Getting no response but an empty echo from within, he struck his fist heavily against the door. It almost gave way.

“Open the door, Witch!” he cried. “You can’t hide from us!”

“Don’t be so harsh,” begged Olga, her voice the wraith of a whisper. “You will frighten her to death!”

Goaded to desperation, he raised his fist, and gave the door a terrific blow. It fell with a soft thud, the rotted wood crumbling on the floor. He stepped in, the rest following.

A thick carpet of dust lay over the floor. No imprint upon it, except some tracks left by wandering rats. A stove, red with rust and warped beyond recognition, stood on one side, supporting an old country metal coffeepot, filmed with black. Cobwebs hung from the rude rafters overhead. The round home-made rugs, once brave with gay colours, looked like little mounds of earth. Beside the broken window stood a sagging spinning wheel, so long unused that it drooped in utter dejection, one spindle fallen down.

At first bewildered, utterly struck dumb, then filled with horror too deep for words, the people looked around the room, its silent pathos striking like icy hands across their consciousness.

“She has not—lived here!” Kaisa found her voice first. She stooped and picked up a rusty pan lying beside the stove, and hung it on a bent nail, as though in this small act she found consolation.

“What—what is that—over there?” She pointed to a curtain drawn over an object on one side.

There was a gasp. “Maybe—maybe she is—dead—behind——”

“Dead! You fools!” shrieked Black Eric. “Didn’t we just see her?” He staggered to the curtain, grasped it roughly. It fell, a crumpled mass of dust and decayed cloth, disclosing the two built-in bunks, now empty, where Mary and her daughter had slept.

“There, you see! She must be living in the outhouse, the barn. She—she kept the cow there. Let’s look for her there.” And he passed over what had been the door, the rest following.

“The grave!” cried the old man. “I remember where it was. Let us look for the grave!”

“Leave the grave alone!” choked Black Eric, his face twitching horribly. “She is out in the barn, I tell you! See, I think she is there!” He pointed a shaking finger to another broken-down hut between the trees.

“We will find the grave,” said Silent Sven. “You said it was between the oaks.”

“I won’t go there!” gasped Black Eric. “Let us look——”

“You’ll come with us!” Silent Sven commanded, grasping Black Eric by the shoulder and dragging him along. Silent and awed, the crowd proceeded through the tangle of weeds and young trees to the side of the hut between the two oaks. Some of the men began to poke around with their sticks, but Olga stopped them.

The old man motioned silently to a depression in the ground. “It is long ago,” he whispered. “The grave—is sunken.”

Olga fell on her knees, sobbing convulsively. She reached out her hands and reverently brushed aside the leaves that lay upon the grave, then started up, a cry of terror on her lips.

Within the depression, where she had scraped the leaves away, a human skeleton lay bleaching, stained almost to the colour of brown twigs. As they bent over they saw a skull, through the sockets of which rose the slender spires of a plant, covering it mercifully with clusters of purplish-blue flowers. A rusty iron cross lay beside it.

“That is—that is where she lay—when we came up,” quavered the old man. “She lay there——”

The women began to sob unrestrainedly, Kaisa’s voice wailing above the others. The men turned upon Black Eric, their sticks raised high, terror forgotten in a mighty wave of revenge that swept its fire over them.

“It isn’t true!” he gasped, his teeth clicking together. “It isn’t, I tell you! Haven’t we seen her—all these years? Didn’t we—see her—this——”

Before the look in their faces he slunk away. He stumbled past the hut, the thorny branches reaching out their hands, catching him, tearing his clothes. On down the path, his terrified flight impeded by the gnarled roots.

Behind him followed a human avalanche, great cries issuing from their throats, sticks raised, ready to strike. Silent Sven fought his way to the front, called them to silence. “Let him go!” His voice rang out. “Let him go! His fear will punish him, far, far more than we could punish him! It will follow him, as it has followed him all these years. But never again will it affect us, and she is at rest!”

Before him, in the gap left by the branches, lay the river, coiling and twisting in the sun, a waiting, hungry look upon its face.