Читать книгу The Treasure - Selma Lagerlöf - Страница 7

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Long after midnight a couple of men came out of the house at

Branehog to harness their horses and drive home.

When they had come into the yard they saw a great fire flaring up against the sky in the north. They hastened back into the house and cried out: "Come out! Come out! Solberga parsonage is on fire!"

There were many folks at the feast, and those who had a horse leapt upon his back and made haste to the parsonage; but those who had to run with their own swift feet were there almost as soon.

When the people came to the parsonage nobody was to be seen, nor was there any sign of movement; all seemed to be asleep, though the flames rose high into the air.

Yet it was none of the houses that burned, but a great pile of wood and straw and faggots that had been stacked against the wall of the old dwelling. It had not been burning long. The flames had done no more than blacken the sound timber of the wall and melt the snow on the thatched roof. But now they had begun to take hold of the thatch.

Everyone saw at once that this was arson. They began to wonder whether Herr Arne and his wife were really asleep, or whether some evil had befallen them.

But before the rescuers entered the house they took long poles and pulled away the burning faggots from the wall and clambered up to the roof to tear off the thatch, which had begun to smoke and was ready to catch fire.

Then some of the men went to the door of the house to enter and call Herr Arne; but when the first man came to the threshold he turned aside and made way for him who came next.

The second man took a step forward, but as he was about to grasp the door-handle he turned away and made room for those who stood behind him.

It seemed a ghastly door to open, for a broad stream of blood trickled over the threshold and the handle was besmeared with blood.

Then the door opened in their faces and Herr Arne's curate came out. He staggered toward the men with a deep wound in his head, and he was drenched with blood. For an instant he stood upright and raised his hand to command silence. Whereupon he spoke with the death rattle in his voice: "This night Herr Arne and all his household have been murdered by three men who climbed down through the smoke-hole in the roof and were clad in rough skins. They threw themselves upon us like wild beasts and slew us."

He could utter no more. He fell down at the men's feet and was dead.

They then entered the room and found all as the curate had said.

The great oaken chest in which Herr Arne kept his money was gone, and Herr Arne's horse had been taken from the stable and his sledge from the shed.

Sledge tracks led from the yard across the glebe meadows down to the sea, and twenty men hastened away to seize the murderers. But the women set themselves to laying out the dead and carried them from the bloody room out upon the pure snow.

Not all of Herr Arne's household could be found; there was one missing. It was the poor little maid whom Herr Arne had taken into his house. There was much wondering whether, perchance, she had been able to escape, or whether the robbers had taken her with them.

But when they made careful search through the room they found her hidden away between the great stove and the wall. She had kept herself concealed there throughout the struggle and had taken no hurt at all, but she was so sick with terror that she could neither speak nor answer a question.