the passer-by of the sin
of a most unfortunate man.

The next morning his two children had disappeared. They have never
been heard of since. God knows to what far-away corner of the world
they have fled, to hide their shame and their sorrow. The district
judge is very ill, and it is not believed that he will recover.

May God deal with us all after His wisdom and His mercy!

O Lord, inscrutable are thy ways!

In the thirty-eighth year of my service, and twenty-one years after my
unfortunate brother in office, the Rector of Veilbye had been beheaded
for the murder of his servant, it happened one day that a beggar came
to my door. He was an elderly man, with gray hair, and walked with a
crutch. He looked sad and needy. None of the servants were about, so I
myself went into the kitchen and gave him a piece of bread. I asked
him where he came from. He sighed and answered:

"From nowhere in particular."

Then I asked him his name. He sighed still deeper, looked about him as
if in fear, and said, "They once called me Niels Bruus."

I was startled, and said, "God have mercy on us! That is a bad name.
That is the name of a man who was killed many years back."

Whereat the man sighed still deeper and replied: "It would have been
better for me had I died then. It has gone ill with me since I left
the country."

At this the hair rose on my head, and I trembled in every limb. For it
seemed to me that I could recognize him, and also it seemed to me that
I saw Morten Bruus before me in the flesh, and yet I had laid the
earth over him three years before. I stepped back and made the sign of
the cross, for verily I thought it was a ghost I saw before me.

But the man sat down in the chimney corner and continued to speak.
"Reverend father, they tell me my brother Morten is dead. I have been
to Ingvorstrup, but the new owner chased me away. Is my old master,
the Rector of Veilbye, still alive?" Then it was that the scales fell
from my eyes and I saw into the very truth of this whole terrible
affair. But the shock stunned me so that I could not speak. The man
bit into his bread greedily and went on. "Yes, that was all Brother
Morten's fault. Did the old rector have much trouble about it?"

"Niels! Niels!" I cried from out the horror of my soul, "you have a
monstrous black sin upon your conscience! For your sake that
unfortunate man fell by the ax of the executioner!"

The bread and the crutch fell from his hand, and he himsel