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 himself was near to falling into the fire.  “May God forgive you, Morten!” he groaned.  “God knows I didn’t mean anything like that.  May my sin be forgiven me!  But surely you only mean to frighten me!  I come from far away, and have heard nothing.  No one but you, reverend father, has recognized me.  I have told my name to no one.  When I asked them in Veilbye if the rector was still there, they said that he was.”

“That is the new rector,” I replied.  “Not he whom you and your sinful brother have slain.”

He wrung his hands and cried aloud, and then I knew that he had been but a tool in the hands of that devil, Morten.  Therefore I set to work to comfort him, and took him into my study that he might calm himself sufficiently to tell me the detail of this Satan’s work.

This was the story as he tells it:  His brother Morten—­truly a son of Belial—­cherished a deadly hatred toward pastor Soeren Quist since the day the latter had refused him the hand of his daughter.  As soon as he heard that the pastor’s coachman had left him, he persuaded Niels to take the place.

“Watch your chance well,” he had said, “we’ll play the black coat a trick some day, and you will be no loser by it.”

Niels, who was rough and defiant by nature, soon came to a quarrel with his master, and when he had received his first chastisement, he ran at once to Ingvorstrup to report it.  “Let him strike you just once again,” said Morten.  “Then come to me, and we will pay him for it.”

Then came the quarrel in the garden, and Niels ran off to Ingvorstrup.  He met his brother in the woods and told him what had occurred.

“Did anyone see you on the way here?” asked Morten.

Niels thought not.  “Good,” said Morten; “now we’ll give him a fright that he will not forget for a week or so.”

He led Niels carefully to the house, and kept him hidden there the rest of the day.  When all the household else had gone to sleep the two brothers crept out, and went to a field where several days before they had buried the body of a man of about Niels’ age, size, and general appearance. (He had hanged himself, some said because of ill-treatment from Morten, in whose service he was.  Others said it was because of unhappy love.) They dug up the corpse, although Niels did not like the work, and protested.  But Morten was the stronger, and Niels had to do as he was ordered.  They carried the body back with them into the house.