In a Weary World

Chapter I: The Church

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world. – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

The sun drifted down towards the horizon. A few birds, unwilling to admit the day was almost over, chirped amidst the trees, which were only just beginning to regain their leaves after the winter. Some impatient flowers pushed their way through the grass in the sunnier spots of the path, and between the roots of some of the older, more gnarled trees, stubborn patches of snow lingered.

Down the overgrown path wandered a young man in travelling clothes, whistling the tune of a nursery rhyme. A hat that was respectable but clearly not new was set firmly on his head. He carried a suitcase in his hand and a bag slung over his shoulder. He stayed in the well-lit parts of the path as much as possible. The nearest town was a mile back; a fall or a twisted ankle would be disastrous at best.

The light was fading and he was searching for a place to spend the night when he saw it. It was a church, with a tall tower and a graveyard of crooked headstones around it. As he got closer he saw it was abandoned. The windows were smashed, ivy clambered around the tower, and the door had long since collapsed, leaving the doorway empty. It would be an ideal place to sleep.

Hjalmar Dalsgaard hesitated. On the one hand, it was deserted, and had been so for years by the look of it. On the other, it was a church, and he felt slightly uneasy about spending the night in it.

At last, he decided it was safer to spend the night in the church than outside, and approached it slowly.

If there had been a path through the cemetery at one point, it was impossible to find it now. The headstones were crooked and covered with moss, the names and dates on them long since faded, the graves themselves overgrown with grass, nettles and weeds and indistinguishable from the rest of the ground. Hjalmar picked his steps as carefully as possible, afraid he might be unwittingly treading on someone's final resting place.

It doesn't really matter if I do, he told himself. They're dead. The dead don't know if anyone's near their graves.

But all the same, he tried not to stand on anything that might be a grave.

Once through the graveyard, he stepped over the half-rotten fallen door and into the church. The sun had set entirely now, and all he could tell of his surroundings was that the pews had been knocked over and there was some sort of box in front of the altar. If you looked more closely, you might think that the pews looked like they had been toppled by a crowd of people in a great hurry to leave, and that the box ahead looked ominously like a coffin.

But Hjalmar didn't look closely. He chose a corner mostly devoid of dust and cobwebs, set down the bag containing his money and food, lay down, and draped his coat over him like a quilt. He was asleep within minutes.

~~~~

Hjalmar awoke with a start. What was that noise? Was that a voice? He stayed perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe. There was a lantern placed on the altar, and two shadowy figures moved about in front of it.

"Here it is," one of them whispered from where they were crouched over the box in front of the altar. There was a slight slur to their voice, as if they were under the influence of alcohol. "This must be it; it's the only coffin here."

"But you heard what the story said!" their accomplice protested. "Besides, I don't fancy robbing someone when they're in their coffin. It's not right."

The first person scoffed. "They're dead, it's not like they know what's happening." Despite their bravado, their voice wavered.

"You heard that story too," the second person said.