The North Star/Chapter 51
LI
O CHRIST, SHOW ME THY LIGHT!
After Father Tuathal had left Maidoch, a thrall came up to him and asked, “Art thou a Christian priest?”
“Aye, truly, I am.”
“There lies one dying, in a dwelling further down the road. He is called Thore Klakka. He was the steward of Jarl Haakon, and the friend likewise of King Olaf. He hath been favored too by Jarl Erik, and he hath full gold. Now is he dying, and he is calling for the priest of the White Christ.”
“I will go to him,” said Father Tuathal, and the thrall went on to show the way.
“Thore Klakka!” mused the priest, as he walked along. “I do remember him. He came with us from Ireland, and Thorgills liked him not. In truth, there was an absence of trust in all that were with King Olaf, for this Thore. I mind me now of his untruthful eyes. Poor wretch!—dying and asking for the priest of Christ. Perhaps God’s mercy hath touched him at the last.”
Father Tuathal entered the handsome dwelling of Thore Klakka. In an inner room, upon a richly covered couch, lay the dying man. He looked up eagerly as Father Tuathal approached: Reaching out his hand, Thore said:
“Come thou nearer!” Then, pleadingly, “Come thou nearer! Thou wert his friend! Thou didst love him! Ask him to take his eyes from me, his shining dark eyes. Ask him to cease the gaze he gave me in dying. It hath never left me! Come thou near me! I am going out where it is so dark, so dark; and I am sore afraid.”
A sense of horror came over Father Tuathal while Thore was speaking. Of whose dying eyes was he in such dread? In a flash the death scene of Father Meilge came to the priest. He shrank back from Thore, and a strong feeling of repulsion came upon him for the dying man.
“Come thou nearer!” pleaded the weak voice.
Faint and ill with the anticipation of the awful revelation that he knew trembled on the lips so soon to be sealed in death, Father Tuathal seemed unable to move. His love for his dead comrade and his horror of his sacrilegious murder, seemed to overpower him. The shaking hand was outstretched pleadingly, but to Father Tuathal’s gaze it was so stained with the blood of the beloved martyr that he thought he could never bring himself to touch it. The weak voice went on: “Why should his eyes follow me so? I have kept the vow I made to him. Every day have I said, ‘O Christ! show me thy light!’ I will accept the Christ, and if thou wilt stay with me it will not be so dark.”
With a strong effort Father Tuathal shook off the horror and the repulsion and recalled his shrinking soul to a sense of his obligations. “I am an unworthy priest,” he humbly thought, “and I must not shrink from this poor soul striving to cast off its burden of sin in this dark hour. But, O my beloved! it is harder than death to touch the hand that slew thee, to bless the life that swept thee from my sight. Forgive me, my merciful Saviour, and help me to remember in this hour that I am a priest of the Christ who prayed with dying breath for them that slew Him. Keep in my shrinking soul, O Christ! the memory of Thy last hour.”
Father Tuathal came up to the couch. He took Thore’s hand in his own, and knelt down beside him. His voice was low and clear and filled with a gentle comforting that soothed the fear of the dying man. “Thou hast asked for the light of Christ, my son. It will be given to thee in this darkness.”
Both of Thore’s hands closed over Father Tuathal’s. The sick man leaned over on his couch and said anxiously:
“I must tell thee before I die, and thou canst tell the people if so thou wilt. I slew him—thy friend—the Christian priest King Olaf loved. I hated the priests. I did think the Christians had brought me bad luck. He caught me one night in the king’s tent, when I would have put my knife into Olaf’s heart, but he stopped me. He never told the king, and when he was dying, slain by my hand, he bade me fly before I was taken. None saw me slay him but the little Irish maid, she that is now Lord Thorgills’ wife, and I did see him seal her lips with the sign of the cross that she should never speak of the manner of his death.”
“Poor little Maidoch!” thought Father Tuathal, “Now I marvel not that Thorgills said she feared Thore so greatly.”
“And no one ever knew,” Thore went on, “for she kept her lips shut in silence. She hath been true to her promise.”
“She is of my land,” said Father Tuathal.
“Now thou canst tell the people of my great sin, and thou canst tell the Lady Maidoch that I have confessed it to thee.”
“Nay,” said the priest, “the people will not judge thee now. Thou art going to a just and merciful Judge. As to the Lady Maidoch, of a surety, I will not speak of thy crime to her, for it might seem as if I would unlock the lips so sacredly sealed by the dead. Now think thou of God’s great mercy to thee, and if thou wilt accept the Christ, I will on the morrow pour upon thee the waters of baptism. Then thou canst take all the burden of thy sins to the mercy of thy Saviour.”
For days Father Tuathal attended Thore, instructing and encouraging the dying man. He was with him until the last breath. When the funeral rites were over and Thore laid at rest, Father Tuathal returned to his home. All the horror and repulsion of the dead man had passed away in the peace that followed the priest’s self-conquest.
“O my beloved!” he murmured, remembering his martyred companion, “even from thy grave thou hast called this poor wandering soul out of the darkness into the light of Christ.”