honoured by the presence of royalty, and had been the theatre of such
important events, stood desolate and deserted on the morning of the
following new year. The gate was shut, and the floating bridge removed.
The sentinel was no longer on guard on the battlement over the gate;
within, no sounds of gaiety and occupancy were heard; without the
southern rampart and the narrowest part of the lake which insulated the
site of the castle stood a gallows, at the end of what was called the
king's garden, where the roads met from Esrom and Gilleleie. On the
gallows hung a lifeless corpse in a short sheep-skin coat, and with a
pair of shaggy boots on the legs. A pair of ravens flapped their wings
over the sinner's head, and around the stiff frozen body fluttered a
flock of screaming crows.
The aged Jeppe, the fisherman from Gilleleie, who on fast days was
accustomed to bring fish to Esrom, and to the kitchen of Sjoeborg, was
returning at day-break from the ferry, opposite the closed castle gate,
with his flat fish basket at his back, and stood almost under the
gallows ere he was aware of it. His servant, a young fisherman,
followed him also with a basket at his back.
"It was true then, after all," said the old man; "they have made quick
work of it here. The bird hath flown, and the cage stands empty. Our
young king hath been wroth in earnest--by my troth, he does nothing by
halves. We may now carry our cod to Elsinore. But what the devil ails
the birds to-day?"
"Look, look, master!" shouted the lad; "there he hangs."
"Our Lady preserve us!" exclaimed Jeppe, and stopped. "Ay, there he
hangs, indeed, in his old sheep's skin, and in the boots I brought him
from Skanor fair, those he squeezed out of me for the freight and the
sixteen marks. Why, the soles are whole as yet! I told him not to wear
them out with his courtier-like scrapings. Faugh! he looks ugly in the
face. 'Tis no wholesome sight on a fasting stomach. Let's take a sup,
Ole." He took a little wooden flask out of the basket, drank, and
reached the flask to the lad, while they gazed with mingled curiosity
and dread on the corpse.
"By our Lady! a foul human carcass is truly soon provided for," resumed
the old man, clearing his throat after the strong drink, while he
crossed himself, and put up the flask. "Well, I say now what I said
before; paid as deserved. He who deals against law shall be dealt with
without law. One should otherwise, it is true, speak well of the dead;
and this I _must_ say, Jesper Mogensen was in some sort a pious man; he
neglected neither mattins nor mass; he went to confession every other
day. That we none of us do. But the crow is never the whiter, let her
wash herself ever so often, and I would not have given a rotten
herring's head for all his piety. What said I the other day to boatman
Soren? 'Mark,' said I, 'that craft will one day run aground under the
gallows.' That one could see with half an eye. We will pray an honest
prayer for his soul, however, Ole, although he _hath_ haggled many a
shining piece from us, and cheated the king out of more pecks of silver
pieces than the ravens have now left hairs on his sinful head. Would it
might fare somewhat better with him where he now is than it fared with
his prisoner at Sjoeborg! _Much_ better it were a shame to ask, for a
pitiless master he ever was, and graceless rulers are shut out from the
Lord."
"True, master," answered the young fisherman; "but might one not almost
say the same of our young king himself, to say so with all reverence
and respect?"
"Of the king? Art thou mad, Ole?" exclaimed the old man, with warmth;
"art thou clean devil-blinded and possessed? Is that the Christianity
thou learn'st in the monastery? Thou art a pretty fellow, truly!"
"Be not wroth, master!" answered the lad; "but truth is truth,
nevertheless, whether it be sour or sweet, or whether it tweak the nose
of high or low, says Pater Gregor, and we Danes are a free folk who
dare to speak out in council[14], whether it be against great or small;
that you know as well as I, master. The king, by my troth, is not the
man to put mercy before justice where the outlaws or their kindred and
friends are concerned. Now, there, are Marsk Stig's pretty daughters;
he has pent them up in the maiden's tower at Vordingborg, only because
their father was an outlawed man; that's not very merciful. Then
there's the bishop they have so long plagued and tortured; that's a bad
business, says Pater Gregor. Whether or not he was leagued with the
outlaws or the Slesvig Duke no one knows or can prove; but, however
that may be, he was a mighty man of God, whom none but the Lord and the
pope could condemn, says Pater Gregor."
"Ay, indeed! He talks too much, that Pater Gregor," muttered the old
man, seating himself thoughtfully on his fish basket. "Those pious sirs
of the cloister may say what they will; but this I know, that a more
just-dealing king we have never had in Denmark. As to his stringing up
that fellow----"
"It was a good deed, master, that I will never deny," interrupted
the lad. "If the steward did not exactly help the bishop on his
road,--which, no doubt, was what he was hung for,--he still richly
deserved the halter for many other things. The king did him no wrong;
but that poor turnkey Mads, and his nephew, I am sorry for them. They
are pent up, under bolt and bar, at Flynderborg, only because the ale
was a little too strong for them that night-watch in the tower. He who
helped the bishop but," he added, with a rather sinister roll of the
eye, "was surely none other than that gallows bird, Morten the cook. It
was both boldly and piously done, says Pater Gregor, and therefore
doubtless hath holy St. Martin saved his life, and helped him out of
the country; but he is an outlawed man not the less for that, and if
the Devil hath not an eye on his soul I am no honest Dane."
"Hark, Ole!" resumed the old man, in a stern voice, and rising from his
seat; "take care what thy beardless mouth utters, especially when thou
speak'st of the Devil, or of our Lord, or of the king! Touching Morten
the cook, I have also a word to say to thee; but first, of the king.
'Tis a bad hand that will not protect its head, they say; the king is
the people's head, see'st thou, and when the head aches all the limbs
ache also; that hath every true Danish man in our time learnt soon
enough. Our young King Eric hath gone through much trouble, from the
time he was no higher than my knee, but our Lord hath been with him
till this hour, and preserved both his soul and his body, despite
archbishop, and pope, and clergy. We are a free folk, 'tis true; each
man may speak out the truth boldly and freely, whether it be against
high or low; but he who speaks an ill word of the king shall account
for it to me, as surely as I have a tongue in my mouth and fists to my
oar. Thou art a greenhorn, Ole; thou knowest but little of what passed
in the country while thou wert in thy swaddling clothes. Had the
outlaws murdered thy father when thou wert riding thy stick thou
would'st hardly have taken them to thy arms when ye rode with a troop
of horse."
"There, by my troth, you are right, master!" answered the youth,
eagerly. "Life for life! I would say, and strike off their heads
wherever I met them; it were an honest deed and righteous wrath. But,
nevertheless, 'Vengeance is our Lord's,' and a king should be somewhat
cooler headed and wiser than any of us; he should rather suffer
injustice than put state and country in peril, by standing up so
stiffly for his right."
"Old woman's chatter," interrupted Jeppe; "would the egg teach the hen?
Justice shall stand, though all the earth should perish. Thus should a
king think. He should not bear the sword in vain."
"But, dear master! there is Pater Gregor, and all the pious monks at
Esrom, and many wise men in our town, they all of them think the king
pushes his zeal and obstinacy too far, and only brings himself and the
whole country into trouble; for this he hath now fallen under the
archbishop's ban; yet he still will kick against the pricks, and goes
just the same to mattins and mass as heretofore."
"That defiance and ungodliness our Lord will pardon him, I think," said
the old man, with a nod of the head; "there is, besides, surely no
bishop in the country who would shut the church door against him
because Master Grand hath excommunicated him at Sjoeborg. When that
quarrelsome lord was laid by the heels, folks said directly that all
churches were to be shut in the country; but, look you, _was_ it so? If
ten commands to shut them were sent from the pope in Rome, may I be a
flounder if he would be obeyed. But now the archbishop is free, so
there is no great need for it. At any rate we have seen before that a
Danish king may be under a ban, and yet bear sceptre and crown to his
dying day."
"Things may go wrong enough yet, master," answered the lad. "Without
the pope's permit he can never wed, and he may have long to wait for it
while he deals in this fashion by every canon and priest who sided with
the archbishop. There is the rich Hans Rodis in Copenhagen; he hath
lost all he owned because he sent a file and tools to the archbishop in
the tower. Master Peter in Lund hath not fared a hair better, and all
the archbishop's church property is seized. The like of such
presumption hath never been heard of in Christendom before, says Pater
Gregor."
"In this matter the king will follow the advice of his best
counsellors, and neither thine nor Pater Gregory's," muttered the old
man. "He and the state council must answer for what hath been done.
Folk have tried him rather too much, and there are bounds to every
thing, even to piety and patience. 'Beware of a brawl!' said my
departed father, God rest his soul! 'but if thou meddlest in one, carry
it through like a man.' It avails but little to cast butter against
stones. No; hard against hard."
"By your leave, master, so said the Devil, when he leant his back
against a thorn bush," interrupted the young fisherman, smiling; "but
it is said he repented it when he found what it did for him. I also
have heard a wise old saying at times: 'If thou canst not step over,
then creep under,' said my aunt to me. Had our king learnt that wisdom
of the proud Drost Hessel, who taught him to flourish lance and spear,
it would have been better for state and country, says----"
"Pshaw!" interrupted the old man, placing his basket again on his back;
"such wisdom may do well enough for thee, and thy aunt, and Pater
Gregor, who speak out all ye think; but what is fitting for rats and
mice would ill beseem the falcon and eagle. Humility is precious as
gold; but where a king would pass he should sooner burst the gate open
than creep under it through the mire." So saying, he cast another
glance at the solemn witness of the king's stern and speedy execution
of justice, and then, silent and thoughtful, strode forward on the road
to Gilleleie.
"But, since you side with the king in every thing, master," asked the
youth, "how can you then defend mad Morten the cook, or think he will
'scape the gallows? He hath ever sided with the outlaws. That he helped
the bishop out of Sjoeborg you know as well as any of us. I saw he was
with you on Christmas eve, ere he put out to sea again in that black
pilgrim ship."
"If thou would'st keep in a whole skin, jackanapes, let that be between
us two," exclaimed the old man, in wrath, turning menacingly towards
him. "However Morten may have sinned, he now doth penance for it; he
who puts out to open sea at Christmas, to serve his Lord and Saviour,
is no bad Christian, according to my notion, and therefore no traitor
to his country."
"But every one knows----"
"Gossip! we know enough! What Morten hath to do either with the bishop
or the outlaws concerns not thee or me; but this I know for certain,
since he hath seen our young king himself, and taken money at his hand,
he hath been true as steel to him in his heart. That Master Grand got
loose was perhaps a God's providence," he added. "In this matter I even
think myself our brave king hath set rather too boldly to work. If
Morten hath had a finger in the game it may cost him dear; but that he
neither meant ill to country or king I will stake my neck upon."
"A juggler and a godless churl he is, nevertheless; and an outlawed
vagabond and sure gallows bird to boot, if he sets foot again on Danish
ground," said the young fisherman, eagerly. "'Tis both sin and shame,
master! that your young pretty Karen will weep her blue eyes red for
his sake."
"Ha, indeed! hath that come out?" said the old man; "thou would'st
rather, I warrant, she should weep them red for thy sake, if weep she
must. Drive these fancies out of thine head, Ole! If Morten come back
ere St. Hans day, as he promised Karen and me, and can give account of
himself, thou shalt have leave to dance at his wedding; but if ye would
speak ill of him to me or to Karen, thou may'st pack up and pack off.
Now thou knowest my manner of thinking." So saying, the old man marched
forward with rapid strides. The youth followed him, crest-fallen and in
silence, till they drew near the shore, where Jeppe unmoored a fishing
boat for the purpose of sailing up the coast with the fish he could no
longer dispose of at Sjoeborg.
"You must not suppose I would speak ill of Morten," resumed the young
fisherman, as he set down the basket in the boat, and stepped over the
gunwale after his master. "'Twould be of no use either; you and Karen
are now so bewitched by that gallows bird. I must own myself he is a
comely, sharp-witted jolly fellow, although he begins to get somewhat
into years; indeed, as for that matter he might almost be her father.
If he helped the bishop to flee out of piety and Christian charity, he
hath perhaps done a good deed, but folk will hardly say it was for the
Lord's sake. Your pretty little Karen would be better mated with a
young fellow than with an outlawed and almost aged vagabond, and--"
"Thou beardless greenhorn! what is thy head running upon?" exclaimed
the old man angrily, and stamping as he spoke. "Think'st thou it needs
but a smooth chin, and a milk-sop look, to cut out an honest fellow
with my daughter? Out of sight out of mind, say many young folk
now-a-days; but that shall none say of me and _my_ daughter. If I hear
a word more of this matter from thy mouth, Ole! it shall be the last we
exchange together. But what devil is this?" he exclaimed, in surprise,
as he perceived there were three in the boat; "whence came that
fellow?"
"Will you carry a passenger across to Skanor, for fair words and fair
recompense, good people?" asked a tall man, suddenly rising from under
one of the rowing benches, where he appeared to have concealed himself
under the sail. He wore a dirty peasant's cloak, but it fitted ill, and
a knight's shoulder scarf peeped from under it, together with the
richly gilded hilt of a sword. He seemed to strive in vain to conceal a
large scar on his forehead under the goat's-skin cap; his pale and
frigid countenance, and furtive glances from under his rusty-coloured
meeting eyebrows, inspired a feeling of distrust; he spoke Danish, but
with something of a Norwegian pronunciation, which, however, seemed not
to be natural to him, but assumed for the occasion.
"What have _you_ to do here in my boat?" growled forth Jeppe, measuring
the intruder with a bold look. "If you would cross to Skanoer, why go ye
not to the ferry?"
"The king hath stopped the ferries on account of the archbishop,"
answered the stranger. "Every man knows Grand hath escaped hence by
sea, and yet the stupid dullards hunt after him here, both by day and
night. Not a cat can leave the country, and there is now hardly a wood
or morass left where a friend of the pious archbishop may hide himself.
I see you take me for a deserter. It avails not to withhold the truth
from you. I am a persecuted man; save my life, and bring me to a sea
port from whence I may escape; I will richly repay you for it."
"Well!" said the old man, and his stern look relaxed. "No doubt an
honest man may get into trouble, as hath chanced ere now; _he_ is often
forced to quit the country in disguise who afterwards can return with
honour. The wind is fair, my yawl will weather the trip bravely; but I
must first know who you are, and wherefore you are outlawed?"
"Outlawed!" repeated the stranger, with a start; "who says I am
outlawed, with law and justice, because I fly from lawlessness and
shameful injustice? I am a kinsman of the great Archbishop Grand, whom
they have here so shamefully and unjustly maltreated. If I would not
expose myself to the same tyrannical treatment, from which our Lord and
pious men have freed him, I am now forced to seek safety by flight."
"But your name?" resumed the fisherman, as he suddenly placed the oar
against a stone, and pushed the boat out to sea, with such force that
both the stranger and the astonished young fisherman tumbled over the
bench. "You will not call yourself outlawed, then?" he continued
calmly, while the stranger stood up, and cast an anxious look on the
wide space between the boat and the shore. "I should incline to think
ye were so, nevertheless. Are ye not called, because of a little
mistake, Squire Kagge with the scar? Were ye one of those who slew the
king's father in Finnerup barn? and if it be you who lately sought to
take the king's life, I should be a rascal if I stirred a hand to bring
you to any other free port than the gallows."
The stranger's countenance had become fearfully distorted; he thrust
his hand as if convulsively under his cloak, and drew forth a long
glittering knight's sword. "You must either set me instantly on shore
here, or bring me to Skanoer harbour; no matter who the devil I may be,"
he cried. "The squire whom Denmark's greatest man dubbed a knight lets
himself not be carried to market with cod and flounders by a vile
fisherman."
"Big words and fat flesh stick not in the throat," answered Jeppe,
quietly brandishing the heavy iron-tagged oar like a lance over his
head. "Here I stand on my own ground, and here I am master. Cast your
dyrendal[15] from you, Sir Malapert! or you shall feel one upon your
skull which will make you forget the stroke of knighthood you got from
the greatest man. If that man be Stig Anderson,"--he added, "you need
not mention your fair name or your fair deed--for in that case you were
as certainly with Marsk Stig and the grey friars in Finnerup barn as
you are now with Jeppe the fisherman on the road to judgment and the
gallows."
"We shall see," shouted the stranger, like a madman, and rushed on him
with his drawn sword, but at the same moment he fell back senseless in
the boat, while the hat flew from his head before a stroke of Jeppe's
iron-tagged oar.
"Take the dyrendal from him, and bind him, Ole, while I loose the
sails," said the old fisherman calmly, as he threw down the oar, and
began to unfurl the sails. "That blow he dies not of. If the king will
give him his life, that's _his_ affair; but none shall say that old
Jeppe the fisherman sided with such like outlaws, and let a regicide
slip whole skinned from Gilleleie."
The young fisherman obeyed his master. The sails were soon unfurled,
and the fishing yawl sailed swiftly along the coast.
Jeppe was not mistaken. His captive was the renowned Aage Kagge who had
been outlawed with all those who had taken a personal share in the
murder of Eric Glipping. He had entered the service of the King of
Norway, but had ventured to Denmark to bring Marsk Stig's daughters
from thence; and also, as it appeared, with other less peaceable
intentions. That he had been a party to the murderous attack of the
crazed Jutlander upon the king the Drost's huntsmen had borne witness,
and there seemed also every probability that it was he who had
attempted the assassination of Drost Aage, as he was riding with Marsk
Stig's daughters into the gate of Vordingborg castle. Every burgomaster
and all commandants of castles throughout the country had received
orders to trace and to seize him, wherever he was found. As an outlaw,
besides, every one who met and knew him was empowered to slay him on
the spot. Although in general he, like all those outlawed regicides,
was held in great detestation, there was still one heart which throbbed
for him with love and sympathy,--the wayward, restless heart of the
captive Lady Ulrica.
CHAP. IX.
On the same new year's day on which the outlawed knight was captured,
Marsk Stig's youngest daughter slumbered, evidently disturbed by
agitating dreams, in the tower called the Maiden's Tower, in
Vordingborg castle, while her sister rose ready dressed from the
prie-dieu, and listened with folded hands to the sound of mattins from
the chapel of the castle. A faint ray of daylight fell on them through
the tower window. "Help! help!" shrieked Ulrica, starting up; "sleepest
thou, Margaretha? Oh, it was fearful! Yet it was, after all, but a
foolish dream."
"What ails thee, dear sister?" asked the placid Margaretha, taking her
sister lovingly by the hand; "thou must surely have dreamt again of
that unhappy knight, Kagge?"
"Thou mightest be rather more courteous, sister. So _very_ unhappy he
cannot be, when _I_ am dreaming of him. Did I but know he was safe!"
"Pray to the Lord and our Lady that his grim image may be effaced from
thy soul!" continued Margaretha; "he can never come to a good end. All
the greatness and splendour he hath promised thee are but empty castles
in the air, with nought of truth in them."
"Truth here, and truth there, sister! What you call our castles in the
air are nevertheless far better than this much too real prison; and how
can'st thou call Sir Kagge grim? I think his bold, wolf-like eye-brows
are perfectly lovely. Alas! sweet sister! I dreamed he was in distress
and in peril of his life. He stood in chains before me, and bade me
entreat the king for his life."
"He is assuredly thy bad angel, Ulrica!" answered Margaretha; "it is
his fault that we are now here. Would thou hadst never believed his
flatteries and false tongue, he loves no one in the world save
himself."
"How can'st thou say so, sister? Did'st thou not hear thyself how
solemnly he swore to free us, or lose his life?"
"But when it was time to keep his word, like a true and manly knight,
his own pitiful revenge and his own life were dearer to him than our
peace and freedom," answered Margaretha. "He, in truth, sharpened the
arrow our faithful squire shot from the bow, but ere it flew from the
string he took himself off, and abandoned us to our fate."
"But he followed us, though, at peril of his life, close to the castle
gate, and had not the Drost been dearer to thee than both I and thyself
we should not now have been here."
"If our freedom could only be gained by treachery and assassination, it
were better we stayed here captive all our life-time," answered
Margaretha. "Had the noble Drost Aage been as much our enemy as he
showed himself to be our friend--I would not even then have left him in
that condition to bleed to death, without help and care. I would rather
remain in prison until my dying day than flee with a cowardly assassin,
and be suspected by the noble Drost of having had the least part or lot
in such crime."
"Thou art really much too conscientious, sister Margaretha! In
comparison with me, thou art half an angel, it is true; but confess to
me now, it was surely not _purely_ for the Lord's sake you stayed and
behaved so generously to the Drost. He is a very handsome young knight,
although he cannot be compared to Sir Kagge, and I have seen plainly
enough how tenderly and lovingly your eyes meet each time you bind up
his wounds--thou art really making him greatly beholden to thee."
"Be not malicious, dear Ulrica," answered Margaretha, blushing crimson;
"what harm is there in my tending him with unfeigned good will?"