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KING ERIC

AND

THE OUTLAWS.

VOL. III.

London: Printed by A. Spottiswoode, New-Street-Square.

KING ERIC

AND

THE OUTLAWS;

OR,

THE THRONE, THE CHURCH, AND THE PEOPLE,

IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

BY

INGEMANN

TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH BY

JANE FRANCES CHAPMAN.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS,

PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1843.

CHAPTER I.

As soon as they reached the quay, Sir Helmer put his head out of the hatchway, and beheld a man jump on shore in great haste from the forecastle. Helmer had only seen his back; he was clad like a German grocer's apprentice; but he felt pretty certain it was the outlawed Kaggé. The mantle of the order of the Holy Ghost lay under the foremost rowing bench. With his drawn sword in his hand. Sir Helmer now sprang upon deck, together with the Drost's squire, whose left hand was wrapped in his mantle. Their attire was somewhat rent and blood-stained, yet they appeared to have found time to bind up each other's wounds, and even to arrange their dress. Without saying a word, they passed the armed crew of the vessel, with a salutation of defiance to Henrik Gullandsfar, and a jeering smile at the heavy and wrathful Rostocker, whose broad visage glowed with anger. Helmer and the squire sheathed their swords on the quay, and those who saw them come up from thence, without noticing the spots of blood upon their clothes, took them for fellow-travellers, who, in all peacefulness, had arrived in the Rostock vessel.

"The 'prentice! mark him, Canute!" whispered Sir Helmer to the squire as they both left the quay with hasty steps, and looked around them on all sides. "What hath become of him? There!--no--that is another--ha, there!--no, another again!"

At every turn they fancied they saw the disguised outlaw, but were frequently deceived by a similar dress and figure. The German grocer's apprentices thronged in busy crowds on the quay, and near the vessels in the haven, where they were in constant occupation, and had a number of porters at work.

These foreign mercantile agents were usually elderly single men, most frequently with sour, unpleasant countenances, and maintaining much spruce neatness in their dress, and preciseness in their deportment. As pepper was the chief article sold in their grocers' booths, they were usually called pepper 'prentices[^[1]], not without a design to jeer at their peevishness and irritability. They made themselves conspicuous by large silver buttons on their long-skirted coats of German cloth; a woollen cap from Garderige[^[2]], and a long Spanish gold-headed cane, which served them at the same time for an ell measure, formed part of their finery; and they were so remarkable for the sameness of their appearance and deportment, the effect of their living apart from others, and pursuing a uniform occupation, that they were often exposed to the jibes and jeers of the people, especially on account of their celibacy, which was enjoined them by their Hanseatic masters, and was a necessary consequence of their position as traders in a foreign city, where they were not privileged to become residents with families.

Sir Helmer stared attentively at every German grocer's apprentice he met, and became at last so wroth at his frequent mistakes that he was ready to insult those personages, who in their busy vocation frequently jostled him in the crowd, "Those accursed pepper-'prentices, they drive me mad!" he exclaimed at length, and stamped on the ground. "I will break the neck of the first that brushes against my arm!"

"That is just and reasonable, noble Sir," said the squire; "my fingers itch every time I see such a fellow. If they will be monks, they should not be running here and staring every maiden in the face in broad day light. They are as soon enamoured as any shaven crown--I had well nigh said--St. Antony forgive me my wicked thought! Look! here we have one again I saw ye how he twisted his eyes in his head to goggle at that pretty kitchen maid with the cabbage basket? Shall I buffet him down to the Catsound, noble Sir?"

"No, surely not, crack-brains!" answered Sir Helmer, sharply; "let us behave reasonably. Do thou stay here in the ale-house near the haven, and keep an eye on the outlaw, that he slinks not back to the vessel; if there is law and justice in the town, he 'scapes us not. Thou dost surely know him well?"

"Yes, assuredly! Kaggé with the scar; him from whom they scalded off his knightly honour on the scaffold. I should know him among a thousand scoundrels, and his black horse to boot. 'Tis a sin such a handsome beast----"

"Perhaps it was a God's Providence we came here against our will," interrupted Helmer. "The red hat from Rome wants to negotiate a treaty here betwixt the king and the run-away bishop from Hammershuus; they are now at the castle, and have got the little bishop Johan in their clutches. It will doubtless end in nothing; but comes the king hither where the Roskild bishop rules, he may chance to need both our eyes and our swords. But, what in all the world is the matter here? Look, how the people flock together!"

Sir Helmer now, for the first time, remarked a singular stir and disturbance among the inhabitants of the town; there were far greater numbers of persons in the street than were usually to be seen in the most populous towns. He went onward, still looking around in search of the outlawed fugitive; he now heard loud talk among the burghers and mechanics who passed him, and expressions of wild wrath against the Lord Bishop Johan and his ecclesiastical guests at Axelhuus. The people assembled in groups in the streets, and only dispersed, grumbling and murmuring on the appearance of a troop of men-at-arms. "The provost's people! The bishop's men!" they muttered one to another, by way of warning. "Aside! make way, comrades! as yet it is not time. Down to the old strand!"

"What means this?" said Helmer to the squire, who still followed him on the quay, alongside the ships in the harbour, staring around with surprise and curiosity. "It looks like sedition and mutiny."

"Who are ye who bear arms in the bishop's town? Know ye not the rights and town-law of Copenhagen?" said a powerful voice behind them. They turned round and saw a man who from his attire seemed to be a burgher, but who wore a kind of herald's mantle over his long coat, and held a white staff in his hand, on which were painted the arms of the Bishop of Roskild. He was accompanied by a crowd of the bishop's retainers.

"I am the king's knight and halberdier, as you see well enough," answered Helmer. "What hath your bishop and his town-law to do with me?"

"Ho! ho, my bold sir!--stick your finger in the ground, and smell where ye are! You surely come from worldly towns and castles where neither order nor discipline are kept. What's your name, Sir Halberdier?"

"Helmer Blaa," answered the knight, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword. "You have perhaps heard that name before?--or shall I teach you to know it?"

"By your favour, noble sir!" answered the herald in a lowered tone, and looking at him with surprise; "are you the renowned knight, Helmer, who beat all the six brothers at once, and of whom the whole town sings the ballad--

"He rides in the saddle so free."

"That I will never deny," answered Helmer, with a nod of satisfaction; "he that made that ballad about me hath not lied. I will not pride myself on that account," he added, "it concerned but my own life and fortune. You brave Copenhageners have won full as much honour in Marsk Stig's feud, and we shall soon come to an understanding I think."

"I think so too, by my troth, Sir Helmer," said the burgher herald with cheerfulness, frankly giving him his hand at the same time. "I would just as little insult you as your master, our excellent young king. As free as you ride in the saddle by his side, so frank and free for aught I would hinder it, may you walk here; but the service is strict at this time. Here's mutiny as you see against our lord, the bishop. I must in the council's name summon every man bearing arms to the lay court, and to the council in 'Endaboth.' With the king's knights, especially with a man like you, I think, however, the lord bishop would make a difference."

"If the bishop wills to keep his beard, he will doubtless allow the knight to keep his sword," said Helmer. "If he hath appointed you to hinder misdeed and crime then help me rather to seize an outlawed criminal who has been set on shore here from yonder Rostocker. He hath crept into a German pepper-'prentice coat; he seeks after the king's life--he is easy to know, it is Kaggé with the scar. If you catch him dead or alive, I will laud you as a true Danish man, and brave subject of the king."

"That are we all here at heart, noble Sir," answered the herald, lowering his voice, and looking cautiously around him while he made a signal to his armed followers to fall back. "Our loyalty to the king we have, as you say yourself, shewn right honestly in Marsk Stig's feud; the king also hath recompensed us for that; he hath honourably helped us with the fortifications of our good town, and with the new palisade. Every honest man in Copenhagen would rather obey him than the priestly rulers; but if we would speak out aloud of any other master here than the bishop, we must give all our chattels to his treasury, and wander houseless out of the town. Go in peace, Sir Helmer; but hide your sword under your mantle! If I light upon the evil doer ye seek, I shall assuredly seize him and summon him in your name to the council. Where may you be found yourself?"

"Here, in the inn, close to St. Clement's church--you are an honest man I perceive--tell me frankly, countryman! would it avail were I to speak to the provost, or to your bishop touching yon miscreant? He is one of those impudent regicides. I have my eye also on that braggart Rostocker; he brings false coin into the country, and hath threatened the king. What I know further about him I have promised not to speak of--but wherever I meet him--I am his man!"

"You will surely get no justice here on the king's enemies, Sir Knight!" whispered the herald. "If ye will take my advice ye will keep as far off from our bishop and his provost as possible! The king's friends are not exactly theirs, and must not, either, seem to be ours. Had I not a good dame and children, you would hardly have seen me with this staff in hand. If you would catch hold of the pepper 'prentices," he added, shutting one eye, "you must seek them at the dice boards in the ale-house! What may chance there, none need do penance for--but in the harbour and on the quay none dare touch them. On, fellows! The stranger knight hath given account of himself like an honourable man," cried the herald, with a voice of authority, and proceeded onwards with his armed train.

Helmer looked after him, and nodded to the squire. "Brisk fellows, these Copenhageners!" said he. "It is shameful they are forced to be under the bishop's thumb! That counsel about the taverns and draught-boards suits not my humour either. We will seek the foe in the straight path. First, however, let us thank St. George and St. Clement for our deliverance, and then we can with a good conscience despatch the rascals wherever we light on them." He approached St. Clement's church, but found the church door locked, and marked with a large black cross. "What means this?" he exclaimed. "Is there pestilence in God's house?"

"Prohibition, interdict, son! according to the enactment 'cum ecclesiâ Dacianâ,'" answered an old Dominican monk, who was kneeling before a stone crucifix without the closed church door, and now arose slowly. "The sins of the high-born are about to be visited upon those of low degree; our most pious bishop hath no longer dared to withhold the great national punishment which the holy Father hath commanded on account of the presumptuous imprisonment of the archbishop, contrary to the constitution of all holy laws. Virgo amata! ora pro nobis!" he muttered, and folded his hands.

"The devil take those Latin laws, with reverence be it spoken, venerable father!" answered the knight. "The archbishop is at liberty; and is it now the time to punish a nation and country for that old sin of the king's, if it really was a sin?"

"Assuredly it was a heavy sin and injustice," answered the monk; "but the chastisement is too hard--that is the truth--and it falls on the souls of the innocent--the people are only made ungodly and uproarious by it; as we have proofs daily. If the king is not come hither to bethink himself, and do penance, the prospect may be a drear one for us all."

"Is he come?" asked Helmer hastily.

"Not here to the town--but to the royal castle at Sorretslóv; his plenipotentiaries are already at Axelhuus. Alas! yes! it is high time he should give in, ere the interdict drives the whole nation to rebellion and destruction.--Ora pro nobis!" he muttered again, and turned towards the crucifix.

"Believe ye he hath come hither to humble himself, and crouch at the bishop's feet? venerable father?" answered the knight; "then you will find your belief to fail you in this matter, as I observe this tumult concerns not the king, but your own little bishop and his overbearing guests. Against this stupid church-shutting, a remedy will surely be found at home. The nation is pitiful indeed which would let itself be shut out from God's house while there are sturdy axes and iron crows in the country."

"Alas, ye children of the world! ye worldly lords! ye will ever forward with might and violence,--ye would at last storm heaven's gates if ye were able," groaned the monk; "from the great and mighty doth all that defiance and scandal proceed; and the poor, deluded people! they listen but too willingly to such wild and ungodly counsel. Look! yonder comes another flock of erring sheep, who have turned into wolves! There they come, with spears and staves, like those who followed Judas, that child of wrath. Hear how they bluster and storm. God be merciful! They are surely rushing hither; they will assuredly open the church by force."

The dismayed Dominican was preparing to fly, but the insurgents placed themselves in his way. "Tarry a little, pious father!" shouted the ringleader of the troop, a tall carpenter, with a large axe in his hand. "Thou shalt read us the Holy Scripture before St. Clement's altar; we have heard neither vespers nor mass for three days. Force the church door, comrades!"

"Are ye distraught?" cried the monk; "will ye do violence to the house of God!"

"No chattering! Force the door, countrymen!" shouted the leader. "Neither St. Peter nor our Lady have taken it amiss of us. Mass goes on cheerily in all the churches. We will hear our vespers at St. Nicholas. Well done my lads! Look! now is the interdict ended! The church door gave way before the ponderous strokes; the insurgents poured into the church with a wild shout of victory, dragging the Dominican along with them.

"That will be but a disturbed worship, noble sir," said the squire; "we had better reserve our piety for another time. Look, yonder comes a fresh troop! Nay, look! They have balista and cross-bows with them; they will now surely assault Axelhuus."

"That hits my fancy!" exclaimed Sir Helmer, joyfully. "This prelatical tyranny should not be tolerated by any Danish man. I come at the right time; there may be something to take a hand in here. If they will besiege the bishop's nest, I Will teach them at least to do it briskly. Stay thou on the quay, and watch the pepper 'prentices, Canute! I must set the honest burghers a little to rights with the balista." So saying Sir Helmer hastened with rapid strides down to the old strand, where the restless crowds of insurgents flocked together in wild tumult.

CHAP. II.

The inmates of Axelhuus appeared to feel sufficiently secure to despise these disturbances which had commenced, though in a less degree, some days before.

The bishop's well-fortified castle was situated on an island, the ferry-boats that usually plied there lay, during these commotions, in the harbour, under the high walls of the castle, by which means all communication between the town and the castle Island was cut off. The distance from the town, however, was not so great, but that Axelhuus might be reached from the strand by arrows, and especially by balista, when these dangerous engines of war were worked with proper skill. In the upper hall at Axelhuus, sat the spiritual and temporal ruler of the town, the little authoritative bishop Johan of Roskild, in solemn council, between his guests Archbishop Grand and Cardinal Isarnus. At the archbishop's right hand sat his faithful friend, the haughty abbot from the forest monastery. Grand's agent, the canon Nicholas from Roskild, was also present, as well as the canon Hans Rodis, who had assisted his flight from Sjöberg. At the great hall table sat also the cardinal's famulus and his secretary, with two Italian ecclesiastics belonging to his train. For the convenience of the foreign cardinal, the conversation was chiefly carried on in Latin. The lord of the castle, the little bishop Johan, seemed to have assumed a determined and authoritative deportment in imitation of the archbishop, by whose side, however, he appeared wholly insignificant, although he now acted as the protector both of the powerful Grand, and of the cardinal. He now and then cast an observant glance out of the window towards the town and the increasing crowd on the strand, yet without betraying fear or uneasiness. Archbishop Grand had not yet overcome the consequences of his severe imprisonment. He rested his swollen feet on a soft stuffed foot-stool. There was a look of gloomy asperity on his pale, emaciated countenance. Every movement appeared to cost him an effort, while all his vital energy seemed as if concentrated in his large flashing eye. He sat lost in reverie, gazing before him in silence, while the cardinal, with a lurking smile in his small crafty eye, perused a document which his secretary had just drawn up.

"Trust him not, venerable brother," whispered the abbot from the forest monastery in the archbishop's ear; "he secretly sides with the king: I know it; he aims at your archbishopric."

Grand changed colour and clenched his hands convulsively, but was silent, and cast a searching look at the papal nuncio.

"In the name and on the behalf of the holy father!" commenced the cardinal, in Latin, ridding himself of the red cap which covered his tonsure; "ere the royal ambassadors come into our presence, I once more counsel my aggrieved brother to submission and a wise resignation. In this treaty which I have here caused to be cursorily drawn up, and the contents of which you already know Archbishop Grand! I have at your own request, according to the strict principles of ecclesiastical law, enjoined the King of Denmark to make such a considerable compensation for towns, villages, castles, and temporal offices, that I see beforehand he will reject the negociation."

"I now reject it also, even on these conditions," answered the Archbishop impetuously, "That in which King Eric hath sinned against me and my holy office, he can never fully atone for, even with the loss of his--crown!"

"You surely would not, however, strain the bow still tighter, venerable brother! and at last insist on your king being punished by loss of honour, life, and possessions, like a criminal by temporal justice?" asked the cardinal, with a crafty smile on his unruffled countenance, "in the matter of soul and salvation, you have dealt as hardly with him as possible. Forget not, my venerable brother! That your opponent is a crowned and anointed monarch, at the head of a brave and loyal people, and with many mighty princes for his friends! Every spiritual decree to which a temporal potentate will not voluntarily submit out of christian piety and humility, will be ineffectual, and become the scoff of the children of this world, especially here in the north, where even the holy lightnings, as I perceive, fall somewhat cooled and weakened. The king's charges against my venerable brother in Christ are, besides, very grave and heavy, and," added the Cardinal with a thoughtful look, "if the royal advocate in Rome can but prove the half of what is alleged, you will assuredly act most wisely in lowering your demands somewhat, and will even desire yourself that the whole unhappy affair should be hushed up. This, at all events, is my brotherly counsel, and if you could master yourself so far as to follow it, an honourable treaty will doubtless be possible. It is my heartfelt wish, as well for your peace as that of the church, and to prevent all scandal and dissension for the future--that you, with consent of the holy father, should exchange the archbishopric of Lund for another (perhaps of more importance, and more worthy of your merits) without these northern lands, where your personal misunderstanding with temporal authorities will hardly ever be wholly removed. I say this with kindly concern for my excellent brother's peace and safety. Even at this moment we are both, in some sort, in the power of the temporal ruler, of whose impetuosity you have had such sensible proofs."

"Ay indeed, your eminence!" exclaimed Grand in the greatest exasperation, as he kicked the footstool from him, and rose, "Speak ye now to me in this tone? Was it for this you summoned me from my secure Hammershuus, and bade me trust to the passport of my deadly foe? You think, perhaps, to have trapped me into a snare I cannot escape from! You imagine, perhaps, that my pious colleague, our mutual and venerable host, who here sways town and castle, will, out of base and cowardly fear, betray his friend and guest, and lawful archbishop, to flatter the temporal tyrant, who already, as I perceive, hath rendered a papal nuncio his spiritual slave? No, lord Cardinal! In that case, you know neither me, nor the meritorious servant of the Lord here, at our side. If he hath already for my sake, and that of the church, with courageous energy exposed himself to the tyrant's wrath, and even to tumult and sedition in his own town, he will surely not now stoop to degrade himself by an act of treachery which would brand him as a dastardly traitor. My safety and freedom are provided for; any moment I please I can embark, and neither the king nor the seditious burgher-pack shall forbid me to wend free from hence, and seek justice before St. Peter's judgment seat. Here I dare speak out freely that which I deem of you, as well as of that presumptuous and ungodly king. You have not fulfilled your duty here as papal nuncio.--Instead of confirming ban and interdict with the holy Father's authority----"

"That is my own affair, my brother!" interrupted Isarnus, with cool calmness, "Since your own counsellors have enforced the interdict according to the constitution of Veilé no confirmation was needed. We speak now only of the king, and whether you will be reconciled to him and recall the ban."

"No, never! To all eternity!" cried Grand, impetuously; "and I laugh at his accusations: that which I once spoke of his father's murder, and which he now makes the plea for his tyrannical conduct, I dare repeat here, and before the highest judgment seat. If the king's murder was destined to take place, it was unfortunate that it did not take place sixteen years before, then that wretched monarch would have left no posterity behind him, and the descendants of Eric Glipping would never have dishonoured Denmark's throne. Yes! I made that intrepid speech, and I repeat it now; but I deny all share in the tyrant's murder, and all connection with Duke Valdemar and the outlaws. It matters not to me, henceforth, who reigns in Denmark, be it Duke Valdemar or a Jew, a Saracen or a heathen, or--the devil himself, if only King Eric and his wretched brother may never be obeyed here as kings and lieges."

"Will you also defend what you now say, before the highest judgment seat? venerable brother!" asked Isarnus, with unruffled calmness, and with an almost imperceptible smile. "Your bodily weakness is, however, reasonable excuse for your not being always master of your mind and tongue. Now I have heard your declaration, despite the exaggeration of feeling it betrays, it still in some sort agrees, both with the will of the Holy Father and of the king. Your cause immediately depends upon the papal see; nevertheless, let the king's ambassadors appear, my worthy brother!" he said to Bishop Johan, who instantly rose and left the hall.

There was a silence of a few moments. Grand had resumed his seat; he rested his long chin upon his clenched hand, and seemed angry, both at his own vehemence, and the calmness of the cardinal. Shortly afterwards Bishop Johan entered, accompanied by two ecclesiastics. They were the king's ambassadors; the provincial prior of the Dominicans, the venerable Master Olaus, with his handsome snow-white head, and Esger Iuul, the canon of Ribé--a young priest, well versed in law, and of a bold, intelligent countenance. They had been waiting for admission some hours in an antechamber. They now greeted the prelates with reverence, and the cardinal half rose from his seat to return their salutation; but the Archbishop remained seated in gloomy reverie. Bishop Johan requested the king's plenipotentiaries to seat themselves. The provincial prior sat down, but the canon remained standing, and began, "Pardon me, your eminence! and you, most learned lord archbishop! and all ye reverend ecclesiastics! if I am here necessitated to say what displeases you I stand forth here, not as the church's, but as the king's, my temporal master's, servant and spokesman. What he hath ordered me to propound, I must utter, even though I may not dare to attribute to myself the thoughts and opinions which I have taken on myself to expound."

"Speak boldly, brother Canonicus! I have been advised of your authority," interrupted the cardinal, with a gracious nod, and the canon continued, "My lord and king hath three hours ago arrived at his royal castle here in the village of Sorretslóv, without the town of Copenhagen, in order personally to confirm and sign what may be here, with his consent, agreed upon; and, in case of need, with his royal power and authority to hinder the breach of the public peace, with which state and kingdom are threatened by the presence of Bishop Grand, and the enforcement of the interdict. He desires not to see that man in his presence whom he considers as an accomplice in the murder of his royal father of blessed memory, and who hath also dared to pronounce the church's ban on his own royal head; but the peace and safe conduct he hath promised his opponent, he will honourably and chivalrously observe. The King hath expressly enjoined me to declare, that he comes hither in no wise to excuse and defend that, which, compelled by necessity, he hath been forced to enact against canonical law and the constitution of Veilé, by the personal imprisonment of Archbishop Grand. This affair he confidently trusts to justify before the highest tribunal in Christendom; but he comes hither as lord of the land, for the restoration of public peace, and as the accuser of the fugitive archbishop before his eminence the papal nuncio. All reconciliation in this kingdom with this prelate, charged as he is with treason, my liege, the king, decidedly rejects; but he promises him free and safe departure for Rome, whither he hath already expedited his ambassadors, and whence he awaits a righteous sentence upon the accused. Till this sentence is awarded, he demands to be freed from the unlawful ban pronounced upon him by a prisoned traitor. (These are not my words, but the king's.) He demands likewise that the kingdom be freed from the interdict, which the councils of Veilé, Roskild, and Lund, have announced to his loyal and innocent people. Against the right of the councils and bishops therein assisting, to take this step without consent of their chapter and the rest of the clergy, the chapter of the cathedral of Roskild hath solemnly protested--and the provincial prior of the Dominicans, the venerable Master Olaus, is here present in person to confirm the protest."

The aged provincial prior now rose--"In the name of my holy order, and that of the chapter of Roskild cathedral, I declare the conduct of the councils in this matter to be unlawful and invalid," he said in a clear and calm voice, "I consider not the chapters and the Danish clergy to be under the necessity of giving up the performance of divine worship, and I require you, Bishop Johan of Roskild! as speedily as possible to recall the unhappy church interdict, which hath already caused such great disturbance here in the town, where you, yourself, meanwhile, bear rule. If God's service is to cease, Satan's service will soon commence, with all manner of dissoluteness and profligacy; of discord and variance between the shepherd and his flock; spiritual, as well as all temporal peace and security will be at an end, and no priest will be sure of his life. Enthusiasts and sectarians, atheists and Leccar brothers, will inundate the land, and mislead the people; laymen and drunken guild-brethren will preside in the congregation, as they have already begun to do here. Neither the church nor the holy father can desire that we, to maintain the stern and impracticable constitution of Veilé, should overthrow all order and fear of God in Denmark, and suffer the people to fall into barbarism, and into the greatest errors--ay, even into heathenism and devil-worship. In the name of the Danish clergy, I solemnly protest against the interdict; but in thus protesting against it, I consider that I in nowise encroach on the churches freedom, or attack you, most learned archbishop!--or any other spiritual authority. The church but uses its freedom and power in such wise, that we, its servants, should not corrupt and destroy the souls entrusted to us, instead of leading them to the peace of God and eternal salvation! Dixi et liberavi animam. Now act as you can answer to God and your conscience, venerable sirs! but you will be responsible in this world and the next for the consequences! They might prove bloody and terrible."

He hardly finished speaking, ere a shower of stones and arrows struck against the wall with great noise, forced in the windows, and poured into the midst of the hall, among the dismayed ecclesiastics, who started from their seats, and sought safety between the massive window pillars, and behind the thick walls of the hall; the cardinal also quitted his seat, but the archbishop remained seated with an air of defiance.

"Doth he break his promise of safe conduct? the godless king of Belial!" cried Grand. "Shall I and my faithful friends be stoned here like prophets and martyrs, that our blood may cry to Heaven and call down the lightnings of eternal damnation upon his head?"

"I witness before the Lord and our Holy Lady! The king hath no share in this attack," resumed the provincial prior, who remained standing. "When he hears of it, he will assuredly highly disapprove this unlawful and presumptuous breach of peace: but here, venerable sirs! you already see the consequences of the interdict; the whole town is in uproar; the mob was storming against the closed churches of St. Peter and Our Lady, as we were on our way hither, and threatened with fire and sword. If you do not now yield to necessity. Bishop Johan! Axelhuus will be perhaps taken by storm, or laid in ashes ere midnight."

A fresh shower of stones and arrows interrupted the provincial prior's speech; he crossed himself and retreated. A large stone from a balista fell just before the archbishop's face, and split the table. Grand arose, with a look which flashed fire, and quitted his dangerous position.

"Follow me, my guests!" said the little Bishop Johan in a squeaking voice, and hastily opening a door,--"Could we but pass unharmed through the north corridor to the tower, no arrow or balista stone shall reach us. The castle can stand both siege and storm. I will show you that I suffer not myself to be thus mastered by my rebellious flock; but we must hasten--here we are still exposed to the greatest danger." So saying, he himself quitted the hall in great trepidation; all followed him through a long corridor to a more secure retreat. Meanwhile, the attack upon the castle increased in vigour every moment, and the whole northern wing, which looked upon the town, was everywhere exposed to arrows and showers of stones. Some exclaimed that they were wounded--they rushed forward headlong, and jostled each other without ceremony. Care for personal safety had nearly chased away all regard to rank and position and decorum--most of the ecclesiastics ran past the archbishop and the cardinal. The papal nuncio, however, passed hastily and unharmed through the corridor, accompanied by the provincial prior and Esger Iuul. Grand's slow and laboured step was alone supported by the abbot from the forest monastery, whose heavy-built person permitted him not to haste. The long corridor, through the whole length of which they were forced to pass, had, on the one side, open gothic arches over a walled parapet. Here at every moment poured in a number of arrows and stones, which forced the fugitive prelates to pursue their way, stooping, and almost creeping under the parapet.

"God's judgment upon the presumptuous, and upon their traitorous king!" panted forth the archbishop. "It is his creatures who stir up the people. Now he rejoices over our distress, and would make use of it for our humiliation."

"St. Bent and St. Peter assist us! Stoop your head!" cried the heavy Abbot, creeping under the parapet. "Yonder comes another balista stone! Merciful heaven, what a swarm of people!" he continued, looking out cautiously towards the town. "Hear how they bluster! They utter your name, venerable brother, with ungodly oaths; they are busy with boats--they are dragging more balista forward. I see one of the king's halberdiers among them."

"Mark! he is the ring-leader, the faithless despot!" cried the archbishop, "from him comes all our tribulation, and the country's misery! Send forth thy destroying angel, righteous Lord! root out the perjurer! Pluck him up by the roots!"

"This way, venerable sirs! and ye are safe!" said a hollow voice from the end of the corridor, and a tall manly form with a wild pallid countenance, appeared at the door; he was clad like a German pepper 'prentice, and had a large red scar on his forehead.

"My guest of the sanctuary! your persecuted friend and avenger!" whispered the abbot from the forest monastery. "St. Peter and St. Bent be thanked--the All-righteous hath heard your prayer, the destroying angel is come."

The tall form in the door-way laid his finger on his lips, and disappeared with the two prelates, while the door of the corridor closed after them.

CHAP. III.

The attack upon Axelhuus had thrown the whole town into the greatest agitation. Even the most quiet and peaceable burghers could not conceal their satisfaction on the occasion, and many of them took an open share in the insurrection. The wild shouts of exultation which were heard each time a shower of stones poured into the castle, sufficiently showed the general feeling of indignation, not alone against prelatical rule but chiefly against the archbishop, for whose sake, and by whose powerful influence, the exasperating interdict had been enforced. Grand's name was the watchword on the commencement of every fresh attack. The provost, with his armed attendants, vainly strove to restore order and quietness; wherever he appeared with the bishop's men-at-arms, he was instantly driven back by the enraged populace. The report of the king's arrival at Sorretslóv, and the uneasy terms he was on with the inmates of Axelhuus, had given a new and loyal impulse to the insurrection; as the mob now believed that, by their attack on the ecclesiastical dignitaries, they were making common cause with the king, against his and the kingdom's arrogant foes. The provost had ordered all the gates of the town to be locked, but the insurgents had forced them, and a great number of people, among whom were some of the richest and most peaceable inhabitants, hastened out of the north gate of Sorretslóv to see the king and intreat his support. Another crowd flocked to the tower of St. Mary's church, and rang the alarm bell. "Away with the holy wolves at the castle!" was the cry throughout the streets. Without the well-lighted council-house, where the council was assembled, and whither several captive insurgents had been brought, there was a fearful uproar. The mob demanded the liberation of the prisoners and threatened to fire the council-house. There was a great tumult also at the Catsound:--"Out with all the boats!" was the cry of the mob, "Throw the grocer-wares overboard! Drive the pepper 'prentices to the devil! Let's fire the castle! Let no soul escape! Death to the foes of king and country!"

Meanwhile there were more cries and shouts than deeds in most places, and the wild alarmists were in motion in the most opposite directions, but, on the old strand, a person was seen who had brought order and plan into the attack; it was Sir Helmer Blaa, who, with warlike eagerness, posted the balista on the strand, and instructed the burghers how to use these engines with force and effect. For some hours he stood unwearied at this his favourite occupation, and where he led the attack the castle sustained considerable damage.

The captive insurgents meanwhile had been liberated at the council-house. A great number of the council had joined the insurgents' party, and taken up arms against the bishop. The rest of the counsellors had escaped at the imminent peril of their lives, and some of them had succeeded in getting out amongst the crowd through the north gate, and reaching the king's castle at Sorretslóv, where they found the king already on horseback, at the head of his knights and spearmen, in readiness to enter the town himself and quell the insurrection.

The evening was closing in. The insurrection had already risen to such a height that most of the burghers had become alarmed at their own undertaking, and every resident inhabitant began to fear for the safety of his property and family; while the unbridled mob considered themselves freed from all laws of decency and order. The king now galloped in through the north gate, by Count Henrik's side, at the head of his troop of knights, and followed by the tall, handsome, lance-bearers who formed his body guard.

At St. Peter's church, close to the northern gate of the town, and at St. Mary's, his progress was almost hindered by the thronging crowds. At both places the insurgents had forced the church doors and compelled the priests to perform mass. The pious chaunts from the churches sounded strange and mournful, amid the wild shouts of the mutineers.

"That devotion doubtless proceeds more from defiance that piety," said the king to Count Henrik, "yet assuredly, none shall hinder them from God's worship, provided it be conducted with decency and order." He ordered a guard to be stationed by both churches to check all disturbances, and rode on. Wherever he appeared he was received with the most devoted homage, and with joyous acclamations; which were, however, somewhat subdued in those who were most obstreperous, on seeing the provost and two of the council among the king's nearest followers. An uneasy murmur was heard, here and there, and the people gradually began to comprehend that the king came not hither to take part with the insurgents against their rulers, but to maintain the lawful government of the town, and restore public tranquillity.

"Silence, good people! Let every one go to his home! Lay down your arms!" said the king, in a grave but kindly tone, as he returned the greetings of the people and stopped his horse.

A silence ensued and the crowd thronged around him with attention to hear what he said. "I come as your protector, and the upholder of law and justice in my kingdom," he continued. "That which you can reasonably demand of the bishop he shall grant you. The shutting of the churches shall be at an end--the church-doors shall be thrown open--that I promise you. As to the rest, you must obey your rulers," he added sternly. "What hath happened here shall be narrowly inquired into. There shall be peace and order in the town; he who from this hour takes the law into his own hands, shall lose his life and reap the reward of his deeds." An instant stillness prevailed wherever these words were heard. The insurgents, and all who bore arms, decamped; but a great crowd of unarmed burghers followed the king with loud acclamations through the streets.

At the old strand the bombardment of Axelhuus was still carried on with great zeal. The castle island was surrounded by boats filled with bowmen and torch-bearers. Preparations were already begun for storming and firing Axelhuus, The fight was now maintained on both sides, and arrows and stones from balista were shot from the towers and battlements of the castle.

"The king!--the king! with the provost and council," was re-echoed from mouth to mouth, and it seemed as if a stroke of lightning had lamed every arm. "Long live the king!" shouted the insurgents, and many threw down their weapons. "No more war!--the king will judge between us and the bishop!" The clattering of the horses' hoofs was already heard; the crowd gave way on all sides to make room for the king and his knights. The people shouted and made signals to the bowmen and brandmen in the numerous boats which surrounded the castle island; in an instant nearly all the brands and torches were extinguished in the water, and the assailants rowed hastily back from the besieged castle. The shooting, however, still continued from a battery of balista on the shore: it was here Sir Helmer had stationed himself. His whole attention was so engrossed in the working of the balista, that he was unconscious of what was passing around him; he thought the bowmen and torch-throwers had been put to flight, but observed not the general cessation of the attack, nor the arrival of the king. "Go on, go on, countrymen!" he shouted. "Cheerily! brave Danish men! Will you let yourselves be worsted by the bishop's slaves? Down with their towers and walls!" He was still issuing the word of command to the balista slingers, when, to his dismay, he heard the king's voice over head.

"What see I? Sir Helmer! you here! and in the midst of rebels? Is this accompanying the Drost to Stockholm? Is it thus you serve and obey your king? He is your prisoner, Count Henrik!"

"My liege and sovereign!" exclaimed Sir Helmer, stretching out his arms towards the king, who halted before him on his tall white charger, with a look of stern menace. "Hear me, I conjure you!"

"Not a word!" interrupted the king, with vehemence; "would you make me a faithless perjurer? In the castle you are besieging I have promised peace and safety to my deadly foe. I break not my word, even were it pledged to the devil. If a hair of his head hath been injured it shall cost you dear. Take my halberdier with you, Count Henrik--put him under knightly arrest at the castle! To-morrow he shall be judged for his lawless conduct. Take my greeting and assurance of peace to the bishop and cardinal," he added in a lower tone. "Take to Grand my last behest and warning! You are responsible for the observance of our passport!"

"Your will shall be obeyed, my liege!" answered Count Henrik, springing from his horse. "Follow me quietly, Sir Helmer," he whispered to the restless and impetuous captain of the balista slingers, "to-morrow you can justify yourself--now you must be silent and obey."

Helmer bit his lip in wrath as he gave up his sword to Henrik, and followed him in silence. Count Henrik, with a considerable train of knights and squires, took instant possession of a barge which the insurgents had just deserted. He caused a white flag to be hoisted, and made preparations for crossing over to the castle island, while the king furthermore enjoined peace and quietness in the town, and rode with the rest of his train the whole length of the strand, amid the vast concourse of people, who partly from curiosity, partly from attachment, continued to accompany him. The balista were instantly dragged off the shore, from whence the armed insurgents had also decamped, awed apparently by the king's severity towards one of his favourite knights.

By the church of St. Nicolas, opposite the little island called "The Skipper's Ground," the king was again stopped by a numerous and unruly mob, in which there were many armed men of a gloomy and wild appearance, who were muttering prayers and psalms, interlarded with imprecations and threats against all priests and bishops. On the king's appearance the uproar was hushed, and most of the weapons disappeared at his command. The church doors were also forced here; all the ecclesiastics and their attendants had fled. The people themselves had rung the bell for vespers, and had dragged a monk into the church in order to compel him to sing the Avé, despite the interdict of bishop and pope.

The king instantly dismounted and entered the church. Half dead with terror, and as it were with his life in his hands, an aged Dominican stood before the altar with rent garments, and strove in vain to chaunt the customary evening prayers with calmness and dignity, while the turbulent crowd surrounded him with looks of wild menace, and with torches, axes, and glittering swords in their hands. A group of butchers and half-drunken mechanics, headed by a tall carpenter, stood nearest the altar, and frequently interrupted the monk with scoffs and threats.

"Peace here, in the Lord's house!" said the king in a loud voice, as he entered the church. "Bend the knee, all of ye, and pray the merciful God to pardon you! Go in peace, pious father!--if thou darest not to pray for our souls.--God hears us, however, despite the ban, if we are but sincere. The All-righteous be gracious to us all, and pardon us our sins!" So saying, the king bent his knee before the altar, and all fell, as if struck by lightning, on the floor. A deathlike silence prevailed for a moment.

It now appeared as if the aged Dominican was suddenly inspired by a feeling of lofty and intrepid enthusiasm. In a solemn voice he chaunted a "Gloria," and afterwards an "Ave," in which he was followed by the king and the whole congregation. The king then arose, and calm and silent quitted the church. He mounted his horse and rode onwards. "Holy Virgin, pray for us!" still resounded with calm solemnity from the kneeling congregation in St. Nicolas church; and when the king again returned through the strand street opposite Axelhuus, to repair to his castle at Sorretslóv, tranquillity appeared to be fully restored. Lights gleamed in the calm spring eve in most of the windows; at Axelhuus also, all now seemed tranquil. Count Henrik had sent the provost and two counsellors on before him in a small boat to announce his coming to the bishop, while the Count himself with his train in the great barge approached the castle island with tardy strokes of the oar. Sir Helmer stood silent and thoughtful, as a disarmed captive, in the barge by Count Henrik's side, indignant at being now carried to imprisonment in that castle which he had recently, as a conquering general, assisted the burghers to besiege. He now, indeed, perceived that he had acted rashly in taking a part in the insurrection; but he thought, nevertheless, that the king's conduct towards him was much too severe; his looks and glowing cheek betrayed that his pride was deeply wounded. As he revolved these thoughts a boat from the castle island rowed rapidly towards them, and glided close past the barge. "Ha! the pepper 'prentice!" exclaimed Sir Helmer, suddenly springing like a madman into the boat. Count Henrik saw with surprise that his captive commenced wrestling on the gunwale with a German pepper 'prentice, and plunged with his antagonist into the deep stream, while the boat disappeared with the speed of an arrow in the twilight.

"Save him, save him!" shouted Count Henrik, and stopped the rowers. Sir Helmer's plumed hat floated on the water at some distance; it was taken up; but neither himself nor his unknown adversary were to be seen. The rapid current appeared to have instantly borne them away, and all search after them with oars and boat-hooks proved fruitless.

"The Lord have mercy on his soul!" said Count Henrik with a sigh. "He was the boldest knight I ever knew--but a thoughtless madcap he ever was. He hath escaped captivity though, and perhaps a stern sentence to-morrow; but the king hath lost a true friend. On, fellows! We find him not--perhaps he hath helped himself; he was a good swimmer."

In the boat which shot past, and which had been nearly upset by the sudden and violent struggle, two persons attired as ecclesiastics had been seen, and the rowers thought they recognised in one of them the archbishop's crafty friend Johan Rodis.

In the harbour of Axelhuus lay the royal vessel "Waldemar the Victorious," on board of which the archbishop, through the mediation of the cardinal, had been brought from Hammershuus, under royal convoy. According to the tenor of the passport, the captain with all his crew had been sworn by the archbishop, and had bound themselves to convey him from Axelhuus at a moment's warning, in case he should not believe himself safe, and also to bring him and the papal nuncio to whatever foreign port they chose. Just as Count Henrik was about to land on the castle island a large rowing boat approached the royal vessel.

"Our lord bishop, with the archbishop, and the red hat!" said the boatmen; "they are making for the Waldemar."

"Then row after them with all your might!" ordered Count Henrik; "there is no time to lose; haste!" Ere they reached the ship, the cardinal and the archbishop were already on board, and the sails were about to be hoisted. In the boat stood Bishop Johan with a number of clerks, and was wishing his exalted guests a safe and fortunate passage.

"I bring you the same good wishes from my liege and sovereign, most venerable sirs!" cried County Henrik, taking off his hat. "Your safe departure hath been cared for. As soon as the king learnt your distress, and the insurrection of the mob, he hasted hither in person to your protection. I have commands to escort you out of the harbour, and see you safe from all possible danger."

"Bring the King of Denmark my farewell, and my thanks for his support," answered the cardinal, through his interpreter. "I have been myself a witness to it, and I must see justice done to his generosity towards his foe, as well as to his kingly temper, and his strict keeping of promise. I now quit the country without having succeeded in establishing here the peace I desired; but I trust once again to see King Eric and Denmark under happier auspices."

"When you come with peace and blessing, your eminence will be welcome!" answered Count Henrik; "but you have already seen solemn proofs of the temper with which the Danish people put up with ban and interdict. My liege the king prays your eminence to bring the holy father tidings of this, together with his humble and filial greeting; he places with confidence his own and his people's just cause before the judgment seat of his holiness; but whatever the sentence may prove to be, according to ecclesiastical and canonical law, my liege, King Eric of Denmark, as the temporal ruler of this land and the protector of public peace, is necessitated in the most peremptory manner to declare Archbishop Grand of Lund for ever banished from these kingdoms and lands."

"Banished!" repeated a hollow voice from the vessel, and the tall Archbishop Grand appeared at the gangway. "Who dares pronounce that sentence upon an anointed prince of the church? For this no king on earth hath power. That king's servant who hath dared to bring me such a message, I declare to be under the ban of the church."

Count Henrik started, but still stood calm and courteous with hat in hand waiting to hear what the bishop had further to say.

"Whether I again set foot on Danish ground," continued Grand, "depends upon myself and the holy father. I now shake off the dust from my martyred feet, and quit my ungrateful father-land; but ere the fullest compensation hath been made me for all I have here suffered contrary to the laws of God and man, there shall no blessing come upon state and country, and upon Denmark's excommunicated king--that I swear by the Almighty and all the saints! Tell the tyrant who sent you--from me, the church's primate in the north--should King Eric Erieson now dare, without dispensation and consent of the church, to complete his ungodly espousals in forbidden consanguinity, it shall surely be to the eternal damnation of himself and kingdom. Amen!"

At these words Count Henrik stamped in the barge, without however vouchsafing an answer to the incensed prelate. "Captain!" he called to the commander of the ship, who stood with his hat in his hand at the forecastle; "you will convey Archbishop Grand, in the king's name and under his convoy, safe on shore wherever he chooses, excepting only the king's states and kingdom. Whoever should dare to bring back this disturber of the peace to Denmark shall be judged as a traitor and rebel."

At Count Henrik's signal, the sails were hoisted, and the vessel sailed out of port with the dangerous prelate, whose last words to his native land were those of the so oft-repeated ban.

Count Henrik now greeted the lord of the castle of Axelhuus, the little bishop Johan, and delivered the king's message of peace and protection; under conditions, however, which he was invited to consider in an interview with the king at his castle of Sorretslóv. Count Henrik then gave a parting salutation to this friend and unsuccessful imitator of the archbishop, who seemed to meditate a haughty and impressive reply; but without awaiting it, Henrik made a signal to his boatmen to row forward, and followed the departing vessel at some distance, until it was seen to be fairly out of port and in open sea. The count then returned with his train to the town, where he instantly mounted his horse, and rode in silent and serious thought, but with cheerful looks and at a brisk trot through the town, and from thence on the road to Sorretslóv.

CHAP. IV.

At night there were great rejoicings in Copenhagen. The king's presence seemed to secure the peaceable part of the community against further disturbance of the public tranquillity.

The occurrences of the day had given satisfaction, and there was a general feeling of enthusiasm respecting the fortunate issue of the insurrection. That which had been aimed at was attained. The shutting of the churches was at an end, and the stern prelatical government of the town had been cowed. After this violent outbreak of the people's wrath, it was now hoped that no interdict would ever be carried into effect in Denmark. The report that the archbishop and the cardinal had quitted Axelhuus, and that the archbishop was banished for life, was spread throughout the whole town, ere midnight, and increased the general rejoicing. Where the lights had been extinguished in the windows after the king's departure, they were now re-lighted. The archbishop's flight and banishment were thus celebrated throughout the town as an important victory over ecclesiastical tyranny, and as a happy consequence of the public spirit of the burghers, and of the king's high courage. In the tavern near the Catsound, in the vicinity of St. Clement's church, sat the Drost's squire Canute, late at night, merrily carousing with a number of young Copenhageners, who had eagerly taken part in the besieging of Axelhuus. In the midst of the group sat an elderly burgher, with a full cup of mead in his hand drinking with them, amid songs and bold scoffs, at the strict law which prohibited late tavern keeping and nightly intemperance, which they now regarded as a dead letter. It was the same personage who at noon had peregrinated the town as an official authority, and who, as the summoning herald of the council, had forbidden every one to bear arms in the streets. His herald's mantle, and the white staff bearing the bishop's arms, had been thrown under the drinking table; he now appeared in the usual burgher's dress, and had himself a warlike sword at his side. From his talk it could be gathered that he had also joined in the siege of Axelhuus.

The carousers spoke openly and boldly against prelatical government, to which they believed they had given a good fillip. They lauded the king and the brisk Sir Helmer, and opined that the king had only feignedly, and for the sake of appearances, caused that brave knight to be placed under arrest. They unanimously agreed, also, that the king's stern words to the balista slingers, and those who were storming the castle, could not have come much further than from between his teeth, since, after all, it was but his worst foe they had attacked.

There were bursts of exultation at the flight and exile of the archbishop, which had been related to them by two newly-arrived guests, and the party took credit to themselves for having stoned Master Grand out of the country.

"Ay, laud us Copenhageners!" said the herald, with a self-satisfied nod; "we have helped the king before at a pinch."

"What can the pope and all the world's bishops do to him now?" said the squire, draining his cup. "The game is won, comrades, provided all we Danes from this day forward act like you, brave Copenhageners of this town. Against those Latin curses we have arrows, swords, and balista, and good Danish granite stone; and if they lock us up the church doors again, we have, the Lord be thanked, iron crows and axes, and men who can lift a church door as easy as a barrel of wheat. Now is my master the Drost over in Sweden to fetch the king's betrothed," he continued; "had I been with him there the arrogant Hanse would not have pounced on me. Matters may go hard enough with the king's marriage; they say these priests would fain put a spoke in the wheel, and shut all Heaven's gates on us; but what shall we wager, comrades, that the king snaps his fingers at them, touching the dispension, or whatever it is called, and keeps his bridal, when the Lord and he himself pleases? Then will there be sport and jollity over all the country. Long live the king's true love!"

"But she is a Swede," objected one of the young fellows.

"Pah! hereafter will Swede and Dane be good and boon companions," continued Canute, with a jolly flourish of his cup. "When our kings give each other their sisters we will dance with the Swedish maidens, and their young fellows again with ours, and no one shall look sour on the other, because we have tried our strength before in another sort of game. The Swedish princess, they say, is the fairest king's daughter in the world, as fair and straight as a lily, and as pious and mild as the blessed Queen Dagmar. Long life to her, by my soul and honour, and to our excellent young king besides, and to all frank and free men, and all pretty maidens, both here and in Sweden's land! Hurra for the king and his true love! He is a scoundrel who drinks not with me."

All the jolly carousers joined in the toast; but the merriment in the tavern-room was now interrupted by the noise of an eager scuffle in the chamber above, where several guests of higher rank were playing at draughts. The squire and his comrades crowded inquisitively to the door, and looked into the chamber. "Ay, indeed! my fat Rostocker here!" exclaimed Canute; "would he tweak the Copenhageners by the nose also? I should think he would come badly off at that game." He now related to his companions what had happened at Skanör fair--how the arrogant traders, who were now in the fray, had brought the false coin of the outlaws into the country--and how the Rostocker, with his crafty comrade, had dared to threaten the king at Sjöborg.

"Let's have at him!" shouted all with one accord, and rushed into the chamber, where Berner Kopmand and Henrik Gullandsfar, with a crowd of foreign merchants and agents, were engaged in fierce dispute with two of the richest burghers of the town, who accused them of dishonest play, and of cheating with false money. The squire and his young comrades took the part of the Copenhageners, and a wild and bloody fray, with pitchers and cans, sticks and clenched fists, soon commenced. The Rostocker and Henrik Gullandsfar first drew their swords; they laid about them with courage and valour. The pepper 'prentices cried and shouted desperately, but were unable to defend themselves with their long ell measures; at last they all took to flight, with Henrik Gullandsfar at their head. Berner Kopmand would have followed them, but the incensed squire placed himself in his way, and forced him into a desperate encounter. "Out of the way, comrades!" he shouted; "leave me to deal alone with this fellow; I have a little reckoning to settle with him!"

All gave way, and formed a ring round the combatants; the heavy-built hot-headed Rostocker laid frantically about him, but was wounded every moment by the man-at-arms, who, though far less in stature, was his superior in swordsmanship. "Take that for thy false money, good fellow, and that for thy false play, and that for thy shameless arrogance!" shouted the squire at every wound he gave his antagonist; "that because thou wouldest hang Sir Helmer and me, and that because thou hast threatened our king, thou grocer hero!" This last thrust ended the fight. The merchant fell mortally wounded to the ground, among the overturned wine-flasks and draught-boards. Meanwhile the routed pepper 'prentices had given the alarm in the streets, and, with a fearful cry of murder, assembled the night-watch, and as many of the provost's men, who, as yet, had sufficient courage to maintain order in the town. The bishop's famulus had arrived with some men-at-arms, on the part of the provost, and when Berner Kopmand fell the tavern of St. Clement's was already surrounded by a guard. The famulus made his way into the tavern with his men, and surrounded the squire, who stood in silence with the bloody sword in his hand, gazing on the dying Rostocker.

"Seize him! Shackle him! The godless murderer, in the name of the bishop and council!" cried the famulus, in a screeching voice, springing up on a bench to bring himself into notice. He was a little man, clad in a short black cloak over a blue lay brother's dress, with a roll of parchment in his hand, which he flourished like a commander's staff. All the jolly revellers had retreated, and the Drost's squire stood alone by the Rostocker's body in the faint light of the oil-lamp, which was suspended from the roof. He menacingly brandished his bloody sword, and no one dared to approach him.

"Let him go; he is guiltless!" cried a powerful but stuttering voice, and the burgher herald stepped forward half intoxicated, with glowing cheeks and reeling steps, from a corner of the apartment. He had again attired himself in his herald's mantle, and brandished the white staff with the bishop's arms in his hand. He elbowed his way through the crowd, and placed himself, with solemn, official mien, between the squire and the provost's men, directly opposite the little famulus on the bench. "Let none touch this fellow; he is guiltless!" he continued: "the other drunken guest hath got his deserts; he has fallen, as was meet and fit in a regular tavern brawl, and at the dice-board; that I can witness--he is to get no chastisement, according to the law and right of our good city, that you must know full as well as I, Master Famulus."

"Believe him not, he is drunk!" cried the bishop's famulus with eagerness; "the ale speaks through him; he exercises his office, and expounds law and justice like a toper and partizan. The law he prates about concerns but fisty-cuffs and pulling of hair; but a murder hath been committed within the town paling; it should at least be punished with perpetual imprisonment, according to the town law. Seize the murderer instantly, say I!"

"Touch him not, say I," resumed the herald, "he hath slain a cheat, a false player, a shameless scoundrel, who had defied the king; it was done in honourable fight; it was in self-defence,--that I saw myself; the fat Rostocker struck the first blow with a sharp weapon, although he got the first cuff, but from an wholly unarmed fist; that I can take my oath of, let me be ever so drunk. He is a knave and a sorry Christian who gets not honestly drunk to-night, now that we have forced the shut gate of heaven. This brave young fellow is, besides, the Drost's squire, and my good friend. We have no right to imprison him, I will stand security for him, with all my substance!"

"But what are ye thinking of?" bawled the famulus, stamping on the bench, "he hath certainly slain a man here."

"Even so! naught else! Know ye not better our pious Lord Bishop's orders! Master Famulus!" shouted the burgher herald in an overpowering voice, as he leaned on his staff of office. "This is a worldly tavern and place of entertainment--here, where gaming, pastime, and toping have full swing from morning to night--none hath a right to require safety for life and limb, it is all in due order; and a very wise and reasonable regulation; mad cats get torn skins, and where one sets aside the law, every one must take the damage as wages. The scoundrel who lies there fell at the forbidden draught-board; if there is law and justice in the town, he shall never be laid in christian ground. That I will uphold, as surely as I bear this sacred staff." As he, at the conclusion of his speech, was about again to brandish the herald's staff over his head, he had nearly lost his balance; but his authoritative conduct, and stern official deportment, seemed, however, not without its effect upon the provost's men, especially as the bishop's famulus was forced to allow the justice of his protest against the burial of the slain in christian ground.

While they were yet disputing, whether they had or had not the right of imprisoning the murderer, the squire rushed out of the door, with his drawn sword in his hand, and none dared to stop him.

As soon as he found himself in the open air, he concealed his sword under his mantle, slouched his hat over his brow, and mingled in the throng which surrounded the house, and had thrust the guard aside. It appeared, even to him, somewhat doubtful and improbable that persons might thus be slain with perfect impunity at the gaming table; what he had heard respecting perpetual imprisonment in the bishop's city, still sounded very unpleasantly in his ear, and he thought it most advisable to decamp as soon as possible; but in order not to excite suspicion, he walked on quietly, and whistled a blithe drinking song. "There's desperate work in the house between the pepper 'prentices and the king's men," he said aloud, "the devil take me if I stand here gaping any longer." As soon as he was fairly out of the crowd, he quickened his steps and hastened down past the Catsound towards the old strand. He went onward without knowing whither, and often looked behind to see whether any one pursued him. He saw lights in all the houses on the strand--mirth and song resounded, contrary to usage, in many quarters of the generally quiet town, in defiance of the strict regulations of the bishop and archbishop; but all was gloomy and still at Axelhuus. He pursued his way along the level shore, and approached the church of St. Nicholas. In the churchyard he saw a crowd of people assembled. A strange, half devout, half seditious murmur, was heard in the crowd, and a solemn council appeared to be held. He hastened past the sullen muttering assemblage, and reached the ferry opposite Bremen-island. Here all the great warehouses were desolate and deserted; he sat down quite breathless on the quay to recover himself, and think of the means of escape. It was past midnight. The moon shone upon the broad stream and the tall warehouses on Bremen island. He felt oppressed by the death-like stillness around him. The wild scene of the murder in the alehouse was now solemnly and fearfully present to his imagination--he heard his heart beat; he wiped the blood from off his sword, and put it into the sheath. He perceived spots of blood upon his clothes, and was about to go down to the water to wash them out, but he now heard a sound near him like the gasping of a dying man; he looked around him with uneasiness, but no human being was to be seen. The singular sound still fell on his ear, and mingled with his vivid recollection of the death-rattle of the slain Rostocker. He had felt no dread of the living adversary,--now he shuddered at the thought of the dead. The hair of the fugitive squire stood on end; he hastily started off from the quay, and would have fled further; but he now distinctly heard that the sound which terrified him proceeded from the sea-shore. The faint ray of the moon now lit up the beach, on which he beheld a man lying stretched at full length. "The pepper 'prentice! What became of him?"--he heard the voice gasp forth, and recognised its tones. "Our Lady be merciful to us! Sir Helmer! what hath happened you?" exclaimed Canute, aghast, and hasted down to the half-expiring knight, who was utterly exhausted by fighting and swimming, and whom, with much difficulty, he raised on his legs, and in some degree restored to consciousness. His drenched clothes were rent and bloody; his long brown locks clung to his swollen cheeks, and in his left hand, which was convulsively clenched, he held a thick tuft of reddish hair. "Look! look!" he said, "it was all I got hold of, the rest the devil hath taken. He twined round me like a water-snake. He bit and tore like the devil. The stream put an end to our embrace, it had well nigh put an end to my life, I perceive."

"Our Lady and St. George help you, noble sir!" said the squire, crossing himself, as he reached him a small flask. "Take something to strengthen your heart after that joust! If you have fought with the evil one at the bottom of the sea you have surely had to stand a hard encounter."

"I hope it was the right one," said Helmer, and drained the flask, "Thanks, countryman! it hath helped me! Now I have got my strength again. I ail nothing in reality; my limbs are sound; I am but a little bruised, and dizzy in my head."

"But what in all the world have you been about? Have you been seeking the pepper 'prentice, or Satan himself, at the bottom of the sea, and know not rightly yourself whether you found him?"

"I was hard pressed for time, thou must know. The king rode quietly past the beach. I was somewhat wrath with him, I must needs confess. I was on the way to the bishop's dungeon, on account of my having taken the balista a little in hand; but then I caught a sight of that devil of a pepper 'prentice; he stood not a yard from me in a boat, and would have pushed past us; it seemed to me that he stared after the king, and fumbled with his hand in his breast, as if after a dagger. Whether it was the right rascal or not, there was not time to discover. The fellow looked confoundedly suspicious, and one pepper 'prentice, more or less, of what consequence was it, when the king's life was in question? so I jumped into the boat. Ere I wast fully sensible of it I had the fellow by the throat, and had tumbled blithely with him into the stream."

"Have you sent the pepper 'prentice down to his home, noble sir?" said Canute with restored cheerfulness, and somewhat proudly,--"then I have sent a bottle-nosed Hanse grocer to hell, from an ale tavern. None can say we have been idle here in Copenhagen. We serve the king as well as we can--although we may have come a little out of the way he sent us. If you only have but hit on the right man! your exploit was far more daring and dangerous than mine, noble sir! But in two particulars I have been more lucky, however; I know I hit on the right person, and know also I mastered the rascal to some purpose. It was he who would have hung us in the morning, and who would have taken the king's life, had he had power and courage to do so."

"The Rostocker! Berner Kopmand?"

"The same! He now lies dead as a herring, in the ale-house; he will never be laid in Christian ground, if my honest friend the herald is in the right. But come, sir!--if you can bestir yourself, let's get out of the bishop's town, and the sooner the better! If the provost or the bishop's men pounce on us, we shall not 'scape from their dungeons all our life-time."

With some difficulty the wounded knight followed the squire, and they soon reached the east gate at the end of East Street. The gate was shut, but its lock and bolts had been forced in the insurrection. The fugitives opened it without difficulty, and entered into the large grass-grown marketplace, where the Halland vegetable vendors especially had their landing-places and stalls. Meanwhile, Sir Helmer felt weaker at every step. With the help of the squire he dragged himself with difficulty to the chapel by St. Anna's bridge; here he sank down powerless before the chapel door;--all grew dark before his eyes, and he was near falling into a swoon.

"The Lord and St. Anna assist us!" said the squire, hastily seizing a wooden bowl which stood near the chapel; he sprang with it to the running stream under the bridge, and soon returned with the bowl full of clear, pure water.

"Drink, sir! drink in St. Anna's blessed name!" he said, eagerly, "and then I will bathe you on the head, and on every part where you feel pain. If St. Anna's stream hath the wondrous healing power it is said to have you will assuredly soon feel yourself strengthened, provided you are a good Christian, as I surely hope."

The knight drank, and washed the blood from his face, which, as well as his neck, was scratched and lacerated; he was besides bruised all over his body, and exhausted to a great degree. The cold water refreshed and strengthened him, as he fancied, in a wonderful and incomprehensible manner. Around the chapel lay a number of crutches and rags, cast aside by the sick and paralytic who had here been healed. Inspired with sudden enthusiasm by his regained strength, and by the miracle he believed he had here experienced, Sir Helmer sprang up and knelt before the image of St. Anna over the chapel door. "Thanks and honour, holy Anna!" he exclaimed in a lowered voice, and with clasped hands, "it was nobly done of thee; it was doubtless for the sake of my fair young wife--for the sake of my Anna's pious prayers! When we meet again in health, we will assuredly not forget the wax lights and purple velvet for thine altar." He then arose, and exulting in his strength, flapped his arms around him, as if to certify himself of the fact of this restoration; he embraced the squire, and then flung him off to some distance on the grass, with as much ease as he would have flung his glove. "Look, there lies my crutch also, to thy thanks and honour, holy Anna!" he exclaimed in a loud voice, "he is a rascal who doubts of thy wondrous power; thou hast given me strength and vigour again."

"Ay, indeed! thanks and honour be to St. Anna for it!" panted the squire, as he rose half in alarm. "You are now, by my troth, in full vigour. Sir Helmer! as I can testify; but you are somewhat strange and violent in your devotion; you must excuse my not continuing to lie here among the other crutches!"

Helmer bounded blithely on the green sward, to try whether his legs also stood him in good stead; he seemed again preparing to wrestle with the squire, but Canute sprang aside. "Keep your devotion within bounds, noble sir! and listen to a word of sense!" he said, seizing the intractable knight by the arm. "A boat lies unmoored here, let's take possession of it, and row up the great canal!--then perhaps we may slip whole-skinned out of the town, and get to Sorretslóv. If there is any reasonableness whatever in the king, he will not cause us to be hanged, because we have chastised his enemies and persecutors; but if they get hold of us here he will find it hard, despite all his power, to save us."

"Had I but my good sword!"--said Helmer. "Lend me thine, brisk countryman! Do thou row the boat! and I will defend us both."

"Yes, if you will be mannerly, Sir Knight, and not try your sword on me, in honour of St. Anna!"

Helmer laughed, and clapped him on the shoulder. They were soon both seated in the boat, and pondering how best to provide for their safety. Helmer sat sword in hand at the rudder, and the squire, despite the pain of his lacerated hand, rowed with powerful strokes of the oar up the stream which enclosed the town on the north-east. They stopped not until they reached the fishermen's houses at Pustervig. Here the northern boundary of the town was protected by a new fortification of palisades. While the squire rested his wearied arms, they consulted together whether they should now row to the left, through the canal, to get out through the north gate, where, however, it was uncertain whether they would not be stopped and seized,--or whether they might not with greater safety, although with more difficulty, pursue their flight up the stream to Sorretslóv lake. This last plan they considered to be the most expedient. Helmer now seized the one oar, and they began to row briskly forward. The night was calm, and during the whole passage from St. Anna's bridge they had not seen a single human being. But an arrow from a cross-bow now suddenly whistled over the heads of the fugitives; they heard a splashing of oars behind them, and saw two boats push off from the beach at Pustervig.

"The murderer! stop him, shoot him! a hundred silver crowns to the man who seizes him!" called a loud voice from one of the boats.

Helmer and the squire recognised the voice of Henrik Gullandsfar, and kept on rowing. The one boat lay to behind them to stop the way in case they should retreat. The other, which was manned with the provost's men, and was steered by Henrik Gullandsfar himself, pursued them with four oars up the river. In the bow stood two cross-bowmen, who constantly aimed and shot, but as it appeared without real skill in the management of this dangerous weapon, with which the strongest armour might be pierced, and people wounded almost without perceiving it.

"You shoot badly, knaves!" shouted Helmer. "Is that the way to hold a cross-bow? Come but nearer, and I will teach ye to handle it!" he continued, letting go the oar and brandishing his sword over his uncovered head, as he stood in the stern of the boat. "As surely as St. Anna hath given me my strength again, it shall not fare a hair better with ye than with my departed brothers-in-law." Another cross-bow bolt whistled over his head, but without injuring a hair of it--another split the gunwale and broke the tiller. Helmer seized the harmless bolt, and just as he was about to be overtaken, flung it back with all his might whence it came. It whistled past both the cross-bowmen, but hit Henrik Gullandsfar on the forehead, and the merchant fell backwards without life sufficient to utter a cry.

"Death and misfortune! 'Twas Helmer Blaa who threw!" cried one of the provost's men. "The devil a bit will I fight with him.--Let's be off!"

The provost's men and the cross-bow shooters now took to flight down the stream with the body of Gullandsfar. Sir Helmer again seized the one oar, and the two bold fugitives rowed unmolested up to Sorretslóv lake. Here they sprang ashore on the green sward, leaving the boat to float back with the current.

"We have got thus far on dry land," said Helmer, looking around him; "we are without the town paling, and are scarce a hundred paces distant from the king's castle. When the king hears of our exploits, perhaps he will say, it was bravely done, but will cause us to be bound and thrown into the tower, according to strict law, and there we may be suffered to lie until his council and the bishops are agreed whether we are to be punished with death or only with imprisonment for life."

"Would you scare me, Sir Helmer?" exclaimed Canute, in dismay. "As soon as we reach the king's castle yonder, we surely stand under the king's protection."

"But here he is on the bishop's preserve as well as we. We have forgotten that in our hurry," observed Helmer; "the sixteen villages in this neighbourhood belong to the little Roskild bishop. Bishop law and church law are valid here; and this I know beforehand, the king will not swerve a hair's-breadth from what is lawful for our sake, even though we were his best friends, and had saved his life an hundred times over."

"Death and confusion! What shall we do then? In that case we were mad should we take refuge with him here?"

"So I think, countryman! But help us he shall, whether he will it or no. Knowest thou the two white horses here in the meadow? Look! how they dance in the tether and snort towards the dawn."

"The king's tournament prancers!--the very apple of his eye! Every knights' squire knows them. You have surely not lost your wits, Sir Helmer! What would you be at?"

"Thou shalt soon see," said Helmer, approaching the starting and rearing steeds. "So! ho! old fellows! stand still!--if we have risked our lives for the king, he can doubtless lend us a pair of horses. Had I my good Arab it should fly with us both faster than the wind. The pepper 'prentice I answer for," he continued, still enticing the horses. "I have soused and pumelled him so soundly, that he will do no mischief again in a hurry, if there is life in him yet--and I dare wager my head it was the right one. If thou hast made an end of Berner Kopmand, countryman, I answer for Henrik Gullandsfar, and the archbishop hath gone to the devil; there is now no great danger astir, and the king needs us no longer here. I am no great lover of trial and imprisonment, seest thou? and if the king does not need my life, I know of one who will give me a kiss for saving it.--So ho, there! That's right, my lad!--a noble animal, by my soul! I desert not from the service to run home to my young wife,--that none shall say of me. Do thou like me, countryman! I will now ride on the king's prancer as his bridesman to Sweden, to perform what I have neglected. If thou wilt come with me, come then!" Meanwhile Helmer had caught one of the spirited steeds. In an instant he was upon its back, and galloped away over hedge and ditch with the swiftness of a deer. The Drost's squire did not long hesitate; he was soon seated on the back of the other, and followed Sir Helmer at a brisk gallop.

CHAP. V.

When the sun rose over the Sound, signs of cheerful animation and active stir were already perceptible in the village of Sorretslóv, while the bishop's town still lay shrouded in fog, ensconced behind its trenches and palisades, and seemed to slumber after the wild revels of the preceding night. Peasants were seen removing cattle on the pastures, between the village and the northern gate of the town. The grooms of the king's household were riding the horses to water from the farms and meadows of the royal castle, at the large pool in the midst of the village; but around the pasture near Sorretslóv lake, where the king's trained tournament-steeds had grazed, two grooms were running in despair, vainly seeking the fine horses which were entrusted to their charge.

"Help us, St. Alban! and all saints!" cried the younger groom. "If the Marsk comes home he will slay us, at the least."

"And the king!" groaned the other--"the king will be wrath; and that is even far worse. We must find them though we should have to run to the world's end. Come!"--They sprang away over hedge and ditch, where they saw the dew brushed off from the grass, and fresh traces of galloping horses' feet on the meadow; at last they recognised the well-known trained step of the steeds on the road between the two lakes, and were soon far away.

It was a fine spring morning;--the king was, as usual, stirring at an early hour. Accompanied by Count Henrik, he had mounted the flat-roofed tower of the castle, from whence there was an extensive and noble prospect over the whole adjacent country. Count Henrik had been required, circumstantially to repeat his account of the flight of the cardinal and the archbishop, and the very different greeting of the prelates. The king was grave, but in good spirits; even the last threat of the archbishop had not discouraged him.

"With God's blessing," he said with emphasis, "I await my chief happiness from the hand of the Almighty, and the heart of my pious Ingeborg, but neither from the mercy of the pope nor the archbishop. Were my hope and success in love really sin and ungodliness, no dispensation could ever sanctify it before Heaven and to myself."--He paused, and gazed with a calm and enthusiastic look on the rising sun, and a heartfelt prayer seemed as it were to beam from his bright eye. "My deadly foe went hence alive," he continued;--"well! I have now performed my promise to him. I let him 'scape hence alive. More none can ask of a frail mortal; but it is the last time I promise peace and respite of life to the enemy of my soul. So long as the Lord grants me life and crown the presence of Grand shall never more infect the air I breathe."

"This insurrection was quite opportune for us, my liege," observed Count Henrik, with a confidential smile--"the foe you came hither to banish hath been as good as stoned out of this country by the brisk men of Copenhagen, on their own responsibility."

"That I asked them not to do," answered the king, with proud eagerness; "had I willed to use temporal power, against my ecclesiastical foes here, I should not have needed the help of a mutinous mob. The town hath suffered wrong; but mutiny is, and ever will be, mutiny; and, as such, deserving of punishment, whether it happens to suit my convenience or not. I consider the conduct of the bishop and council to be arbitrary and illegal," he continued. "I hate ban and interdict as I do the plague, as is well known; but it shall not therefore be believed I favour revolt and rebellion against any lawful authority. It was well done to force the locked churches. No Roskild bishop shall place bars and bulwarks between us and our Lord; but it was not for the Lord's sake they besieged the bishop's castle: their devotion was also very moderate; it was more like howling wolves singing 'credo,' than christianly-baptized people. Had you seen, with me, the riots yesterday evening, in St. Nicholas church. Count Henrik! you would hardly take on yourself the defence of these insurgents."

"I rode past St. Nicholas church-yard in the night, my liege!" answered Count Henrik. "What was doing there pleased me but little, it is true. It seemed as though a crowd of spirits moved among the graves, in the moonshine: there was a strange muttering. I heard shouts and prayers, which sounded to me like curses. It was St. Erik's Guild brethren, who were chaunting prayers, it was said, and taking counsel against the bishop. Those good people I will no longer defend; there must be wild fanatics and turbulent spirits among them. But chastise them not too hardly, in your wrath, my liege!--even though you should now be forced to lend a helping hand to prelatical government. When the Lord's servants shut the Lord's house themselves, and hinder all orderly worship, it is surely no wonder that the plain man seeks to edify himself as well as he can in his own way: a mixture of defiance and ferocious fanaticism with this species of devotion is inevitable, but whose is the blame, your grace? Where God's word is silent, the evil one instantly sends forth his priests among the people, and drives them mad."

"Ay indeed! those are true words. Count! It is usually the fault of the shepherd when the flock strays. Spiritual government is a matter I dare not much intermeddle with, but this I have promised, and I shall honestly keep my promise: every church door in the country which they would hereafter shut, I will cause myself without further ado to be forced with the staff of the spear; and every priest or bishop who hinders my, or my people's lawful and orderly devotion, I banish from state and country, as I have banished Archbishop Grand--let the pope excommunicate me a thousand times over for it! Look! in this I am agreed with my brave and loyal people, and with these rather too brisk Copenhageners. What I here tell you, I cannot give any one under sign and seal," he added, "but I will whisper it in confidence into the ear of every Danish bishop and future archbishop; none shall say, however, I side with rebels. If authority is to be used, that is my affair; but there shall be peace and order here. I will uphold the rights of every lawful authority, whether it be spiritual or temporal, our highest rights, as God's children, and the rights and authority of the crown, unimpaired."

The king was silent--his cheek glowed, and an expression of fervid energy beamed in his countenance, as he turned from the fair spectacle of the rising sun, and looked out upon the fog-enveloped town, the church towers of which glittered in the dawn of morning. He now opened a letter and a small packet, which a skipper from Skanör had brought him from Drost Aagé. He read the letter with attention. It contained an account of the Drost's meeting with the Hanseatic merchants and Thrand Fistlier at Kjöge, and at Skanör fair, as well as of the disturbance which had been caused by this mountebank, and the Hanseatic forgers; and also how the Drost, partly to save the artist's life, had been under the necessity of sending him prisoner to Helsingborg. In the packet was one of Master Thrand's optic tubes, and some polished glasses, which Aagé had bought at Skanör fair, and which he now presented to the king as extraordinary rarities. In the letter, Aagé had not been able to conceal his suspicion of the wonderful mountebank, and the singular uneasiness which this man's operations and expressions had caused him.

Count Henrik also, had lately received and read a secret epistle from the Drost, in which Aagé conjured him to caution the king respecting the captive Icelander, and above all to keep a watchful eye on whoever approached him. "Trust not the junker!" Aagé wrote, "God forgive me if I do him injustice! Kaggé is alive and under convoy of the foreign merchants, who threatened the king at Sjöborg; Helmer and my bravest squire are in their power. The revenge of the outlaws is unwearied. Stir not from the king's side! watch over his life, while I care for his happiness."

"Truly! my good Drost Aagé is a strange visionary," said the King, shaking his head with a smile, as he tried the glasses with a feeling of wonder at the power of these instruments; "my much-loved Aagé is ready to side with the ignorant mob, and regard the fruits of the noble arts and sciences as the work of the evil one."

"How! my liege!" asked Count Henrik, in surprise.

"That good friend of mine is still somewhat weak both in mind and body;" continued the king, "he is afraid our whole fair world will perish, because here and there people get their eyes opened, and learn to see things better and more justly in nature. The Lord knows what new danger he can now be dreaming of from this artist. Just look here. Count!" The king reached Henrik the optic tube. "It is one of the discoveries of the great Roger Bacon, the wise English monk we have heard so much of--a skilful Icelander hath arrived here in the country, who hath known him, and learned the art from him. These kind of things he brings with him; he is said to understand many wonderful arts, and knows secrets in nature which may be of importance, as well in war as in the general advancement of the country; Aagé, I suppose, means only we should be cautious and not trust him over much. I will see and know that man; he certainly doth honour to our northern lands, and he shall not have visited me in vain;--now what say you, Count? Such glass eyes may be useful, I think, both for a king and a general, when he should take a wide survey!"

"Noble! astonishing!" exclaimed Count Henrik, "the town, the river, the whole of Solbierg, seem as near as if close at hand."

"And a skilful coiner, and a rare judge of metals, is this Icelander besides," resumed the king with satisfaction, as he glanced over the letter, "he is just the man we need, now that the land is inundated with the false coin of the outlaws; if he were in league with my foes, as Aagé fears, he would hardly venture into my sight; as yet no enemy hath faced me, unpunished. He is reported to hold many erring opinions in matters of faith; but what is that to me? If he be a heretic, so much the worse for himself; in what concerns temporal things he is apt, I must confess."

"If he be a Leccar brother, as Drost Aagé thinks, then beware of him, my liege!" observed Count Henrik. "I thought that sect was banished in all Christian lands, and in Denmark also, on account of their dangerous opinions."

"On account of opinions, I have never banished any living soul," said the king: "for ought I care, every man may think and believe what he will, provided he obeys but the laws of the land, and seduces not the people to insurrection and ungodliness. One description of madmen I once banished, however--it is true," he added, recollecting himself: "what they called themselves I have now forgot; but the madness I remember well enough--they were self-appointed priests, without a consecrated church or true doctrine. They scoured the country round, and preached both to high and low, and would, in short, have made us all heathens. They denied both our Lord and our blessed Lady, and all the saints and martyrs besides; they would have nought to do either with church or pope; and in fact, just as little with kings and princes, or any temporal government; they zealously affirmed that we should obey our Lord only--but when it came to the point, their Lord was but their own ignorant and perverted will. From such mad doctrine we may well pray our Lord to preserve us and all Christian lands."

"But that is exactly, as far as I know, the creed of the Leccar brethren," observed Count Henrik. "We have chased the sect from Mecklenborg also, and the pope hath doomed them to fire and faggot."

"You are right, they are called Leccarii in Latin," answered the king: "the holy father's caring for their souls, by burning their bodies, suits me just as little as his excommunicating, and giving us over to the devil. That mistakes may be made in Rome we are all agreed. If the learned Icelander belongs to yon sect, he must doubtless decamp," he added, "and that I should be sorry for; but I must hear it from himself, ere I will believe it; it is inconceivable to me how madness and learning can dwell together in one brain."

"Look once again, my liege!" said Count Henrik, handing the optic tube to the king. "Yonder comes a boat up the canal towards St. George's hospital; if I am not mistaken it is steered by a couple of clerks; perhaps the bishop would now vouchsafe us tidings, and put up with your protection."

From St. George's lake flowed a broad rivulet, which bounded the pasture ground of Sorretslóv and divided it from the meadows of the village of Solbierg. This rivulet, which widened into a canal, flowed down under the west gate of the town, and ended its course in the Catsound. Between the stream and the town of Sorretslóv lay St. George's Hospital. A large boat came slowly up the river, in which the forms of two men, attired in black, were discernible. They rowed with unsteady strokes of the oar, and with great exertion, against the stream. The boat put ashore at the pasture ground opposite St. George's hospital. The sable-clad personages sprang out of the boat and drew it on land. The king and Count Henrik thought they recognised the archbishop's confidential friends, Hans Rodis and the canon Nicolaus, and paid close attention to their proceedings. A large loose sail was taken from the boat, from under which four ecclesiastics rose up, one after another, and stepped on shore. They looked around on all sides with caution, and proceeded along a by-path, with slow and uncertain steps towards the royal castle. They were all four soon recognised. It was the domineering little Bishop Johan, with the haughty abbot from the forest monastery, accompanied by the provincial prior, and the inspector of the Copenhagen chapter. They seemed to have secretly taken flight from Axelhuus in the morning fog, to place themselves under the king's protection, and perhaps to demand the help of arms against the mutinous town.

When the king recognised them he became grave, and fell into a reverie. He reached the optic tube to Count Henrik, and seated himself in silence on a bench on the southern side of the tower, whence he had a view of the town and the north gate. Count Henrik remarked that the two suspicious-looking canons had yet another person in the boat, whom they carried on shore; he appeared to be either sick or dead, and was closely shrouded in a mantle. The canons looked around on all sides, and bore, seemingly with doubtful and anxious steps, the sick or dead man up to St. George's Hospital, where they were instantly admitted. Count Henrik considered their conduct most suspicious; he determined, however, not to name it to the king; and resolved to examine himself into the affair, and to inspect the hospital that very day.

The town was by no means so tranquil as was supposed. The nocturnal assemblage in the churchyard of St. Nicholas had not dispersed until near daybreak. The bishop's men had heard wild threats of fire and murder, and taunting speeches against their master. A new and bloody outbreak of the insurrection was feared whereupon the bishop had not deemed it advisable to await the dawn of day at Axelhuus, although it was probable that he most unwillingly took refuge with the king, who he knew was incensed at the enforcement of the interdict.

The bishop's stern protest against the demi-ecclesiastical assemblies of the guild-brethren of St. Canute, had rendered that fraternity his bitterest and most dangerous foes. During the shutting of the churches, the devotion of the guild-brethren, which was almost always blended with fanaticism and intemperance, had assumed a wild and desperate character. They were charged with the most licentious impiety, it was believed there were atheists and Leccar brethren among them, who sought to sever them from the church and from Christendom, as well as from burgher-rule and obedience. A secret dread of the extravagancies and gloomy deportment of these persons prevailed among the best-informed and better class of burghers, who, however, had themselves, on account of the shutting of the churches, made common cause with the guild-brethren, and deemed a general revolt against prelatic tyranny to be necessary.

Ere the sun had dispersed the thick morning mist which lay over the town, the burghers of Copenhagen thronged in crowds to the council-house, where they assembled a council, though it was not the usual day of meeting.

Meanwhile, mattins were performed in all the churches in the town, and no priest dared any longer to observe the interdict. All the churches were unusually crowded, but no disturbances took place. It was only from the stone-built houses, where St. Canute's and St. Eric's guild-brethren had rung their bells ere daylight, and were now performing their morning's devotions, before full goblets and with locked doors, that wild cries and sounds of tumult proceeded. As soon as early mass was ended, a great procession passed through North Street and through the north gate. It was the deputies of the town and council, who had drawn up at the council-house a long list of complaints against the bishop, and as long a justification of the recently-suppressed insurrection. This document they now intended to present to the king, as they were willing to enter into any treaty with the spiritual Lord of the town, which their sovereign might consider just and reasonable. A continually increasing crowd accompanied this procession. None of the guild-brethren were to be seen among the deputies of the town; but a number of these gloomy agitators soon joined themselves to the train, and sought to excite suspicion in the populace respecting this negotiation of peace. The guild-brethren, meanwhile, seemed at variance among themselves; the king's presence had struck terror into many, and their wild plans of overthrowing all spiritual and temporal rule lacked concert and counsel. Hardly had they quitted their guild houses ere the provost's men and the bishop's retainers, assisted even by the burghers, took possession of these buildings, and stationed guards before them. The dispersion of this degenerate and dangerous fraternity was now become one of the most earnest wishes of the council and burghers.

The king had not left the tower of Sorretslóv when the throng hastened forward towards the village and his unfortified castle, in the direction of the southern gate; while the bishop and the three prelates, with their slow and dubious pace, had not as yet reached the approach from the by-path to the western castle gate. Count Henrik's attention had been wholly engrossed in watching the tardy and undecided movements of the ecclesiastics, and the king had been so lost in thought that he did not observe the crowd until the distant murmur of many thousand voices reached his ear. He rose hastily, with a quick glance on both sides, and appeared wroth, but undecided only for a moment. "The gate shall be barred. Count! the black snails shall be brought up here!" he exclaimed impetuously in a loud voice to Count Henrik, pointing to the ecclesiastics below, who again paused on the by-path, and seemed to hesitate. "Let them be brought to my private chamber instantly, even though it should be by force. They are my prisoners."

Count Henrik started.

"Look!" continued the king, pointing towards the village and the road. "They flock out hither by thousands; but, by all the holy men! whoever disturbs the peace of the royal castle shall be chastised as he deserves. Ride to meet the throng. Count! announce my will to them--say their bishop is in my power. Every fitting proposition I will listen to; but every agitator shall instantly be banished; whoever obeys not shall be punished as a rebel."

"Now I understand you, my liege," said Count Henrik, and instantly departed.

The king's command was immediately put into execution. With great fear and dismay, the bishop and his three ecclesiastical companions beheld a troop of horsemen gallop out of the castle towards them, while a willow hedge hid the main road and the concourse of people from their sight, and they still stood close to the meadow gate, debating whether they had not acted with precipitation, and were not about to encounter a still greater danger here than that from which they had fled.

"Treachery!" cried the bishop, drawing back. "I feared it would be so. Fools that we are to trust to the generosity of an excommunicated tyrant! Now we may all fare as did Grand, and may come to rot alive in his dungeons."

"I will answer for the king's justice, even should he imprison us," said the general superior of the chapter.

"Ha! you betray me! you side with the tyrant! you counselled me to this step."

"Look, my brother!" cried the abbot of the forest monastery, pointing in dismay to the right, where but a single-fenced meadow separated them from the road and the concourse of people which now came in view. "The whole town is flocking hither. They have spied us--hear how they howl and bluster! They are springing over hedge and ditch towards us. Let us thank God and our guardian saint for the king's horsemen; it is better after all to fall into the hands of one tyrant than into those of a thousand."

At this moment the king's horsemen surrounded them, and saluted them with courtesy. "Follow us, venerable sirs," said their leader, a brisk young halberdier. "We have orders to bring you to the king's castle."

"In the name of the Lord and all the saints we accept the king's convoy!" said the bishop, looking around with uneasiness, while his cheeks glowed, and he seemed but half to trust to this unexpected safe conduct.

"The bishop! the bishop! Seize him! stone him!" shouted a whole crowd of the excited rabble, who, headed by some guild-brethren, had quitted the burgher procession, and ran, with weapons and stones in their hands, over the meadow towards the ecclesiastics.

"Back, countrymen!" shouted the leader of the horsemen, brandishing his sword. "We lead him captive to the king."

"Captive! the bishop captive!" exclaimed the insurgents with joyous shouts. "That's right!--long live the king!--to the dungeon with Grand's friends and all king-priests!"

"Captive!" repeated the bishop, clasping his hands; "ha, the presumptuous traitors!"

"Compose yourselves, venerable sirs," said the young halberdier, in a lowered tone. "I obey the commands of my sovereign; if you refuse to comply I shall be compelled to use force; but whether you are the king's guests or his prisoners you will assuredly be treated as beseems your rank and condition."

The ecclesiastics were soon within the gates of the king's castle, and looked doubtfully at each other, as one door after another was with much deference shut behind them, and they stood at last in anxious expectation in a vaulted chamber, which, with its high windows and the little iron-cased door, which was also secured behind them, bore a greater resemblance to a prison than an apartment destined for the reception of guests. There was no want, however, of furniture or comfort; there were writing materials as well as both edifying and entertaining books. It was the king's private chamber.

The deputies of the burghers and counsel started almost in as great dismay as the bishop and his clerical companions, when they beheld themselves surrounded on a sudden by royal halberdiers and horsemen before the castle gate. The captain of halberdiers dismissed the half-armed mob, who had followed the procession with shouts and threats against the bishop, and with frequent acclamations for the king, on occasion of his having (according to report) thrown the bishop into prison.

"In the name of my liege and sovereign!" called Count Henrik, on horseback, as he waved his hat, "the castle is open to the deputies of the loyal burghers; but every one who bears arms here, or combines to cause riot and uproar disturbs the peace of the king's castle, and is guilty of treason. Your lord bishop is at this moment in the king's power, but he is also his guest and under his protection. Every insult to the bishop here is an insult to the ruler of the land. The king will judge justly, and negociate a peace between you and your lord. Ere the sun goes down the result of his mediation shall be made known. Now, back! all here who would not pass for rebels!"

The restless crowd returned silent and downcast to the town. The arrogant bravado of the insurgents that they had the king on their side, had been suddenly put down. Their confidence in his presumed wrath against the bishop, and his partiality to the burghers of Copenhagen, appeared to have given way to a reasonable apprehension of his justice and known severity. It even seemed to them no good sign that the bishop, in his distress, had sought shelter at the royal castle--and the guild-brethren muttered that when it came to the push, the powerful and the great ever sided together after all; even though they were deadly foes at heart, and that every thing was visited upon those of low degree whether they were guilty or not.

CHAP. VI.

During the whole day an anxious stillness prevailed in the town. The crowds indeed still continued to pour like a tide through the streets, but with order, and in silent expectation. The sun was about to set, and, as yet, no tidings had been received of the issue of the royal negociation. Meanwhile, an unusual procession attracted the attention of the restless and fickle populace. A funeral train proceeded past St. Clement's church down to the old Strand, but without chaunting and ringing of bells, and without being accompanied by any choristers or ecclesiastics. This procession consisted of a great number of foreign merchants and skippers, and all the pepper 'prentices, who (several hundreds in number, and clad in precise and rich mourning attire) followed two large coffins covered with costly palls of black velvet. The coffins were borne by Hanseatic seamen; over them waved the Rostock and Visbye flags. The train halted at the church of St. Nicholas. They would have pursued their way across the church-yard, and requested to have a mass chaunted over the dead in the church; but this was denied. The bishop's servants shut the gates of the church-yard and forbade the corpse-bearers to approach the church, or tread on consecrated ground, as one of the coffins they carried contained the body of a man who had been slain in the ale-house at the draught board. Amid wrathful muttering against the hard-hearted prelatical government, the procession proceeded past the outside of the church-yard wall to the quay on Bremen Island, where a number of boats with rowers, clad in white, received the coffins and the whole troop of mourners. They landed on the island, and here, where the Hanseatic merchants alone governed, the train burst forth into a solemn German funeral hymn, while the bodies of Berner Kopmand and Henrik Gullandsfar were carried on board two Hanseatic vessels, which were to convey them to Christian burial in Rostock and Visbye. As soon as the ships were under weigh the funeral train was received in a large warehouse, where three ale-barrels and two keys over a cross were carved in stone over the door. Here the whole party of seamen and trading agents were served out of huge barrels of the famous Embden ale, the intoxicating properties of which soon changed the funeral feast into a wild and mirthful carouse. There was no lack either of wine or mead, and the large dish of salted meat, which was constantly replenished, increased the thirst of the funeral guests. The rabble who had followed the train through the streets, long remained standing on the beach and the quay to hear and watch the intoxicated pepper 'prentices, who here, with none but countrymen and boon companions beside them, seemed determined to indemnify themselves for the restraint to which they were subjected in the foreign town. Some wept, while they reeled, and held moving discourses on the mournful fate of the rich Berner Kopmand and Henrik Gullandsfar, and on the mutability of all power and wealth in this world; while others sung drinking songs and piping love-ditties by way of accompaniment to the pathetic funeral speeches.

At last, attention was withdrawn from these riotous revels by the cry of "The herald! The herald!" and the people thronged in dense crowds down towards the north gate. A herald with a large sheet of parchment and a white staff in his hand, rode, accompanied by a halberdier and a numerous troop of horsemen, through the gate. The train halted at the corners of all the streets, and at all the public squares; two trumpeters on white horses made a signal for silence, whereupon the herald read aloud a treaty between the lord of the town, Bishop Johan, and the council and congregation of Copenhagen. The burghers admitted in this treaty that they had, as well in deed as in word, grossly misbehaved towards their spiritual and temporal lord the bishop, and that they had been implicated in an unlawful and criminal insurrection, the circumstances of which were enumerated. Meanwhile the bishop pardoned them these trespasses at the king's intercession, in return for which the deputies of the council and congregation promised, on the part of the town and of the burghers, that each burgher should instantly return to his duty, and obey all the laws and regulations which the bishop, "with consent of the chapter," had given or hereafter might give them, which they would publicly and solemnly swear to do at the council-house, with laying on of hands on the holy Gospels. No one dared to protest against the validity of this treaty; as the herald displayed the round seal of the town with the three towers, which was suspended to the document by a green silken string, together with the seal of the Copenhagen chapter.

As soon as the inhabitants of the town were informed of this treaty, and it was understood what had thereby been tacitly conceded to them, and with how much leniency this untoward affair had been adjusted, alarm and anxiety were succeeded by still greater and more general satisfaction; but the guild-brethren were displeased and murmured.

At the market-place without the east gate, where the herald had read the treaty for the last time, the numbers of the mob which had followed the procession through the town were considerably augmented, chiefly by day-labourers and ale-house frequenters, who felt that the treaty was an obstacle to the disorder and licentious liberty for which the revolt had given them opportunity. Here discontent was openly manifested; and it was muttered aloud that the bishop after all had got justice in everything, and that the burghers had suffered injustice. But a man now stepped forward who was held in high esteem among these people; he was a remarkably fat and sturdy ale-house keeper, with a large red nose and a pair of hands like bears paws; he was known as the greatest toper and brawler in the town, and his tavern was the resort of the wildest and most turbulent revellers. He mounted upon the great ale barrel which stood before his door, and which served the house for a sign.

"It is altogether right and reasonable, my excellent friends and customers!--my honest and highly esteemed fellow burghers!" he shouted, with his powerful well-known voice, and a round oath. "The bishop hath but got justice for appearance sake; he is, besides, the lord of our good town, and hath a right to require that one should drink one's ale in peace, and pay every man that which is his. When he will grant us what we need both for soul and body, we have surely nought to complain of. When he lets priests sing mass for you, and me tap good ale for you from morn till even, and somewhat past at times--then he is, by my soul! as excellent a bishop and lord as we can ask for, and I will pay without grumbling my yearly tax. For soul and salvation ye need not hereafter to fear, comrades! That matter the king hath taken upon himself, like an honest man. Heard ye not what he promised us yesterday, and what there stood in the treaty? Without consent of the chapter the bishop can command us nothing, and praised be the chapter! They are a wise set: they will just as little deny you absolution every day, for your little bosom sins, as I would deny you what you may stand in need of and can pay for on opportunity! Let rascals and guild-brothers grumble as they may!" he continued, as he clenched his broad fist, "we will keep those fellows in check;--I will wager a drinking match to-day, with every honest man, to the king's and the bishop's prosperity; but those who would stir up strife and wrangling between us peaceable people shall feel our fists. Come in now, comrades! and get something to keep up your hearts! Long live the king! and our lord the bishop besides!"

"Long live the king and the bishop!" cried a great number of the influential tavern-keeper's friends and customers; and the malcontents slunk off.

"They come! they come! The king and bishop are here!" was now echoed from mouth to mouth,--and the crowd again poured in through East Street, towards the quarter where all the butchers of the place had their dwellings, and where some murmurs against the treaty had also been heard. Every burst of dissatisfaction was meanwhile kept down by the opposite feeling which prevailed among the town's most influential burghers, and yet more by the spectacle of the king's entry, and of the crushed pride and dejected deportment of the little bishop Johan. With downcast eyes and manifest signs of fear, this prelate rode, with his ecclesiastical train, at the king's right hand, through his own town, guarded by Count Henrik of Mecklenborg, and the knight-halberdiers. The king met everywhere with a favourable reception; the bishop was received with no demonstrations of welcome, but there was order and peace;--no agitator dared to scoff at him by the king's side, and no voice of discontent was heard. The procession stopped at the council-house, where the treaty was solemnly ratified.

The public tranquillity was thus restored. The dignity of the prelatical government was upheld, and the arrogance of the insurgents subdued. The turbulent guild-brethren had dispersed, and there was no reason to apprehend a fresh outbreak of the revolt, as the burghers themselves, with the permission of the bishop, had agreed with the provost's men and the bishop's retainers to observe the treaty and prevent all disturbances. Despite this apparent victory, the bishop was notwithstanding extremely pensive and taciturn. The king's generous protection appeared to have confounded him, and he seemed to experience a feeling of painful humiliation, by the side of his temporal protector. The revolt, and the danger which had menaced his life, had taught him to know his own powerlessness. The king had indeed treated him, while at Sorretslóv castle, as a distinguished guest, but with cold courtesy, without even giving vent to his displeasure by a single word; it was those words only in the treaty relating to the bishop's dependence on the assent of the chapter, which the king had ordered to be inserted, in an emphatic tone (with the approval of the general-superior there present), and in a voice of command, which admitted of no contradiction. The bishop of Roskild, lately so confident and haughty, who a few days since sat between a cardinal and an archbishop in his fortified castle, and had, for the first time, issued the exasperating church interdict in his own town, was now forced to acknowledge, in silent anger, that since, the cardinal's departure, the banishment of the archbishop, and his having himself been subjected to the scoffs of the lowest rabble, he would be able to maintain the authority of the church in Denmark only so far as the Danish clergy considered it expedient, and as the king himself would support ecclesiastical government.

During the whole of the transaction at the council-house, the bishop was quiet and dejected. The king treated him here also with cold courtesy. His looks were stern and grave; another important and serious matter seemed to have weighed on his heart since he heard the last words of the archbishop to Count Henrik.

From the council-house the whole procession rode to St. Mary's church, where, besides the customary Avé, a Te Deum was sung on occasion of the treaty. The king then immediately rode back to Sorretslóv, from whence he purposed to set out on his journey the following morning. The bishop, with the abbot of the Forest Monastery, and the other ecclesiastics, accompanied him (in compliance with customary courtesy), besides the deputies of the town and the burghers.

The bishop desired not to return to Axelhuus ere every trace of hostile attack on the castle was effaced, and the humiliating insurrection forgotten. He purposed to accompany the king, the following day, to Roskild, where some disturbances had taken place on the occasion of their rulers' attempt to enforce the interdict.

The bishop was thus, in some sort, houseless on this evening, and accepted, as an attention which was his due, the king's invitation to him and his train to take up their quarters for the night at his castle, where all who had accompanied the king were also invited to a festive supper.

The sun had just set as the train reached Sorretslóv, and Count Henrik proposed to the king that they should now, ere it grew dark, inspect the bishop's charitable institution at St. George's hospital, for lepers and those who were sick of pestilential disorders, since it lay but a stone's throw from the castle. At this proposal the bishop, and the abbot of the Forest Monastery, became evidently uneasy; but this was remarked by no one except Count Henrik, who watched them closely, and had on their account proposed aloud this plan, which he readily conjectured the king would reject.

"It is top late. Count! and I have guests besides," answered the king. "If you desire it, inspect the hospital yourself, and describe the establishment to me! I know it doth honour to the bishop's philanthropy!--although I should have deemed it more fitting had that lazzaretto been erected elsewhere. That there is no one sick of the plague there at the present moment I know," Count Henrik bowed in silence, and instantly rode, with a couple of young knights, across Sorretslóv meadow, towards the hospital.

"Permit me to accompany you. Sir knights! I desire also to see this pious institution," said the abbot of the Forest Monastery, endeavouring to overtake them on his palfrey; but they heard him not, and ere the abbot reached St. George's hospital. Count Henrik stood already in the chamber of the sick, gazing with a look of sharp scrutiny on a man who seemed to sleep, but whose head was so closely muffled that he might be considered as masked. On the upper part of the sick man's forehead the beginning of a large scar was visible. "What is the name of this man?" inquired Count Henrik, in a stern tone, of the alarmed and embarrassed brethren of St. George.

"No one knows him, gracious sir!" answered the guardian; "he was brought bruised and wounded hither yesterday, by two stranger canons from the town; they had found him half dead on the beach: we were forced instantly to lay a plaster over his whole face and we cannot now remove it without endangering his life."

"As I live! it is the outlawed Kaggé," said Count Henrik, and all gave way in consternation. "You have housed and healed a regicide," continued the count; "they who brought him hither were traitors: all are such who hide an outlaw."

"Outlaw or not, here he hath peace to die or recover, if it be the will of the Lord and St. George;--that shall not be denied him by any king or king's servant," said an authoritative voice behind them, and the tall abbot of the Forest Monastery stood in the door-way of the chamber. "No tyrant's hand reaches unto this sanctuary of compassion," continued the prelate. "I command you, brother-guardian, and every charitable brother who here serves St. George, I command ye, in the name of the bishop, and our heavenly Lord, to cherish this sick man as your redeemed brother, without fear of man, and without asking of his name and calling in the world! Perhaps he now suffers for his sins; but of that the All-righteous must judge: if he hath fallen by the hand of Divine chastisement he will indeed soon stand before his Judge; in such case, pray for his soul, and give him Christian burial! but if he is healed by the help and prayers of man, or by the merits and miracles of any saint, then let him wander forth free in St. George's name, whether he goes to friend or foe--whether he goes to life and happiness in the world, or to ignominy and death on the scaffold--ye are set here to heal and comfort;--to wound and vex the wretched, there are tyrants enough in the world."

Count Henrik looked in astonishment at the dignified prelate, who spoke with authoritative firmness, and really seemed actuated by pious zeal and compassion; a transient flush passed over the countenance of the proud warrior; it seemed as though he blushed at having persecuted this miserable being, who appeared unable to move a limb, and looked more dead than alive. "In the name of the Lord and St. George," he said, stepping back, "fulfil your duty to the criminal as unto my saint, and the saint of all knights! I require not you nor any one to be merciless; but this I will say once again, you shelter an outlawed and dishonoured traitor. You must yourselves be answerable for the consequences." He cast another glance at the object of his suspicions, who lay immovable, and without any discernible expression in his frightful and shrouded countenance. The count then quitted the hospital, and allowed the abbot to precede him. On the way back to the king's castle he exchanged not a word with the ecclesiastic, who, haughty and silent, gazed on him with a triumphant mien. Count Henrik said nothing of his discovery to the king; he was not, indeed, perfectly certain that he had not been mistaken; but during the whole evening he was in an unusually silent and thoughtful mood. The unhappy criminal now appeared to him so wretched and insignificant that he began to regard all dread of such a foe as contemptible. At the evening repast the king principally conversed with the deputies of the council and the burghers of Copenhagen. It was the first time they sat at the table with the king and their ruler the bishop, and at the commencement of the repast appeared somewhat abashed by this unwonted honour. The king repeated his commendation of the loyalty and bravery of the Copenhageners in Marsk Stig's feud, and the war with Norway; he promised them compensation for every loss they might sustain hereafter for his and the kingdom's sake, so long as the outlaws disquieted the country, and soon contrived to induce the plain, straight-forward citizens to express themselves freely and frankly respecting the advantages and disadvantages of their town in regard to its trade and commerce. They thanked the bishop and the king for their wise town-laws, and for the many liberties and privileges which the town already enjoyed; but they hesitated not to mention how important it might be for the public revenue if the monopolies of the towns could be curtailed, and the burghers allowed at least the same privileges as those granted to foreigners.

"Truly! I have long thought of that," said the king; "this matter deserves to be thought upon. I shall await further proposals and consideration of the subject from your Lord the bishop and your assembled council."

Great joy was manifest in the countenances of the burgers at this speech; but the bishop appeared little pleased with the king's zealous interest in the town and its concerns. The conversation between the ecclesiastics from Axelhuus was reserved and laconic. The king himself was often silent and abstracted; at times he appeared striving to repress the expression of his wrath against the bishop, and the abbot, who he knew, was one of the most devoted friends of Grand. After the repast the burghers took a cheerful and hearty farewell of the king, whom they once more thanked for the rescue and peace of their good town; after which they returned to Copenhagen, with high panegyrics on the king's mildness and favour. Count Henrik and the knights repaired to the chess-table in the upper hall, and Eric remained almost alone among the ecclesiastics. With an air of mysterious confidence the abbot and the provincial prior drew closer to the bishop, whose authority and drooping courage they strove to sustain in the king's presence.

The two ecclesiastics who had principally conducted the treaty, and had impartially defended the rights of the bishop, as well as the liberties of the people, kept nearest the king, and strove furthermore to prevent every outbreak of his anger against the friends of the banished archbishop: they were the provincial prior of the Dominicans, Master Olans (who, as the king's counsellor in this important affair, had accompanied him from Wordingborg), and the general-superior of the Copenhagen chapter, who belonged to the bishop's train, but was secretly devoted to the king, and had even dared to protest against the interdict. To these personages the king, shortly before retiring to rest, addressed a question which had been weighing on his heart the whole day, and which he seemed desirous should be answered in the presence of the bishop, ere he retired to rest.

"Tell me, venerable sirs," said Eric, "how far the canonical law reasonably extends with regard to marriage within the ties of consanguinity, and how far the dispensation of the church can really be consisted as necessary, according to the law of God, when the relationship is so distant that it is hardly remembered?"

"It is a prolix and difficult question, your grace," answered the general-superior of the chapter, evasively, with a dubious side-glance at the bishop and the abbot of the Forest Monastery. "I must crave some time for reflection in order to answer it rightly."

"If the prevailing senseless law is followed," said the aged provincial prior in a firm tone, and with an undaunted glance at the attentive prelates, "almost every computable degree of relationship may be an impediment, and may call for an indulgence; but when this is carried out too far I believe the church's holy father will agree with me that such an extreme doth but uselessly burden the conscience, just as it also may lightly become a subject for scoffing and scandal, instead of being a means of edification to Christian and reasonable persons. If one were to be consistent in these matters, no marriage would at last take place in Christendom without dispensation from the papal see, seeing that all persons are kindred in the flesh, inasmuch as they all descend from old Adam and Eve."

"That is precisely my own opinion," said the king, with a smile of satisfaction; "it would take a tolerably long reckoning.--What is your opinion of this, pious Bishop Johan?"

The bishop appeared confused, at the half-jesting tone with which the king asked his opinion; he was not prepared for this, and seemed to wish just as little to tread on the heels of papal authority, as to dare at this moment to rouse the anger of the king--he stammered out a few words, and strove to evade a decided declaration.

"Permit me, venerable brother! To answer this question," began the abbot, with a proud and collected deportment:--"an example will best explain the case," he continued, addressing himself to the king; "no case is more in point than that of your grace's relationship to your young kinswoman, Princess Ingeborg of Sweden."

"Truly!" exclaimed the king, with a start, "you use no circumlocution, Sir Abbot! you go straight to the point. It suits me best, however. Let us keep to that example! I am more, every way, interested in it than in any other!"

"Ere the church can bless your meditated marriage union with this your high-born relative," continued the abbot, with calm coldness, "the holy father's dispensation and indulgence are altogether necessary, and this on a two-fold account; pro primo,--because of the tie of relationship by marriage; and pro secundo,--because of the taint of relationship by blood. As regards the first point, royal sir! the aforesaid Princess Ingeborg's uncle, Count Gerhard of Holstein, is, as is well known, by his marriage with your most royal mother, the dowager Queen Agnes, your grace's present step-father. Count Gerhard's fatherly relationship, as well to that noble princess, as to your Grace! causes an almost brotherly and sisterly connection between you and the young princess;--and marriage between brother and sister, or between those who may be considered as such, is sternly forbidden by every law of God and man----"

"You have made us out brother and sister in a trice; it is a singular way of bringing people into near relationship," interrupted the king, "yet pass but over the relationship by marriage, with my stepfather's niece, venerable sir!--there is not a single drop of the same blood therein. Nought but a near and actual blood relationship do I acknowledge to be so real a hindrance that it can only be removed by God's vicegerent upon earth."

"Your grace is right in some respects," answered the abbot, "inasmuch as it is the tie of blood, which in this instance constitutes the sin, and makes every marriage union between relations, which hath not been sanctified by the indulgence of the church, an unholy act, a deadly sin, and a damnable connection."

"Ha! do you rave?" cried the king: his brow flushed; anger glowed in his cheek and on his lofty brow, but he subdued his rising ire. "If terrible words, without truth or reason, had power to slay the soul, I should long since have been spiritually murdered," he continued in a lower tone. "Now, say on, Sir Abbot!--how near reckon you, then, the blood relationship, which, according to your bold assertion, may plunge me into deadly sin, and into a gulf of horror and ignominy, if I await not a permit from Rome to perpetrate such crime?"

"It is easy to reckon up the degrees of forbidden affinity," answered the abbot, with imperturbable coolness. "The high-born Princess Ingeborg is, as is known, a legitimate daughter of King Magnus, who was a legitimate son of the high-born Birger Jarl, whose consort, the lady Ingeborg, was a legitimate daughter of King Eric the tenth, whose Queen Regizé was, lastly, a legitimate daughter of your grace's departed royal father's--father's--father's father;--ergo, the princess is a great-great grandchild of your grace's grandfather's departed royal father, Waldemar the Great, of blessed memory!"

"Perfectly right, grand-children's grand-children's children then, of my great-great grandfather--a near relationship, doubtless!" said the king, bursting into a laugh. "I now wish you a good and quiet night, venerable and most learned sirs!" he added, apparently with a lightened heart, and with a cheerful and determined look: "I never rightly considered the matter before; now it is perfectly clear to me; I can sleep as quietly as in Abraham's bosom, when I think on the sin which I, with mature deliberation and full resolve, purpose to perpetrate as soon as possible. I could wish no one among you may ever have a heavier sin on his conscience." So saying, he bowed with a smile, and departed.

The king's eager talk with the ecclesiastics had attracted the attention of Count Henrik and his companions, who had approached, and heard the subject of the conversation. On the king's laughingly repeating the abbot's calculation, some of the young knights had laughed right heartily also. The abbot was crimson with rage. "It is the mark of eye-servants," he said aloud, "to vie with each other in laughing at what their gracious lords consider to be absurd, even though such merriment doth but disgrace them and their short-sighted masters. This scoffing and contempt shall be avenged, my brother," he whispered in the bishop's ear, with a significant look. The bishop started, and looked anxiously around; he winked at his incensed colleague, and observed aloud, that it was high time to retire to rest, and bid good-night to all discord and worldly thoughts. The master of the household now appeared with a number of torch-bearers, and the knights, as well as the ecclesiastics, repaired to the chambers assigned to them, in the knights' story in the western wing of the castle.

CHAP. VII.

Towards midnight, Count Henrik stood in his apartment, next the king's chamber, in the upper story of the castle. He had extinguished his light, in order to retire to rest, but remained standing half-undressed, at the high arched-window, which looked towards the east, and from which he gazed out in the moonlight upon the Sound, watching the distant vessels gliding away over the glittering mirror of the waters. Since his visit to St. George's hospital, he had been silent and pensive. At the evening repast he had constantly drained his cup, for the purpose of raising his spirits. His pulse beat hard; recollections of the past, and hopes for the future, passed rapidly through his mind, in fair and vivid imagery. At the sight of the ocean and the distant prospect, he gave himself up to visionary longings after his distant fatherland, and a beloved form seemed to flit before him, as he pressed the blue shoulder-scarf to his lips, and hung it carefully over a high-backed chair. He took a gold chain, which the king had lately given him, from his breast, and laid his sword aside. "Deeds, achievements, honour, first!" he said to himself, "and then love will surely also twine me a wreath. Now that his life and happiness are at stake, he shall not have called me his friend in vain. Let him become a Waldemar the Victorious! and Henrik of Mecklenborg's name shall be famed like that of Albert of Orlamund[oe]. But another sort of fellow, and a right merry one, will I be." He now heard the weapons of the bodyguard clashing in the antechamber, where a young halberdier kept guard, with twelve spearmen. It was not, however, usual for the king to be surrounded by a guard, when he made a progress through the country, and passed the night at any of the royal mansions; but here, where the banished archbishop and the outlaws still had their numerous friends, and where the ecclesiastical rulers of the town were on doubtful terms with the king, Count Henrik had counselled this precaution as in some degree necessary, after so recent an insurrection, and where the king's mediation had not been able to satisfy all the discontented. While Count Henrik was undressing himself, the Drost's letter dropped from his vest, and he pondered thoughtfully over the solemn warnings it contained. "Hum! The junker," he said to himself "his own brother--and yet surely a traitor--never shall I forget his countenance that night at Kallundborg--the blood of the unhappy commandant was surely upon his head--he will be no joyous wedding guest--he would assuredly rather stand by the bridegroom's grave;--then might a crown yet fall upon his raven's head. Hum! They are murky, these Danish royal castles," he continued, looking around the dark gothic chamber, with its arched roof and walls, a fathom thick, "Is he safe here among his guests? The little spying bishop was Grand's good friend. I like him not; the haughty, gloomy abbot still less--they are dangerous people, those holy men of God, when they will have a finger in state affairs. Here he sleeps under the same roof with his enemies to-night; and yonder, in the hospital, lies a disguised regicide; perhaps he was only deadly sick for appearance sake, and my compassion was ill bestowed." As Count Henrik was revolving these thoughts, and delayed retiring to rest, there was a low knocking at the door. It opened, and an ecclesiastic entered; he was a quiet, serious old man. The moonlight fell on a pale and somewhat melancholy face, and the Count recognised the general-superior of the Copenhagen chapter. "A word in confidence, noble knight," he whispered mysteriously; "I come like Nicodemus; yet it is not spiritual things, but temporal, which have disturbed my night's rest. Your liege the king hath this day generously saved my life and the lives of my colleagues, although he does not regard us all as his friends, and with some reason: perhaps I may now be able to requite him."

"How?" exclaimed Count Henrik: "say on, venerable sir! What have you to confide to me?"

"When we fled from Axelhuus at break of day," continued the ecclesiastic, "I was well nigh sick of fear and alarm, and gave but little heed to what passed around me. A half-dead man had been found on the beach, and out of compassion taken into the boat. I saw not his face, and his voice was strange to me; of that I can take my oath. He was afterwards carried to St. George's Hospital here, close by the king's meadows. While we lay hidden under the thwarts in the boat, for fear of the insurgents, the sick man had come to himself: and exchanged many strange, enigmatical words with my colleague, the abbot of the Forest Monastery. What it was I heard but half, and cannot remember; but there must be some mystery about that person which makes me apprehensive; deadly sick he seemed to me in no wise to be, and appeared least of all prepared for his own departure from this world. My lord, the bishop seemed neither to know him nor his dark projects; but as I said, the abbot knew him, and had assuredly before administered to him the most holy Sacrament. More have I not to say; but I felt compelled to seek you out, however late it was: I could not sleep for disquiet thoughts. The guard without, here, I found in a deep slumber, I know not whether it is with your knowledge."

"How? Impossible!" exclaimed Count Henrik, in great consternation, hastily stepping into the antechamber, where he found all the twelve spearmen lying asleep on the floor. On the table stood an empty wine flask and some goblets. The young halberdier, who had the command of the guard, sat likewise asleep in a corner. Count Henrik shook them; but they were all in a deep sleep. "Treachery!" he exclaimed, in dismay, and hastily snatched a lance from one of the sleeping guards. "Haste to the knights' story, venerable sir! Wake all the king's men, and call them instantly hither! I cannot now myself quit the king's door. I will fasten the door after you: knock three soft strokes when you return! For the Lord's sake, haste!"

The ecclesiastic nodded in silence, and departed. Count Henrik locked the door of the upper story after him, and barricadoed it with tables and benches--he strove again to waken the sleeping guards, but it was in vain: they seemed not intoxicated by ordinary wine; their sleep rather resembled that caused by a soporific draught.

Count Henrik stood alone among the sleepers, and waited long in a state of painful anxiety; there was a deathlike stillness around him: he heard but the deep-drawn breathings of the sleepers; but the king's men from the knights' story did not arrive, and the ecclesiastic returned not either. He stood for full an hour, listening with lance in hand. All was still. At last he thought he heard a noise, as if some one was scraping the wall, or creeping to the window over the projecting battlements near the staircase of the upper story. He cast a hasty glance at the window, and saw a horrible and deadly pale face, which he could not recognise, pressed flat to one of the window panes. He rushed forward with raised lance, but when he reached the window the face had disappeared. Count Henrik stepped back, thrilled by a feeling of horror which he had never before experienced. It seemed as if the prostrate warriors around him mocked his growing uneasiness by the profound indifference of their slumbers. He felt as if secret doors were about to open in all the old panels, and the outlawed regicides of Finnerup were ready to rush forth masked from every corner to renew the bloody scenes of St. Cecilia's eve, and avenge Marsk Stig and their slain kinsmen. He kept his lance in the one hand and held his knight's sword unsheathed in the other. Thus armed, he stationed himself without the king's door, and just before the open door between his own chamber and the landing of the upper story, every moment expecting an attack from the foe, who were probably many in number. It was useless to give an alarm; the wing containing the knights' story, where all the king's men slept, was at too great a distance for his voice to reach thither, and if the traitors were nigh, a shout of distress might embolden them. He thought of waking the king; but all as yet was quiet, and he was ashamed of showing fear in Eric's presence, where there was no enemy either to be seen or heard. To the king's sleeping chamber there was no other entrance than through the antechamber of the upper story and the count's apartment. The windows of the king's chamber were furnished with iron bars: but in the antechamber the high arched windows were without any defence, and they looked out on the other side to the open field. From this quarter he expected the attack would be made, and he feared, with reason, that some mishap must have chanced to the ecclesiastic on the way to the knights' story. The longer he pondered over his situation, the more alarming it appeared. An idea now suddenly struck him, which he instantly hastened to put into execution. After he had once more unsuccessfully attempted to arouse the slumbering men-at-arms he raised them up one by one from the floor and bound them tight by their shoulder-scarfs, in an almost upright position, to the strong iron hooks in the window pillars, which were used for hanging weapons upon. In this attitude they turned their backs towards the windows looking upon the fields, and would, therefore, appear to those without to be awake and at their posts. Hardly had he completed this laborious task ere he heard whispering voices, and a low clashing of arms under the windows. He sprang suddenly forward with raised lance and sword, to that window, which was most strongly lighted up by the moonshine, and shouted in a loud triumphant voice, "Now's the time, guard! Here we have them in the field."

"Fly! fly! We are betrayed!--they are all on their legs!" said a hoarse voice without; and Count Henrik saw in the clear moonshine a whole troop of masked persons, in the mantles of Dominican monks, take flight over the meadow. "St. George be praised!" he exclaimed, once more breathing freely. "I should hardly have been able to master so many."

The spearmen and the young halberdier still slept soundly in their hanging position. Count Henrik bound them yet faster, and left them in this attitude. When the king stepped forth from his chamber at sun-rise, he beheld, to his surprise. Count Henrik pacing up and down, half-dressed, on the landing, with weapons in both hands, while the guard hung snoring in their shoulder-scarfs among the untenanted suits of armour on the window pillars. At this sight he burst into a hearty laugh, and on hearing the strange adventure shook his head and smiled. "You have dreamed, my good Count Henrik; or, to speak plainly, you have had a goblet of wine too much in your head," he said, gaily. "I noticed that last night, indeed; but compared with these fellows you have assuredly been sober: you have made rare game of them in your merriment."

"As I live, my liege, it was no joke," began Count Henrik eagerly; but the lancers now began, one after another, to gape and to stretch themselves. When they found, however, how they were bound to the armour-hooks, and beheld the king with Count Henrik just opposite them, they demeaned themselves most strangely, betwixt fear and bashfulness. The king turned away to repress his laughter, as he was now compelled to be stern; but Count Henrik was indignant at his incredulity and gay humour.

"Throw the whole of that dormouse guard into the tower," commanded the king; "they can sleep themselves sober, and so be better able to keep their eyes open another time. You yourself shall get off by putting up with my laughter," he added, and went with the count into another apartment. "Henceforth I can believe neither what you nor my dear Drost Aagé see and hear in the moonshine. Out of pure love to me you spy traitors in every corner, and vie with each other in playing mad pranks. Hath any one ever known the like of the halberdier guard!" When the door of the guard-room was shut, the king gave vent to his laughter; his opinion of the real state of the case was strengthened by observing that Count Henrik was only half-dressed, and by his disturbed looks.

"You wound me by your doubts, my liege," resumed Count Henrik, with subdued vehemence, and casting his mantle around him; "but so long as you can make laughing-stocks of your true servants; thank God, it is a proof at least that you are of good cheer, my liege, and that should vex no loyal subject. You can witness, fellows," he continued eagerly, again opening the door of the guard-chamber upon the dismayed spearmen. "No! That is true; you saw nothing of it, ye drowsy pates!" he cried in wrath. "To the tower with you instantly! and you besides, vigilant Sir halberdier! You never more deserve to be trusted with the guarding of the king's person."

The young halberdier, who had awoke in fear and dismay, and had now extricated himself from his humiliating position, related in his excuse how he had lost his consciousness in an unaccountable manner, after having only drunk a single cup of the evening draught which had been brought to them. They had all fared in the same manner. The king at last became serious, and caused the matter to be strictly inquired into. It could not be discovered who had brought the soporific draught. None of the kin's attendants knew any thing of it. No one had been roused in the knights' story. The old general-superior must have been carried off by the traitors: he was nowhere to be found. When the bishop and the abbot of the Forest Monastery heard what had been done they appeared to be in the greatest consternation. The bishop loudly expressed it as his opinion that it must have been the discontented guild-brethren from the town, and that the attack, in all probability, had concerned him. Since his last conversation with these ecclesiastical dignitaries the king had altered the plan of his journey, and determined instantly to repair to Helsingborg, there to expedite his marriage, and prepare every thing for the reception of his bride.

He excused himself with cold courtesy from all further companionship with bishop Johan and the abbot, who, silent and thoughtful, set out on the road to Roskild; but the aged provincial prior Olaus accompanied the king, by his desire, to supply the place of the absent chancellor, in conducting correspondence and matters of a similar nature.

When the king, a few hours after sunrise, was about to leave Sorretslóv, and traversed the ante-chamber where Count Henrik had kept his singular night-watch, he took the count's hand and pressed it with warmth, "If you have been able to put my enemies to flight, here, with snoring fellows on hooks, you must be able to crush them with waking men in coats of mail. From this hour you are my Marsk, Count Henrik of Mecklenborg, with the same authority in peace and war as Marsk Olufsen," So saying, the king handed him a roll of parchment, with sign and seal of this high dignity. "When I laugh another time at your heroic deeds, brave count, and call them dreams and visions, you may call me an unbelieving Thomas," he continued. "From my childhood upwards I have had as many deadly foes as my father had murderers," he added, solemnly, and with a tremulous voice; "yet truly, I thank the Lord and our holy Lady for my foes; they teach me almost daily to know my true friends."

Count Henrik's eyes beamed with joy; he heartily thanked the king, and followed him down the staircase to the court of the castle, where Eric's numerous train already awaited his coming, on horseback. Count Henrik sprang gaily into the saddle, with his new commission in his hand, and instantly issued, as Marsk, the necessary orders for pursuing and tracking the traitors.

As they rode out of the court-yard, the king missed his two favourite tournament steeds, and became highly displeased. "Truly this is worse than all the rest," he said, looking around him with so stern a glance and so clouded a countenance that the young knights looked at each other in surprise; and a word of soothing or admonition seemed to hover on the lips of the aged provincial prior.

"The handsome, spirited prancers, they should have danced before Princess Ingeborg's car on our bridal day," continued the king, turning to Master Olaus. "This is no good omen for me. They might sooner have burned the castle over my head than robbed me of those noble animals."

It was now discovered that the horses were already missing in the morning of the day preceding, together with both the grooms who had the charge of them, and that they had been sought for everywhere in vain.

"They shall and must be found; I will answer for that," said Count Henrik, and instantly despatched a couple of his own grooms to look for them. The party rode on; but the king's good humour was disturbed for some time. "I shall never be able to find such another pair," he said at last, in a milder tone, looking out across the Sound on the picturesque road to Elsinore, while the larks carolled gaily above his head, and his long fair locks floated on the spring breeze. "I always fancied them dancing before her car every time I thought on her bridal day; eager wishes may make us superstitious and childish, I believe. Had we but the bride in the car we should assuredly get it drawn to church."

"You would have twice as many hands to draw it as there are hearts in Denmark's kingdom," said Count Henrik, placing a green sprig of beech in his hat. "We bring summer with us to Helsingborg, my sovereign--Look! Denmark's forests already arch themselves into a vast Gothic church and bridal hall."

"That church and bridal hall they shall at any rate leave wide open to me," exclaimed the king, with some bitterness, as he raised his glance above the woods to the clear heavens. "Yon eternal church of God, besides," he continued, "however matters may stand with her image here in the dust. Is it not so, Master Olaus?"

"The true temple of God's spirit is a pious and loving heart, my liege," answered the mild, calm, provincial prior. "Where there is love and living faith, with the Lord's help, there will be no lack of blessing."

The king nodded kindly to them both, and they now rode briskly forward on the road to Elsinore.

CHAP. VIII.

While in Sweden as in Denmark, in the loveliest season of the year, the old favourite national songs, with the burden,--"The woods are decked in leafy green," and "The birds are warbling now their song," were sung as well in castles as behind the plough, and the court rejoiced with the minnesingers over "the very green and lovely May," and "the mighty power of love," couriers were constantly passing between the Swedish and Danish courts at Stockholm and Helsingborg; and a feeling of joyous expectation pervaded all Denmark. Drost Aagé in conjunction with the learned and eloquent Master Petrus de Dacia, had succeeded in overcoming the immediate scruples of the Swedish state council, respecting the marriage of the Danish King with Princess Ingeborg. Without in the least betraying with what ardent impetuosity their chivalrous young king seemed willing to stake life and crown to win his bride, and without the most distant allusion to the possibility of a breach of peace being caused by the failure of a negociation, which had for its object the most peaceable relations, and the most loving ties, these faithful servants of the king, had, by adducing wise and politic reasons, first brought the wise Regent Thorkild Knudsen over to their side, and, despite all the hindrances which the malicious Drost Bruncké placed in their way, at last carried their point so far as to divest the idea of the excommunication at Sjöborg, and the enforcement of the interdict at Copenhagen, of its paralysing and terrifying influence, at the Swedish court. From the showing of the learned Master Petrus, and the king's own letters, and clear explanation of the matter, the want of dispensation from the papal court, came at last to be regarded as the omission of an insignificant formality, afterwards to be remedied through negotiation. The flight and formal banishment of Archbishop Grand from Denmark, as well as the insurrection caused by the execution of the interdict in Copenhagen, had rejoiced every brave and free-minded man, as well in Sweden, as in Denmark, and considerably diminished the dread entertained by the Swedish court and council of the consequences of a possible breach with the papal see. A new and overawing proof had been displayed of the courage of the young Danish king, and of the unanimity with which his loyal people joined him in opposing the usurpation of the hierarchy. Daring politicians were even found who hoped the time might not be far distant when the free national spirit of the north would render people, and princes, independent of the interference of the papal see in state matters, and the rights of citizenship. Many bold and manly speeches were uttered in the Swedish state-council on this occasion, which did honour to Thorkild Knudsen and his countrymen, but which were reprobated, by the opposite party, as open heresy and ungodliness, which would be visited upon Sweden as well as Denmark with heavy chastisement.

Drost Bruncké, and his adherents, despised no means which might tend to stop or protract the negotiations; he had many able prelates on his side, but the majority of voices were against him, and he sought in vain, by reviving the remembrance of the wrongs and animosities of the two nations, to rekindle the ancient national hate, which now seemed forgot, and which it was hoped a mutual alliance between the royal houses, would entirely eradicate.

The eager opposition party in the Swedish council, which was headed by Drost Bruncké, and in which many were disposed to think that Prince Christopher took a secret but important part, was calculated rather to forward than hinder the final decision of the affair. Sweden's greatest statesman, Marsk Thorkild Knudsen, was on this occasion called on to display his mental superiority. He disdained having recourse to his authority as regent, and to his influence as the guardian of King Birger, and the darling of the Swedish nation. The opinion which he declared from full conviction, he wished to see prevail by its own weight, and by its accordance with the mutual feeling of both nations. Thorkild Knudsen now stood forth in council with an address which appealed as well to the hearts as to the sober judgment of his countrymen.

After a clear and calm representation of the political relations of Sweden and Denmark, and the original affinity of the Scandinavian people, besides what they could and might effect by alliance and friendship for their mutual security, and the development of their powers. Thorkild also pourtrayed, with enthusiastic and glowing eloquence, the greatness and devotion of love's triumph over petty scruples and national prejudices. He gave an equally true and favourable portraiture of the constant and loveable character of the young Danish king, as well as of the charms of the noble Princess Ingeborg, and the mutual attachment that had subsisted between the betrothed pair from their childhood. He finally contrived, with as much sagacity as eloquence, to put down the objections of the opposite party, and bring the negotiation of the Danish ambassadors to the happiest issue; the greater number of his opponents being at last animated by a warm feeling of enthusiasm for the royal pair, which was mingled by the soul-enlarging feeling of the union of two nations in that of their fairest and noblest representatives.

The espousals were, therefore, according to the ardent wish of King Eric and with the consent of the princess, fixed for the first of June, which was already near at hand; and a courier from Drost Aagé was instantly despatched with the glad tidings to Eric. The whole of the Swedish royal family were to accompany the princess to Helsingborg, where splendid preparations were making for the marriage, and the chivalrous King Eric now only awaited the dawning of that happy day to set out at the head of the chivalry of Denmark, with all the courtly state suited to the occasion, to meet his beautiful bride and her royal relatives.

Towards the close of May, Helsingborg castle, together with the town and its vicinity became daily the resort of all who were most distinguished in Denmark and Sweden. The fair gothic castle, with its circular walls, its bastions, and high towers, rose proudly over the town on the summit of the steep rock or hill above. The castle was surrounded by deep moats, and was considered to be an impregnable fortress; but at this time the drawbridge was let down, and the great iron-cased castle-gate, on the southern side, stood open to admit the coming guests. The old town, which dated its origin from the days of King Frodé[^[3]], and was so pleasantly and advantageously situated on the narrowest part of the Sound, owed its present prosperity to its considerable trade, and great horse and cattle fairs. It was tolerably extensive, but was, however, by no means, capable of accommodating so great a concourse of strangers. The great market-place, close to the council-house, and the handsome church of St. Mary's (the central point of the town where many streets met), were now daily as much thronged with people as on the great fair-days. Besides the king's nearest relatives, and the wedding guests invited by the Marsk, from the lordly manors and knightly castles of both kingdoms; a great crowd of curious and sympathising persons of all ranks flocked to Helsingborg, even from the most distant provinces, to witness the intended festival, and partake of the public amusements, which, on this occasion, were to render this celebration of royal nuptials a national festival for both Denmark and Sweden.

The king had already held his court, for some weeks, at Helsingborg. Marsk Oluffsen had returned from Jutland, where he had been fortunate enough to put an end to all disturbances by capturing the daring partizans, Niels Brock and Johan Papæ, with some other friends of the archbishop's and the outlaws. The insurgents were led to the prison-tower at Flynderborg, but the stern Marsk Oluffsen was personally so incensed at these state prisoners, who had long plagued and defied him, that he thought no punishment was adequate to their deserts. At the present moment nothing was thought of at court but joy and festivity. The king's stepfather, Count Gerhard, had arrived from Nykiöping with his consort, the dowager queen Agnes. Next to the king himself no one seemed more to rejoice at his marriage than his politic and dignified mother. In her first unhappy marriage, Agnes, as Denmark's queen, had held that wedded happiness, among royal personages, was only the dream of visionaries. After the death of her unhappy consort she had sacrificed the title of queen, and changed this dream into truth and reality, in her own lot, under a humbler name. Amid her own happiness she had often thought, with uneasiness and regret, on having made a treaty, involving the future destiny of her children by their betrothal in early childhood, and now saw, with thankfulness, that a union, projected from motives of state policy, had grown into the natural tie of kindred hearts.

It appeared that the brave Duke of Langeland had forgotten all former disputes with the king, at the treaty of Wordingborg, but his brother, Duke Valdemar of Slesvig, who had also been invited out of courtesy, had excused himself on plea of illness.

Three days before that fixed for the bridal, Junker Christopher arrived with a numerous train from Kallundborg. The king received him with his wonted courtesy on the quay of Helsingborg, whither he had gone to meet him with his new Marsk, Count Henrik, and his halberdiers; but there was a painful expression of suppressed anger in the king's generally joyous and kindly countenance as he gave his hand to his sullen brother in token of welcome. It was pretty openly said that the junker lately, by means of secret cabals, had placed obstacles in the way of the marriage, and it was believed the king had painful conjectures on the subject, although no proofs of this presumable treachery were forthcoming. The junker himself had appeared latterly to suffer from a corroding melancholy, which was often succeeded by bursts of wild merriment,--since the storming of Kallundborg castle especially, and the execution of his unhappy commandant, the restless and gloomy disposition of the prince had assumed this fierce character; even those few of his courtiers who were really devoted to him, and regarded his gloomy reserved deportment as an effect of the wrestlings of a great spirit with its destiny often complained of his caprices; and though they still adhered to him, it was, however, with a species of fear, mixed with an undefined hope of one day arriving with him at honours and fortune.

The mutual greeting of the brothers on Helsingborg quay was strikingly cold, although the junker seemed desirous by his congratulations and expressions of courtesy to do away with all appearance of misunderstanding. To this Count Henrik in particular paid special attention. In the king's train were seen the German professors of minstrelsy, who had abandoned their researches at Wordingborg castle to enliven the festival by their lays. The papers and documents which Junker Christopher had removed from the sacristy chest at Lund, on the archbishop's imprisonment, and brought, as it was said, to the state archives at Wordingborg castle, had been sought for in vain by the learned friends of the king. These documents might even yet become of great importance to the king in the suit against the banished archbishop; but they had disappeared at the time when matters had come to an open breach with the junker, and the king suspected his brother of having destroyed them, or even of having returned them to the archbishop.

The king's train had been also joined by the young Iceland bard, the priest of St. Olaf, Master Laurentius of Nidaros, who had now exchanged his layman's red mantle for the more reputable black dress of a canon; and beside the king walked the little deformed Master Thrand Fistlier, with a consequential deportment, and displaying on his finger a large diamond ring, which the king had presented to him in acknowledgement of his superior learning. On the king's arrival at Helsingborg the scientific mountebank had been set at liberty. He instantly contrived to arrest the attention of the king (eager as he was in the pursuit of knowledge), after he had with dexterity and keen ability repelled every charge against himself, as well of the Leccar heresy as of witchcraft. This last accusation, which had drawn upon him the persecution and peril he underwent at Skänor, he alluded to with exultation, as a striking testimony to his own astonishing arts, and a ludicrous proof of the dulness of the age and the absurdities of popular ignorance. The king now presented him to his brother as a rare scholar and an extraordinary artist. The significant look with which Junker Christopher greeted this far-travelled adventurer seemed to betray an earlier acquaintanceship, which, however, was acknowledged by neither. Count Henrik placed but little reliance on Prince Christopher's congratulations and measured courtesy. He narrowly watched the junker, as well as the foreign mountebank, about whom Aagé had expressed himself so dubiously. He thought he more and more perceived a secret understanding between the prince and the mysterious scholar, and resolved to be at his post. He ventured not, however, to grieve the king by disclosing it, or increasing his suspicion of his brother, which evidently pained him, and which he seemed desirous to exert himself to the utmost to shake off. Neither on this nor the two following days was there any nearer approach to confidence between the brothers. Courteous phrases and stiff court etiquette were resorted to, by way of compensation for the want of cordiality. It was only when Junker Christopher was at the chase, or seated at the draught-board or the drinking-table, that the king was seen to converse joyously with his mother and Count Gerhard, or jest merrily with Count Henrik and his knights: the German professors of minstrelsy and the learned Icelanders exerted all their powers to while away the evenings preceding his marriage-day, when his ardent and impatient spirit was not engrossed by important affairs of state. But when he seemed at times in the happiest mood he often grew suddenly silent and thoughtful at the mere sound of his brother's voice, or on observing his wild uncertain glance from under his dark and knitted brow.

The evening before the impatiently expected first of June the king sat in the upper hall of Helsingborg castle, at the chess-table, where he was usually the victor. On this occasion, however, he had found an almost invincible opponent in the learned Iceland philosopher, who appeared able beforehand to calculate the plans of his adversary, and only to need a single move in order to frustrate them. Notwithstanding Master Thrand's decided superiority, the king had, however, won every game; but he seemed to regard this with indifference; he was absent, and often forgot to make his moves. At the opposite end of the hall he heard his brother talking of hunting and horses, with Count Gerhard; his mother was listening to the poems of the German minstrels and Master Laurentius; while the young knights discoursed with animation of the next day's festivities and tournament.

"Tell me, Master Thrand," said the king to his learned antagonist, with a thoughtful glance out of the window at the star-lit heavens, "what is your opinion of omens, and of the wondrous art of astrology, to which so many learned men are devoted in our time. Believe you the life and actions of men and the changeable fortunes of this world can be so considerable and important in the eyes of the Almighty that higher powers should care for them, or intermeddle with them?--and think ye the position and movements of the heavenly bodies stand in any real relation to our life and destiny?"

"That is almost more than science can be said as yet to have fathomed with certainty, most gracious king!" answered the artist, with a subtle, satirical smile on his lips, while his head almost disappeared between his shoulders; "but if any science is to bring clearness and demonstration into the speculations of the learned and the mysteries of astrology, it must be that exalted science of sciences whose poor worshipper I am. Assuredly, your grace, nothing happens in the world but what is natural, that is to say, a necessary consequence of foregoing causes; but it is precisely the great problem of the mysterious and hidden causes of these things and events which it is the province of human wisdom to solve. 'Beatas qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas' hath been said already by the wise heathen. Theologians and poets indeed picture to themselves a nearer and safer road by which to reach the same goal as ourselves, or even a far higher one," he continued, with a scornful self-satisfied smile; "but they deceive themselves in their simplicity and enthusiasm by looking for a kind of supernatural influence of the Divine wisdom which in fact is the life and soul of nature, yet which but partially discloses itself to us in its workings, according as these by degrees unfold themselves to us in their essences through the sacred optic tubes of science and research."

"Now you mix up too many things together for me, Master Thrand!" said the king, shaking his head. "You seem to me almost to confound the great living God and Lord with his creation, or what you call nature. With all my respect for human wisdom--for all wise and useful learning which man may attain by the examination of earthly things, I think, nevertheless, that the spirit of truth and beauty, commonly called 'genius' by our scholars and the poets of olden times, as also 'the prophetic vision,' soar far above the ken of human intellect; and for what is of paramount importance for us to see, we have most assuredly the holiest and noblest optic tube in God's own revealed word." The king paused a moment and gazed on the strange deportment of the little philosopher, with a sharp and scrutinising look, "You smile as if you pitied me for this my sincere opinion. I am a layman, but all the pious and learned men I have known agreed with me; nor can I perceive that our theologians err in considering the spirit of God as a surer guide to true knowledge of divine things than all human subtlety and wisdom."

"Far be it from me to contradict my most gracious Lord, or the pious scholars of our time on this point," resumed Master Thrand, looking around him with a repressed smile, and a cunning, cautious glance, "but of this I would rather talk with your grace in your private chamber! I doubt not that with your clear and unprejudiced views, (soaring as your mind does above the ignorance of our age) you will understand me rightly. I dare almost unconditionally subscribe to all that the holy church, it is said, considers needful for him who would be called a true believer, provided I may be allowed to interpret the words of ancient writings and symbols according to their true and reasonable signification;--meanwhile there is, however, much in our science which must as yet be a mystery to the great majority, and even to the scholars of our time, who are too but much inclined to discern heresy and ungodliness in every free thought. Noble King!" he added, in a low, mysterious tone, "I read no longer with the learned in the small written volumes (out of which, as you yourself have experienced, curses are as often quoted as blessings) but I read much more in the great book that was not writ by the hand of man, and whose words sound forth eternal wisdom in the din of the storm and the roaring of the ocean, in the course of the stars above the thunder clouds, and in voices of flame from the depths of the abyss. Mark well, my deep-thinking king!--you the young Solomon of our north!--the holy Spirit of God, of which so many and so foolish words are spoken, is precisely that mainspring of forces we seek for in the great workshop of nature's sanctuary, in the depths of our own souls, and in the philosopher's stone, which we call the quintessence of creation. To him who but catches a glimpse of it, (of which, however, we can but boast in certain great moments) to him, the deepest and highest things are revealed; the future as the past is clear before him; he is the master and lord of nature, and of eternal power--for him life hath only limits in his will."

The king looked in grave silence on the singular little man's visage, every muscle of which quivered with emotion, while sparks seemed to flash as it were from his small deep-set eyes. "Follow me afterwards to my private chamber," said the king rising. Meanwhile Count Henrik had approached and heard part of this conversation; he thought he observed a kind of triumphant smile in Master Thrand's self-satisfied countenance; but he sought in vain for an opportunity of cautioning the king, who quitted Thrand in a very thoughtful mood, and went to join his mother and the three stranger bards.

Master Laurentius had related to the Countess Agnes much of the grandeur of Norway and Iceland, and of the remarkable bards and Saga writers of his fatherland; he made special mention of the great Snorro[^[4]] and his learned nephews, who had given such a preponderance to Saga literature, as almost to throw poetry entirely into the shade. In order, however, to prove to Countess Agnes and the German minstrels that poetic inspiration in his fatherland had not altogether died away, as they believed, with heathenism and the gifted Skalds of the Edda, he had recited several poems and heroic lays, to which they could not refuse their approbation.

When the king joined them, Laurentius was reciting some strophes of Einar Skulesen's famous epic poem, "Geisli," or "The Ray," in honor of St. Olaf. The king stopped and listened. In this poem St. Olaf was called, "A ray of light from God's kingdom, a beam or glimmer of the glorious Son of Grace;" and Christ was described as the light of the world, and the Lord of Heaven, who, as "a ray from a bright star (the Virgin Mary) manifested himself on earth for our ineffable good." The king nodded with satisfaction; he seemed to find a consoling counterpoise in the pious lay to what had disturbed and alarmed him in the discourse of the wise Master Thrand. "Go on!" he said encouragingly, to Master Laurentius. The young priest of St. Olaf, who had been inspired with lively enthusiasm by the praises in honor of his saint, repeated in his musical and declamatory tones some more strophes of the beginning of the poem, touching the glory of the Saviour and of his kingdom. From this he passed on to the praise of St. Olaf, "as the saint confirmed by miracles;" but when he came to that passage in the poem where the bard exclaims, that "Deceit and treachery caused King Olaf's fall at Stiklestad[^[5]]--" the king suddenly interrupted the enthusiastic Master Laurentius. "Thanks!" he said, "the poem is beautiful and edifying; but deceit and treachery I will hear nought of the day before my bridal. Norway's sovereign and Duke Haco have defended a bad cause against me," he continued, "but I highly esteem the brave Northmen, notwithstanding; they deserved a king and guardian saint like St. Olaf; he hath well merited to be called a ray from heaven in the north; the circumstances of his downfal I will not now think on. Sing rather of constancy and of beauty, and of that which is the ornament and honour of our age."

"Permit me a poor attempt to dilate upon that theme, my most gracious lord and patron!" began Master Rumelant, hastily, and instantly commenced a German lay in honour of the beauty and constancy of the northern fair, in which he forgot not the praises of the still youthful and beautiful Countess Agnes, and still less of the king's absent bride; but the lay also included a secret defence of Marsk Stig's daughters, whose beauty and unhappy fate had made a deep impression on both the minstrels. Master Poppé chimed in also, and did not lose this opportunity of putting in his good word for the captive maidens. They could especially not sufficiently praise the piety and amiability of the meek Margaretha in her captivity.