The archbishop now relinquished his hold of the last step of the ladder, and let himself drop, but though instantly caught in the cook's powerful arms, he was unable to repress a smothered burst of pain and sorrow, as his swelled feet struck hard against the stone pavement, and when Morten withdrew his support, he fell speechless and breathless to the ground.

"You have surely not sworn falsely in your heart, venerable sir,"

whispered Morten, anxiously. "This is no time, either, for swooning. If we delay a moment longer the guard may come, and lead you back from whence you came." As he said this, he drew down the ladder, and rolled it up with care. The archbishop yet lay as if lifeless on the ground.

Without any longer demur, Morten put both arms round his waist, and carried him in this manner across the back yard of the prison to the high castle wall which encircled the tower and was surrounded by a moat. It was possible to mount the inside wall in case of need, and by dint of great exertion Morten carried the almost senseless prelate up to the top of the wall. There he secured the rope ladder, while the bishop recovered his consciousness, and gained strength to pursue his flight. Without delaying and alarming the fugitive by further stipulations, he a.s.sisted him to descend this wall also, and then drew the ladder after him. They pa.s.sed the frozen moat of the castle; but that part of the lake which they had to cross was as smooth as gla.s.s, and the archbishop often fell and bruised himself. With Morten's help he at last got over the ice, but now threw himself despairingly on the frozen ground. "I cannot go a step farther," he exclaimed. "If I am to reach the sh.o.r.e thou must get me a horse."

"Will you give me absolution then, venerable sir, if I can steal you a horse out of the stable here?"

"It is a holy loan, which will bring thee a blessing," replied Grand.

"Good! But if you understand aught of the Black Art, pious sir, forget not your Latin now, but say a charm over the dogs, so that they bark not, and over the grooms in the stable, so that they wake not."

"I will pray to the Almighty to be with us. Haste thee!"

Morten crept towards the neighbouring stable. He went across a dunghill to the stable door, upon which a large cross was marked in chalk by way of safeguard. The usually watchful mastiffs did not bark. It seemed to Morten as if the cross on the stable door gleamed in the moonlight. The door of the groom's chamber he had to pa.s.s stood ajar. He peeped in, and saw three men in a deep sleep. In the stalls close by stood two small horses. He untied their halters, and led them out. The stone pavement of the stable and without the back door was covered with horse-litter, and he succeeded in leading the horses out without the slightest noise. He led them slowly towards the sea sh.o.r.e, and often looked behind him, but no one pursued--no dog barked, and the whole seemed to him to be almost miraculous. He found the archbishop where he had left him, in an att.i.tude of prayer. With unwonted solemnity, and with a respect which, however, seemed mingled with a kind of dread, Morten, without saying a word, a.s.sisted the prelate to mount one of the horses; he himself vaulted upon the other, and they rode in silence at a rapid trot down to the sh.o.r.e. There a tall grave knight and the two Lolland deserters awaited them with a boat which they had stolen from the fishing village. The knight and both the wild Lollanders bent the knee reverently before the archbishop as he extended his fingers to give them his blessing. With Morten's aid he dismounted, and stepped into the boat. Morten turned the strange horses loose, and seated himself on a rowing bench. With a few powerful strokes of the oar they reached a vessel with a black flag and pennant, which was waiting for them at some distance from the sh.o.r.e. They entered the ship, and let the boat float away. The day had not dawned when the vessel with the black flag sailed with a fair breeze through the Sound, bearing off without impediment the dangerous man, who, even in his chains, had dared to excommunicate Denmark's sovereign.

CHAP. VIII.

Sjoborg castle, which in the latter months of the year 1295 was honoured by the presence of royalty, and had been the theatre of such important events, stood desolate and deserted on the morning of the following new year. The gate was shut, and the floating bridge removed.

The sentinel was no longer on guard on the battlement over the gate; within, no sounds of gaiety and occupancy were heard; without the southern rampart and the narrowest part of the lake which insulated the site of the castle stood a gallows, at the end of what was called the king's garden, where the roads met from Esrom and Gilleleie. On the gallows hung a lifeless corpse in a short sheep-skin coat, and with a pair of s.h.a.ggy boots on the legs. A pair of ravens flapped their wings over the sinner's head, and around the stiff frozen body fluttered a flock of screaming crows.

The aged Jeppe, the fisherman from Gilleleie, who on fast days was accustomed to bring fish to Esrom, and to the kitchen of Sjoborg, was returning at day-break from the ferry, opposite the closed castle gate, with his flat fish basket at his back, and stood almost under the gallows ere he was aware of it. His servant, a young fisherman, followed him also with a basket at his back.

"It was true then, after all," said the old man; "they have made quick work of it here. The bird hath flown, and the cage stands empty. Our young king hath been wroth in earnest--by my troth, he does nothing by halves. We may now carry our cod to Elsinore. But what the devil ails the birds to-day?"

"Look, look, master!" shouted the lad; "there he hangs."

"Our Lady preserve us!" exclaimed Jeppe, and stopped. "Ay, there he hangs, indeed, in his old sheep's skin, and in the boots I brought him from Skanor fair, those he squeezed out of me for the freight and the sixteen marks. Why, the soles are whole as yet! I told him not to wear them out with his courtier-like sc.r.a.pings. Faugh! he looks ugly in the face. 'Tis no wholesome sight on a fasting stomach. Let's take a sup, Ole." He took a little wooden flask out of the basket, drank, and reached the flask to the lad, while they gazed with mingled curiosity and dread on the corpse.

"By our Lady! a foul human carca.s.s is truly soon provided for," resumed the old man, clearing his throat after the strong drink, while he crossed himself, and put up the flask. "Well, I say now what I said before; paid as deserved. He who deals against law shall be dealt with without law. One should otherwise, it is true, speak well of the dead; and this I _must_ say, Jesper Mogensen was in some sort a pious man; he neglected neither mattins nor ma.s.s; he went to confession every other day. That we none of us do. But the crow is never the whiter, let her wash herself ever so often, and I would not have given a rotten herring's head for all his piety. What said I the other day to boatman Soren? 'Mark,' said I, 'that craft will one day run aground under the gallows.' That one could see with half an eye. We will pray an honest prayer for his soul, however, Ole, although he _hath_ haggled many a shining piece from us, and cheated the king out of more pecks of silver pieces than the ravens have now left hairs on his sinful head. Would it might fare somewhat better with him where he now is than it fared with his prisoner at Sjoborg! _Much_ better it were a shame to ask, for a pitiless master he ever was, and graceless rulers are shut out from the Lord."

"True, master," answered the young fisherman; "but might one not almost say the same of our young king himself, to say so with all reverence and respect?"

"Of the king? Art thou mad, Ole?" exclaimed the old man, with warmth; "art thou clean devil-blinded and possessed? Is that the Christianity thou learn'st in the monastery? Thou art a pretty fellow, truly!"

"Be not wroth, master!" answered the lad; "but truth is truth, nevertheless, whether it be sour or sweet, or whether it tweak the nose of high or low, says Pater Gregor, and we Danes are a free folk who dare to speak out in council[14], whether it be against great or small; that you know as well as I, master. The king, by my troth, is not the man to put mercy before justice where the outlaws or their kindred and friends are concerned. Now, there, are Marsk Stig's pretty daughters; he has pent them up in the maiden's tower at Vordingborg, only because their father was an outlawed man; that's not very merciful. Then there's the bishop they have so long plagued and tortured; that's a bad business, says Pater Gregor. Whether or not he was leagued with the outlaws or the Slesvig Duke no one knows or can prove; but, however that may be, he was a mighty man of G.o.d, whom none but the Lord and the pope could condemn, says Pater Gregor."

"Ay, indeed! He talks too much, that Pater Gregor," muttered the old man, seating himself thoughtfully on his fish basket. "Those pious sirs of the cloister may say what they will; but this I know, that a more just-dealing king we have never had in Denmark. As to his stringing up that fellow----"

"It was a good deed, master, that I will never deny," interrupted the lad. "If the steward did not exactly help the bishop on his road,--which, no doubt, was what he was hung for,--he still richly deserved the halter for many other things. The king did him no wrong; but that poor turnkey Mads, and his nephew, I am sorry for them. They are pent up, under bolt and bar, at Flynderborg, only because the ale was a little too strong for them that night-watch in the tower. He who helped the bishop but," he added, with a rather sinister roll of the eye, "was surely none other than that gallows bird, Morten the cook. It was both boldly and piously done, says Pater Gregor, and therefore doubtless hath holy St. Martin saved his life, and helped him out of the country; but he is an outlawed man not the less for that, and if the Devil hath not an eye on his soul I am no honest Dane."

"Hark, Ole!" resumed the old man, in a stern voice, and rising from his seat; "take care what thy beardless mouth utters, especially when thou speak'st of the Devil, or of our Lord, or of the king! Touching Morten the cook, I have also a word to say to thee; but first, of the king.

'Tis a bad hand that will not protect its head, they say; the king is the people's head, see'st thou, and when the head aches all the limbs ache also; that hath every true Danish man in our time learnt soon enough. Our young King Eric hath gone through much trouble, from the time he was no higher than my knee, but our Lord hath been with him till this hour, and preserved both his soul and his body, despite archbishop, and pope, and clergy. We are a free folk, 'tis true; each man may speak out the truth boldly and freely, whether it be against high or low; but he who speaks an ill word of the king shall account for it to me, as surely as I have a tongue in my mouth and fists to my oar. Thou art a greenhorn, Ole; thou knowest but little of what pa.s.sed in the country while thou wert in thy swaddling clothes. Had the outlaws murdered thy father when thou wert riding thy stick thou would'st hardly have taken them to thy arms when ye rode with a troop of horse."

"There, by my troth, you are right, master!" answered the youth, eagerly. "Life for life! I would say, and strike off their heads wherever I met them; it were an honest deed and righteous wrath. But, nevertheless, 'Vengeance is our Lord's,' and a king should be somewhat cooler headed and wiser than any of us; he should rather suffer injustice than put state and country in peril, by standing up so stiffly for his right."

"Old woman's chatter," interrupted Jeppe; "would the egg teach the hen?

Justice shall stand, though all the earth should perish. Thus should a king think. He should not bear the sword in vain."

"But, dear master! there is Pater Gregor, and all the pious monks at Esrom, and many wise men in our town, they all of them think the king pushes his zeal and obstinacy too far, and only brings himself and the whole country into trouble; for this he hath now fallen under the archbishop's ban; yet he still will kick against the p.r.i.c.ks, and goes just the same to mattins and ma.s.s as heretofore."

"That defiance and unG.o.dliness our Lord will pardon him, I think," said the old man, with a nod of the head; "there is, besides, surely no bishop in the country who would shut the church door against him because Master Grand hath excommunicated him at Sjoborg. When that quarrelsome lord was laid by the heels, folks said directly that all churches were to be shut in the country; but, look you, _was_ it so? If ten commands to shut them were sent from the pope in Rome, may I be a flounder if he would be obeyed. But now the archbishop is free, so there is no great need for it. At any rate we have seen before that a Danish king may be under a ban, and yet bear sceptre and crown to his dying day."

"Things may go wrong enough yet, master," answered the lad. "Without the pope's permit he can never wed, and he may have long to wait for it while he deals in this fashion by every canon and priest who sided with the archbishop. There is the rich Hans Rodis in Copenhagen; he hath lost all he owned because he sent a file and tools to the archbishop in the tower. Master Peter in Lund hath not fared a hair better, and all the archbishop's church property is seized. The like of such presumption hath never been heard of in Christendom before, says Pater Gregor."

"In this matter the king will follow the advice of his best counsellors, and neither thine nor Pater Gregory's," muttered the old man. "He and the state council must answer for what hath been done.

Folk have tried him rather too much, and there are bounds to every thing, even to piety and patience. 'Beware of a brawl!' said my departed father, G.o.d rest his soul! 'but if thou meddlest in one, carry it through like a man.' It avails but little to cast b.u.t.ter against stones. No; hard against hard."

"By your leave, master, so said the Devil, when he leant his back against a thorn bush," interrupted the young fisherman, smiling; "but it is said he repented it when he found what it did for him. I also have heard a wise old saying at times: 'If thou canst not step over, then creep under,' said my aunt to me. Had our king learnt that wisdom of the proud Drost Hessel, who taught him to flourish lance and spear, it would have been better for state and country, says----"

"Pshaw!" interrupted the old man, placing his basket again on his back; "such wisdom may do well enough for thee, and thy aunt, and Pater Gregor, who speak out all ye think; but what is fitting for rats and mice would ill beseem the falcon and eagle. Humility is precious as gold; but where a king would pa.s.s he should sooner burst the gate open than creep under it through the mire." So saying, he cast another glance at the solemn witness of the king's stern and speedy execution of justice, and then, silent and thoughtful, strode forward on the road to Gilleleie.

"But, since you side with the king in every thing, master," asked the youth, "how can you then defend mad Morten the cook, or think he will 'scape the gallows? He hath ever sided with the outlaws. That he helped the bishop out of Sjoborg you know as well as any of us. I saw he was with you on Christmas eve, ere he put out to sea again in that black pilgrim ship."

"If thou would'st keep in a whole skin, jackanapes, let that be between us two," exclaimed the old man, in wrath, turning menacingly towards him. "However Morten may have sinned, he now doth penance for it; he who puts out to open sea at Christmas, to serve his Lord and Saviour, is no bad Christian, according to my notion, and therefore no traitor to his country."

"But every one knows----"

"Gossip! we know enough! What Morten hath to do either with the bishop or the outlaws concerns not thee or me; but this I know for certain, since he hath seen our young king himself, and taken money at his hand, he hath been true as steel to him in his heart. That Master Grand got loose was perhaps a G.o.d's providence," he added. "In this matter I even think myself our brave king hath set rather too boldly to work. If Morten hath had a finger in the game it may cost him dear; but that he neither meant ill to country or king I will stake my neck upon."

"A juggler and a G.o.dless churl he is, nevertheless; and an outlawed vagabond and sure gallows bird to boot, if he sets foot again on Danish ground," said the young fisherman, eagerly. "'Tis both sin and shame, master! that your young pretty Karen will weep her blue eyes red for his sake."

"Ha, indeed! hath that come out?" said the old man; "thou would'st rather, I warrant, she should weep them red for thy sake, if weep she must. Drive these fancies out of thine head, Ole! If Morten come back ere St. Hans day, as he promised Karen and me, and can give account of himself, thou shalt have leave to dance at his wedding; but if ye would speak ill of him to me or to Karen, thou may'st pack up and pack off.

Now thou knowest my manner of thinking." So saying, the old man marched forward with rapid strides. The youth followed him, crest-fallen and in silence, till they drew near the sh.o.r.e, where Jeppe unmoored a fishing boat for the purpose of sailing up the coast with the fish he could no longer dispose of at Sjoborg.

"You must not suppose I would speak ill of Morten," resumed the young fisherman, as he set down the basket in the boat, and stepped over the gunwale after his master. "'Twould be of no use either; you and Karen are now so bewitched by that gallows bird. I must own myself he is a comely, sharp-witted jolly fellow, although he begins to get somewhat into years; indeed, as for that matter he might almost be her father.

If he helped the bishop to flee out of piety and Christian charity, he hath perhaps done a good deed, but folk will hardly say it was for the Lord's sake. Your pretty little Karen would be better mated with a young fellow than with an outlawed and almost aged vagabond, and--"

"Thou beardless greenhorn! what is thy head running upon?" exclaimed the old man angrily, and stamping as he spoke. "Think'st thou it needs but a smooth chin, and a milk-sop look, to cut out an honest fellow with my daughter? Out of sight out of mind, say many young folk now-a-days; but that shall none say of me and _my_ daughter. If I hear a word more of this matter from thy mouth, Ole! it shall be the last we exchange together. But what devil is this?" he exclaimed, in surprise, as he perceived there were three in the boat; "whence came that fellow?"

"Will you carry a pa.s.senger across to Skanor, for fair words and fair recompense, good people?" asked a tall man, suddenly rising from under one of the rowing benches, where he appeared to have concealed himself under the sail. He wore a dirty peasant's cloak, but it fitted ill, and a knight's shoulder scarf peeped from under it, together with the richly gilded hilt of a sword. He seemed to strive in vain to conceal a large scar on his forehead under the goat's-skin cap; his pale and frigid countenance, and furtive glances from under his rusty-coloured meeting eyebrows, inspired a feeling of distrust; he spoke Danish, but with something of a Norwegian p.r.o.nunciation, which, however, seemed not to be natural to him, but a.s.sumed for the occasion.

"What have _you_ to do here in my boat?" growled forth Jeppe, measuring the intruder with a bold look. "If you would cross to Skanor, why go ye not to the ferry?"

"The king hath stopped the ferries on account of the archbishop,"

answered the stranger. "Every man knows Grand hath escaped hence by sea, and yet the stupid dullards hunt after him here, both by day and night. Not a cat can leave the country, and there is now hardly a wood or mora.s.s left where a friend of the pious archbishop may hide himself.

I see you take me for a deserter. It avails not to withhold the truth from you. I am a persecuted man; save my life, and bring me to a sea port from whence I may escape; I will richly repay you for it."

"Well!" said the old man, and his stern look relaxed. "No doubt an honest man may get into trouble, as hath chanced ere now; _he_ is often forced to quit the country in disguise who afterwards can return with honour. The wind is fair, my yawl will weather the trip bravely; but I must first know who you are, and wherefore you are outlawed?"

"Outlawed!" repeated the stranger, with a start; "who says I am outlawed, with law and justice, because I fly from lawlessness and shameful injustice? I am a kinsman of the great Archbishop Grand, whom they have here so shamefully and unjustly maltreated. If I would not expose myself to the same tyrannical treatment, from which our Lord and pious men have freed him, I am now forced to seek safety by flight."

"But your name?" resumed the fisherman, as he suddenly placed the oar against a stone, and pushed the boat out to sea, with such force that both the stranger and the astonished young fisherman tumbled over the bench. "You will not call yourself outlawed, then?" he continued calmly, while the stranger stood up, and cast an anxious look on the wide s.p.a.ce between the boat and the sh.o.r.e. "I should incline to think ye were so, nevertheless. Are ye not called, because of a little mistake, Squire Kagge with the scar? Were ye one of those who slew the king's father in Finnerup barn? and if it be you who lately sought to take the king's life, I should be a rascal if I stirred a hand to bring you to any other free port than the gallows."

The stranger's countenance had become fearfully distorted; he thrust his hand as if convulsively under his cloak, and drew forth a long glittering knight's sword. "You must either set me instantly on sh.o.r.e here, or bring me to Skanor harbour; no matter who the devil I may be,"

he cried. "The squire whom Denmark's greatest man dubbed a knight lets himself not be carried to market with cod and flounders by a vile fisherman."