"Big words and fat flesh stick not in the throat," answered Jeppe, quietly brandishing the heavy iron-tagged oar like a lance over his head. "Here I stand on my own ground, and here I am master. Cast your dyrendal[15] from you, Sir Malapert! or you shall feel one upon your skull which will make you forget the stroke of knighthood you got from the greatest man. If that man be Stig Anderson,"--he added, "you need not mention your fair name or your fair deed--for in that case you were as certainly with Marsk Stig and the grey friars in Finnerup barn as you are now with Jeppe the fisherman on the road to judgment and the gallows."

"We shall see," shouted the stranger, like a madman, and rushed on him with his drawn sword, but at the same moment he fell back senseless in the boat, while the hat flew from his head before a stroke of Jeppe's iron-tagged oar.

"Take the dyrendal from him, and bind him, Ole, while I loose the sails," said the old fisherman calmly, as he threw down the oar, and began to unfurl the sails. "That blow he dies not of. If the king will give him his life, that's _his_ affair; but none shall say that old Jeppe the fisherman sided with such like outlaws, and let a regicide slip whole skinned from Gilleleie."

The young fisherman obeyed his master. The sails were soon unfurled, and the fishing yawl sailed swiftly along the coast.

Jeppe was not mistaken. His captive was the renowned Aage Kagge who had been outlawed with all those who had taken a personal share in the murder of Eric Glipping. He had entered the service of the King of Norway, but had ventured to Denmark to bring Marsk Stig's daughters from thence; and also, as it appeared, with other less peaceable intentions. That he had been a party to the murderous attack of the crazed Jutlander upon the king the Drost's huntsmen had borne witness, and there seemed also every probability that it was he who had attempted the a.s.sa.s.sination of Drost Aage, as he was riding with Marsk Stig's daughters into the gate of Vordingborg castle. Every burgomaster and all commandants of castles throughout the country had received orders to trace and to seize him, wherever he was found. As an outlaw, besides, every one who met and knew him was empowered to slay him on the spot. Although in general he, like all those outlawed regicides, was held in great detestation, there was still one heart which throbbed for him with love and sympathy,--the wayward, restless heart of the captive Lady Ulrica.

CHAP. IX.

On the same new year's day on which the outlawed knight was captured, Marsk Stig's youngest daughter slumbered, evidently disturbed by agitating dreams, in the tower called the Maiden's Tower, in Vordingborg castle, while her sister rose ready dressed from the prie-dieu, and listened with folded hands to the sound of mattins from the chapel of the castle. A faint ray of daylight fell on them through the tower window. "Help! help!" shrieked Ulrica, starting up; "sleepest thou, Margaretha? Oh, it was fearful! Yet it was, after all, but a foolish dream."

"What ails thee, dear sister?" asked the placid Margaretha, taking her sister lovingly by the hand; "thou must surely have dreamt again of that unhappy knight, Kagge?"

"Thou mightest be rather more courteous, sister. So _very_ unhappy he cannot be, when _I_ am dreaming of him. Did I but know he was safe!"

"Pray to the Lord and our Lady that his grim image may be effaced from thy soul!" continued Margaretha; "he can never come to a good end. All the greatness and splendour he hath promised thee are but empty castles in the air, with nought of truth in them."

"Truth here, and truth there, sister! What you call our castles in the air are nevertheless far better than this much too real prison; and how can'st thou call Sir Kagge grim? I think his bold, wolf-like eye-brows are perfectly lovely. Alas! sweet sister! I dreamed he was in distress and in peril of his life. He stood in chains before me, and bade me entreat the king for his life."

"He is a.s.suredly thy bad angel, Ulrica!" answered Margaretha; "it is his fault that we are now here. Would thou hadst never believed his flatteries and false tongue, he loves no one in the world save himself."

"How can'st thou say so, sister? Did'st thou not hear thyself how solemnly he swore to free us, or lose his life?"

"But when it was time to keep his word, like a true and manly knight, his own pitiful revenge and his own life were dearer to him than our peace and freedom," answered Margaretha. "He, in truth, sharpened the arrow our faithful squire shot from the bow, but ere it flew from the string he took himself off, and abandoned us to our fate."

"But he followed us, though, at peril of his life, close to the castle gate, and had not the Drost been dearer to thee than both I and thyself we should not now have been here."

"If our freedom could only be gained by treachery and a.s.sa.s.sination, it were better we stayed here captive all our life-time," answered Margaretha. "Had the n.o.ble Drost Aage been as much our enemy as he showed himself to be our friend--I would not even then have left him in that condition to bleed to death, without help and care. I would rather remain in prison until my dying day than flee with a cowardly a.s.sa.s.sin, and be suspected by the n.o.ble Drost of having had the least part or lot in such crime."

"Thou art really much too conscientious, sister Margaretha! In comparison with me, thou art half an angel, it is true; but confess to me now, it was surely not _purely_ for the Lord's sake you stayed and behaved so generously to the Drost. He is a very handsome young knight, although he cannot be compared to Sir Kagge, and I have seen plainly enough how tenderly and lovingly your eyes meet each time you bind up his wounds--thou art really making him greatly beholden to thee."

"Be not malicious, dear Ulrica," answered Margaretha, blushing crimson; "what harm is there in my tending him with unfeigned good will?"

"Tend him with as much good will as thou likest; I never said there was any harm in that--call him every instant the n.o.ble and the pious, just as if he were the only good knight in Christendom! but at any rate give _me_ leave to defend Sir Kagge, and feel anxious for him when he perils his life for my sake! It was indeed not _quite_ according to rule that he left us when we were captured! I shall scold him finely for that when we meet; but what was he to do against so many? If he escaped, he could still hope to free us as long as he himself was at liberty. As to his attacking the Drost in the dark gateway, without sounding a trumpet before him, it perhaps did not look altogether chivalrous; but stratagem against superior force is always lawful in war, and it was after all a bold and desperate enterprise, which may even yet cost him his life, although it did nought either for or against us--ah! did I but know he was safe, I would gladly be patient, and put up with this captivity some time longer.--When the king gets to know what I now know he will have to ask pardon, and treat me like a princess."

"Poor Ulrica! what sayest thou?" exclaimed her sister in dismay, and turning pale; "what madman can have put into your head----"

"That was the secret, then, thou wouldst never out with, my pious sister!" interrupted Ulrica, with a joyous smile. "I had determined to conceal my discovery until I could show thee what use it was of; but now I will show thee that Kagge is much more true and devoted to me than thou art. While thou thoughtest only of the wounded Drost, my outlawed knight hath enabled me to guess who I am, and hath sent me a billet of more importance than all the Drosts in the world.--This Runic sc.r.a.p should burst before us the doors of every prison in Denmark." So saying, she produced with a triumphant air, a small and curiously carved wooden tablet, upon which was depicted a royal coat of arms with three crowned leopards, and with Ulrica's name below, in Runic characters, by the side of Princess Merete's, King Eric Ericson's, and Junker Christopher's. "Seest thou," said she, drawing up her head proudly, "the three crowned leopards stand in the king's great seal? As yet I have only half made out the connection. But at any rate I have gathered thus much from all the puzzling hints they have given me:--The king's father must have been secretly wedded to a n.o.ble lady of Marsk Stig's kindred. It must no doubt have been a hazardous affair, since he had another for his queen; but, nevertheless, lam his daughter, just the same, and therefore Princess Merete's and the king's half sister--though no one must know it.--My poor mother hath no doubt suffered great wrong, and thus come by her death; but that thy father and his kinsmen have amply revenged. Me they brought up in the Marsk's house, and therefore I must now share the persecutions that have come upon thy whole race."

"Alas! believe not one word of that confused and wretched story, dear Ulrica!" exclaimed Margaretha, bursting into tears; "burn those unfortunate lines, and believe me thou art in truth my sister, and all that talk of a higher birth can but bring thee shame and degradation."

"That thou would'st scarcely say had'st thou seen thine own name by the side of kings and princes," answered Ulrica, with a proud toss of the head, while she gazed with sparkling eyes on the wooden tablet; "and look," she continued, fuming it over, "here stand the Norwegian Duke Haco's lion shield, and pedigree; it reaches in a direct line up to the great Harold Harf.a.ger; and seest thou there stands my true knight Kagge's name in a side branch like mine--he traces his descent also from kings and princes; and rememberest thou not what old Mother Else foretold me at Hald? I was to become a great princess one day, she said, and get a handsome and rich bridegroom of princely birth."

"Alas, dearest sister!" exclaimed Margaretha, sorrowfully, "thy childish vanity makes thy soul the sport of dishonourable and traitorous braggarts--the domestic miseries which brought misfortune upon the country as well as on our renowned race could be represented to thee by none but an evil spirit as a source of honour and good fortune. The blood of slaves, not the blood of princes, runs in that man's veins who could picture _that_ to thee as an honour which would make thee to die of grief and shame, did'st thou believe it to be true, and knewest how to prize the birth which is in truth high and honourable.

"'Tis pity thou art not a priest, sister!" said Ulrica, with a toss of the head; "if the story of my high birth were only an idle and unfounded report, it could hardly have had such important consequences here in the country; thou must thyself have thought it true, since thou never would'st confide it to me; but I have long had an inkling of it.

Old Mother Else dared not come quite out with it; but this you must at any rate allow,--all who have known us and our family have ever bowed much lower to me than to thee, although thou wert the eldest; and I have seen folk point oft to me, when I was gaily clad, and heard them whisper, 'Look, there goes the little princess; look, her pretty eyes twinkle just like King Glipping's.'"[16]

"Poor, poor sister!" exclaimed Margaretha, folding her, weeping, in her arms; "and could'st thou endure to hear such hateful words? Were they able to flatter thy vain and childish heart by a glittering t.i.tle which concealed the bitterest hate and scorn? Poor Ulrica! thy greatest misfortune, after all, is thy soul's blindness--it makes thee even vain and proud of what should be thy grief and shame. Alas! didst thou tremble with me at that tale as at a voice from the bottomless pit I perhaps should know how to comfort and counsel thee; then would I weep with thee, and pray our blessed Lady to give thee the hope she gave me, when at times all the horrors I saw and heard in my childhood seemed like a frightful dream, and it was as though an angel whispered to my soul that the whole was error and illusion.--Ah, mother! mother! how shall I perform that I promised thee, and bring this erring child safe to thine arms?"

"Now thou art growing tiresome again, Margaretha, with all thy love, and thy piety, and thy conscience," interrupted Ulrica, pettishly, "_Your_ mother was only my foster mother; that I can well understand.

Who _my_ real mother was thou mightest easily tell, if there was any real sisterly love in thee; but thou art not my sister after all. I would thou wert in a nunnery! there thou mightest mourn over me, and pray for me as much as it pleased thee, without plaguing me with it; yet, no! for then I must part from thee, and that I could not bear,"

she added, affectionately. "I am still a worldling, dear good Margaretha!" continued Ulrica, with child-like simplicity. "I have told you so a hundred times. All the misfortunes that happened in our childhood, or before I was born, I have neither seen nor shared in; how, then, canst thou require I should grieve over them? And what good would it do were I now to sit down with thee to mourn and weep? What our parents and their kindred have suffered or done amiss our blessed Lady must pray our Lord to make amends for, and forgive them; but that I have just as little to do with as thou. I thank my Lord and Maker, and our blessed Lady, that I have come into this fair world, and that I am not ashamed of my birth, even though I am but half a princess. The sorrow and degradation thou would'st have me despair over I care not to meddle with; either it is altogether idle talk, and then there is nought to mourn for; or it is true, and I must be satisfied with it as my destiny; and then I should still be a kind of princess; and what shame can it be to me that I should be called what I am, and that a knight of royal descent woos me, and would bring me to the station and honour which are mine by right?"

"Alas! for thy honour and thy wooer, poor sister!" answered Margaretha, "there is not a true word in Sir Kagge; all know he is come of higher birth than he deserves, and it was not till he was outlawed and fled to Norway that he thought of disowning his own kindred, and tracing his pedigree in a disgraceful manner to the royal house of Norway. Such dishonourable fiction would show thee his character, if thou didst not share his perverted hankerings after the greatness which confers not honour."

During this conversation Ulrica had arrayed herself in her richest attire, and it had become quite light. "Now look at me!" she said, contemplating herself in the polished shield on the wall. "Need I really be so terribly ashamed of my own existence, or wish I had never been born? That indeed would be shameful and unG.o.dly. To speak honestly, Margaretha, should I doubt all that Sir Kagge hath told me of my descent and of my beauty, I ought to doubt my own eyes also, and every mirror I looked into would be just as false a flatterer and traitor as thou deemest him to be."

"Truly the mirror _is_ a false flatterer," answered Margaretha; "it shows us but the fair outside and the smooth skin, but hides the skeleton and the image of death within us. The more pleasure we take in the mimic image it displays to us in our vanity, the more the eyes are blinded and the soul corrupted. Hadst thou heard the exaggerated compliments Sir Kagge paid _me_ ere he saw thee quite grown up, and found thou hadst a more attentive ear for his fair speeches and bold plans concerning our forfeited goods and rights, he would scarcely have been less the object of thy laughter and ridicule than that foolish Sir Palle."

"Ah, how terribly unreasonable thou art, thou dear pious Margaretha!"

interrupted Ulrica; "that fat stupid Sir Palle was made to be a laughing stock. I know well enough Kagge was once a little in love with thee, but I can readily forgive him, since he hath got over it so well.--Thou wert too in some sort my sister, and at the time I was almost a child.--Thou wouldst doubtless have had him sigh himself to death over thy coldness, but that was too much to ask of a handsome young knight. Should he then be deemed a faithless and inconstant lover because he was mistaken in us sisters, ere he could know our hearts and his own? How could he help that thou wert so cold and indifferent, and so insufferably pious? And was it then so unpardonable a sin that at last he found out that I was quite as fair--or perhaps rather more so?"

"Dear deluded child!" sighed Margaretha, patting her sister's cheek, while she parted the fair curled locks from her brow, "must thou ever seek to trace every sentiment thou wouldst rightly understand to a vain and empty source? Kagge was a loyal and devoted squire to our father, it is true; he was a zealous sharer in that fearful deed of vengeance, the grounds of which thou now thinkest thou hast discovered; but were those grounds not false, and wert thou in truth that thou thinkest thyself to be, how canst thou give thy hand without shuddering to a man who was with the band in Finnerup-barn?" She paused, and folded her hands as if in silent prayer, as she knelt down on the prie-dieu, and rented her lovely head on the breviary.

"Margaretha! dearest Margaretha! thou hast terrified me," exclaimed Ulrica, who had turned quite pale. "A horrible and ghastly form rises before me. Ah! thou art right; I never thought of that. If the story of my birth be true I ought never to hold Sir Kagge dear, and yet I never saw the n.o.ble ill-fated prince who fell in Finnerup-barn. Should I hate all those who willed his death, I must also hate my mother, and thy mother, and father Stig. Alas, Margaretha! we must never think on our lot in this world, if we would be gay and happy among other human beings; we must either forget all that hath chanced to us, or go into a nunnery, and bid the beautiful joyous world good night; but that I cannot do. Dear sister! pray for me. I will forget what it is not good to think upon, but I cannot hate any living soul; and he who loves me with truth and fervour I _must_ love again, whoever he may be, and for what cause soever he may be outlawed and persecuted." She burst into a flood of tears, and held up her long golden tresses before her eyes.

"Dearest Ulrica! weep not. I will pray for thee as long as I live,"

said Margaretha. She rose hastily from the prie-dieu, and folded her sister tenderly in her arms. "We have not as yet wished each other a happy new year. The Lord and our blessed Lady make thee pious and patient, and blessed, and grant us both that which is most profitable for soul and salvation. Weep not, dearest Ulrica! If I have spoken harshly to thee, and grieved thee, forgive me, for our mother's sake!

She bade me admonish thee, and guard thy soul from thoughts of vanity.

But I see it is so, thou _art_ good and pious and blessed; only weep not!"

"Yes, if thou wilt never more speak evil of Sir Kagge, or require I should forget him, and leave off dreaming of him, for that I cannot; that I _will not_ do." So saying, Ulrica dried her eyes with her long hair, and peeped archly at her sister through her fingers.

"In the Lord's name, love every living soul in which there is a spark of G.o.d's grace," answered Margaretha, "only be not sorrowful."

"Well, I can understand you now," said Ulrica, taking her hand from her eyes. She laughed, and heartily kissed her sister. "A happy new year, sister Margaretha! Would thou might'st wed the handsome Drost ere the year is out, and would we might get out of this cage ere the woods are green and the birds sing." She then began to dance with her staid sister round the prison chamber, singing,

"I know where stands a castle fair, All dazzling to the sight; Its walls are decked with carvings rare, With gold and silver bright."[17]

"Hush! hush! dear sister! some one is coming," said Margaretha, entreatingly. Ulrica listened, and on hearing the bolt withdrawn from the prison door she hastily arranged her hair in the polished shield, and suddenly a.s.sumed a stiff and consequential deportment. The door opened, and a sprightly little maiden entered to attend on them, and to bring the usual morning repast. "A happy new year, with the blessing of our Lady and St. Joseph, n.o.ble ladies!" said the maiden, curtseying, as she placed the cup of warm ale on the table. "Master asks whether you will drive afterwards to high ma.s.s with his dame. There came strangers in the night," she added, anxious to impart the news. "They slept up above in the knights' story. There are to be fine doings because of them; they are to breakfast in the ladies' apartment, and there is a fire on the hearth in the great hall.--The strangers are come from court; they say the Drost will depart----"

"Depart!" repeated Margaretha, blushing deeply. "Ah, yes," she added, calmly, "it is possible, indeed, if it be necessary. Yet if they could allow a few days more it would be better for him. Follow me to the ladies' apartment, little Karen! Perhaps he wants his wounds bound up in haste."

"No, stay, and see first if my hair is properly dressed!" said Ulrica.

"Happy new year, little Karen! and a lover ere this day twelvemonth."

"A bridegroom you surely mean, lady! for lovers one may have in plenty every year," answered the maiden, simpering.

"Your hair is finely dressed. Lady Ulrica! Had _I_ such beautiful silken hair, and head-gear of gold and pearl to boot, as you have, by my troth I should never wish to put on a matron's cap while I lived; but _my_ hair I wish to hide; the sooner the better. Whenever my sweetheart hath had a scold from master, I am ever forced to hear it is rough and short. You are as small as a reed. Lady Ulrica!" she continued, looking at her slender form and gay attire; "one may easily see you are a dainty highborn knight's daughter, and no serving maid or kitchen drudge--if _I_ could appear in such fashion to my sweetheart, how he would stare! But I saw at once you were born to trail in silk and scarlet.--There hides something else under those wadmal cloaks than maidens of our condition, said I to Maren, the porter's wife, as soon as we set eyes on you; and when master grew afterwards so civil to you, and his wife sent you all those fine clothes and adornments on Christmas eve--we saw well enough how it was, that we had rare birds in the cage; perhaps even a princess, as some will have it.--That light green laced boddice becomes you marvellously. Lady Ulrica; but were I in Lady Margaretha's place I would not wear white attire on new-year's-day; it hath such a sad appearance, and it is no good omen for the good luck and happiness of the new year----"