CHAPTER III

Doch Chloë, Chloë zürne nicht!Toll brennet deiner Augen LichtMich wie das Hundsgestirn die Hunde,Und Worte schäumen mir vom MundeDem Geifer gleich der Wasserscheu—”

Doch Chloë, Chloë zürne nicht!Toll brennet deiner Augen LichtMich wie das Hundsgestirn die Hunde,Und Worte schäumen mir vom MundeDem Geifer gleich der Wasserscheu—”

“Forsooth, you may well say that!”

“Ach, Mademoiselle, ’tis but little you know of the power of Eros! Upon my word, there are nights when I have been so lovesick I have stolen down through the Silk Yard and leaped the balustrade into Christen Skeel’s garden, and there I’ve stood like a statue among fragrant roses andviolets, till the languishing Aurora has run her fingers through my locks.”

“Ah, Monsieur, you were surely mistaken when you spoke of Eros; it must have been Evan—and you may well go astray when you’re brawling around at night-time. You’ve never stood in Skeel’s garden; you’ve been at the sign of Mogens in Cappadocia among bottles and Rhenish wineglasses, and if you’ve been still as a statue, it’s been something besides dreams of love that robbed you of the power to move your legs.”

“You wrong me greatly! Though I may go to the vintner’s house sometimes, ’tis not for pleasure nor revelry, but to forget the gnawing anguish that afflicts me.”

“Ah!”

“You have no faith in me; you do not trust to the constancy of myamour! Heavens! Do you see the eastern louver-window in St. Nikolaj? For three long days have I sat there gazing at your fair countenance, as you bent over your broidery frame.”

“How unlucky you are! You can scarce open your mouth, but I can catch you in loose talk. I never sit with my broidery frame toward St. Nikolaj. Do you know thisrigmarole?—

’Twas black night,Troll was in a plight;For man held him tight.To the troll said he:‘If you would be free,Then teach me quick,Without guile or trick,One word of perfect truth.’Up spake the troll: ‘In sooth!’Man let him go.None on earth, I trow,Could call troll liar for saying so.”

’Twas black night,Troll was in a plight;For man held him tight.To the troll said he:‘If you would be free,Then teach me quick,Without guile or trick,One word of perfect truth.’Up spake the troll: ‘In sooth!’Man let him go.None on earth, I trow,Could call troll liar for saying so.”

Ulrik Frederik bowed deferentially and left her without a word.

She looked after him, as he crossed the room. He did walk gracefully. His silk hose fitted him without fold or wrinkle. How pretty they were at the ankle, where they met the long, narrow shoe! She liked to look at him. She had never before noticed that he had a tiny pink scar in his forehead.

Furtively she glanced at her own hands and made a slight grimace,—the fingers seemed to her too short.

WINTER came with hard times for the beasts of the forest and the birds of the fields. It was a poor Christmas within mud-walled huts and timbered ships. The Western Sea was thickly studded with wrecks, icy hulks, splintered masts, broken boats, and dead ships. Argosies were hurled upon the coast, shattered to worthless fragments, sunk, swept away, or buried in the sand; for the gale blew toward land with a high sea and deadly cold, and human hands were powerless against it. Heaven and earth were one reek of stinging, whirling snow that drifted in through cracked shutters and ill-fitting hatches to poverty and rags, and pierced under eaves and doors to wealth and fur-bordered mantles. Beggars and wayfaring folk froze to death in the shelter of ditches and dikes; poor people died of cold on their bed of straw, and the cattle of the rich fared not much better.

The storm abated, and after it came a clear, tingling frost, which brought disaster on the land—winter pay for summer folly! The Swedish armywalkedover the Danish waters. Peace was declared, and spring followed with green budding leaves and fair weather, but the young men of Sjælland did not ride a-Maying that year; for the Swedish soldiers were everywhere. There was peace indeed, but it carried the burdens of war and seemed not likely to live long. Nor did it. When the May garlands had turned dark and stiff under the midsummer sun, the Swedes went against the ramparts of Copenhagen.

During vesper service on the second Sunday in August, the tidings suddenly came: “The Swedes have landed at Korsör.” Instantly the streets were thronged. People walkedabout quietly and soberly, but they talked a great deal; they all talked at once, and the sound of their voices and footsteps swelled to a loud murmur that neither rose nor fell and never ceased, but went on with a strange, heavy monotony.

The rumor crept into the churches during the sermon. From the seats nearest the door it leaped in a breathless whisper to some one sitting in the next pew, then on to three people in the third, then past a lonely old man in the fourth on to the fifth, and so on till the whole congregation knew it. Those in the centre turned and nodded meaningly to people behind them; one or two who were sitting nearest the pulpit rose and looked apprehensively toward the door. Soon there was not a face lifted to the pastor. All sat with heads bent as though to fix their thoughts on the sermon, but they whispered among themselves, stopped for a tense moment and listened in order to gauge how far it was from the end, then whispered again. The muffled noise from the crowds in the streets grew more distinct: it was not to be borne any longer! The churchpeople busied themselves putting their hymn-books in their pockets.

“Amen!”

Every face turned to the preacher. During the litany prayer, all wondered whether the pastor had heard anything. He read the supplication for the Royal House, the Councillors of the Realm, and the common nobility, for all who were in authority or entrusted with high office,—and at that tears sprang to many eyes. As the prayer went on, there was a sound of sobbing, but the words came from hundreds of lips: “May God in His mercy deliver these our lands and kingdoms from battle and murder, pestilenceand sudden death, famine and drouth, lightning and tempest, floods and fire, and may we for such fatherly mercy praise and glorify His holy name!”

Before the hymn had ended, the church was empty, and only the voice of the organ sang within it.

On the following day, the people were again thronging the streets, but by this time they seemed to have gained some definite direction. The Swedish fleet had that night anchored outside of Dragör. Yet the populace was calmer than the day before; for it was generally known that two of the Councillors of the Realm had gone to parley with the enemy, and were—so it was said—entrusted with powers sufficient to ensure peace. But when the Councillors returned on Tuesday with the news that they had been unable to make peace, there was a sudden and violent reaction.

This was no longer an assemblage of staid citizens grown restless under the stress of great and ominous tidings. No, it was a maelstrom of uncouth creatures, the like of which had never been seen within the ramparts of Copenhagen. Could they have come out of these quiet, respectable houses bearing marks of sober every-day business? What raving in long-sleeved sack and great-skirted coat! What bedlam noise from grave lips and frenzied gestures of tight-dressed arms! None would be alone, none would stay indoors, all wanted to stand in the middle of the street with their despair, their tears, and wailing. See that stately old man with bared head and bloodshot eyes! He is turning his ashen face to the wall and beating the stones with clenched fists. Listen to that fat tanner cursing the Councillors of the Realm and the miserable war! Feel the blood in those fresh cheeks burning with hatredof the enemy who brings the horrors of war, horrors that youth has already lived through in imagination! How they roar with rage at their own fancied impotence, and God in heaven, what prayers! What senseless prayers!

Vehicles are stopping in the middle of the street. Servants are setting down their burdens in sheds and doorways. Here and there, people come out of the houses dressed in their best attire, flushed with exertion, look about in surprise, then glance down at their clothes, and dart into the crowd as though eager to divert attention from their own finery. What have they in mind? And where do all these rough, drunken men come from? They crowd; they reel and shriek; they quarrel and tumble; they sit on doorsteps and are sick; they laugh wildly, run after the women, and try to fight the men.

It was the first terror, the terror of instinct. By noon it was over. Men had been called to the ramparts, had labored with holiday strength, and had seen moats deepen and barricades rise under their spades. Soldiers were passing. Artisans, students, and noblemen’s servants were standing at watch, armed with all kinds of curious weapons. Cannon had been mounted. The King had ridden past, and it was announced that he would stay. Life began to look reasonable, and people braced themselves for what was coming.

In the afternoon of the following day, the suburb outside of West Gate was set on fire, and the smoke, drifting over the city, brought out the crowds again. At dusk, when the flames reddened the weatherbeaten walls of Vor Frue Church tower and played on the golden balls topping the spire of St. Peter’s, the news that the enemy was coming down Valby Hill stole in like a timid sigh. Through avenues and alleys sounded a frightened “The Swedes! TheSwedes!” The call came in the piercing voices of boys running through the streets. People rushed to the doors, booths were closed, and the iron-mongers hastily gathered in their wares. The good folk seemed to expect a huge army of the enemy to pour in upon them that very moment.

The slopes of the ramparts and the adjoining streets were black with people looking at the fire. Other crowds gathered farther away from the centre of interest, at the Secret Passage and the Fountain. Many matters were discussed, the burning question being: Would the Swedes attack that night or wait till morning?

Gert Pyper, the dyer from the Fountain, thought the Swedes would be upon them as soon as they had rallied after the march. Why should they wait?

The Icelandic trader, Erik Lauritzen of Dyers’ Row, thought it might be a risky matter to enter a strange city in the dead of night, when you couldn’t know what was land and what was water.

“Water!” said Gert Dyer. “Would to God we knew as much about our own affairs as the Swede knows! Don’t trust to that! His spies are where you’d least think. ’Tis well enough known to Burgomaster and Council, for the aldermen have been round since early morning hunting spies in every nook and corner. Fool him who can! No, the Swede’s cunning—especially in such business. ’Tis a natural gift. I found that out myself—’tis some half-score years since, but I’ve never forgotten that mummery. You see, indigo she makes black, and she makes light blue, and she makes medium blue, all according to the mordant. Scalding and making the dye-vats ready—any ’prentice can do that, if he’s handy, but the mordant—there’s the rub! That’s an art! Use too much, and youburn your cloth or yarn so it rots. Use too little, and the color will ne-ever be fast—no, not if it’s dyed with the most pre-cious logwood. Therefore the mordant is a closedgeheimniswhich a man does not give away except it be to his son, but to the journeymen—never! No—”

“Ay, Master Gert,” said the trader, “ay, ay!”

“As I was saying,” Gert went on, “about half a score of years ago I had a ’prentice whose mother was a Swede. He’d set his mind on finding out what mordant I used for cinnamon brown, but as I always mixed it behind closed doors, ’twas not so easy to smoke it. So what does he do, the rascal? There’s so much vermin here round the Fountain, it eats our wool and our linen, and for that reason we always hang up the stuff people give us to dye in canvas sacks under the loft-beams. So what does he do, the devil’sgesindchen, but gets him one of the ’prentices to hang him up in a sack. And I came in and weighed and mixed and made ready and was half done, when it happened so curiously that the cramp got in one of his legs up there, and he began to kick and scream for me to help him down. Did I help him? Death and fire! But ’twas a scurvy trick he did me, yes, yes, yes! And so they are, the Swedes; you can never trust ’em over a doorstep.”

“Faith, they’re ugly folk, the Swedes,” spoke Erik Lauritzen. “They’ve nothing to set their teeth in at home, so when they come to foreign parts they can never get their bellyful. They’re like poor-house children; they eat for today’s hunger and for to-morrow’s and yesterday’s all in one. Thieves and cut-purses they are, too—worse than crows and corpse-plunderers—and so murderous. It’s not for nothing people say: Quick with the knife like Lasse Swede!”

“And so lewd,” added the dyer. “It never fails, if you see the hangman’s man whipping a woman from town, and you ask who’s the hussy, but they tell you she’s a Swedish trull.”

“Ay, the blood of man is various, and the blood of beasts, too. The Swede is to other people what the baboon is among the dumb brutes. There’s such an unseemly passion and raging heat in the humors of his body that the natural intelligence which God in His mercy hath given all human creatures cannot hinder his evil lusts and sinful desires.”

The dyer nodded several times in affirmation of the theories advanced by the trader. “Right you are, Erik Lauritzen, right you are. The Swede is of a strange and peculiar nature, different from other people. I can always smell, when an outlandish man comes into my booth, whether he’s a Swede or from some other country. There’s such a rank odor about the Swedes—like goats or fish-lye. I’ve often turned it over in my mind, and I make no doubt ’tis as you say, ’tis the fumes of his lustful and bestial humors. Ay, so it is.”

“Sure, it’s no witchcraft if Swedes and Turks smell different from Christians!” spoke up an old woman who stood near them.

“You’re drivelling, Mette Mustard,” interrupted the dyer. “Don’t you know that Swedes are Christian folks?”

“Call ’em Christian, if you like, Gert Dyer, but Finns and heathens and troll-men have never been Christians by my prayer-book, and it’s true as gold what happened in the time of King Christian, God rest his soul! when the Swedes were in Jutland. There was a whole regiment of ’em marching one night at new moon, and at the strokeo’ midnight they ran one from the other and howled like a pack of werewolves or some such devilry, and they scoured like mad round in the woods and fens and brought ill luck to men and beasts.”

“But they go to church on Sunday and have both pastor and clerk just like us.”

“Ay, let a fool believe that! They go to church, the filthy gang, like the witches fly to vespers, when the Devil has St. John’s mass on Hekkenfell. No, they’re bewitched, an’ nothing bites on ’em, be it powder or bullets. Half of ’em can cast the evil eye, too, else why d’ye think the smallpox is always so bad wherever those hell-hounds’ve set their cursed feet? Answer me that, Gert Dyer, answer me that, if ye can.”

The dyer was just about to reply, when Erik Lauritzen, who for some time had been looking about uneasily, spoke to him: “Hush, hush, Gert Pyper! Who’s the man talking like a sermon yonder with the people standing thick around him?”

They hurried to join the crowd, while Gert Dyer explained that it must be a certain Jesper Kiim, who had preached in the Church of the Holy Ghost, but whose doctrine, so Gert had been told by learned men, was hardly pure enough to promise much for his eternal welfare or clerical preferment.

The speaker was a small man of about thirty with something of the mastiff about him. He had long, smooth black hair, a thick little nose on a broad face, lively brown eyes, and red lips. He was standing on a doorstep, gesticulating forcefully and speaking with quick energy though in a somewhat thick and lisping voice.

“The twenty-sixth chapter of the Gospel according toSt. Matthew,” he said, “from the fifty-first to the fifty-fourth verse, reads as follows: ‘And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?’

“Ay, my beloved friends, thus it must be. The poor walls and feeble garrison of this city are at this moment encompassed by a strong host of armed warriors, and their king and commander has ordered them, by fire and sword, by attack and siege, to subdue this city and make us all his servants.

“And those who are in the city and see their peace threatened and their ruin contrary to all feelings of humanity determined upon, they arm themselves, they bring catapults and other harmful implements of war to the ramparts, and they say to one another: Should not we with flaming fire and shining sword fall upon the destroyers of peace who would lay us waste? Why has God in heaven awakened valor and fearlessness in the heart of man if not for the purpose of resisting such an enemy? And, like Peter the Apostle, they would draw their glaive and smite off the ear of Malchus. But Jesus says: ‘Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ ’Tis true, this may seem like a strange speech to the unreason of the wrathful and like foolishness to the unseeing blindness of the spiteful. But the Word is not like a tinkle of cymbals, for the ear only.No, like the hull of a ship, which is loaded with many useful things, so the Word of God is loaded with reason and understanding. Let us therefore examine the Word and find, one by one, the points of true interpretation. Wherefore should the sword remain in his place and he who takes the sword perish with the sword? This is for us to consider under three heads:

“Firstly, man is a wisely and beyond all measure gloriously fashioned microcosm, or as it may be interpreted, a small earth, a world of good and evil. For does not the Apostle James say that the tongue alone is a world of iniquity among our members? How much more then the whole body—the lustful eyes, the hastening feet, the covetous hands, the insatiable belly, but even so the prayerful knees, and the ears quick to hear! And if the body is a world, how much more, then, our precious and immortal soul! Ay, it is a garden full of sweet and bitter herbs, full of evil lusts like ravening beasts and virtues like white lambs. And is he who lays waste such a world to be regarded as better than an incendiary, a brawler, or a field-robber? And ye know what punishment is meted out to such as these.”

Darkness had fallen, and the crowd around the preacher appeared only as a large, dark, slowly shifting and growing mass.

“Secondly, man is a microtheos, that is a mirror and image of the Almighty God. Is not he who lays hands on the image of God to be regarded as worse than he who merely steals the holy vessels or vestments of the church or who profanes the sanctuary? And ye know what punishment is meted out to such a one.

“Thirdly and lastly, it is the first duty of man to dobattle for the Lord, without ceasing, clothed in the shining mail of a pure life and girded about with the flaming sword of truth. Armed thus, it behooves him to fight as a warrior before the Lord, rending the throat of hell and trampling upon the belly of Satan. Therefore the sword of the body must remain in its place, for verily we have enough to strive with that of the spirit!”

Meanwhile stragglers came from both ends of the street, stopped, and took their place in the outskirts of the crowd. Many were carrying lanterns, and finally the dark mass was encircled with an undulating line of twinkling lights that flickered and shifted with the movements of the people. Now and then a lantern would be lifted and its rays would move searchingly over whitewashed walls and black window-panes till they rested on the earnest face of the preacher.

“But how is this? you would say in your hearts: Should we deliver ourselves bound hand and foot into the power of the oppressor, into a bitter condition of thralldom and degradation? Oh, my well-beloved, say not so! For then you will be counted among those who doubt that Jesus could pray his Father and He should send twelve legions of angels. Oh, do not fall into despair! Do not murmur in your hearts against the counsel of the Lord, and make not your liver black against His will! For he whom the Lord would destroy is struck down, and he whom the Lord would raise abides in safety. He has many ways by which He can guide us out of the wilderness of our peril. Has He not power to turn the heart of our enemy, and did He not suffer the angel of death to go through the camp of Sennacherib? And have you forgotten the engulfing waters of the Red Sea and the sudden destruction of Pharaoh?”

At this point Jesper Kiim was interrupted.

The crowd had listened quietly except for a subdued angry murmur from the outskirts, but suddenly Mette’s voice pierced through: “Faugh, you hell-hound! Hold your tongue, you black dog! Don’t listen to him! It’s Swede money speaks out of his mouth!”

An instant of silence, then bedlam broke loose! Oaths, curses, and foul names rained over him. He tried to speak, but the cries grew louder, and those nearest to the steps advanced threateningly. A white-haired little man right in front, who had wept during the speech, made an angry lunge at the preacher with his long, silver-knobbed cane.

“Down with him, down with him!” the cry sounded. “Let him eat his words! Let him tell us what money he got for betraying us! Down with him! Send him to us, we’ll knock the maggots out of him!”

“Put him in the cellar!” cried others. “In the City Hall cellar! Hand him down! hand him down!”

Two powerful fellows seized him. The wretch was clutching the wooden porch railing with all his might, but they kicked both railing and preacher down into the street, where the mob fell upon him with kicks and blows from clenched fists. The women were tearing his hair and clothes, and little boys, clinging to their fathers’ hands, jumped with delight.

“Bring Mette!” cried some one in the back of the crowd. “Make way! Let Mette try him.”

Mette came forward. “Will you eat your devil’s nonsense? Will you, Master Rogue?”

“Never, never! We ought to obey God rather than men, as it is written.”

“Ought we?” said Mette, drawing off her wooden shoeand brandishing it before his eyes. “But men have shoes, and you’re in the pay of Satan and not of God. I’ll give you a knock on the pate! I’ll plaster your brain on the wall!” She struck him with the shoe.

“Commit no sin, Mette,” groaned the scholar.

“Now may the Devil—” she shrieked.

“Hush, hush!” some one cried. “Have a care, don’t crowd so! There’s Gyldenlöve, the lieutenant-general.”

A tall figure rode past.

“Long live Gyldenlöve! The brave Gyldenlöve!” bellowed the mob. Hats and caps were swung aloft, and cheer upon cheer sounded, until the rider disappeared in the direction of the ramparts. It was the lieutenant-general of the militia, colonel of horse and foot, Ulrik Christian Gyldenlöve, the King’s half-brother.

The mob dispersed little by little, till only a few remained.

“Say what you will, ’tis a curious thing,” said Gert the dyer: “here we’re ready to crack the head of a man who speaks of peace, and we cry ourselves hoarse for those who’ve brought this war upon us.”

“I give you good-night, Gert Pyper!” said the trader hastily. “Good-night and God be with you!” He hurried away.

“He’s afraid of Mette’s shoe,” murmured the dyer, and at last he too turned homeward.

Jesper Kiim sat on the steps alone, holding his aching head. The watchman on the ramparts paced slowly back and forth, peering out over the dark land where all was wrapped in silence, though thousands of enemies were encamped round about.

FLAKES of orange-colored light shot up from the sea-gray fog-bank in the horizon, and lit the sky overhead with a mild, rose-golden flame that widened and widened, grew fainter and fainter, until it met a long, slender cloud, caught its waving edge, and fired it with a glowing, burning radiance. Violet and pale pink, the reflection from the sunrise clouds fell over the beaches of Kallebodstrand. The dew sparkled in the tall grass of the western rampart; the air was alive and quivering with the twitter of sparrows in the gardens and on the roofs. Thin strips of delicate mist floated over the orchards, and the heavy, fruit-laden branches of the trees bent slowly under the breezes from the Sound.

A long-drawn, thrice-repeated blast of the horn was flung out from West Gate and echoed from the other corners of the city. The lonely watchmen on the ramparts began to pace more briskly on their beats, shook their mantles, and straightened their caps. The time of relief was near.

On the bastion north of West Gate, Ulrik Frederik Gyldenlöve stood looking at the gulls, sailing with white wings up and down along the bright strip of water in the moat. Light and fleeting, sometimes faint and misty, sometimes colored in strong pigments or clear and vivid as fire, the memories of his twenty years chased one another through his soul. They brought the fragrance of heavy roses and the scent of fresh green woods, the huntsman’s cry and the fiddler’s play and the rustling of stiff, billowy silks. Distant but sunlit, the life of his childhood in the red-roofed Holstein town passed before him. He saw the tall form of his mother, Mistress Margrethe Pappen, a blackhymn-book in her white hands. He saw the freckled chamber-maid with her thin ankles and the fencing-master with his pimpled, purplish face and his bow-legs. The park of Gottorp castle passed in review, and the meadows with fresh hay-stacks by the fjord, and there stood the gamekeeper’s clumsy boy Heinrich, who knew how to crow like a cock and was marvellously clever at playing ducks and drakes. Last came the church with its strange twilight, its groaning organ, its mysterious iron-railed chapel, and its emaciated Christ holding a red banner in his hand.

Again came a blast of the horn from West Gate, and in the same moment the sun broke out, bright and warm, routing all mists and shadowy tones.

He remembered the chase when he had shot his first deer, and old von Dettmer had made a sign in his forehead with the blood of the animal, while the poor hunters’ boys blew their blaring fanfares. Then there was the nosegay to the castellan’s Malene and the serious interview with his tutor, then his first trip abroad. He remembered his first duel in the fresh, dewy morning, and Annette’s cascades of ringing laughter, and the ball at the Elector’s, and his lonely walk outside of the city gates with head aching, the first time he had been tipsy. The rest was a golden mist, filled with the tinkling of goblets and the scent of wine, and there were Lieschen and Lotte, and Martha’s white neck and Adelaide’s round arms. Finally came the journey to Copenhagen and the gracious reception by his royal father, the bustling futilities of court duties by day and the streams of wine and frenzied kisses at night, broken by the gorgeous revelry of the chase or by nightly trysts and tender whisperings in the shelter of Ibstrup park or the gilded halls of Hilleröd castle.

Yet clearer than all these he saw the black, burning eyes of Sofie Urne; more insistent than aught else her voice sounded in his spell-bound memory—beautiful and voluptuously soft, its low notes drawing like white arms, or rising like a flitting bird that soars and mocks with wanton trills, while it flees....

A rustling among the bushes of the rampart below waked him from his dreams.

“Who goes there!” he cried.

“None but Daniel, Lord Gyldenlöve, Daniel Knopf,” was the answer, as a little crippled man came out from the bushes, bowing.

“Ha! Hop-o’-my-Thumb? A thousand plagues, what are you doing here?”

The man stood looking down at himself sadly.

“Daniel, Daniel!” said Ulrik Frederik, smiling. “You didn’t come unscathed from the ‘fiery furnace’ last night. The German brewer must have made too hot a fire for you.”

The cripple began to scramble up the edge of the rampart. Daniel Knopf, because of his stature called Hop-o’-my-Thumb, was a wealthy merchant of some and twenty years, known for his fortune as well as for his sharp tongue and his skill in fencing. He was boon companion with the younger nobility, or at least with a certain group of gallants,le cercle des mourants, consisting chiefly of younger men about the court. Ulrik Frederik was the life and soul of this crowd, which, though convivial rather than intellectual, and notorious rather than beloved, was in fact admired and envied for its very peccadillos.

Half tutor and half mountebank, Daniel moved among these men. He did not walk beside them on the public streets, or in houses of quality, but in the fencing-school,the wine-cellar, and the tavern he was indispensable. No one else could discourse so scientifically on bowling and dog-training or talk with such unction of feints and parrying. No one knew wine as he did. He had worked out profound theories about dicing and love-making, and could speak learnedly and at length on the folly of crossing the domestic stud with the Salzburger horses. To crown all, he knew anecdotes about everybody, and—most impressive of all to the young men—he had decided opinions about everything.

Moreover, he was always ready to humor and serve them, never forgot the line that divided him from the nobility, and was decidedly funny when, in a fit of drunken frolic, they would dress him up in some whimsical guise. He let himself be kicked about and bullied without resenting it, and would often good-naturedly throw himself into the breach to stop a conversation that threatened the peace of the company.

Thus he gained admittance to circles that were to him as the very breath of life. To him, the citizen and cripple, the nobles seemed like demigods. Their cant alone was human speech. Their existence swam in a shimmer of light and a sea of fragrance, while common folk dragged out their lives in drab-colored twilight and stuffy air. He cursed his citizen birth as a far greater calamity than his lameness, and grieved over it, in solitude, with a bitterness and passion that bordered on insanity.

“How now, Daniel,” said Ulrik Frederik, when the little man reached him. “’Twas surely no light mist that clouded your eyes last night, since you’ve run aground here on the rampart, or was the clary at flood tide, since I find you high and dry like Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat?”

“Prince of the Canaries, you rave if you suppose I was in your company last night!”

“A thousand devils, what’s the matter then?” cried Ulrik Frederik impatiently.

“Lord Gyldenlöve,” said Daniel, looking up at him with tears in his eyes, “I’m an unhappy wretch.”

“You’re a dog of a huckster! Is it a herring-boat you’re afraid the Swede will catch? Or are you groaning because trade has come to a standstill, or do you think the saffron will lose its strength and the mildew fall on your pepper and paradise grain? You’ve a ha’penny soul! As if good citizens had naught else to think about than their own trumpery going to the devil,—now that we may look for the fall of both King and realm!”

“Lord Gyldenlöve—”

“Oh, go to the devil with your whining!”

“Not so, Lord Gyldenlöve,” said Daniel solemnly, stepping back a pace. “For I don’t fret about the stoppage of trade, nor the loss of money and what money can buy. I care not a doit nor a damn for herring and saffron, but to be turned away by officers and men like one sick with the leprosy or convicted of crime, that’s a sinful wrong against me, Lord Gyldenlöve. That’s why I’ve been lying in the grass all night like a scabby dog that’s been turned out, that’s why I’ve been writhing like a miserable crawling beast and have cried to God in heaven, asking Him why I alone should be utterly cast away, why my arm alone should be too withered and weak to wield a sword, though they’re arming lackeys and ’prentice boys—”

“But who the shining Satan has turned you away?”

“Faith, Lord Gyldenlöve, I ran to the ramparts like the others, but when I came to one party they told me theyhad room for no more, and they were only poor citizens anyway and not fit to be with the gentry and persons of quality. Some parties said they would have no crooked billets, for cripples drew the bullets and brought ill luck, and none would hazard life and limb unduly by having amongst them one whom the Lord had marked. Then I begged Major-General Ahlefeldt that he would order me to a position, but he shook his head and laughed: things hadn’t come to such a pass yet that they had to stuff the ranks with stunted stumps who’d give more trouble than aid.”

“But why didn’t you go to the officers whom you know?”

“I did so, Lord Gyldenlöve. I thought at once of thecercleand spoke to one or two of themourants—King Petticoat and the Gilded Knight.”

“And did they give you no help?”

“Ay, Lord Gyldenlöve, they helped me—Lord Gyldenlöve, they helped me, may God find them for it! ‘Daniel,’ they said, ‘Daniel, go home and pick the maggots out of your damson prunes!’ They had believed I had too much tact to come here with my buffoonery. ’Twas all very well if they thought me fit to wear cap and bells at a merry bout, but when they were on duty I was to keep out of their sight. Now, was that well spoken, Lord Gyldenlöve? No, ’twas a sin, a sin! Even if they’d made free with me in the wine-cellars, they said, I needn’t think I was one of them, or that I could be with them when they were at their post. I was too presumptuous for them, Lord Gyldenlöve! I’d best not force myself into their company, for they needed no merry-andrew here. That’s what they told me, Lord Gyldenlöve! And yet I asked but to risk my life side by side with the other citizens.”

“Oh, ay,” said Ulrik Frederik, yawning, “I can well understand that it vexes you to have no part in it all. You might find it irksome to sweat over your desk while the fate of the realm is decided here on the ramparts. Look you, youshallbe in it! For—” He broke off and looked at Daniel with suspicion. “There’s no foul play, sirrah?”

The little man stamped the ground in his rage and gritted his teeth, his face pale as a whitewashed wall.

“Come, come,” Ulrik Frederik went on, “I trust you, but you can scarce expect me to put faith in your word as if ’twere that of a gentleman. And remember, ’twas your own that scorned you first. Hush!”

From a bastion at East Gate boomed a shot, the first that had been fired in this war. Ulrik Frederik drew himself up, while the blood rushed to his face. He looked after the white smoke with eager, fascinated eyes, and when he spoke there was a strange tremor in his voice.

“Daniel,” he said, “toward noon you can report to me, and think no more of what I said.”

Daniel looked admiringly after him, then sighed deeply, sat down in the grass, and wept as an unhappy child weeps.

In the afternoon of the same day, a fitful wind blew through the streets of the city, whirling up clouds of dust, whittlings, and bits of straw, and carrying them hither and thither. It tore the tiles from the roofs, drove the smoke down the chimneys, and wrought sad havoc with the tradesmen’s signs. The long, dull-blue pennants of the dyers were flung out on the breeze and fell down again in spirals that tightened around their quivering staffs. The turners’ spinning-wheels rocked and swayed; hairy tails flapped over the doors of the furriers, and the resplendent glass sunsof the glaziers swung in a restless glitter that vied with the polished basins of the barber-surgeons. Doors and shutters were slamming in the back-yards. The chickens hid their heads under barrels and sheds, and even the pigs grew uneasy in their pens, when the wind howled through sunlit cracks and gaping joints.

The storm brought an oppressive heat. Within the houses the people were gasping for breath, and only the flies were buzzing about cheerfully in the sultry atmosphere. The streets were unendurable, the porches were draughty, and hence people who possessed gardens preferred to seek shelter there.

In the large enclosure behind Christoffer Urne’s house in Vingaardsstræde, a young girl sat with her sewing under a Norway maple. Her tall, slender figure was almost frail, yet her breast was deep and full. Luxuriant waves of black hair and almost startlingly large dark eyes accented the pallor of her skin. The nose was sharp, but finely cut, the mouth wide though not full, and with a morbid sweetness in its smile. The lips were scarlet, the chin somewhat pointed, but firm and well rounded. Her dress was slovenly: an old black velvet robe embroidered in gold that had become tarnished, a new green felt hat from which fell a snowy plume, and leather shoes that were worn to redness on the pointed toes. There was lint in her hair, and neither her collar nor her long, white hands were immaculately clean.

The girl was Christoffer Urne’s niece, Sofie. Her father, Jörgen Urne of Alslev, Councillor of the Realm, Lord High Constable, and Knight of the Elephant, had died when she was yet a child, and a few years ago her mother, Mistress Margrethe Marsvin, had followed him. The elderlyuncle, with whom she lived, was a widower, and she was therefore, at least nominally, the mistress of his household.

She hummed a song as she worked, and kept time by swinging one foot on the point of her toe.

The leafy crowns over her head rustled and swayed in the boisterous wind with a noise like the murmur of many waters. The tall hollyhocks, swinging their flower-topped stems back and forth in unsteady circles, seemed seized with a sudden tempestuous madness, while the raspberry bushes, timidly ducking their heads, turned the pale inner side of their leaves to the light and changed color at every breath. Dry leaves sailed down through the air, the grass lay flat on the ground, and the white bloom of the spirea rose and fell froth-like upon the light-green, shifting waves of the foliage.

There was a moment of stillness. Everything seemed to straighten and hang breathlessly poised, still quivering in suspense, but the next instant the wind came shrieking again and caught the garden in a wild wave of rustling and glittering and mad rocking and endless shifting as before.

“In a boat sat Phyllis fair;Corydon beheld her there,Seized his flute, and loudly blew it.Many a day did Phyllis rue it;For the oars dropped from her hands,And aground upon the sands,And aground—”

“In a boat sat Phyllis fair;Corydon beheld her there,Seized his flute, and loudly blew it.Many a day did Phyllis rue it;For the oars dropped from her hands,And aground upon the sands,And aground—”

Ulrik Frederik was approaching from the other end of the garden. Sofie looked up for a moment in surprise, then bent her head over her work and went on humming. He strolledslowly up the walk, sometimes stopping to look at a flower, as though he had not noticed that there was any one else in the garden. Presently he turned down a side-path, paused a moment behind a large white syringa to smooth his uniform and pull down his belt, took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, then walked on. The path made a turn and led straight to Sofie’s seat.

“Ah, Mistress Sofie! Good-day!” he exclaimed as though in surprise.

“Good-day!” she replied with calm friendliness. She carefully disposed of her needle, smoothed her embroidery with her hands, looked up with a smile, and nodded. “Welcome, Lord Gyldenlöve!”

“I call this blind luck,” he said, bowing. “I expected to find none here but your uncle, madam.”

Sofie threw him a quick glance and smiled. “He’s not here,” she said, shaking her head.

“I see,” said Ulrik Frederik, looking down.

There was a moment’s pause. Then Sofie spoke: “How sultry it is to-day!”

“Ay, we may get a thunderstorm, if the wind goes down.”

“It may be,” said Sofie, looking thoughtfully toward the house.

“Did you hear the shot this morning?” asked Ulrik Frederik, drawing himself up as though to imply that he was about to leave.

“Ay, and we may look for heart-rending times this summer. One may well-nigh turn light-headed with the thought of the danger to life and goods, and for me with so many kinsmen and good friends in this miserable affair, who are like to lose both life and limb and all they possess,there’s reason enough for falling into strange and gloomy thoughts.”

“Nay, sweet Mistress Sofie! By the living God, you must not shed tears!? You paint all in too darkcolors—

Tousiours Mars ne met pas au jourDes objects de sang et de larmes,Mais”—

Tousiours Mars ne met pas au jourDes objects de sang et de larmes,Mais”—

and he seized her hand and lifted it to hislips—

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