LITMIR.BIZ

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      “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, you shall be 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 suns of 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 elderly uncle, 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—”

      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 strolled slowly 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 dark colors—

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