LITMIR.BIZ

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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 and violets, 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 my amour! 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 this rigmarole?—

      ’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.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

      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 army walked over 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 walked about 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, pestilence and 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 hatred of 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

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