"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, Olé!" 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, Olé; thou knowest but little of what passed 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 Jeppé; "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 pricks, and goes just the same to mattins and mass as heretofore."
"That defiance and ungodliness 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 Sjöborg. 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, God rest his soul! 'but if thou meddlest in one, carry it through like a man.' It avails but little to cast butter 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 pass 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 Gilleleié.