"If thou fallest asleep, and drop'st into the ford, Kyste! thou wilt cheat the rope-maker of an hempen cord," said the fat knight, and laughed at his own wit.
"Ha, indeed! think ye the halter is so sure of me. Sir Pallé?" muttered the fellow; "you may well crack your jests, you are neither made to be drowned nor hanged; with your round carcass, you would swim like an ale barrel, and he who would hang you must risk his own neck."
"Well," answered Pallé, yawning, "mine is a very politic shape; thou and thy daring masters might need such an one. But what the devil has become of them? They are wrangling and consulting a confounded time together."
"It concerns high play, though, Sir Pallé," muttered the man, flapping his arms around his body to keep himself warm. "Had I but a good can of German ale at my side, of a surety I would keep my eyes open."
"If thou canst keep one eye open it deserves all honour, since thou hast not more by thee," jested the knight. "But what the devil is the junker about?" he continued, "to set me to watch here in frost and cold while he consults on weighty matters in his warm private chamber! Me, his right hand, and let into all his secrets! But tell me, Kyste, what means this secret nightly visit? The proud Niels Brock and Johan Papé I well know; they are two limbs of Satan, and I can easily divine what they would be at; but who was the third stranger thou broughtest hither,--yon little fellow, with the hump and the red mantle?"
"It is the Evil One himself, I almost believe," answered the deserter, and crossed himself; "a wizard at the least. I will be hanged if he understands not the black art. They call him wise Master Thrand; he has been condemned to fire and stake by the pope, and banished both by kings and emperors; but he snaps his fingers at them all--he laughs at the world's governors and rulers, and cares not for our Lord or our Lady, either, when he is on the seas. If he is right, then are we all fools together in Christendom, and should obey none other than him our master, who is within us and in all things; but that passes my understanding. He can be pious too when it serves his turn. I saw that when he kissed the archbishop's hand at parting, and took the letter of absolution, which truly he afterwards cast overboard--he is a good friend of Niels Brock, and can make gold, they say."
"Then would he might teach us and the junker that art!" said Pallé; "then it were sin should he be burned for a little touch of heresy--for that he will one day burn in the other world. But tell me, Kyste, if thou and thy masters come from Hammershuus, from the archbishop, how darest thou appear before the junker? The archbishop hath given him over, as well as the king, to the devil; and I must needs admit the junker hath been worse to him than ten devils."
"That's the great folks' business," answered Kyste. "I serve the man who pays best, and ask not of aught besides--had I known the archbishop brought not so much as a mark with him, and should lose all he expected from Skaane, the devil take me if I would have perilled my life for his sake."
"You had a rough passage, then, with him from Sjöborg?"
"Yes, you may well say that;--we were hard put to it ere we got him housed. We were obliged to run in under Hveen; and we lay with our life in our hands a whole day and two nights at Saltholm.--They were chasing us every where with barks and those confounded fishing smacks; but the fog and the bishop's prayers helped us that once. We sailed, in peril of our lives, in a howling storm, to Kaasebjerg, and by the time we reached Hammershuus we were half perished with cold and hunger; and what got we for our pains? Mad Morten the cook got a bishop's letter for a pilgrimage. I and Olé Ark got a dry blessing with three wizened fingers, and a fresh absolution for ten years' sins. It may have its use;--I never slight God's gifts; but such like gifts help little to fill purse and stomach. Of course," he added, "we have now leave to seek our bread where we can find it, and plunder our Lord's and the archbishop's enemies till our dying day, without having a hair singed in purgatory for it; but----"