"Understand me rightly, noble lady. The craft of Hamlet is, in the main, completely Danish, though I cannot prize it as in anywise great and noble. This kind of craft ever betrays itself in a respect for truth, even when it may not and dare not be spoken openly. Every period of disquiet and internal disturbance in Denmark will show us that, with the best and noblest of the people, our honesty, justice, and love of truth never entirely disappear, but reveal themselves where the mere semblance of truth is used as a cloak to deceit. The greatest deceiver and nidding amongst us will always blush to deny or disguise the truth openly: he is too proud to lie, even were it to save his life; and he will speak the truth even where it may endanger him, but so darkly and figuratively, that himself only and his friends can understand it, while his foes receive it in an opposite sense."
"Therein, perhaps, you maybe right," said Jomfru Ingé, gravely; "but a wish to wrest and distort the truth does not, in consequence, lie in the people's mode of thinking.
"Far be it from me to assert that it does," replied Drost Peter; "but I have observed that even the most upright of our commoners take a singular pleasure, whilst jesting, in striving to tack something on a person's sleeve, as they term it, strictly, however, without telling an untruth. In this consists a great portion of the craft and wit of our common people. It may be highly good-natured and innocent; but, in times like these, it is still a dangerous quality, which renders it extremely difficult to distinguish the true friends of the crown from its secret enemies."
"Nay, nay," exclaimed Jomfru Ingé, gladly; "in this you greatly err, Drost Peter. You know our brave and trusty countrymen better. I often see and converse with the poorest and humblest of them. They speak openly and impatiently of their burdens, and, in their language, do not spare the great and powerful. They are not afraid to utter the boldest truths, even as regards the king and his favourites; but, when I speak to them of the crown and kingdom, with the view of ascertaining their opinions respecting an illegally imposed king, you should see how readily they forget their own grievances, and how uprightly they express their devoted attachment to the ancient, legitimate, royal family. It is true that, when jesting, they often find great amusement in figurative language, and in befooling each other with old proverbs, and suchlike; but this good-natured sort of waggishness I rather admire, and certainly think there is nothing wrong in it."
"I do not blame that which is so natural to the people, and, in a manner, born with them," replied Drost Peter. "None of us are entirely free from it," he added. "We have both, perhaps, to-day, noble Jomfru Ingé, and even at this very hour, concealed what we know, and avoided the truth, to spare ourselves or others, without having said an untrue word."
Lady Ingé blushed. "Every one has a right to do so," she said, earnestly. "What I will not and ought not to say, no power on earth shall compel me to speak. If we could not be veracious and upright, without telling everything we know, there would be few honest men in existence. You shall judge between us, good Cecilia," she continued, turning playfully to her relation, who had hitherto been a silent listener. "Think you Drost Peter himself is so upright, that he would tell us truly, were we to ask him, which colour he esteems most highly?"
"We need not ask him that," replied Cecilia: "the colour you now wear in your hairband, is that worn by the drost--last year, at least."
Drost Peter blushed deeply. "I wore it last year, because it was the queen's colour," he replied. "I won the right to do so at the Helsingborg tourney. But for twelve months before last May I have not worn it; although it has, since then, become dearer to me than ever. I fancy I have known from my childhood that crimson band, with the small pearl-lilies, and it is the only band I would suffer to bind me prisoner; but were Jomfru Ingé even now to present me with it, I dare not openly wear it. The reason, too, must remain a secret."
Lady Ingé had hastily raised her hand to the crimson fillet, as if she would remove it; but, on hearing Drost Peter's latter words, she only secured it more firmly, and changed the conversation to another subject.
"Look at my handsome, watchful bird," she said, merrily. "Had Hamlet possessed him, he would certainly have known how to make use of him." As she said this, she patted a large tame fowl that had flown towards her, alarmed, as it appeared, by Claus Skirmen, who was in search of his master, to inform him, as he had been ordered, of the state of the wind.