But before any one could prevent it, he had torn asunder his bands with almost inconceivable strength, and stretched forth his liberated arms with a wild and fearful burst of laughter. "For ever, for ever doomed to perdition may I be, if I be not the first," he shouted, striking the Gospels with his clenched hand: "if old Pallé is not the first who strikes, I shall wander on earth till doomsday!"
Master Grand had nearly lost his hold of the book. The marsk again beckoned, and two knights led the crazy old man from the hall. A profound silence followed, during which the dean had recovered himself, and now stood with the Holy Book in his hand, before Fru Ingeborg. She bowed her head affirmatively, and, in a voice that penetrated the souls of all who heard her, repeated the oath they had all sworn, while she bent her knee, and touched the book with her wasted hand. She remained without changing her posture, and, at the marsk's signal, all the others silently withdrew. Involuntarily, as it were, the gloomy master of the castle stretched forth his mailed arm towards his unhappy wife, but again let it fall by his side. He hastily pulled a bell-rope, when Fru Ingeborg's waiting-maidens entered, and carried their fainting lady to her own apartments.
What had taken place at Möllerup was a secret known only to the initiated. The disguised strangers left the castle, one by one, at different times, and generally by night, as they had come. Even in the immediate neighbourhood, no one seemed to have been aware of this secret gathering. In the castle itself no change took place. The four mailed watchers were still constantly to be seen on the tower. The drawbridge, as usual, was kept raised; and, notwithstanding its numerous garrison, everything was as quiet and still as if the fortress had been waste and deserted.
The contract with Duke Waldemar had set the royal mind at rest; and the council of the kingdom did not appear apprehensive of any danger. The king and queen passed the beautiful summer at Scanderborg Castle, surrounded by their whole court, and the most considerable people of the country. Old Sir John, Master Martinus, and Drost Peter, had returned from Stockholm with good tidings concerning the object of their mission.
The negociations opened with King Magnus chiefly referred to a closer alliance between the two royal houses, by means of a double marriage. The little Danish Princess Mereté, who had been betrothed to the Swedish crown-prince, was to be sent to the court of Stockholm during the following year, where her education, according to agreement, was to be completed. In the same way the little Swedish Princess Ingeborg was to be educated at the court of Denmark, if the request were made. Her betrothment to the Danish crown-prince was concluded by a written document, but the public announcement of this alliance was to be deferred for a few years.
With lively satisfaction, the Danish ambassadors had beheld the little Swedish princess, whom they hoped would one day be Denmark's future queen; and even old Sir John, who did not expect to live to see the time, could not speak of the pretty kindly child without particular animation, as if he expected in her another Dagmar, who would bring peace and blessings to Denmark. This prudent statesman, as well as Drost Peter, placed all his hopes of better times for Denmark in the hopeful heir to its throne and his descendants. Old Sir John often sought to be useful to the young prince; and, with all his esteem for Drost Peter, he frequently shook his head when he saw how the young chivalrous drost desired to educate the prince's feelings of honour and justice to a degree that appeared to him dangerous.
One day the old knight was present, with the queen's household, at Scanderborg, to witness the prince's exercises in arms, and observed how he sought to convert these sports and exercises into gay and costly imitations of the ordinary jousts and tournaments; the young king, as he was always called, dispensing royal gifts to the squires, and pronouncing sentence with excessive severity on every transgressor of the laws of chivalry, as applicable to the game. The old counsellor smiled, and seemed to participate in the pleasure evinced by the queen and Drost Peter on the occasion; but, when the game was ended, he called the drost to his private room.
"I am old," he said, seriously, "but I do not think I am niggardly or avaricious, although I may set greater store by outward fortune than you approve of. It is right that the prince should be liberal and magnanimous; but do not therefore teach our future king to be a spendthrift, and to despise the wealth of his people and their possessions, like the dust on which he treads. Take care that he has not more regard for knightly pomp and splendour than for substantial power, true achievements, and real greatness."
"God forbid!" said Drost Peter. "But, if the days of the great Waldemars are to be restored--"