"You are right, my friend," said Drost Peter, recollecting himself, as a slight blush overspread his cheeks--"you have done your duty, and I had no right to blame you."
The pacified captain saluted the drost, who, with his companion and the troopers, proceeded to pass the bridge.
During the short parley, Count Gerhard had with great difficulty restrained his laughter, which now broke forth in spite of him, as he perceived, while crossing the bridge, how the drost hurried on and gazed towards the vessels in the harbour.
"You now see yourself how execrable are your stringent laws, my conscientious good sir drost," he said; "you certainly thought not of a lover's haste when you ordered this bridge-barring."
"This is grist for your mill," returned the drost, who, although somewhat vexed, could not restrain a smile at the good-natured sallies with which Count Gerhard indemnified himself for the grievance of the toll, which affected the relations of Denmark to Holstein as much as it did those to South Jutland.
"If now you overtake not the fair lady, for whom I have ridden so many good horses almost to death," continued the count, in the same vein, "it will be sad enough: you will then regret having founded a toll at this confounded gutter. The deuce take it! it costs me and my brave Holsteiners more silver pieces in a year and a day, than the whole of this paltry place is worth. Laugh I must, from sheer vexation."
"A truce to this raillery, Count Gerhard," exclaimed the drost, hastily. "If I see aright, there is a ship leaving the harbour. If you knew of what this cursed delay has robbed me, you would not have the heart to laugh."
They had now ridden through the South-port and Bridge-street, when the drost, turning to the right, proceeded at a gallop to the Cloister-port, and across the large meadow-ground to the harbour, followed by the count and his train.
In an instant he stood on the quay, anxiously inquiring who was on board the vessel that had just left the harbour under full sail.
"A princess, it was, in sooth," answered an old steersman, as he continued to hammer away carelessly at his rudder. "She came here in a painted cage, with four horses. The town-governor himself was hat in hand, and all were obliged to stand on their pegs before her. It was a Swede that ran out with her. If this breeze continues, she will soon be in the open sea; and if the skiff only holds together, she will reach land; but it is a confounded rotten tub, and wont bear many thumps. With the Swede, however, she would go, even had Satan himself been on board."