"Softly, softly, my good friend. A man cannot answer everything at once. He has not slept for the last three days--neither have I: you can see it in my appearance. I have ridden three horses to death, and scarcely hang together myself. But listen to all in due order. When we danced with the pretty maidens at Rypen House, the duke lay, you know, on the lazy side, in his camp hard by. But on holy St. Germanus' day--let me see--yes, it was the 28th of May, the first day of the Dane-court here--he was certainly in Sleswick, where, in the presence of his own council and that of the bishop, he issued a trading charter, in favour of the shopkeepers of Lubeck, of the following tenor--"
"Do you jest with me, Count Gerhard? What possible connection has this with the crown and kingdom?"
"More than you dream of, my good friend," replied the count. "The tenor of the charter I will spare you, for I cannot remember it, and it is nothing to the purpose: but mark you--he performed a public, although an insignificant act of government, in Sleswick, on the same day on which he should here have been chosen protector and guardian of the king. There, now, you have a political riddle, which will become a hard nut for posterity to crack; but I can solve it for you. He had, shortly before, been at Helgeness, with Marsk Stig--"
"That we know," interrupted the drost, impatiently: "he has not concealed it; and it has just been explained to his honour, as a proof of his fidelity and zeal for the royal cause."
"I'faith, if you know everything, my sagacious sir drost, then are you wiser than even my Daddy Longlegs, as we shall see--"
"Your jester?"
"Aye--you know him. He is mad enough at times: he fancied he was the dead king, when he knocked my eye out; but when he is not mad, and has a mind to put a wax nose on people, he is a deuce of a carl, and ready to laugh himself to death at--"
"But, min Gud! what has a fool to do with state affairs? Forget not, on account of that good-for-nothing fellow, what you were about to say."
"Respect Longlegs, my good friend. Such a fool can be more sagacious than a whole privy council. For the last eight days he has been clad in iron from top to toe, and has personated the marsk's confidential swain, Mat Jute. He resembled him to a hair, and imitated his Juttish accent in a masterly manner: it was thus he came to know that of which I had already an inkling, and what old Henner had observed during his imprisonment with the marsk. Whilst the duke kept away from the Dane-court, a tumult and an outbreak were to be occasioned here, on the first court-day, by the aid of the marsk and his friends; but I prevented it by causing all the ferries to be closed for three days, so that none of the disturbers could come over."
"My God! what do I hear? What would then have happened?"