Anders received him hospitably, but when he heard from him of the Stockholm massacre and his aid was requested in the liberation of the country, he grew alarmed. Fearing to entertain so dangerous a guest, he advised him to go farther north and to change his place of abode frequently.
Accepting this advice, Gustavus set out for Ornäs, but on his way, while crossing a newly frozen stream, the thin ice broke under him and he was plunged into the chilling water. Light and active, he soon got out again, drying his clothes and passing the night at the house of the ferryman.
Reaching Ornäs the next day, he went to the house of a former friend, but who now, unknown to him, had become connected by marriage with the Danes and was devoted to the interests of the new king. It was a critical situation for the friendless fugitive. His treacherous host craftily welcomed him and pretended to approve his purpose, in which he offered to assist him and to seek adherents to his cause among his neighbors.
The guest was conducted to a garret at the top of the house and here, weary from his wanderings and gratified at having found a sympathizing friend, he lay confidingly down and was soon lost in slumber. Meanwhile Arendt, the treacherous host, sought a neighbor, Mans Nilsson, whom he told of the rich prize he had found and asked his aid in capturing him and gaining the high reward offered for him by the king. He was mistaken in his man. Mans hated treachery. But Arendt found others who were less scrupulous and in the early morning returned to his home heading twenty men, collected to aid him in the capture of his unsuspecting guest. To his utter surprise and dismay, on entering the garret to which Gustavus had been led he was nowhere to be found. He had unaccountably disappeared, and search as they could no trace of the fugitive was forthcoming.
There was a woman concerned in this strange escape, which had happened thus. Barbara, Arendt's wife, though Danish in her sympathies, had a warm, romantic interest in Gustavus Vasa, and when she saw her husband, on his return from his visit to Mans Nilsson, drive past the house and in the direction of the house of the Danish steward, she suspected him of treachery and determined to save their too-confiding guest.
Ordering Jacob, one of her men, to harness a sledge with all haste and secrecy and keep it in waiting behind the building, she sought the garret, woke Gustavus, and told him of his peril and of her desire to save him. Not venturing to bring him down into the house, she opened the window, and though it was eighteen feet from the ground, she aided him in his descent with a long towel, such as were then in common use. Gustavus then sprang into the sledge and was driven briskly off.
Arendt, when he learned of how his expected victim had fled, was furiously angry with his wife, and, as we are told, never forgave her and refused ever to set eyes on her again.
This was the most extreme danger that the fugitive patriot ever passed through, and at that interval his hope of freeing his country from the yoke of the foreigner seemed the sheerest madness. But other perils lay before him and only vigilance and good fortune saved him more than once from death or capture. Surrounded by foes and with scarce a friend who dared aid him in the whole district, his final escape seemed impossible.
The friendly Barbara had advised him to seek Herr Jon, the priest of Svärdsjö, and his driver took the road over the frozen Lake Runn, they ascending its banks in the smoke coming down from the Fahun copper mines, and about sunrise reaching a village on the northeast end of the lake. Jacob was unacquainted with the country beyond this point and Gustavus went to a house to inquire the way. As he was on the point of entering he saw within a miner, Nils Haussen, whom he knew to be a Danish partisan and who would have recognized him at sight. Quickly and without being seen, he turned behind the door and went towards another village beyond. Here he met a friendly smelter who agreed to guide him on the way. When they parted Gustavus gave him a silver dagger, saying gratefully:
"If God helps me, seek me, and I will richly repay you for your aid."