For seven years I fear not to say that I kept my promise faithfully. I stood by my countrymen in all their sufferings and their need. Playmates of mine, all over the land, were wives and mothers now. I alone could give ear to no wooer—not to one. That you know best, Olaf Skaktavl!
Then I saw Sten Sture for the first time. Fairer man had never met my sight.
Nils Lykke.
Ah, now it grows clear to me! Sten Sture was then in Norway on a secret errand. We Danes were not to know that he wished your friends well.
Lady Inger.
In the guise of a mean serving-man he lived a whole winter under one roof with me.
That winter I thought less and less of the country’s weal.——So fair a man had I never seen—and I had lived well-nigh five-and-twenty years.
Next autumn Sten Sture came once more; and when he departed again he took with him, in all secrecy, a little child. ’Twas not folk’s evil tongues I feared; but our cause would have suffered had it got abroad that Sten Sture stood so near to me.
The child was given to Peter Kanzler to rear. I waited for better times, that were soon to come. They never came. Sten Sture took a wife two years later in Sweden, and, when he died, he left a widow——
Olaf Skaktavl.