“Nor the letter?”
“What letter?”
“Faugh, ’tis such an ugly story!”
“Out with it!”
“Why, this Högh was a very good friend,—this happened before he was married,—and he was the very best of friends with Ermegaard Lynow. She had the longest hair of any lady—she could well-nigh walk on it, and she was red and white and pretty as a doll, but he was harsh and barbarous to her, they said, as if she’d been an unruly staghound and not the gentle creature she was, and the more inhumanly he used her, the more she loved him. He might have beaten her black and blue—and belike he did—she would have kissed him for it. To think that one person can be so bewitched by another, it’s horrible! But then he got tired of her and never even looked at her, for he was in love with some one else, and Mistress Ermegaard wept and came nigh breaking her heart and dying of grief, but still she lived, though forsooth it wasn’t much of a life. At last she couldn’t bear it any longer, and when she saw Sti Högh riding past, so they said, she ran out after him, and followed alongside of his horse for a mile, and he never so much as drew rein nor listened to her crying and pleading, but rode on all the faster and left her. That was too much for her, and so she took deadly poison and wrote Sti Högh that she did it for him, and she would never stand in his way, all that she asked was that he would come and see her before she died.”
“And then?”
“Why, God knows if it’s true what people say, for if it is, he’s the wickedest body and soul hell is waiting for. They say he wrote back that his love would have been the best physic for her, but as he had none to give her, he’d heard that milk and white onions were likewise good, and he’d advise her to take some. That’s what he said. Now, what do you think of that? Could anything be more inhuman?”
“And Mistress Ermegaard?”
“Mistress Ermegaard?”
“Ay, what of her?”