Orthon's last appearance
'"It is enough," spoke the Sieur de Corasse; "and now go, for I fain would sleep."
'So Orthon went; and when it was the third hour next morning[28] the Sieur de Corasse rose and dressed as was his custom, and, leaving his chamber, came out into a gallery that looked into the central court of the castle. He glanced down, and the first thing he saw was a sow, larger than any he had ever beheld, but so thin that it seemed nothing but skin and bone. The Sieur de Corasse was troubled at the sight of the pig, and said to his servants: "Set on the dogs, and let them chase out that sow."
'The varlets departed and loosened the dogs, and urged them to attack the sow, which uttered a great cry and looked at the Sieur de Corasse, who stood leaning against one of the posts of his chamber. They saw her no more, for she vanished, and no man could tell whither she had gone.
'Then the Sieur de Corasse entered into his room, pondering deeply, for he remembered the words of Orthon and said to himself: "I fear me that I have seen my messenger. I repent me that I have set my dogs upon him, and the more that perhaps he will never visit me again, for he has told me, not once but many times, that if I angered him he would depart from me."
'And in this he said well; for Orthon came no more to the castle of Corasse, and in less than a year its lord himself was dead.'
HOW GUSTAVUS VASA WON HIS KINGDOM
NEARLY four hundred years ago, on May 12, 1496, Gustavus Vasa was born in an old house in Sweden. His father was a noble of a well-known Swedish family, and his mother could claim as her sister one of the bravest and most unfortunate women of her time. Now, it was the custom in those days that both boys and girls should be sent when very young to the house of some great lord to be taught their duties as pages or ladies-in-waiting, and to be trained in all sorts of accomplishments. So when Gustavus Vasa had reached the age of six or seven, he was taken away from all his brothers and sisters and placed in the household of his uncle by marriage, whose name was Sten Sture. At that time Sweden had had no king of her own for a hundred years, when the kingdom had become united with Norway and Denmark in the reign of Queen Margaret by a treaty that is known in history as the Union of Calmar (1397). As long as Queen Margaret lived the three kingdoms were well-governed and happy; but her successors were by no means as wise as she, and at the period we are writing of the Danish stewards of King Hans and his son, Christian II., oppressed and ill-treated the Swedes in every possible way, and Sten Sture, regent though he was, had no power to protect them. From time to time the Danish kings came over to Sweden to look after their own interests, and on one of these visits King Hans saw little Gustavus Vasa at the house of Sten Sture in Stockholm. He is said to have taken notice of the boy, and to have exclaimed grimly that Gustavus would be a great man if he lived; and the Regent, thinking that the less attention the King paid to his unwilling subjects the safer their heads would be, at once sent the boy back to his father.