“Impossible, your Grace! What brigand could resist gold and a free pardon?”
“But you know that this is no common scoundrel. Do not judge him by yourself. If he should refuse, how can you keep your promise of night before last to the three leaders of the insurrection?”
“Well, noble Count, in that case, which I regard as impossible if we are lucky enough to find our man, has your Grace forgotten that a false Hans of Iceland awaits me two days hence at the hour and place appointed for meeting the three chiefs, at Blue Star, a place, moreover, conveniently near Arbar ruin?”
“You are right, my dear Musdœmon, as usual,” said the count; and each resumed his own particular line of thought.
Musdœmon, whose interest it was to keep his master in good humor, for the purpose of diverting him, asked the guide a question.
“My good man, what is that ruined stone cross yonder, behind those young oaks?”
The guide, a man with fixed stare and stupid mien, turned his head and shook it several times, as he said: “Oh, master, that is the oldest gallows in Norway; holy king Olaf had it built for a judge who made a compact with a robber.”
Musdœmon saw by his patron’s face that the guide’s artless words had produced an effect quite contrary to that which he hoped.
“It is a curious story,” the guide added; “good Mother Osia told it to me. The robber was ordered to hang the judge.”
The poor guide, in his simplicity, did not suppose that the incident with which he meant to entertain his employers was almost an insult to them. Musdœmon stopped him.