"Thank ye, friend," replied the stranger, warmly. "I expect you are a judge. A trifle weary and footsore he may be. He has had a heavy day's work, and drags a little with one leg. But no matter. The peace of God and a good evening to this house," continued he, turning to Thor Hansen and taking his hand. "Dog's-weather this," he added, as he knocked the water from his broad-brimmed round hat till it streamed over the floor, and passed both hands over his thick eyebrows and black bushy hair. "I am wet to the very skin, and as stiff and weary as an old plough-horse that can no longer follow the furrow. With your permission!"--and so saying, he seated himself by the table, on the end of the wooden bench. He was a little, broad-shouldered man, with an unusual quantity of long hair upon his head, and with small lively black eyes, shaded by projecting brows. He wore a peasant's jerkin of coarse brown woollen stuff, and carried his whip, the end of whose lash was tied to the handle, slung across his broad back, as a fowler carries his gun. "Whence so late, Martin Thy?" quoth Thor Hansen, with a curious glance at the new-comer. "Direct from Middelfahrt," replied the horse-dealer in a suppressed voice. "I would speak with Sergeant Svartberg before I go to bed, and therefore have I ridden straight up here. The worshipful sergeant is doubtless at home?" he added, but with an expression of countenance as if he wished the contrary. On receiving the assurance that Svartberg was out, and not expected back for two or three hours, Martin Thy peeped cautiously into the best bed-chamber, which the Swede occupied, then into the kitchen and court; and having at last fully satisfied himself that the person he inquired about was really absent, he pulled his whip over his head, and threw it violently down upon the floor. "I may speak then, and tell you the news," he said, thrusting both hands into the breast of his doublet, and standing, with his short, strong legs apart, colossus-fashion, in the middle of the floor. "I went to Middelfahrt in a lucky hour. Every face was joyful, and every mouth full of reports of a great and immediate succour, with which we should drive the Swedes out of the country; and on this side the Odensee I heard the Swedes themselves talk of it. For my part I have not a doubt about the matter, and my information is of the best. I was up there, bargaining with the Swedish Rittmeister Kron for his gray mare, and doctoring one of his troop-horses which had broken its fore-foot, and I heard the gossip of the grooms and soldiers, and all manner of curious stories." "Of course," said Thor Hansen, shaking his head incredulously; "if lies were Latin, I too might turn preacher." The horse-jockey looked Hansen hard in the face, whilst the young people exchanged signs of intelligence.