Dean Goeran was standing at a garret window when he saw these men approaching. At once, with a most unsoldierlike panic, he rushed in terror down stairs and fled through a back door into the forest, without a word to his men of the coming danger. The house was surrounded and the men made prisoners, the king's steward, whom they held captive, being released. Erik spoke to them so severely of their disloyalty that they fell on their knees in prayer and petition, and when he told them that the best way to gain pardon for their act was to seek and deliver their fugitive leader, they gladly undertook the task. [Illustration: NORWEGIAN CARRIAGE CALLED STOLKJAEM.] The scared leader of rebels meanwhile was wandering in anguish and alarm through the wide wood, not knowing what to do. Coming at length to a large forest lake, he entered a little boat that he found and pushed off from land, thinking thus to be in greater safety. As he thus sat, lost in his unquiet thoughts, some of his late followers reached the lake and saw him. So absorbed was he in his bitter reflections that he failed to see other boats gliding out towards him, and they were close upon him before he perceived them. Then, leaping up in wild fright, he sought in his despair to jump into the water, but before he could do so some of the peasants had rowed up and seized him. In his bitterness of spirit he tore the gold chain from his neck and the rings from his fingers and flung them into the lake, resolved that they should not become the spoil of the king he hated. But Gustavus was not the man to trouble himself about such small fry of conspirators as this. The dean was taken to Upsala and thence to Stockholm, where he was kept in confinement, though with every comfort, until the rebellion incited by his father was quelled. Then the king, taking into account his brothers' loyalty and his own insignificance, freed him and restored him his property. He could well afford to be lenient to a rebel of his calibre. If this was all we had to tell, it would not be worth the telling, but the conspiracy in West Gothland went on and led to events of far greater interest. A born plotter, old Joensson kept at his work, and to prevent any news of what was taking place from reaching the king, a guard of a thousand men was placed to watch the highway and stop all messengers. At the head of this guard was a priest called Nils of Hvalstad, a thorough hater of the king. To him the insurgents sent their letters, to be forwarded to those for whom they were intended. Such was the state of affairs, the designs of the plotters ripening while the king was in this way kept in ignorance of matters of such importance to him.