During these sorrowful days, in which he was pursued like a wild beast, Gustavus did not forget the task which he had proposed to himself. His eye was on fire when he thought of the tyranny of Christian; but alas! his resolution and his courage were useless. The people were indisposed to follow him. ‘The king,’ they said, ‘strikes only at the nobility and the clergy.’ The dwellers in these wild valleys were accustomed to go in crowds to church during the Christmas festival. Gustavus joined in the devotions of the people in the churches of Raettwiks and Mora. Then, gathering the peasants together as they came out of church,[399] he endeavored to rekindle in them the love of their country. ‘My good friends,’ said he, ‘you know what you have yourselves suffered under the government of the foreigner. He has shed the blood of our noblest men; my father has fallen under his blows; and the country is now crushed under the feet of our enemies. Let us put an end to this slavery. With God’s help, I will be your captain, and we will die to save the kingdom.’ But the inhabitants of these remote valleys knew nothing of the state of things nor of the man who spoke to them. Some of them testified compassion for him, but the greater number begged him to go away. Gustavus, disappointed in his hopes, traversed about the close of 1520 the desert places which separate Eastern from Western Dalecarlia, frequently walking over the ice which cracked under his feet, and exposing himself more than once to the risk of drowning in the course of this mournful and solitary flight. He wandered about in these wild regions dejected and distressed; and his bitterest grief was to see his countrymen wanting to themselves and enduring without regret the most intolerable yoke.[400] Soon after he had left Mora, two Swedish gentlemen, Lars Olafsson and Jon Michelsson, arrived there, and they gave to the inhabitants, then assembled for the new year, a thrilling account of the massacre at Stockholm, which set the poor people sobbing. ‘Christian,’ continued Olafsson, ‘is going to impose on the people ruinous taxes, he marches with a gibbet on his right hand and the wheel on his left, and all Swedish peasants are obliged to deliver up their arms to him. He leaves them nothing but a staff.’ At these words the people murmured aloud. They now appreciated the worth of the young man whom they had so ungraciously received, and men were sent out with instructions to search for Gustavus in the villages, the woods, and the lofty rocks. They found him at Saeln, in the parish of Lima, at the foot of the mountains which separate Sweden and Norway, just preparing to cross them. [Sidenote: Gustavus Captain Of The Communes.]