"Such greeting and defiance you may yourself bring my liege and sovereign," answered Aage, "if you fancy being sent back to Rostock with your hands tied behind you like a madman." So saying, he turned contemptuously on his heel, and returned with his knights to Sjoeborg. He afterwards joined the king and the hunting-party, but made no mention of this impudent defiance, which, though it seemed to him indeed to be paltry and powerless, he yet could not but regard as a striking instance of the insufferable pride of these monied aristocrats, and of the boldness with which the equivocal position of the king at the court of Rome had inspired the ill-affected and discontented. After a hard chase the king rode back in the evening to Sjoeborg, with Drost Aage by his side. It was already dark. The cold November blast whirled the fallen leaves around them as they rode through the forest. The moon now rose behind the trees, shining with an unsteady light from out the flying clouds, through the leafless boughs of the forest. Behind them rode Marsk Oluffsen between Henrik of Mecklenborg and the Swedish regent, whose return to Sweden was fixed for the following day. Some hunters followed with the game caught in the chase. The rest of the train remained at Esrom monastery. The king, as well as Drost Aage, had been remarkably silent during the day. Since the arrival of the Swedish ambassadors, tidings had been daily looked for, but in vain, from the Danish embassy at the papal court. The king had not as yet taken any step towards a reconciliation with the captive archbishop. The journey of the Swedish ambassadors could no longer be delayed, and the obstacles to the king's marriage were not in any measure removed. The king and his faithful Aage now rode in silence by each other's side, apparently occupied with a presentiment which they could not banish from their minds, but to which neither liked to give utterance. It was the unfortunate St. Cecilia's day, which yearly brought with it to the king bitter recollections of the dreadful murder of his father at Finnerup. Marsk Oluffsen appeared not to remember what day it was; he jested merrily, after his fashion, with the German and Swedish guests, and lauded the pious and frugal manner in which King Birger's tutor, a certain Carl Tydsker[11], had a few years since restored his young sovereign to health, namely, by making the same vow to three saints at once, and afterwards drawing lots to determine to which of the good saints the vow should be kept. "I have since wondered," said the Marsk, laughing, "whether the victory over the Kareles[12] was thrown into the bargain, and was one of St. Eric's miracles; if so, I must acknowledge that Carl Tydsker was worth his weight in gold." By this unlucky jest the Marsk wounded at the same time the national pride of both his German and Swedish companions, without appearing himself in the least to perceive it.