The aged Jeppe, the fisherman from Gilleleie, who on fast days was accustomed to bring fish to Esrom, and to the kitchen of Sjoeborg, was returning at day-break from the ferry, opposite the closed castle gate, with his flat fish basket at his back, and stood almost under the gallows ere he was aware of it. His servant, a young fisherman, followed him also with a basket at his back. "It was true then, after all," said the old man; "they have made quick work of it here. The bird hath flown, and the cage stands empty. Our young king hath been wroth in earnest--by my troth, he does nothing by halves. We may now carry our cod to Elsinore. But what the devil ails the birds to-day?" "Look, look, master!" shouted the lad; "there he hangs." "Our Lady preserve us!" exclaimed Jeppe, and stopped. "Ay, there he hangs, indeed, in his old sheep's skin, and in the boots I brought him from Skanor fair, those he squeezed out of me for the freight and the sixteen marks. Why, the soles are whole as yet! I told him not to wear them out with his courtier-like scrapings. Faugh! he looks ugly in the face. 'Tis no wholesome sight on a fasting stomach. Let's take a sup, Ole." He took a little wooden flask out of the basket, drank, and reached the flask to the lad, while they gazed with mingled curiosity and dread on the corpse. "By our Lady! a foul human carcass is truly soon provided for," resumed the old man, clearing his throat after the strong drink, while he crossed himself, and put up the flask. "Well, I say now what I said before; paid as deserved. He who deals against law shall be dealt with without law. One should otherwise, it is true, speak well of the dead; and this I _must_ say, Jesper Mogensen was in some sort a pious man; he neglected neither mattins nor mass; he went to confession every other day. That we none of us do. But the crow is never the whiter, let her wash herself ever so often, and I would not have given a rotten herring's head for all his piety. What said I the other day to boatman Soren? 'Mark,' said I, 'that craft will one day run aground under the gallows.' That one could see with half an eye. We will pray an honest prayer for his soul, however, Ole, although he _hath_ haggled many a shining piece from us, and cheated the king out of more pecks of silver pieces than the ravens have now left hairs on his sinful head. Would it might fare somewhat better with him where he now is than it fared with his prisoner at Sjoeborg! _Much_ better it were a shame to ask, for a pitiless master he ever was, and graceless rulers are shut out from the Lord." "True, master," answered the young fisherman; "but might one not almost say the same of our young king himself, to say so with all reverence and respect?" "Of the king? Art thou mad, Ole?" exclaimed the old man, with warmth; "art thou clean devil-blinded and possessed? Is that the Christianity thou learn'st in the monastery? Thou art a pretty fellow, truly!"