"I _have_ that peace, venerable sir! My soul is as well at ease as it ever will be in this world. When I heard the archbishop was fled, and the king excommunicated, I threw myself on my horse, and would have hasted to Sjoeborg, but they brought me back here half dead. What I have since heard of the king's impetuosity and wrath hath more than ever disquieted me, and in my tendency to dark presentiments I have many a night, in my fevered dreams, beheld the king surrounded by robbers and murderers." "Be easy on that score, noble Drost. No sovereign was ever more beloved by his people; an invisible guard of the angels of love and righteousness accompany the young Eric, even when traitors and deadly foes are nigh him. I know you were with the king's father in Finnerup-barn on that bloody St. Cecilia's eve. What you then witnessed as a child you surely have never been able to forget?" "No, never!" exclaimed Aage, with breathless earnestness; "and I have often mourned I had neither courage nor might to avert that catastrophe. It was not till the barn burst into flames around the murdered king that I fully recovered the use of my senses. I snatched the sword from the old insane Palle, when he threw himself on the body to maltreat it, and struck the same murderous steel into his breast with which he had slain his liege. That bloody scene, and the dying look of that crazed old man, hath often been fearfully present to me. The horrid spectacle, however, was nearly effaced from my memory, when, two years back, I was one day sent by the king to the captive archbishop at Sjoeborg to bring him to confession; but when I looked on yon terrific prisoner, as he uplifted his fettered arm, and gave me over to the Devil, with the church's most dreadful curse, it seemed to me as though I stood once more in the barn at Finnerup, and as if a condemning spirit spoke through the archbishop, and thundered forth the words of excommunication over me for my sins' sake. In the fever caused by my wound I have often suffered from the most fearful visions, and dreamed of fighting with all manner of monsters and demons; but when it was at the worst I ever saw a heavenly angel at my side, who, with pious prayers, chased away the evil spirit, and whispered comfort and consolation to my soul. At last a mild light dawned upon me--I felt I might yet redeem from the curse that life which in my childhood I had neither power nor courage to sacrifice for my former master, by my devoting it to his son, our noble young King Eric. This is now my firm and stedfast purpose; I have renounced all thoughts of happiness for myself. Yon angel of consolation hath since appeared to me in a mortal form; but she neither desires nor is able to turn me from my resolve. It was the eldest and most estimable of Marsk Stig's daughters. Venerable sir! to you alone I confide it--she hath become dear to me as my own soul, and she hath herself wonderfully strengthened me in my resolution.