"Such a fellow is worth his weight in gold," said the Rostocker with a laugh. "Mark! those aristocratic vermin shall now devour each other. A dishonoured and death-doomed knight, without castle and lands, whose honour and name have been scalded off him may be the best king-killer one could have; he, yonder, is practised in the trade! He was in Finnerup barn. I will let him loose in the harbour! I will smuggle him in among our agents--there will soon be troubled waters to fish in. The crowned green-horn shall not have turned his back on us at Sjöberg for nothing. Mark! he shall have other things to think on than keeping his bridal in the summer." "We are not authorised by the covenant to go so far as that, however, Master Berner," remarked Gullandsfar. "What yon dishonoured knight may have to avenge is his own concern; his and your secret trade concerns not the league; I would rather have nothing to do with that smuggling traffic. When the prosperity of the league, and a great and matchless plan like ours is in question, we should wisely set aside private revenge, and all petty personal views." "Do you slink? Are you afraid, Master colleague?" growled Berner Kopmand, beginning to talk loud. "Let not that concern _you_ my wise Master Henrik! You need not tell an old reckoner what is small and what is great. I can as well as you make a difference between what I undertake in the Hanse-towns' name, and what I risk in my own. If I reckon wrong, the loss is Berner Kopmand's. I know what that man can stand; and you are right--the covenant hath naught to do with it!" "If it fails, it may however injure our trade and enterprises in great matters," replied Henrik Gullandsfar in a tone of calm calculation. "Consider the point well, Master Berner! All ports are now open to us; the king is proud and authoritative, but nevertheless he favours us far more than we could expect from his policy. Our 'prentices and agents are protected in the sea-ports--our trade is as free and untaxed here as any where--it hath not struck any one but the king himself that the road to salt and pepper, to ale and German cloth, as we heard from his own lips, is equally broad and convenient for all, and Danish corn and cattle will give a good return, and pay both wages and taxes. St. Nicolas and St. Hermes be thanked! the _navigation is ours_. _They are too dull and lazy to understand their own interests_. The peasant is content with small beer, and the citizen with skim milk, and they let us run off with the ale and the cream; but if you make good your threat, secretly or openly, and if anything a little too notorious chances here, in which the Hanse have lot or part, people's eyes may be opened, and our trading dominion is at an end here in the north."