Her castle was a strong and stately edifice, overlooking a regular and well-built town on the Guldborg-sound, a narrow passage usually studded with ships, as it is the way from the shores of Zealand to those of Germany. Every foot's-pace of this beautiful island, which teemed with fertility, was under cultivation, or covered with the richest copse wood; and from the castle windows we saw the stately beeches, brown with autumnal leaves, casting the evening shadows along the calm blue waters of the narrow sound. The only troops in the place were a few of the vassals or serfs, singularly clad in mail shirts like modern Tartars, or like the effigies on an antique tomb, and armed with the battle-axe, which, like the halbert, was of old the national weapon of the Danish islesmen. The good queen-mother had more of the frankness of an old German baroness about her than the frigid and empty dignity of courtly state. She sat at the head of her own table in the old castle hall; her steward, the Baron Fœyœ, a knight of the Armed Hand, a short, stout, and irritable old Dane, sat at the foot, and we enjoyed a merry and a sumptuous meal. To my joy I found myself seated beside Ernestine, her father the count was opposite. She perceived my arm in a sling, and immediately inquired the cause. "It is a wound!" said I. "A wound!--where and when did you receive it?" she asked, while I imagined with exultation that there was an ill-concealed expression of alarm depicted in her charming eyes. "It is a secret!" said I, and knowing how a rencontre sets off a cavalier in the estimation of a pretty woman, I now resolved to make the most of mine. "In what manner is it a secret, Herr?" "Because, if divulged to King Christian, he would remember the law of 1618, and send me prisoner to Cronenborg." "You have, then, fought a duel!" "Hush--it was only a clean thrust with a rapier." "And what did you fight about?" "A lady!" I replied, laughing, and observing her narrowly. "A lady!" she reiterated, unmoved as a rock, to my great disappointment. "Nay, nay, Ernestine!" said I, "it was about nothing more than a can of beer." "A reputable reason, certainly--a valuable commodity to peril one's life for!" "Every other day I peril my life for the price of it, however; but a point of some importance was involved--a national insult." I then related my quarrel at Faaborg, and she declared that my indignation had been justly roused, but very improperly satisfied. "But you must not speak of it, Ernestine--nor tell Gabrielle." "Oh, fear not--your secret shall be kept!" said she.