[_He goes to the table at the window and takes the goblet._ [_A_ HOUSE-CARL _enters hurriedly and with scared looks, from the back._ HOUSE-CARL. [_Calls._] Sir Bengt, Sir Bengt! haste forth with all the speed you can! Knut Gesling with an armed train is drawing near the house. BENGT. [_Putting down the goblet._] Knut Gesling? Who brings the tidings? HOUSE-CARL. Some of your guests espied him on the road beneath, and hastened back to warn you. BENGT. E’en so. Then will I—! Fetch me my grandfather’s battle-axe! [_He and the_ HOUSE-CARL, _go out at the back._ [_Soon after,_ GUDMUND _and_ SIGNË _enter quietly and cautiously by the door on the right._ SIGNË. [_In muffled tones._] It must, then, be so! GUDMUND. [_Also softly._] Necessity’s might Constrains us. SIGNË. Oh! thus under cover of night To steal from the valley where I was born! [_Dries her eyes._ Yet shalt thou hear no plaint forlorn. ’Tis for thy sake my home I flee; Wert thou not outlawed, Gudmund dear, I’d stay with my sister. GUDMUND. Only to be Ta’en by Knut Gesling, with bow and spear, Swung on the croup of his battle-horse, And made his wife by force. SIGNË. Quick, let us flee. But whither go? GUDMUND. Down by the fiord a friend I know; He’ll find us a ship. O’er the salt sea foam We’ll sail away south to Denmark’s bowers. There waits you there a happy home; Right joyously will fleet the hours; The fairest of flowers they bloom in the shade Of the beech-tree glade. SIGNË. [_Bursts into tears._] Farewell, my poor sister! Like mother tender Thou hast guarded the ways my feet have trod, Hast guided my footsteps, aye praying to God, The Almighty, to be my defender.— Gudmund—here is a goblet filled with mead; Let us drink to her; let us wish that ere long Her soul may again be calm and strong, And that God may be good to her need. [_She takes the goblet into her hands._ GUDMUND. Aye, let us drain it, naming her name!