As Earl Skule's plot seemed now in a fair way to succeed, he became suddenly affable and affectionate toward the king. He felt positive that his clerical friends would manage to have the ordeal result in accordance with his wishes. Nevertheless, to make assurance doubly sure, he bribed a foreigner in his service, named Sigar of Brabant, to approach the king's mother, and offer her an herb which, he asserted, had the power to heal burns; but a guard of devoted Birchlegs, among whom was Dagfinn Peasant, surrounded the church in which she was fasting, preparatory to the ordeal, and the earl's emissary was, therefore, compelled to confide his errand to the latter. Dagfinn replied: "No art or healing will we employ here, except such as Christ in his mercy will grant. Begone with thy twaddle, or disaster will overtake thee, if thou darest again utter such speech." Inga was then warned of the plot and told to be on her guard. For if it could be proved that she had used healing herbs, the test would be invalid, and opprobrium would have overwhelmed both her and her son. All the machinations of her enemies, however, came to naught; she endured the ordeal triumphantly. It is difficult to explain how this result came about, for the odds were certainly against her. The earl had, perhaps, from over-confidence, neglected some link in his long chain of precautions. However that may be, he had, after this severe check, to start all over again--to spin, with painstaking care, a fresh web of intrigue, in order slowly to undermine the king's power. His plan seems to have been to alienate Haakon's trustiest friends from him, or to get them removed to such a distance that they could no longer be of any help to him; then to set them by the ears mutually, so that one slew the other and the king punished the survivor. But ingenious as this plot was, it was not entirely successful. The king's forgiving disposition, and a suspicion, on his part, that the earl was really at the bottom of these mysterious enmities and slayings, impelled him to act contrary to the latter's expectation. It was obvious to all that he bought the earl's pretended friendship at too high a price, and many of his men would have preferred open warfare to this suppressed suspicion and hypocritical good-will. There was, indeed, ample opportunity for strife between the two parties, and quarrels and bloody fights between the "earl's-men" and the "king's-men" were of frequent occurrence. All the conditions for another civil war were, in fact, at hand, and it was only the disinclination of the king to let loose, once more, the dogs of war, which preserved even the semblance of peace. The fact that the king was under the guardianship of a man who spent his time in plotting against them, seemed to the Birchleg chiefs to call for precautions, on their part; and the idea occurred to them to convert Skule's hostility into friendship, by identifying his interests with those of the king. For