Having stalled Holgar I had much ado to find his master again, and endless work to persuade him to quit his sulks and join the other suitors in the hall that night, when each presented his bride-gift. Even when I had won him over, he refused to take the coffer I placed in his hands, though it held his mother's jewels, few but precious. But entering with the last, as became his humble rank of esquire, he laid nothing at the lady's feet save his sword and the chain that she herself had given him. "You bring little, Squire Ebbe," said the Knight Borre, from his seat beside his daughter. "I bring what is most precious in the world to me," said Ebbe. "Your lance is broken, I believe?" said the old knight scornfully. "My lance is not broken," he answered; "else you should have it to match your word." And rising, without a look at Mette, whose eyes were downcast, he strode back to the door. I had now given up hope, for the maid showed no sign of kindness, and the old man and the youth were like two dogs--the very sight of the one set the other growling. Yet--since to leave in a huff would have been discourteous--I prevailed on my master to bide over the morrow, and even to mount Holgar and ride forth to the hunt which was to close the Bride-show. He mounted, indeed, but kept apart and well behind Mette and her brisk group of wooers. For, apart from his lack of inclination, his horse was not yet recovered; and by and by, as the prickers started a deer, the hunt swept ahead of him and left him riding alone. He had a mind to turn aside and ride straight back to Nebbegaard, whither he had sent me on to announce him (and dismally enough I obeyed), when at the end of a green glade he spied Mette returning alone on her white palfrey. "For I am tired of this hunting," she told him, as she came near. "And you? Does it weary you also, that you lag so far behind?" "It would never weary me," he answered; "but I have a weary horse." "Then let us exchange," said she. "Though mine is but a palfrey, it would carry you better. Your roan betrayed you yesterday, and it is better to borrow than to miss excelling." "My house," answered Ebbe, still sulkily, "has had enough borrowing of Egeskov; and my horse may be valueless, but he is one of the few things dear to me, and I must keep him." "Truly then," said she, "your words were nought, last night, when you professed to offer me the gifts most precious to you in the world." And before he could reply to this, she had pricked on and was lost in the woodland. Ebbe sat for a while as she left him, considering, at the crossing of two glades. Then he twitched Holgar's rein and turned back towards Nebbegaard. But at the edge of the wood, spying a shepherd seated below in the plain by his flock, he rode down to the man, and called to him and said--