y 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--

"Go this evening to Egeskov and greet the lady Mette, and say to her
that Ebbe of Nebbegaard could not barter his good horse, the last of his
father's stable. But that she may know he was honest in offering her
the thing most precious to him, tell her further what thou hast seen."

So saying, he alighted off Holgar, and, smoothing his neck, whispered a
word in his ear. And the old horse turned his muzzle and rubbed it
against his master's left palm, whose right gripped a dagger and drove
it straight for the heart. This was the end of the roan stock of
Nebbegaard.

My master Ebbe reached home that night with the mire thick on his boots.
Having fed him, I went to the stables, and finding no Holgar made sure
that he had killed the poor beast in wrath for his discomforture at the
tilt. The true reason he gave me many days after. I misjudged him,
judging him by his father's temper.

On the morrow of the Bride-show the suitors took their leave of Egeskov,
under promise to return again at the month's end and hear how the lady
Mette had chosen. So they went their ways, none doubting that the
fortunate one would be Olaf of Trelde; and, for me, I blamed myself that
we had ever gone to Egeskov.

But on the third morning after the Bride-show I changed this advice very
suddenly; for going at six of the morning to unlock our postern gate, as
my custom was, I found a tall black stallion tethered there and left
without a keeper. His harness was of