d was from the west. In
less than half an hour they could cross the fiord at Skjaerumaa, and
from thence they had only a short way to go to Noerre-Vosborg, which
was a strong place, with ramparts and moats. In the boat was a brother
of the bailiff there, and he promised to obtain permission to put
Joergen for the present into the cell where Lange Margrethe had been
confined before her execution.

Joergen's defence of himself was not listened to; for a few drops of
blood on his clothes spoke volumes against him. His innocence was
clear to himself; and, if justice were not done him, he must give
himself up to his fate.

They landed near the site of the old ramparts, where Sir Bugge's
castle had stood--there, where Joergen, with his foster-father and
mother, had passed on their way to the funeral meeting, at which had
been spent the four brightest and pleasantest days of his childhood.
He was conveyed again the same way by the fields up to Noerre-Vosborg,
and yonder stood in full flower the elder tree, and yonder the lindens
shed their sweet perfume around; and he felt as if it had been only
yesterday that he had been there.

In the west wing of the castle is a subterranean passage under the
high stairs; this leads to a low, vaulted cell, in which Lange
Margrethe had been imprisoned, and whence she had been taken to the
place of execution. She had eaten the hearts of five children, and
believed that, could she have added two more to the number, she would
have been able to fly and to render herself invisible. In the wall
there was a small, narrow air-hole. No glass was in this rude window;
yet the sweetly-scented linden tree on the outside could not send the
slightest portion of its refreshing perfume into that close, mouldy
dungeon. There was only a miserable pallet there; but a good
conscience is a good pillow, therefore Joergen could sleep soundly.

The thick wooden door was locked, and it was further secured by an
iron bolt; but the nightmare of superstition can creep through a
key-hole in the baronial castle as in the fisherman's hut. It stole in
where Joergen was sitting and thinking upon Lange Margrethe and her
misdeeds. Her last thoughts had filled that little room the night
before her execution; he remembered all the magic that, in the olden
times, was practised when the lord of the manor, Svanwedel, lived
there; and it was well known how, even now, the chained dog that stood
on the bridge was found every morn