pale, tall man; and by
such fears no knight's son can ever suffer himself to be overcome. So be
not angry, dear Rolf, if I determine to go and look that strange palmer
in the face." And he shut the door of the chamber behind him, and with
firm and echoing steps proceeded to the hall.

The pilgrim and the knight were sitting opposite to each other at the
great table, on which many lights were burning; and it was fearful,
amongst all the lifeless armour, to see those two tall grim men move,
and eat, and drink.

As the pilgrim looked up on the boy's entrance, Biorn said: "You know
him already: he is my only child, and fellow-traveller this morning."

The palmer fixed an earnest look on Sintram, and answered, shaking his
head, "I know not what you mean."

Then the boy burst forth, impatiently, "It must be confessed that you
deal very unfairly by us! You say that you know my father but too much,
and now it seems that you know me altogether too little. Look me in the
face: who allowed you to ride on his horse, and in return had his good
steed driven almost wild? Speak, if you can!"

Biorn smiled, shaking his head, but well pleased, as was his wont, with
his son's wild behaviour; while the pilgrim shuddered as if terrified
and overcome by some fearful irresistible power. At length, with a
trembling voice, he said these words: "Yes, yes, my dear young lord, you
are surely quite right; you are perfectly right in everything which you
may please to assert."

Then the lord of the castle laughed aloud, and said: "Why, thou strange
pilgrim, what is become of all thy wonderfully fine speeches and
warnings now? Has the boy all at once struck thee dumb and powerless?
Beware, thou prophet-messenger, beware!"

But the palmer cast a fearful look on Biorn, which seemed to quench
the light of his fiery eyes, and said solemnly, in a thundering voice,
"Between me and thee, old man, the case stands quite otherwise. We have
nothing to reproach each other with. And now suffer me to sing a song to
you on the lute." He stretched out his hand, and took down from the wall
a forgotten and half-strung lute, which was hanging there; and, with
surprising skill and rapidity, having put it in a state fit for use, he
struck some chords, and raised this song to the low melancholy tones of
the instrument:

"The flow'ret was mine own, mine own,
But I have lost its fragrance rare,
And knightly