he held beyond the due term
of life; lest, if he thirsted to hold sway too long, he should strip his
country of laws and defence. For how could he be reckoned a king, whose
spirit was darkened with age, and his eyes with blindness not less black
and awful? If he refused, but yet had a son who would dare to accept a
challenge and fight with his son, let him agree that the victor should
possess the realm. But if he approved neither offer, let him learn that
he must be dealt with by weapons and not by warnings; and in the end
he must unwillingly surrender what he was too proud at first to yield
uncompelled. Wermund, shaken by deep sighs, answered that it was too
insolent to sting him with these taunts upon his years; for he had
passed no timorous youth, nor shrunk from battle, that age should bring
him to this extreme misery. It was equally unfitting to cast in his
teeth the infirmity of his blindness: for it was common for a loss
of this kind to accompany such a time of life as his, and it seemed a
calamity fitter for sympathy than for taunts. It were juster to fix
the blame on the impatience of the King of Saxony, whom it would have
beseemed to wait for the old man's death, and not demand his throne; for
it was somewhat better to succeed to the dead than to rob the living.
Yet, that he might not be thought to make over the honours of his
ancient freedom, like a madman, to the possession of another, he would
accept the challenge with his own hand. The envoys answered that they
knew that their king would shrink from the mockery of fighting a blind
man, for such an absurd mode of combat was thought more shameful than
honourable. It would surely be better to settle the affair by means of
their offspring on either side. The Danes were in consternation, and at
a sudden loss for a reply: but Uffe, who happened to be there with the
rest, craved his father's leave to answer; and suddenly the dumb as it
were spake. When Wermund asked who had thus begged leave to speak, and
the attendants said that it was Uffe, he declared that it was enough
that the insolent foreigner should jeer at the pangs of his misery,
without those of his own household vexing him with the same wanton
effrontery. But the courtiers persistently averred that this man was
Uffe; and the king said: "He is free, whosoever he be, to say out what
he thinks." Then said Uffe, "that it was idle for their king to covet
a realm which could rely not only on the service of i