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The mother frowned, and Esbern Lynge looked sorrowful. "I wish I could give her all she longs for," sighed the young man, as they proceeded on their way, his duteous arm supporting the widow, while Hyldreda and Resa went bounding onward before them; "She is as beautiful as a queen I would that I could make her one."
And did not the eyes of Esbern Lynge say so, when, week after week, he came up the hilly road, and descended again to the little chapel, supporting the feeble mother's slow steps, and watching his betrothed as she bounded on before, with little Resa in her hand? "Is Esbern coming?" said the mother's voice within. "I know not I did not look," answered Hyldreda, with a girlish willfulness.
"Wish rather, Esbern, that Heaven may make her a pious, lowly-hearted maid, and, in good time, a wife; that she may live in humility and content, and die in peace among her own people." Esbern said nothing he could not think of death and her together. So he and the widow Kalm walked on silently and so slowly that they soon lost sight of the two blithe sisters.
Esbern speedily made an attempt on Biorn himself, addressing him most courteously through his envoys. Biorn said that he would never lean more to treachery than to good faith, and judged that it would be a most abominable thing to prefer the favour of an infamous brother to the love of a most righteous father.
"I saw only the sun shining on the river, and the oak-wood waving in the breeze." "Look down the road, child; the time passes. Go quickly." "She is gone already," said Resa, laughing merrily. "She is standing under the great elder-tree to wait for Esbern Lynge." "Call her back call her back!" cried the mother, anxiously. "To stand beneath an elder-tree, and this night will be St. John's Eve!
He beat his pursuers off again and again, but the wind slackened and they were closing in once more, swearing by their heathen gods that they would have him dead or alive, for a Danish prisoner on one of their ships had told who he was. But Esbern had more than one string to his bow.
Esbern flew through the island on his fleet horse in Valdemar's clothes, leading his pursuers a merry dance, and when the young King's wound was healed, he found him a boat and ferried him across to the mainland, where the people flocked to his standard. When Svend would have followed, it was the Lady Inge who scuttled his ship by night and gave her foster son the start he needed.
He laid the lifeless body down gently and left the hall. The murderers barred his way, but he brushed their swords and spears aside and strode forth unharmed. Valdemar had found a horse and made for Fjenneslev, twenty miles away, with all speed, and there Absalon met him and his brother Esbern in the morning.
"Used his trusty Danish sword As the Pope his staff in Rome." Where the fighting was hardest, he was sure to be. The King's son had ventured too far and was caught in a tight place by an overwhelming force, when Esbern pushed his ship in between him and the enemy and bore the brunt of a fight that came near to making an end of him.
The bard tells us what he saw there: "It was the good Sir Asker Ryg; Right merrily laughed he, When from that green and swelling hill Two towers did he see." Two sons lay at the Lady Inge's breast, and all was well. "The first one of the brothers two They called him Esbern Snare. He grew as strong as a savage bear And fleeter than any hare.
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