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So Esbern, who, though a lover, was a manly-hearted youth, and thought it shame to be mocked by a girl's light tongue, left her there and went away, not angry, but very sorrowful. Little Resa came to summon her sister. But Hyldreda trembled before the gathering storm, for widow Kalm, though a tender mother, was one who well knew how to rule.
Esbern outlived his brother three years. The hero of so many battles met his death at last by an accidental fall in his own house. The last we hear of him is at a meeting in the Christmas season, 1187, where emissaries of Pope Gregory VIII preached a general crusade. Their hearers wept at the picture they drew of the sufferings Christians were made to endure in the Holy Land.
He tried to steal past; forty against one were heavy odds. But it was moonlight and he was discovered. The pirates lay across his course and cut him off. Esbern made ready for a fight and steered straight into the middle of them. The steersman complained that he had no armor, and he gave him his own.
"Not thee, Esbern," laughed the girl, shaking her head at her betrothed, who interposed with a happy conscious face; "I was looking at a grand train that wound along the road, and thinking how pleasant it would be to dress on a Sunday like the lady of the castle, and recline idly behind four prancing horses instead of trudging on in these clumsy shoes."
She wondered what sort of a palace home was that owned by the beautiful lady; and whether the king, if king the stranger were, presided at his banquet table as awkwardly as did Esbern Lynge at the mean board here. At the twilight, Hyldreda did not steal out as usual to talk with her lover beneath the rose-porch.
Meanwhile Ubbe was led by his grandfather, Esbern, to conceive an unholy desire for the throne; and, casting away all thought of the reverence due to his father, he claimed the emblem of royalty for his own head. When Ragnar heard of his arrogance from Kelther and Thorkill, the earls of Sweden, he made a hasty voyage towards Gothland.
And this day I will say for her a double prayer." The mother's counted beads had scarce come to an end when Hyldreda stood by her side, and, following the light-footed damsel, came Esbern Lynge. "Child, why didst thou linger under the tree?" said the widow. "It does not become a young maiden to stand flaunting outside her door. Who wert thou watching so eagerly?"
"I," answered Resa, blushing; and then Hyldreda perceived that, young as she was, the girl wore the matron's head-tire. "I, sitting there with my babe, wept to think of my poor sister who died long ago, and never knew the sweetness of wifehood and motherhood. And almost it grieved me, to think that my love had blotted out the bitterness of her memory even from the heart of Esbern Lynge."
They haunted her even when she rejoined her mother, Resa, and Esbern Lynge. She prepared the noonday meal, but her step was heavy and her hand unwilling. The fare seemed coarse, the cottage looked dark and poor.
If wishing could bring to her so glorious a fortune, she would almost like to have, in addition to the splendors of rich dress and grand palaces, such a noble-looking man for her lord and husband. And the poor maiden was rudely awakened from her dream, by feeling on her delicate shoulders the two heavy hands of Esbern Lynge. Haughtily she took them off.
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