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My master, a poor man, could only purchase release by the help of his comrade, Borre, who found the ransom, but took in exchange the lands of Nebbegaard, to hold them until repaid out of their revenues; but of these he could never after be brought to give an account.
I who write this am Peter Kurt, and I was the steward of my master Ebbe while he dwelt in his own castle of Nebbegaard. We lived alone, with a handful of servants sometimes as few as three in the castle which stands between the sandhills and the woods, as you sail into Veile Fiord.
So when this news reached us I looked at my master, and he, perceiving what I would say, answered it. "If Holgar will carry me," said he, "we will ride to Egeskov." This Holgar was a stout roan horse, foaled at Nebbegaard, but now well advanced in years, and the last of that red stock for which our stables had been famous.
Ebbe sat for a while as she left him, considering, at the crossing of two glades. Then he twitched Holgar's rein and turned back towards Nebbegaard. But at the edge of the wood, spying a shepherd seated below in the plain by his flock, he rode down to the man, and called to him and said
And the old horse turned his muzzle and rubbed it against his master's left palm, whose right gripped a dagger and drove it straight for the heart. This was the end of the roan stock of Nebbegaard. My master Ebbe reached home that night with the mire thick on his boots.
He had known before that Sir Borre would leave no son, and that the lands of Nebbegaard, if ever to be won back, must be wrested from a woman and this had ever troubled him. It troubled me the less because I hoped there might be another way than force; and even if it should come to that, Sir Borre's past treachery had killed in me all kindness towards his house, male or female.
You shall take Nebbegaard for her, since I am weary of living at home and care little to live at all without Mette." Borre's eyes shone with greed. "I commend you," said he; "for a stout lad there is nothing like risking his life to win a fortune. Give me the deeds belonging to Nebbegaard, and you shall have my ship Gold Mary."
After so much misery I am as one rocked on the bosom of God; and the pine resin has a pleasant smell. The courtship of Ebbe, the poor esquire of Nebbegaard, and the maiden Mette is a traditional tale of West Jutland.
"But," said he doubtfully, "if I determine on a strange thing, will you help me, Peter? I may need a dozen men; men without wives to miss them." "I can yet find a dozen such along the fiord," I answered. "And we go on a long journey, perhaps never to return to Nebbegaard." "Dear master," said I, "what matter where my old bones lie after they have done serving you?"
"Tell the lady Mette," said Ebbe, "that I have sold Nebbegaard for the White Wolf, and that two nights from now my men will be aboard of her; also that I sup with her father that evening before the boat takes me off from the Bent Ness."
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