The White Wolf | Page 5

the last course, which he rode
against Olaf of Trolle, who had stood a bye, his good honest beast
came to the tilt-cloth with knees trembling, and at a touch rolled over,
though between the two lances (I will swear) there was nothing to
choose. I was quick to pick up my dear lad; but he would have none of
my comfort, and limped away from the lists as one who had borne
himself shamefully. Yea, and my own heart was hot as I led Holgar
back to stable, without waiting to see the prize claimed by one who,
though a fair fighter, had not won it without foul aid.
Having stalled Holgar I had much ado to find his master again, and

endless work to persuade him to quit his sulks and join the other suitors
in the hall that night, when each presented his bride-gift. Even when I
had won him over, he refused to take the coffer I placed in his hands,
though it held his mother's jewels, few but precious. But entering with
the last, as became his humble rank of esquire, he laid nothing at the
lady's feet save his sword and the chain that she herself had given him.
"You bring little, Squire Ebbe," said the Knight Borre, from his seat
beside his daughter.
"I bring what is most precious in the world to me," said Ebbe.
"Your lance is broken, I believe?" said the old knight scornfully.
"My lance is not broken," he answered; "else you should have it to
match your word." And rising, without a look at Mette, whose eyes
were downcast, he strode back to the door.
I had now given up hope, for the maid showed no sign of kindness, and
the old man and the youth were like two dogs--the very sight of the one
set the other growling. Yet--since to leave in a huff would have been
discourteous--I prevailed on my master to bide over the morrow, and
even to mount Holgar and ride forth to the hunt which was to close the
Bride-show. He mounted, indeed, but kept apart and well behind Mette
and her brisk group of wooers. For, apart from his lack of inclination,
his horse was not yet recovered; and by and by, as the prickers started a
deer, the hunt swept ahead of him and left him riding alone.
He had a mind to turn aside and ride straight back to Nebbegaard,
whither he had sent me on to announce him (and dismally enough I
obeyed), when at the end of a green glade he spied Mette returning
alone on her white palfrey.
"For I am tired of this hunting," she told him, as she came near. "And
you? Does it weary you also, that you lag so far behind?"
"It would never weary me," he answered; "but I have a weary horse."

"Then let us exchange," said she. "Though mine is but a palfrey, it
would carry you better. Your roan betrayed you yesterday, and it is
better to borrow than to miss excelling."
"My house," answered Ebbe, still sulkily, "has had enough borrowing
of Egeskov; and my horse may be valueless, but he is one of the few
things dear to me, and I must keep him."
"Truly then," said she, "your words were nought, last night, when you
professed to offer me the gifts most precious to you in the world."
And before he could reply to this, she had pricked on and was lost in
the woodland.
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--
"Go this evening to Egeskov and greet the lady Mette, and say to her
that Ebbe of Nebbegaard could not barter his good horse, the last of his
father's stable. But that she may know he was honest in offering her the
thing most precious to him, tell her further what thou hast seen."
So saying, he alighted off Holgar, and, smoothing his neck, whispered
a word in his ear. 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. Having fed him, I went to the stables, and finding no Holgar
made sure that he had killed the poor beast in wrath for his
discomforture at the tilt. The true reason he gave me many