'GOD'S PEACE' 319
against the white buildings, stand, after the style of old manor-houses, short, dome -shaped lime- trees. At the foot of the trees round the yard runs a gutter, deep and broad as a small rivulet, with numerous boards for crossing.
We sit down on a bench under the lime-trees close to the gateway, where the water from the gutter gathers and disappears into a subterranean passage down to the fjord.
While the sun sinks behind the hills north-west of the town, sending its last rays slantwise through the gateway over the grass in the yard, I tell Greta about the cruel knight. Count Esben, who centuries ago reigned over the castle, and who was as famous as a seducer of women as he was as a warrior. For safety's sake in the time of war, his predecessors had built a secret passage from the basement of the castle to the fortifications on the other side of the fjord. Count Esben used this passage mostly for his gallant adventures. In manners he was amiable - and condescending, and it often happened that he asked a citizen and his young wife or sweetheart to feast in the castle. But when the citizen was made dead drunk, he would lure the young woman out of the hall. If she tried to resist she was gagged and carried along the passage under the fjord to a tiny house with voluptuous rooms, where the feast was continued very often to the woman's delight, for Count Esben was a handsome and generous lord, but certainly to the despair of the husband or lover, who, when he woke from his
