a hard laugh. "This evening I am myself again, my old humour is
come back. I see no more the young maid that haunted me, and I
shall hold my own, never fear. I will tell you of those three who
lay in King John's dungeon. They stole out of the tower one night,
when their guards were drowsy with liquor, and ran their ways. And
then they fled to the border. But so long as they were in the
Swedish king's land they durst not betray themselves. They had no
choice, Elsalill, but to make themselves rough coats of skin and
give out that they were journeymen tanners travelling the country
in search of work."

Now Elsalill began to mark how changed Sir Archie was toward her.
And she knew he hated her, since he had found out that she had
betrayed him.

"Speak not so, Sir Archie!" said Elsalill.

"Why should you play me false, just when I trusted you most?" said
Sir Archie. "Now I am again the man I was. Now none shall find me
merciful. And now you'll see, Fortune will favour me, as she has
done hitherto. Were we not in bad case, I and my comrades, when at
last we had walked through all Sweden and come down to the coast
here? We had no money to buy us honourable clothes. We had no
money to pay for our shipping to Scotland. We knew no remedy but
to break into Solberga parsonage."

"Speak no more of that!" said Elsalill.

"Yes, now you must hear all, Elsalill," said Sir Archie. "There is
one thing you know not, and it is that when first we came into the