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Chap. XXXVII.
LADY INGEBORG SKEEL.
119
shall not take them off!” so they proceed together to
examine the rooms one after the other, and then pass
—the poor architect groaning under the weight of hi«
burden—over the drawbridge which connects the moat
with the castle. “Stop!” she cries; “look at that
eastern tower; surely, the piles have sunk. Lean
over! ” The man obeys. A push from the lady—he
falls headlong into the moat, borne down by the weight
of the keys, to rise no more.
When Ingeborg feels sure he is drowned she calls
wildly for assistance. The body is withdrawn from its
watery grave, but the receipted bill remains in her
possession.
She was a fine old Jutland gentlewoman,
One of the olden time.
The husband, Otto Banner, was just as bad as
Ingeborg herself, and the cruelties and extortions
practised by both on their peasant serfs were beyond
belief. At last Otto dies, and on the anniversary of
his death the lady Ingeborg drives to church in great
state, and says to Claus, her coachman, “ I should like
to hear how my husband is.” The coachman replies,
“ My lady, that is not so easily known; but I do not
think he suffers from cold where he now dwells.” The
lady became furious, and threatened the coachman with
death if he did not, before the third Sunday, bring her
tidings of her lord. The affrighted Claus applies to the
parson of Albæk, “ who was as learned as any bishop;”
but he declined the task. Happily Claus had a brother
a clergyman in Norway; and as, says the legend, the
parsons of Norway are more cunning in these matters
than any other, Claus went to his brother, who takes
him at midnight to a cross-road in a forest, where he
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