he repeated inhis mind, and smiled, for he thought he should find his way throughthe world- good courage is a strong weapon!
  The sun was high in the heavens when he approached the narrowentrance to Nissum Bay. He looked back and saw a couple of horsemengalloping a long distance behind him, and there were other people withthem. But this did not concern him.
  The ferry-boat was on the opposite side of the bay. Jurgencalled to the ferry-man, and the latter came over with his boat.Jurgen stepped in; but before he had got half-way across, the men whomhe had seen riding so hastily, came up, hailed the ferry-man, andcommanded him to return in the name of the law. Jurgen did notunderstand the reason of this, but he thought it would be best to turnback, and therefore he himself took an oar and returned. As soon asthe boat touched the shore, the men sprang on board, and before he wasaware of it, they had bound his hands with a rope.
  "This wicked deed will cost you your life," they said. "It is agood thing we have caught you."
  He was accused of nothing less than murder. Martin had beenfound dead, with his throat cut. One of the fishermen, late on theprevious evening, had met Jurgen going towards Martin's house; thiswas not the first time Jurgen had raised his knife against Martin,so they felt sure that he was the murderer. The prison was in a townat a great distance, and the wind was contrary for going there by sea;but it would not take half an hour to get across the bay, andanother quarter of an hour would bring them to Norre-Vosborg, thegreat castle with ramparts and moat. One of Jurgen's captors was afisherman, a brother of the keeper of the castle, and he said it mightbe managed that Jurgen should be placed for the present in the dungeonat Vosborg, where Long Martha the gipsy had been shut up till herexecution. They paid no attention to Jurgen's defence; the few dropsof blood on his shirt-sleeve bore heavy witness against him. But hewas conscious of his innocence, and as there was no chance of clearinghimself at present he submitted to his fate.
  The party landed just at the place where Sir Bugge's castle hadstood, and where Jurgen had walked with his foster-parents after theburial feast, during. the four happiest days of his childhood. Hewas led by the well-known path, over the meadow to Vosborg; oncemore the elders were in bloom and the lofty lime-trees gave forthsweet fragrance, and it seemed as if it were but yesterday that he hadlast seen the spot. In each of the two wings of the castle there was astaircase which led to a place below the entrance, from whence thereis access to a low, vaulted cellar. In this dungeon Long Martha hadbeen imprisoned, and from here she was led away to the scaffold. Shehad eaten the hearts of five children, and had imagined that if shecould obtain two more she would be able to fly and make herselfinvisible. In the middle of the roof of the cellar there was alittle narrow air-hole, but no window. The flowering lime treescould not breathe refreshing fragrance into that abode, whereeverything was dark and mouldy. There was only a rough bench in thecell; but a good conscience is a soft pillow, and therefore Jurgencould sleep well.
  The thick oaken door was locked, and secured on the outside byan iron bar; but the goblin of superstition can creep through akeyhole into a baron's castle just as easily as it can into afisherman's cottage, and why should he not creep in here, where Jurgensat thinking of Long Martha and her wicked deeds?