ershus, on the north shore, the only stronghold on the island,
in the name of the Swedish king. Colonel Printzenskoeld, who had
command, summoned the islanders to a meeting, and told them that he
had come to be their governor. They were to obey him, and that was
all. The people listened and said nothing.

Perhaps if the new rulers had been wise, things might have kept on
so. The people would have tilled their farms, and paid their taxes,
and Jens Kofoed, with all his hot hatred of the enemy he had fought,
might never have been heard of outside his own island. But the
Swedish soldiers had been through the Thirty Years' War and plunder
had become their profession. They rioted in the towns, doubled the
taxes, put an embargo on trade and export, crushed the industries;
worse, they took the young men and sent them away to Karl Gustav's
wars in foreign lands. They left only the old men and the boys, and
these last they kept a watchful eye on for drafts in days to come.
When the conscripts hid in the woods, so as not to be torn from
their wives and sweethearts, they organized regular man-hunts as if
the quarry were wild beasts, and, indeed, the poor fellows were not
treated much better when caught.

All summer they did as they pleased; then came word that Karl Gustav
had broken the peace he made, and of the siege of Copenhagen. The
news made the people sit up and take notice. Their rightful
sovereign had ceded the island to the Swedish king, that was one
thing. But now that they were at war again, these strangers who
persecuted them were the public enemy. It was time something were
done. In Hasle there was a young parson with his heart in the right
place, Poul Anker by name. Jens Kofoed sat in his church; he had
been to the wars, and was fit to take command. Also, the two were
friends. Presently a web of conspiracy spread quietly through the
island, gripping priest and peasant, skipper and trader, alike. Its
purpose was to rout out the Swedes. The Hasle trooper and parson
were the leaders; but their secret was well kept. With the tidings
that the Dutch fleet had forced its way through to Copenhagen with
aid for the besieged, and had bottled the Swedish ships up in
Landskrona, came a letter purporting to be from King Frederik
himself, encouraging the people to rise. It was passed secretly
from hand to hand by the underground route, and found the island
ready for rebellion.

Governor Printzenskoeld had seen something brewing