is plan, and even pretended to share
his schemes for ridding the country of the enemy. So he hid Gustavus in
an attic, where he assured him he would be perfectly safe, and left him,
saying he would go round to all the neighbouring estates to enlist
soldiers for their cause. But of course he was only going to give
information about Gustavus, and to gain the reward.

Now, it was only an accident that prevented his treachery being
successful. The first man he applied to, though a friend to the Danes,
scorned to take a mean advantage of anyone, and told the traitor to go
elsewhere.

Furiously angry, but greedy and determined as ever, the traitor set
forth for the house of the Danish steward who lived nearest, well
knowing that from him he would receive nothing but gratitude.

But the traitor's wife happened to be standing at her own door as her
husband drove by, and guessed what had occurred and where he was going.
She was an honest woman, who despised all that was base and underhand,
so she stole out to one of her servants whom she could trust, and
ordered him to make ready a sledge, for he would have to go on a
journey. Then, in order that no one should know of Gustavus's escape
until it was too late to overtake him, she let him down out of the
window into the sledge, which drove off at once, across a frozen lake
and past the copper-mines of Fahlun, to a little village at the far end,
where Gustavus left his deliverer, giving him a beautiful silver dagger
as a parting gift.

[Illustration: 'Lazy loon! Have you no work to do?']

Sheltered by one person after another, and escaping many dangers on the
way, Gustavus found himself at last in the cottage of one of the royal
foresters, where he received a hospitable welcome from the man and his
wife. But unknown to himself, Danish spies had been for some time on his
track, and no sooner had Gustavus sat down to warm his tired limbs
before the fire where the forester's wife was baking bread, than they
entered and inquired if Gustavus Vasa had been seen to pass that way.
Another moment and they might have become curious about the stranger
sitting at the hearth, when the woman hastily turned round, and struck
him on the shoulder with the huge spoon she held in her hand. 'Lazy
loon!' she cried. 'Have you no work to do? Off with you at once and see
to your threshing.' The Danes only saw before them a common Swedish
servant bullied by his mistress, and it never entered their head