Part 25

"I wish it was true," said the earl. "I should like nothing better than to meet that hound Sverre. But there will be no such good luck to-night, for I am told that the rascals have gone back to the mountains. You can go to bed in safety, for Sverre will not dare to trouble us when we are on the watch for him."

To bed they went, sleeping heavily from their potations, and down on them came Sverre, who, as usual, was well informed about their situation.

"Now is your time to fight bravely, and repay yourselves for your sufferings," he said to his men. "A fine victory lies before us. I shall promise you this. Any one of you who can prove that he has slain a liegeman shall be made a liegeman himself, and each of you shall be given the title and dignity of the man you have slain."

Thus encouraged, the poorly-armed adventurers rushed down the hills into the town. One sturdy fellow who carried only a club was asked where his weapons were.

"They are down in the town," he said. "The earl's men have them now. We are going there to get them."

This they did. As they came on the warriors, hastily alarmed and heavy with their drunken sleep, flocked staggering into the streets, to be met with sword and lance. The confusion was great and the king had much trouble in rallying his men. Many chieftains advised flight to the ships, but the stout-hearted Erling was not ready for that.

"It might be best," he said, "but I can't bear the thought of that brigand priest putting himself in my son's place."

Leading his men outside the city, he awaited the attack. It came in haste, the Birchlegs falling furiously upon the much greater force before them. In the onset the earl was killed and his men were put to flight. The king, as he fled by, saw the bloody face of his father lying under the stars. He stooped and kissed him, saying:

"We shall meet again, father, in the day of joy." Then he was borne away in the stream of flight.

This decisive victory turned the tide of the war. The death of Erling removed Sverre's greatest opponent. King Magnus was no match for the priest-king, and the rebel force grew until the contest assumed the shape of civil war. Sverre no longer led a band of wanderers, but was the leader of an army.

This was not the ordinary army recruited from the settled classes of society, but an army made up of the lower stratum of the people, now first demanding their share of the good things of life. Fierce and unruly as they were, Sverre knew how to control and discipline them. He kept his promise, as far as was possible, to reward his men with the honors of those they had slain, but charged them with the maintenance of law and order, punishing all who disobeyed his commands. This he could safely do, for they worshipped him. They had shared peril and suffering together, had lived as comrades, but through it all he had kept his authority intact and demanded obedience. Birchlegs they still called themselves, for they had grown proud of the title, and they named their opponents Heklungs, from the story that some of them had robbed a beggar woman whose money was wrapped in a cloak (hekl).

For six years afterwards the war for dominion in Norway continued, the star of King Sverre steadily rising. In 1180 Magnus attacked his opponent with an army much larger than that of Sverre, but was utterly routed; and an army of peasants that came on afterwards, to kill the "devil's priest," met with the same ill success.

Magnus now took refuge in Denmark, abandoning Norway to his rival, and from there he came year after year to continue the contest. In a naval battle in 1181, in which Sverre had less than half the number of ships of his opponent, his star seemed likely to set. The Birchlegs were not good at sea fighting and the Heklungs were pressing them steadily back, when Sverre sprang into the hottest of the fight, without a shield and with darts and javelins hurtling around him, and in stirring tones sang the Latin hymn, "Alma chorus domini."

This hymn seemed to turn the tide of victory. Magnus, storming furiously forward at that moment, was wounded in the wrist as he was boarding a hostile ship. The pain caused him to pause and, his feet slipping on the blood-stained deck, he fell headlong backward, a glad shout of victory coming from the Birchlegs who saw him fall.

Orm, one of King Magnus's captains, demanded what had happened.

"The king is killed," he was told.

"Then the fate of the realm is decided," he cried.

Cutting the ropes that held the ships together, he took to flight, followed by others and breaking the line of battle. Leaping to his feet, Magnus called out that he was not hurt and implored them not to flee from certain victory. But the terror and confusion were too great, and Sverre took quick advantage of the opportunity, capturing a number of ships and putting the others to flight.

The final battle in this contest for a throne came in 1184. It was one in which Sverre was in imminent danger of a fatal end to his career. Usually not easily surprised, he was now taken unawares. He had sailed up the Nore fiord with a few ships and a small force of men, to punish some parties who had killed his prefect. Magnus, afloat with twenty-six ships and over three thousand men, learned of this and pursued his enemy into the fiord.

Sverre was caught in a trap. Not until he saw the hostile ships bearing down upon him had he a suspicion of danger. Escape was impossible. Great cliffs bounded the watery canon. He had but fourteen ships and not half his opponent's force of men. The Heklungs were sure that victory was in their hands. But when Sverre and his Birchlegs dashed forward and attacked them with berseker fury their confidence turned to doubt. Soon it began to appear that victory was to be on the other side. Before the furious onset the Heklungs fell in numbers. Many in panic leaped into the sea and were drowned, King Magnus among them. Till mid-night the hot contest continued, by which hour half the king's force were slain and all the ships captured. The drowned corpse of King Magnus was not found until two days after the battle, when it was taken to Bergen and buried with royal ceremony. His death ended the contest and Sverre was unquestioned king of the whole land.

Shall we briefly conclude the story of King Sverre's reign? For twenty years it continued, the most of these years of war, for rebellion broke out in a dozen quarters and only the incessant vigilance and activity of a great king and great soldier enabled him to keep his throne and his life.

After all his wars and perils, he died in his bed, March 9, 1202, worn out by his long life of toil and strain. Never before had Norway so noble and able a king; never since has it seen his equal. A man was he of small frame but indomitable soul, of marvellous presence of mind and fertility in resources; a man firm but kindly and humane; a king with a clear-sighted policy and an admirable power of controlling men and winning their attachment. Never through all its history has Norway known another monarch so admirable in many ways as Sverre, the cook's son.

THE FRIENDS AND FOES OF A BOY PRINCE.

After the death of the great King Sverre tumult and trouble reigned in Norway. Several kings came to the throne, but none of them lived long, and there was constant fighting between the Birchlegs and the opposing party who called themselves Baglers. Year after year they kept their swords out and their spears in hand, killing one another, but neither party growing strong enough to put an end to the other. All this time the people were suffering and the country growing poorer, and a strong hand was needed at the helm of the ship-of-state.

It was when King Inge, who was not of royal blood, and whose hand was not the strong hand needed, was on the throne, that new hope came to the people, for it was made known that they had among them a boy of kingly descent, a grandson of the noble Sverre. Men thought that King Sverre's line had died out, and there was great joy in their hearts when they learned that his son Haakon had left a son.

This boy was born in 1203, son of the beautiful Inga of Varteig, whom King Haakon had warmly loved though she was not his wife. The little prince was named Haakon, after his father, but he was born in the midst of the Baglers, his father's foes, and the priest who baptized him bade Inga to keep his birth a strict secret, letting none outside her own family know that a new prince had come to the land.

The secret was well kept for a time, but whispers got abroad, and Thrond, the priest, at length told the story to Erland of Huseby, whom he knew to be on the right side. Erland heard the news with joy, but feared peril for the little prince, thus born in the land of his enemies. Rumors were growing, danger might at any moment come, and though it was mid-winter, a season of deep snows and biting winds, he advised the priest to send the boy and his mother to the court of King Inge, offering himself to take them across the pathless mountains.

The difficult journey was made in safety and the boy and his mother were kindly welcomed by the king, and joyfully greeted by the Birchlegs, who were strong in that district. Little Haakon was then less than two years old, and it is said that the old loyalists, who were eager to have a king of the royal blood, used in playfulness to pull him between them by the arms and legs, to make him grow faster.