To Mora he went next, where Parson
Jakob hid him in a lonely farm-house. Evil chance led the spies
direct to his hiding-place, and once more it was the housewife whose
quick wit saved him. Dame Margit was brewing the Yule beer when she
saw them coming. In a trice she had Gustav in the cellar and rolled
the brewing vat over the trap-door. Then they might search as they
saw fit; there was nothing there. The first blood was spilled for
Gustav Vasa while he was at Mora, and it was a Dane who did it. He
was the kind that liked to see fair play; when an under-sheriff came
looking for the hunted man there, the Dane waylaid and killed him.
Christmas morning, when Master Jakob had preached his sermon in the
church, Gustav spoke to the congregation out in the snow-covered
churchyard. A gravestone was his pulpit. Eloquent always, his
sorrows and wrongs and the memory of the hard months lent wings to
his words. His speech lives yet in Dalecarlia, for now he was among
its mountains.
"It is good to see this great meeting," he said, "but when I think
of our fatherland I am filled with grief. At what peril I am here
with you, you know who see me hounded as a wild beast day by day,
hour by hour. But our beloved country is more to me than life.
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