A Swedish garrison was coming over presently to take charge.
When Jens Kofoed heard it, he sat down and thought things over. If
there was peace, his old captain had no use for him, that was
certain; but there might be need of him at home. What would happen
there, no one could tell. And there were the wife and children to
take care of. The upshot of it all was that he stayed. Only, to be
on the safe side, he got the Burgomaster and the Aldermen in his
home town, Hasle, to set it down in writing that he could not have
got back to his troop for all he might have tried. Kofoed, it will
be seen, was a man with a head on his shoulders, which was well, for
presently he had need of it.
There were no Danish soldiers in the island, only a peasant militia,
ill-armed and untaught in the ways of war; so no one thought of
resisting the change of masters. The people simply waited to see
what would happen. Along in May a company of one hundred and twenty
men with four guns landed, and took possession of Castle
Hammershus, 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.
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