Nor did he himself intend to reveal his project to a human being.  And then it happened that Archbishop Absalon from Lund came to Oevid and remained through the night.  When Abbot Hans was showing him the herb garden, he got to thinking of Robber Mother’s visit, and the lay brother, who was at work in the garden, heard Abbot Hans telling the Bishop about Robber Father, who these many years had lived as an outlaw in the forest, and asking him for a letter of ransom for the man, that he might lead an honest life among respectable folk.  “As things are now,” said Abbot Hans, “his children are growing up into worse malefactors than himself, and you will soon have a whole gang of robbers to deal with up there in the forest.”

But the Archbishop replied that he did not care to let the robber loose among honest folk in the villages.  It would be best for all that he remain in the forest.

Then Abbot Hans grew zealous and told the Bishop all about Goeinge forest, which, every year at Yuletide, clothed itself in summer bloom around the Robbers’ Cave.  “If these bandits are not so bad but that God’s glories can be made manifest to them, surely we cannot be too wicked to experience the same blessing.”

The Archbishop knew how to answer Abbot Hans.  “This much I will promise you, Abbot Hans,” he said, smiling, “that any day you send me a blossom from the garden in Goeinge forest, I will give you letters of ransom for all the outlaws you may choose to plead for.”

The lay brother apprehended that Bishop Absalon believed as little in this story of Robber Mother’s as he himself; but Abbot Hans perceived nothing of the sort, but thanked Absalon for his good promise and said that he would surely send him the flower.

Abbot Hans had his way.  And the following Christmas Eve he did not sit at home with his monks in Oevid Cloister, but was on his way to Goeinge forest.  One of Robber Mother’s wild youngsters ran ahead of him, and close behind him was the lay brother who had talked with Robber Mother in the herb garden.

Abbot Hans had been longing to make this journey, and he was very happy now that it had come to pass.  But it was a different matter with the lay brother who accompanied him.  Abbot Hans was very dear to him, and he would not willingly have allowed another to attend him and watch over him; but he didn’t believe that he should see any Christmas Eve garden.  He thought the whole thing a snare which Robber Mother had, with great cunning, laid for Abbot Hans, that he might fall into her husband’s clutches.

While Abbot Hans was riding toward the forest, he saw that everywhere they were preparing to celebrate Christmas.  In every peasant settlement fires were lighted in the bathhouse to warm it for the afternoon bathing.  Great hunks of meat and bread were being carried from the larders into the cabins, and from the barns came the men with big sheaves of straw to be strewn over the floors.