When the sun rose over the Sound, signs of cheerful animation and active stir were already perceptible in the village of SorretslÓv, while the bishop's town still lay shrouded in fog, ensconced behind its trenches and palisades, and seemed to slumber after the wild revels of the preceding night. Peasants were seen removing cattle on the pastures, between the village and the northern gate of the town. The grooms of the king's household were riding the horses to water from the farms and meadows of the royal castle, at the large pool in the midst of the village; but around the pasture near SorretslÓv lake, where the king's trained tournament-steeds had grazed, two grooms were running in despair, vainly seeking the fine horses which were entrusted to their charge.

"Help us, St. Alban! and all saints!" cried the younger groom. "If the Marsk comes home he will slay us, at the least."

"And the king!" groaned the other--"the king will be wrath; and that is even far worse. We must find them though we should have to run to the world's end. Come!"--They sprang away over hedge and ditch, where they saw the dew brushed off from the grass, and fresh traces of galloping horses' feet on the meadow; at last they recognised the well-known trained step of the steeds on the road between the two lakes, and were soon far away.

It was a fine spring morning;--the king was, as usual, stirring at an early hour. Accompanied by Count Henrik, he had mounted the flat-roofed tower of the castle, from whence there was an extensive and noble prospect over the whole adjacent country. Count Henrik had been required, circumstantially to repeat his account of the flight of the cardinal and the archbishop, and the very different greeting of the prelates. The king was grave, but in good spirits; even the last threat of the archbishop had not discouraged him.

"With God's blessing," he said with emphasis, "I await my chief happiness from the hand of the Almighty, and the heart of my pious Ingeborg, but neither from the mercy of the pope nor the archbishop. Were my hope and success in love really sin and ungodliness, no dispensation could ever sanctify it before Heaven and to myself."--He paused, and gazed with a calm and enthusiastic look on the rising sun, and a heartfelt prayer seemed as it were to beam from his bright eye. "My deadly foe went hence alive," he continued;--"well! I have now performed my promise to him. I let him 'scape hence alive. More none can ask of a frail mortal; but it is the last time I promise peace and respite of life to the enemy of my soul. So long as the Lord grants me life and crown the presence of Grand shall never more infect the air I breathe."

"This insurrection was quite opportune for us, my liege," observed Count Henrik, with a confidential smile--"the foe you came hither to banish hath been as good as stoned out of this country by the brisk men of Copenhagen, on their own responsibility."

"That I asked them not to do," answered the king, with proud eagerness; "had I willed to use temporal power, against my ecclesiastical foes here, I should not have needed the help of a mutinous mob. The town hath suffered wrong; but mutiny is, and ever will be, mutiny; and, as such, deserving of punishment, whether it happens to suit my convenience or not. I consider the conduct of the bishop and council to be arbitrary and illegal," he continued. "I hate ban and interdict as I do the plague, as is well known; but it shall not therefore be believed I favour revolt and rebellion against any lawful authority. It was well done to force the locked churches. No Roskild bishop shall place bars and bulwarks between us and our Lord; but it was not for the Lord's sake they besieged the bishop's castle: their devotion was also very moderate; it was more like howling wolves singing 'credo,' than christianly-baptized people. Had you seen, with me, the riots yesterday evening, in St. Nicholas church. Count Henrik! you would hardly take on yourself the defence of these insurgents."

"I rode past St. Nicholas church-yard in the night, my liege!" answered Count Henrik. "What was doing there pleased me but little, it is true. It seemed as though a crowd of spirits moved among the graves, in the moonshine: there was a strange muttering. I heard shouts and prayers, which sounded to me like curses. It was St. Erik's Guild brethren, who were chaunting prayers, it was said, and taking counsel against the bishop. Those good people I will no longer defend; there must be wild fanatics and turbulent spirits among them. But chastise them not too hardly, in your wrath, my liege!--even though you should now be forced to lend a helping hand to prelatical government. When the Lord's servants shut the Lord's house themselves, and hinder all orderly worship, it is surely no wonder that the plain man seeks to edify himself as well as he can in his own way: a mixture of defiance and ferocious fanaticism with this species of devotion is inevitable, but whose is the blame, your grace? Where God's word is silent, the evil one instantly sends forth his priests among the people, and drives them mad."

"Ay indeed! those are true words. Count! It is usually the fault of the shepherd when the flock strays. Spiritual government is a matter I dare not much intermeddle with, but this I have promised, and I shall honestly keep my promise: every church door in the country which they would hereafter shut, I will cause myself without further ado to be forced with the staff of the spear; and every priest or bishop who hinders my, or my people's lawful and orderly devotion, I banish from state and country, as I have banished Archbishop Grand--let the pope excommunicate me a thousand times over for it! Look! in this I am agreed with my brave and loyal people, and with these rather too brisk Copenhageners. What I here tell you, I cannot give any one under sign and seal," he added, "but I will whisper it in confidence into the ear of every Danish bishop and future archbishop; none shall say, however, I side with rebels. If authority is to be used, that is my affair; but there shall be peace and order here. I will uphold the rights of every lawful authority, whether it be spiritual or temporal, our highest rights, as God's children, and the rights and authority of the crown, unimpaired."

The king was silent--his cheek glowed, and an expression of fervid energy beamed in his countenance, as he turned from the fair spectacle of the rising sun, and looked out upon the fog-enveloped town, the church towers of which glittered in the dawn of morning. He now opened a letter and a small packet, which a skipper from SkanÖr had brought him from Drost AagÉ. He read the letter with attention. It contained an account of the Drost's meeting with the Hanseatic merchants and Thrand Fistlier at KjÖge, and at SkanÖr fair, as well as of the disturbance which had been caused by this mountebank, and the Hanseatic forgers; and also how the Drost, partly to save the artist's life, had been under the necessity of sending him prisoner to Helsingborg. In the packet was one of Master Thrand's optic tubes, and some polished glasses, which AagÉ had bought at SkanÖr fair, and which he now presented to the king as extraordinary rarities. In the letter, AagÉ had not been able to conceal his suspicion of the wonderful mountebank, and the singular uneasiness which this man's operations and expressions had caused him.

Count Henrik also, had lately received and read a secret epistle from the Drost, in which AagÉ conjured him to caution the king respecting the captive Icelander, and above all to keep a watchful eye on whoever approached him. "Trust not the junker!" AagÉ wrote, "God forgive me if I do him injustice! KaggÉ is alive and under convoy of the foreign merchants, who threatened the king at SjÖborg; Helmer and my bravest squire are in their power. The revenge of the outlaws is unwearied. Stir not from the king's side! watch over his life, while I care for his happiness."

"Truly! my good Drost AagÉ is a strange visionary," said the King, shaking his head with a smile, as he tried the glasses with a feeling of wonder at the power of these instruments; "my much-loved AagÉ is ready to side with the ignorant mob, and regard the fruits of the noble arts and sciences as the work of the evil one."

"How! my liege!" asked Count Henrik, in surprise.

"That good friend of mine is still somewhat weak both in mind and body;" continued the king, "he is afraid our whole fair world will perish, because here and there people get their eyes opened, and learn to see things better and more justly in nature. The Lord knows what new danger he can now be dreaming of from this artist. Just look here. Count!" The king reached Henrik the optic tube. "It is one of the discoveries of the great Roger Bacon, the wise English monk we have heard so much of--a skilful Icelander hath arrived here in the country, who hath known him, and learned the art from him. These kind of things he brings with him; he is said to understand many wonderful arts, and knows secrets in nature which may be of importance, as well in war as in the general advancement of the country; AagÉ, I suppose, means only we should be cautious and not trust him over much. I will see and know that man; he certainly doth honour to our northern lands, and he shall not have visited me in vain;--now what say you, Count? Such glass eyes may be useful, I think, both for a king and a general, when he should take a wide survey!"

"Noble! astonishing!" exclaimed Count Henrik, "the town, the river, the whole of Solbierg, seem as near as if close at hand."

"And a skilful coiner, and a rare judge of metals, is this Icelander besides," resumed the king with satisfaction, as he glanced over the letter, "he is just the man we need, now that the land is inundated with the false coin of the outlaws; if he were in league with my foes, as AagÉ fears, he would hardly venture into my sight; as yet no enemy hath faced me, unpunished. He is reported to hold many erring opinions in matters of faith; but what is that to me? If he be a heretic, so much the worse for himself; in what concerns temporal things he is apt, I must confess."

"If he be a Leccar brother, as Drost AagÉ thinks, then beware of him, my liege!" observed Count Henrik. "I thought that sect was banished in all Christian lands, and in Denmark also, on account of their dangerous opinions."

"On account of opinions, I have never banished any living soul," said the king: "for ought I care, every man may think and believe what he will, provided he obeys but the laws of the land, and seduces not the people to insurrection and ungodliness. One description of madmen I once banished, however--it is true," he added, recollecting himself: "what they called themselves I have now forgot; but the madness I remember well enough--they were self-appointed priests, without a consecrated church or true doctrine. They scoured the country round, and preached both to high and low, and would, in short, have made us all heathens. They denied both our Lord and our blessed Lady, and all the saints and martyrs besides; they would have nought to do either with church or pope; and in fact, just as little with kings and princes, or any temporal government; they zealously affirmed that we should obey our Lord only--but when it came to the point, their Lord was but their own ignorant and perverted will. From such mad doctrine we may well pray our Lord to preserve us and all Christian lands."

"But that is exactly, as far as I know, the creed of the Leccar brethren," observed Count Henrik. "We have chased the sect from Mecklenborg also, and the pope hath doomed them to fire and faggot."

"You are right, they are called Leccarii in Latin," answered the king: "the holy father's caring for their souls, by burning their bodies, suits me just as little as his excommunicating, and giving us over to the devil. That mistakes may be made in Rome we are all agreed. If the learned Icelander belongs to yon sect, he must doubtless decamp," he added, "and that I should be sorry for; but I must hear it from himself, ere I will believe it; it is inconceivable to me how madness and learning can dwell together in one brain."

"Look once again, my liege!" said Count Henrik, handing the optic tube to the king. "Yonder comes a boat up the canal towards St. George's hospital; if I am not mistaken it is steered by a couple of clerks; perhaps the bishop would now vouchsafe us tidings, and put up with your protection."

From St. George's lake flowed a broad rivulet, which bounded the pasture ground of SorretslÓv and divided it from the meadows of the village of Solbierg. This rivulet, which widened into a canal, flowed down under the west gate of the town, and ended its course in the Catsound. Between the stream and the town of SorretslÓv lay St. George's Hospital. A large boat came slowly up the river, in which the forms of two men, attired in black, were discernible. They rowed with unsteady strokes of the oar, and with great exertion, against the stream. The boat put ashore at the pasture ground opposite St. George's hospital. The sable-clad personages sprang out of the boat and drew it on land. The king and Count Henrik thought they recognised the archbishop's confidential friends, Hans Rodis and the canon Nicolaus, and paid close attention to their proceedings. A large loose sail was taken from the boat, from under which four ecclesiastics rose up, one after another, and stepped on shore. They looked around on all sides with caution, and proceeded along a by-path, with slow and uncertain steps towards the royal castle. They were all four soon recognised. It was the domineering little Bishop Johan, with the haughty abbot from the forest monastery, accompanied by the provincial prior, and the inspector of the Copenhagen chapter. They seemed to have secretly taken flight from Axelhuus in the morning fog, to place themselves under the king's protection, and perhaps to demand the help of arms against the mutinous town.

When the king recognised them he became grave, and fell into a reverie. He reached the optic tube to Count Henrik, and seated himself in silence on a bench on the southern side of the tower, whence he had a view of the town and the north gate. Count Henrik remarked that the two suspicious-looking canons had yet another person in the boat, whom they carried on shore; he appeared to be either sick or dead, and was closely shrouded in a mantle. The canons looked around on all sides, and bore, seemingly with doubtful and anxious steps, the sick or dead man up to St. George's Hospital, where they were instantly admitted. Count Henrik considered their conduct most suspicious; he determined, however, not to name it to the king; and resolved to examine himself into the affair, and to inspect the hospital that very day.

The town was by no means so tranquil as was supposed. The nocturnal assemblage in the churchyard of St. Nicholas had not dispersed until near daybreak. The bishop's men had heard wild threats of fire and murder, and taunting speeches against their master. A new and bloody outbreak of the insurrection was feared whereupon the bishop had not deemed it advisable to await the dawn of day at Axelhuus, although it was probable that he most unwillingly took refuge with the king, who he knew was incensed at the enforcement of the interdict.

The bishop's stern protest against the demi-ecclesiastical assemblies of the guild-brethren of St. Canute, had rendered that fraternity his bitterest and most dangerous foes. During the shutting of the churches, the devotion of the guild-brethren, which was almost always blended with fanaticism and intemperance, had assumed a wild and desperate character. They were charged with the most licentious impiety, it was believed there were atheists and Leccar brethren among them, who sought to sever them from the church and from Christendom, as well as from burgher-rule and obedience. A secret dread of the extravagancies and gloomy deportment of these persons prevailed among the best-informed and better class of burghers, who, however, had themselves, on account of the shutting of the churches, made common cause with the guild-brethren, and deemed a general revolt against prelatic tyranny to be necessary.

Ere the sun had dispersed the thick morning mist which lay over the town, the burghers of Copenhagen thronged in crowds to the council-house, where they assembled a council, though it was not the usual day of meeting.

Meanwhile, mattins were performed in all the churches in the town, and no priest dared any longer to observe the interdict. All the churches were unusually crowded, but no disturbances took place. It was only from the stone-built houses, where St. Canute's and St. Eric's guild-brethren had rung their bells ere daylight, and were now performing their morning's devotions, before full goblets and with locked doors, that wild cries and sounds of tumult proceeded. As soon as early mass was ended, a great procession passed through North Street and through the north gate. It was the deputies of the town and council, who had drawn up at the council-house a long list of complaints against the bishop, and as long a justification of the recently-suppressed insurrection. This document they now intended to present to the king, as they were willing to enter into any treaty with the spiritual Lord of the town, which their sovereign might consider just and reasonable. A continually increasing crowd accompanied this procession. None of the guild-brethren were to be seen among the deputies of the town; but a number of these gloomy agitators soon joined themselves to the train, and sought to excite suspicion in the populace respecting this negotiation of peace. The guild-brethren, meanwhile, seemed at variance among themselves; the king's presence had struck terror into many, and their wild plans of overthrowing all spiritual and temporal rule lacked concert and counsel. Hardly had they quitted their guild houses ere the provost's men and the bishop's retainers, assisted even by the burghers, took possession of these buildings, and stationed guards before them. The dispersion of this degenerate and dangerous fraternity was now become one of the most earnest wishes of the council and burghers.

The king had not left the tower of SorretslÓv when the throng hastened forward towards the village and his unfortified castle, in the direction of the southern gate; while the bishop and the three prelates, with their slow and dubious pace, had not as yet reached the approach from the by-path to the western castle gate. Count Henrik's attention had been wholly engrossed in watching the tardy and undecided movements of the ecclesiastics, and the king had been so lost in thought that he did not observe the crowd until the distant murmur of many thousand voices reached his ear. He rose hastily, with a quick glance on both sides, and appeared wroth, but undecided only for a moment. "The gate shall be barred. Count! the black snails shall be brought up here!" he exclaimed impetuously in a loud voice to Count Henrik, pointing to the ecclesiastics below, who again paused on the by-path, and seemed to hesitate. "Let them be brought to my private chamber instantly, even though it should be by force. They are my prisoners."

Count Henrik started.

"Look!" continued the king, pointing towards the village and the road. "They flock out hither by thousands; but, by all the holy men! whoever disturbs the peace of the royal castle shall be chastised as he deserves. Ride to meet the throng. Count! announce my will to them--say their bishop is in my power. Every fitting proposition I will listen to; but every agitator shall instantly be banished; whoever obeys not shall be punished as a rebel."

"Now I understand you, my liege," said Count Henrik, and instantly departed.

The king's command was immediately put into execution. With great fear and dismay, the bishop and his three ecclesiastical companions beheld a troop of horsemen gallop out of the castle towards them, while a willow hedge hid the main road and the concourse of people from their sight, and they still stood close to the meadow gate, debating whether they had not acted with precipitation, and were not about to encounter a still greater danger here than that from which they had fled.

"Treachery!" cried the bishop, drawing back. "I feared it would be so. Fools that we are to trust to the generosity of an excommunicated tyrant! Now we may all fare as did Grand, and may come to rot alive in his dungeons."

"I will answer for the king's justice, even should he imprison us," said the general superior of the chapter.

"Ha! you betray me! you side with the tyrant! you counselled me to this step."

"Look, my brother!" cried the abbot of the forest monastery, pointing in dismay to the right, where but a single-fenced meadow separated them from the road and the concourse of people which now came in view. "The whole town is flocking hither. They have spied us--hear how they howl and bluster! They are springing over hedge and ditch towards us. Let us thank God and our guardian saint for the king's horsemen; it is better after all to fall into the hands of one tyrant than into those of a thousand."

At this moment the king's horsemen surrounded them, and saluted them with courtesy. "Follow us, venerable sirs," said their leader, a brisk young halberdier. "We have orders to bring you to the king's castle."

"In the name of the Lord and all the saints we accept the king's convoy!" said the bishop, looking around with uneasiness, while his cheeks glowed, and he seemed but half to trust to this unexpected safe conduct.

"The bishop! the bishop! Seize him! stone him!" shouted a whole crowd of the excited rabble, who, headed by some guild-brethren, had quitted the burgher procession, and ran, with weapons and stones in their hands, over the meadow towards the ecclesiastics.

"Back, countrymen!" shouted the leader of the horsemen, brandishing his sword. "We lead him captive to the king."

"Captive! the bishop captive!" exclaimed the insurgents with joyous shouts. "That's right!--long live the king!--to the dungeon with Grand's friends and all king-priests!"

"Captive!" repeated the bishop, clasping his hands; "ha, the presumptuous traitors!"

"Compose yourselves, venerable sirs," said the young halberdier, in a lowered tone. "I obey the commands of my sovereign; if you refuse to comply I shall be compelled to use force; but whether you are the king's guests or his prisoners you will assuredly be treated as beseems your rank and condition."

The ecclesiastics were soon within the gates of the king's castle, and looked doubtfully at each other, as one door after another was with much deference shut behind them, and they stood at last in anxious expectation in a vaulted chamber, which, with its high windows and the little iron-cased door, which was also secured behind them, bore a greater resemblance to a prison than an apartment destined for the reception of guests. There was no want, however, of furniture or comfort; there were writing materials as well as both edifying and entertaining books. It was the king's private chamber.

The deputies of the burghers and counsel started almost in as great dismay as the bishop and his clerical companions, when they beheld themselves surrounded on a sudden by royal halberdiers and horsemen before the castle gate. The captain of halberdiers dismissed the half-armed mob, who had followed the procession with shouts and threats against the bishop, and with frequent acclamations for the king, on occasion of his having (according to report) thrown the bishop into prison.

"In the name of my liege and sovereign!" called Count Henrik, on horseback, as he waved his hat, "the castle is open to the deputies of the loyal burghers; but every one who bears arms here, or combines to cause riot and uproar disturbs the peace of the king's castle, and is guilty of treason. Your lord bishop is at this moment in the king's power, but he is also his guest and under his protection. Every insult to the bishop here is an insult to the ruler of the land. The king will judge justly, and negociate a peace between you and your lord. Ere the sun goes down the result of his mediation shall be made known. Now, back! all here who would not pass for rebels!"

The restless crowd returned silent and downcast to the town. The arrogant bravado of the insurgents that they had the king on their side, had been suddenly put down. Their confidence in his presumed wrath against the bishop, and his partiality to the burghers of Copenhagen, appeared to have given way to a reasonable apprehension of his justice and known severity. It even seemed to them no good sign that the bishop, in his distress, had sought shelter at the royal castle--and the guild-brethren muttered that when it came to the push, the powerful and the great ever sided together after all; even though they were deadly foes at heart, and that every thing was visited upon those of low degree whether they were guilty or not.