During the whole day an anxious stillness prevailed in the town. The crowds indeed still continued to pour like a tide through the streets, but with order, and in silent expectation. The sun was about to set, and, as yet, no tidings had been received of the issue of the royal negociation. Meanwhile, an unusual procession attracted the attention of the restless and fickle populace. A funeral train proceeded past St. Clement's church down to the old Strand, but without chaunting and ringing of bells, and without being accompanied by any choristers or ecclesiastics. This procession consisted of a great number of foreign merchants and skippers, and all the pepper 'prentices, who (several hundreds in number, and clad in precise and rich mourning attire) followed two large coffins covered with costly palls of black velvet. The coffins were borne by Hanseatic seamen; over them waved the Rostock and Visbye flags. The train halted at the church of St. Nicholas. They would have pursued their way across the church-yard, and requested to have a mass chaunted over the dead in the church; but this was denied. The bishop's servants shut the gates of the church-yard and forbade the corpse-bearers to approach the church, or tread on consecrated ground, as one of the coffins they carried contained the body of a man who had been slain in the ale-house at the draught board. Amid wrathful muttering against the hard-hearted prelatical government, the procession proceeded past the outside of the church-yard wall to the quay on Bremen Island, where a number of boats with rowers, clad in white, received the coffins and the whole troop of mourners. They landed on the island, and here, where the Hanseatic merchants alone governed, the train burst forth into a solemn German funeral hymn, while the bodies of Berner Kopmand and Henrik Gullandsfar were carried on board two Hanseatic vessels, which were to convey them to Christian burial in Rostock and Visbye. As soon as the ships were under weigh the funeral train was received in a large warehouse, where three ale-barrels and two keys over a cross were carved in stone over the door. Here the whole party of seamen and trading agents were served out of huge barrels of the famous Embden ale, the intoxicating properties of which soon changed the funeral feast into a wild and mirthful carouse. There was no lack either of wine or mead, and the large dish of salted meat, which was constantly replenished, increased the thirst of the funeral guests. The rabble who had followed the train through the streets, long remained standing on the beach and the quay to hear and watch the intoxicated pepper 'prentices, who here, with none but countrymen and boon companions beside them, seemed determined to indemnify themselves for the restraint to which they were subjected in the foreign town. Some wept, while they reeled, and held moving discourses on the mournful fate of the rich Berner Kopmand and Henrik Gullandsfar, and on the mutability of all power and wealth in this world; while others sung drinking songs and piping love-ditties by way of accompaniment to the pathetic funeral speeches.

At last, attention was withdrawn from these riotous revels by the cry of "The herald! The herald!" and the people thronged in dense crowds down towards the north gate. A herald with a large sheet of parchment and a white staff in his hand, rode, accompanied by a halberdier and a numerous troop of horsemen, through the gate. The train halted at the corners of all the streets, and at all the public squares; two trumpeters on white horses made a signal for silence, whereupon the herald read aloud a treaty between the lord of the town, Bishop Johan, and the council and congregation of Copenhagen. The burghers admitted in this treaty that they had, as well in deed as in word, grossly misbehaved towards their spiritual and temporal lord the bishop, and that they had been implicated in an unlawful and criminal insurrection, the circumstances of which were enumerated. Meanwhile the bishop pardoned them these trespasses at the king's intercession, in return for which the deputies of the council and congregation promised, on the part of the town and of the burghers, that each burgher should instantly return to his duty, and obey all the laws and regulations which the bishop, "with consent of the chapter," had given or hereafter might give them, which they would publicly and solemnly swear to do at the council-house, with laying on of hands on the holy Gospels. No one dared to protest against the validity of this treaty; as the herald displayed the round seal of the town with the three towers, which was suspended to the document by a green silken string, together with the seal of the Copenhagen chapter.

As soon as the inhabitants of the town were informed of this treaty, and it was understood what had thereby been tacitly conceded to them, and with how much leniency this untoward affair had been adjusted, alarm and anxiety were succeeded by still greater and more general satisfaction; but the guild-brethren were displeased and murmured.

At the market-place without the east gate, where the herald had read the treaty for the last time, the numbers of the mob which had followed the procession through the town were considerably augmented, chiefly by day-labourers and ale-house frequenters, who felt that the treaty was an obstacle to the disorder and licentious liberty for which the revolt had given them opportunity. Here discontent was openly manifested; and it was muttered aloud that the bishop after all had got justice in everything, and that the burghers had suffered injustice. But a man now stepped forward who was held in high esteem among these people; he was a remarkably fat and sturdy ale-house keeper, with a large red nose and a pair of hands like bears paws; he was known as the greatest toper and brawler in the town, and his tavern was the resort of the wildest and most turbulent revellers. He mounted upon the great ale barrel which stood before his door, and which served the house for a sign.

"It is altogether right and reasonable, my excellent friends and customers!--my honest and highly esteemed fellow burghers!" he shouted, with his powerful well-known voice, and a round oath. "The bishop hath but got justice for appearance sake; he is, besides, the lord of our good town, and hath a right to require that one should drink one's ale in peace, and pay every man that which is his. When he will grant us what we need both for soul and body, we have surely nought to complain of. When he lets priests sing mass for you, and me tap good ale for you from morn till even, and somewhat past at times--then he is, by my soul! as excellent a bishop and lord as we can ask for, and I will pay without grumbling my yearly tax. For soul and salvation ye need not hereafter to fear, comrades! That matter the king hath taken upon himself, like an honest man. Heard ye not what he promised us yesterday, and what there stood in the treaty? Without consent of the chapter the bishop can command us nothing, and praised be the chapter! They are a wise set: they will just as little deny you absolution every day, for your little bosom sins, as I would deny you what you may stand in need of and can pay for on opportunity! Let rascals and guild-brothers grumble as they may!" he continued, as he clenched his broad fist, "we will keep those fellows in check;--I will wager a drinking match to-day, with every honest man, to the king's and the bishop's prosperity; but those who would stir up strife and wrangling between us peaceable people shall feel our fists. Come in now, comrades! and get something to keep up your hearts! Long live the king! and our lord the bishop besides!"

"Long live the king and the bishop!" cried a great number of the influential tavern-keeper's friends and customers; and the malcontents slunk off.

"They come! they come! The king and bishop are here!" was now echoed from mouth to mouth,--and the crowd again poured in through East Street, towards the quarter where all the butchers of the place had their dwellings, and where some murmurs against the treaty had also been heard. Every burst of dissatisfaction was meanwhile kept down by the opposite feeling which prevailed among the town's most influential burghers, and yet more by the spectacle of the king's entry, and of the crushed pride and dejected deportment of the little bishop Johan. With downcast eyes and manifest signs of fear, this prelate rode, with his ecclesiastical train, at the king's right hand, through his own town, guarded by Count Henrik of Mecklenborg, and the knight-halberdiers. The king met everywhere with a favourable reception; the bishop was received with no demonstrations of welcome, but there was order and peace;--no agitator dared to scoff at him by the king's side, and no voice of discontent was heard. The procession stopped at the council-house, where the treaty was solemnly ratified.

The public tranquillity was thus restored. The dignity of the prelatical government was upheld, and the arrogance of the insurgents subdued. The turbulent guild-brethren had dispersed, and there was no reason to apprehend a fresh outbreak of the revolt, as the burghers themselves, with the permission of the bishop, had agreed with the provost's men and the bishop's retainers to observe the treaty and prevent all disturbances. Despite this apparent victory, the bishop was notwithstanding extremely pensive and taciturn. The king's generous protection appeared to have confounded him, and he seemed to experience a feeling of painful humiliation, by the side of his temporal protector. The revolt, and the danger which had menaced his life, had taught him to know his own powerlessness. The king had indeed treated him, while at SorretslÓv castle, as a distinguished guest, but with cold courtesy, without even giving vent to his displeasure by a single word; it was those words only in the treaty relating to the bishop's dependence on the assent of the chapter, which the king had ordered to be inserted, in an emphatic tone (with the approval of the general-superior there present), and in a voice of command, which admitted of no contradiction. The bishop of Roskild, lately so confident and haughty, who a few days since sat between a cardinal and an archbishop in his fortified castle, and had, for the first time, issued the exasperating church interdict in his own town, was now forced to acknowledge, in silent anger, that since, the cardinal's departure, the banishment of the archbishop, and his having himself been subjected to the scoffs of the lowest rabble, he would be able to maintain the authority of the church in Denmark only so far as the Danish clergy considered it expedient, and as the king himself would support ecclesiastical government.

During the whole of the transaction at the council-house, the bishop was quiet and dejected. The king treated him here also with cold courtesy. His looks were stern and grave; another important and serious matter seemed to have weighed on his heart since he heard the last words of the archbishop to Count Henrik.

From the council-house the whole procession rode to St. Mary's church, where, besides the customary AvÉ, a Te Deum was sung on occasion of the treaty. The king then immediately rode back to SorretslÓv, from whence he purposed to set out on his journey the following morning. The bishop, with the abbot of the Forest Monastery, and the other ecclesiastics, accompanied him (in compliance with customary courtesy), besides the deputies of the town and the burghers.

The bishop desired not to return to Axelhuus ere every trace of hostile attack on the castle was effaced, and the humiliating insurrection forgotten. He purposed to accompany the king, the following day, to Roskild, where some disturbances had taken place on the occasion of their rulers' attempt to enforce the interdict.

The bishop was thus, in some sort, houseless on this evening, and accepted, as an attention which was his due, the king's invitation to him and his train to take up their quarters for the night at his castle, where all who had accompanied the king were also invited to a festive supper.

The sun had just set as the train reached SorretslÓv, and Count Henrik proposed to the king that they should now, ere it grew dark, inspect the bishop's charitable institution at St. George's hospital, for lepers and those who were sick of pestilential disorders, since it lay but a stone's throw from the castle. At this proposal the bishop, and the abbot of the Forest Monastery, became evidently uneasy; but this was remarked by no one except Count Henrik, who watched them closely, and had on their account proposed aloud this plan, which he readily conjectured the king would reject.

"It is top late. Count! and I have guests besides," answered the king. "If you desire it, inspect the hospital yourself, and describe the establishment to me! I know it doth honour to the bishop's philanthropy!--although I should have deemed it more fitting had that lazzaretto been erected elsewhere. That there is no one sick of the plague there at the present moment I know," Count Henrik bowed in silence, and instantly rode, with a couple of young knights, across SorretslÓv meadow, towards the hospital.

"Permit me to accompany you. Sir knights! I desire also to see this pious institution," said the abbot of the Forest Monastery, endeavouring to overtake them on his palfrey; but they heard him not, and ere the abbot reached St. George's hospital. Count Henrik stood already in the chamber of the sick, gazing with a look of sharp scrutiny on a man who seemed to sleep, but whose head was so closely muffled that he might be considered as masked. On the upper part of the sick man's forehead the beginning of a large scar was visible. "What is the name of this man?" inquired Count Henrik, in a stern tone, of the alarmed and embarrassed brethren of St. George.

"No one knows him, gracious sir!" answered the guardian; "he was brought bruised and wounded hither yesterday, by two stranger canons from the town; they had found him half dead on the beach: we were forced instantly to lay a plaster over his whole face and we cannot now remove it without endangering his life."

"As I live! it is the outlawed KaggÉ," said Count Henrik, and all gave way in consternation. "You have housed and healed a regicide," continued the count; "they who brought him hither were traitors: all are such who hide an outlaw."

"Outlaw or not, here he hath peace to die or recover, if it be the will of the Lord and St. George;--that shall not be denied him by any king or king's servant," said an authoritative voice behind them, and the tall abbot of the Forest Monastery stood in the door-way of the chamber. "No tyrant's hand reaches unto this sanctuary of compassion," continued the prelate. "I command you, brother-guardian, and every charitable brother who here serves St. George, I command ye, in the name of the bishop, and our heavenly Lord, to cherish this sick man as your redeemed brother, without fear of man, and without asking of his name and calling in the world! Perhaps he now suffers for his sins; but of that the All-righteous must judge: if he hath fallen by the hand of Divine chastisement he will indeed soon stand before his Judge; in such case, pray for his soul, and give him Christian burial! but if he is healed by the help and prayers of man, or by the merits and miracles of any saint, then let him wander forth free in St. George's name, whether he goes to friend or foe--whether he goes to life and happiness in the world, or to ignominy and death on the scaffold--ye are set here to heal and comfort;--to wound and vex the wretched, there are tyrants enough in the world."

Count Henrik looked in astonishment at the dignified prelate, who spoke with authoritative firmness, and really seemed actuated by pious zeal and compassion; a transient flush passed over the countenance of the proud warrior; it seemed as though he blushed at having persecuted this miserable being, who appeared unable to move a limb, and looked more dead than alive. "In the name of the Lord and St. George," he said, stepping back, "fulfil your duty to the criminal as unto my saint, and the saint of all knights! I require not you nor any one to be merciless; but this I will say once again, you shelter an outlawed and dishonoured traitor. You must yourselves be answerable for the consequences." He cast another glance at the object of his suspicions, who lay immovable, and without any discernible expression in his frightful and shrouded countenance. The count then quitted the hospital, and allowed the abbot to precede him. On the way back to the king's castle he exchanged not a word with the ecclesiastic, who, haughty and silent, gazed on him with a triumphant mien. Count Henrik said nothing of his discovery to the king; he was not, indeed, perfectly certain that he had not been mistaken; but during the whole evening he was in an unusually silent and thoughtful mood. The unhappy criminal now appeared to him so wretched and insignificant that he began to regard all dread of such a foe as contemptible. At the evening repast the king principally conversed with the deputies of the council and the burghers of Copenhagen. It was the first time they sat at the table with the king and their ruler the bishop, and at the commencement of the repast appeared somewhat abashed by this unwonted honour. The king repeated his commendation of the loyalty and bravery of the Copenhageners in Marsk Stig's feud, and the war with Norway; he promised them compensation for every loss they might sustain hereafter for his and the kingdom's sake, so long as the outlaws disquieted the country, and soon contrived to induce the plain, straight-forward citizens to express themselves freely and frankly respecting the advantages and disadvantages of their town in regard to its trade and commerce. They thanked the bishop and the king for their wise town-laws, and for the many liberties and privileges which the town already enjoyed; but they hesitated not to mention how important it might be for the public revenue if the monopolies of the towns could be curtailed, and the burghers allowed at least the same privileges as those granted to foreigners.

"Truly! I have long thought of that," said the king; "this matter deserves to be thought upon. I shall await further proposals and consideration of the subject from your Lord the bishop and your assembled council."

Great joy was manifest in the countenances of the burgers at this speech; but the bishop appeared little pleased with the king's zealous interest in the town and its concerns. The conversation between the ecclesiastics from Axelhuus was reserved and laconic. The king himself was often silent and abstracted; at times he appeared striving to repress the expression of his wrath against the bishop, and the abbot, who he knew, was one of the most devoted friends of Grand. After the repast the burghers took a cheerful and hearty farewell of the king, whom they once more thanked for the rescue and peace of their good town; after which they returned to Copenhagen, with high panegyrics on the king's mildness and favour. Count Henrik and the knights repaired to the chess-table in the upper hall, and Eric remained almost alone among the ecclesiastics. With an air of mysterious confidence the abbot and the provincial prior drew closer to the bishop, whose authority and drooping courage they strove to sustain in the king's presence.

The two ecclesiastics who had principally conducted the treaty, and had impartially defended the rights of the bishop, as well as the liberties of the people, kept nearest the king, and strove furthermore to prevent every outbreak of his anger against the friends of the banished archbishop: they were the provincial prior of the Dominicans, Master Olans (who, as the king's counsellor in this important affair, had accompanied him from Wordingborg), and the general-superior of the Copenhagen chapter, who belonged to the bishop's train, but was secretly devoted to the king, and had even dared to protest against the interdict. To these personages the king, shortly before retiring to rest, addressed a question which had been weighing on his heart the whole day, and which he seemed desirous should be answered in the presence of the bishop, ere he retired to rest.

"Tell me, venerable sirs," said Eric, "how far the canonical law reasonably extends with regard to marriage within the ties of consanguinity, and how far the dispensation of the church can really be consisted as necessary, according to the law of God, when the relationship is so distant that it is hardly remembered?"

"It is a prolix and difficult question, your grace," answered the general-superior of the chapter, evasively, with a dubious side-glance at the bishop and the abbot of the Forest Monastery. "I must crave some time for reflection in order to answer it rightly."

"If the prevailing senseless law is followed," said the aged provincial prior in a firm tone, and with an undaunted glance at the attentive prelates, "almost every computable degree of relationship may be an impediment, and may call for an indulgence; but when this is carried out too far I believe the church's holy father will agree with me that such an extreme doth but uselessly burden the conscience, just as it also may lightly become a subject for scoffing and scandal, instead of being a means of edification to Christian and reasonable persons. If one were to be consistent in these matters, no marriage would at last take place in Christendom without dispensation from the papal see, seeing that all persons are kindred in the flesh, inasmuch as they all descend from old Adam and Eve."

"That is precisely my own opinion," said the king, with a smile of satisfaction; "it would take a tolerably long reckoning.--What is your opinion of this, pious Bishop Johan?"

The bishop appeared confused, at the half-jesting tone with which the king asked his opinion; he was not prepared for this, and seemed to wish just as little to tread on the heels of papal authority, as to dare at this moment to rouse the anger of the king--he stammered out a few words, and strove to evade a decided declaration.

"Permit me, venerable brother! To answer this question," began the abbot, with a proud and collected deportment:--"an example will best explain the case," he continued, addressing himself to the king; "no case is more in point than that of your grace's relationship to your young kinswoman, Princess Ingeborg of Sweden."

"Truly!" exclaimed the king, with a start, "you use no circumlocution, Sir Abbot! you go straight to the point. It suits me best, however. Let us keep to that example! I am more, every way, interested in it than in any other!"

"Ere the church can bless your meditated marriage union with this your high-born relative," continued the abbot, with calm coldness, "the holy father's dispensation and indulgence are altogether necessary, and this on a two-fold account; pro primo,--because of the tie of relationship by marriage; and pro secundo,--because of the taint of relationship by blood. As regards the first point, royal sir! the aforesaid Princess Ingeborg's uncle, Count Gerhard of Holstein, is, as is well known, by his marriage with your most royal mother, the dowager Queen Agnes, your grace's present step-father. Count Gerhard's fatherly relationship, as well to that noble princess, as to your Grace! causes an almost brotherly and sisterly connection between you and the young princess;--and marriage between brother and sister, or between those who may be considered as such, is sternly forbidden by every law of God and man----"

"You have made us out brother and sister in a trice; it is a singular way of bringing people into near relationship," interrupted the king, "yet pass but over the relationship by marriage, with my stepfather's niece, venerable sir!--there is not a single drop of the same blood therein. Nought but a near and actual blood relationship do I acknowledge to be so real a hindrance that it can only be removed by God's vicegerent upon earth."

"Your grace is right in some respects," answered the abbot, "inasmuch as it is the tie of blood, which in this instance constitutes the sin, and makes every marriage union between relations, which hath not been sanctified by the indulgence of the church, an unholy act, a deadly sin, and a damnable connection."

"Ha! do you rave?" cried the king: his brow flushed; anger glowed in his cheek and on his lofty brow, but he subdued his rising ire. "If terrible words, without truth or reason, had power to slay the soul, I should long since have been spiritually murdered," he continued in a lower tone. "Now, say on, Sir Abbot!--how near reckon you, then, the blood relationship, which, according to your bold assertion, may plunge me into deadly sin, and into a gulf of horror and ignominy, if I await not a permit from Rome to perpetrate such crime?"

"It is easy to reckon up the degrees of forbidden affinity," answered the abbot, with imperturbable coolness. "The high-born Princess Ingeborg is, as is known, a legitimate daughter of King Magnus, who was a legitimate son of the high-born Birger Jarl, whose consort, the lady Ingeborg, was a legitimate daughter of King Eric the tenth, whose Queen RegizÉ was, lastly, a legitimate daughter of your grace's departed royal father's--father's--father's father;--ergo, the princess is a great-great grandchild of your grace's grandfather's departed royal father, Waldemar the Great, of blessed memory!"

"Perfectly right, grand-children's grand-children's children then, of my great-great grandfather--a near relationship, doubtless!" said the king, bursting into a laugh. "I now wish you a good and quiet night, venerable and most learned sirs!" he added, apparently with a lightened heart, and with a cheerful and determined look: "I never rightly considered the matter before; now it is perfectly clear to me; I can sleep as quietly as in Abraham's bosom, when I think on the sin which I, with mature deliberation and full resolve, purpose to perpetrate as soon as possible. I could wish no one among you may ever have a heavier sin on his conscience." So saying, he bowed with a smile, and departed.

The king's eager talk with the ecclesiastics had attracted the attention of Count Henrik and his companions, who had approached, and heard the subject of the conversation. On the king's laughingly repeating the abbot's calculation, some of the young knights had laughed right heartily also. The abbot was crimson with rage. "It is the mark of eye-servants," he said aloud, "to vie with each other in laughing at what their gracious lords consider to be absurd, even though such merriment doth but disgrace them and their short-sighted masters. This scoffing and contempt shall be avenged, my brother," he whispered in the bishop's ear, with a significant look. The bishop started, and looked anxiously around; he winked at his incensed colleague, and observed aloud, that it was high time to retire to rest, and bid good-night to all discord and worldly thoughts. The master of the household now appeared with a number of torch-bearers, and the knights, as well as the ecclesiastics, repaired to the chambers assigned to them, in the knights' story in the western wing of the castle.