"Who told you this?" inquired Drost Peter, with more attention. "The three men from Rypen, who yesterday desired to speak with the king--they whom the king told, through Chamberlain Rané, that he had something more to do than listen to their stupid quarrels: it was on that account they were so angry. When I met them at the tavern, in the evening, they were completely drunk; but this much I could gather from their conversation--that it was not for nothing they had seen three suns in the heavens--" "Sheer twaddle, Skirmen! Drunken people can see as many suns in the heavens as there are stars." "Many sober people have also seen the same, sir. It betides a great misfortune, they said, and they could reveal things of great importance to the king. But he must now take care of himself, since he was too proud to speak with honest burghers." "Ay, this is the loyalty now-a-days," exclaimed Drost Peter, indignantly: "when a man is offended, he bids his king and country a good day. If you thought there was anything more than vile superstition and silly braggadocia in this ale-gossip, why did not you inform me immediately?" "You were, with Sir John, in attendance upon the queen and the princes, sir; and I did not wish to raise a blind alarm, on the instant, about such loose talk. The Rypen burghers seemed as if they would take their ease for some days at the tavern, and this morning I was there betimes to meet them sober; but they had disappeared overnight, it was said, and no one knew what had become of them. I could not get speech of you this morning, on account of the chamberlain, and your many distinguished visitors; and ever since you mounted your horse, you have not listened to one word of all I have already told you--not even about the handsome cock with the necklace." "Enough. To what does all this trifling tend? How can you imagine that I have leisure to think of your cock and his battles?" "But what if it should be the same bird you so much admired at Flynderborg?" "Flynderborg?" repeated Drost Peter, starting: "who talks of Flynderborg? Was it not at Scanderborg the marvellous cock was to be seen, that gained the victory over all the rest?" "Truly, sir; but it came from Flynderborg, nevertheless: it is the selfsame bird respecting which you held such fair conversation with Lady Ingé, when she stroked his wings in the garden, on the hillock near the strand. I stood by, and ventured not to interrupt you. You had just been talking of Hamlet's cunning, with his charred wooden hooks,[30] and with the gad-fly and the straw; and Lady Ingé thought that her watchful bird had been a better sign of warning against treachery and danger." "And this bird, you say, is now at Scanderborg?"