When Drost Peter perceived these festive preparations, so little suited to his own frame of mind, and to the harsh appearance of the royal train, he was singularly and painfully affected. The slightly-built arch was not unlike a gallows; and the old nurse, in her white dress, reminded him of the so-called corpse-women, who conducted interments in commercial towns. At the head of the ridiculously dressed-up milkmaids, who were intended to represent fine ladies, Dorothy felt as dignified as a queen. In a less serious mood, this spectacle would perhaps have extorted a smile from the lively young drost; but now it augmented most painfully his gloomy state of mind. The king did not appear to give much attention to these tokens of homage, which he was accustomed to see in every small trading town, and even where he knew that he was detested by the majority of the inhabitants. Such demonstrations of homage were most frequently got up by the crafty chamberlain, who sagaciously reckoned that, if these flatteries did not always obtain the king's applause, they seldom called forth his displeasure. Notwithstanding the tastelessness and farcical character of this parade, it was apparent that it was prompted by simple good-nature and true respect for the king, when the old nurse, with her thin, tremulous notes, and accompanied by the grating voices of the Juttish milkmaids, offered to him, in Danish, the German meister-singer's homage:-- "I prize the king who wears the crown, And brings the country great renown. "He helps the widow in her need; His bounty doth the orphan feed. "He guards his land--his name is dear To all his people, far and near. "His heart is warm, and great his mind; His speech to one and all is kind. "His hand is just to great and small, Nor riches do his heart enthral. "And he whose fair renown I sing. Is Erik, Denmark's famous king." The aged but zealous leader of the songstresses now first fixed her eyes upon the king, and when she beheld his austere countenance and blinking eyelids, she became deadly pale. She stared at him, like a sorceress who had conjured up some fearful spirit, and was suddenly horrified on beholding the mighty unknown which her incantations had summoned forth. She involuntarily crossed herself, and turned away her look; but the apparition of the executioner and his rough assistants, who closed the procession, raised her terror so high that her senses forsook her, and, with a convulsive shriek, she fell to the ground. The king succeeded in curbing his startled horse, and rode hastily in with his retinue.