"A fig for your receipt-book and old Master Henrik! He was only a clerk: what should he understand of the constitution of a count of Holstein? Wine I can bear, were I even lying in extreme unction, like my blessed father--God rest his soul! I shall not die, as long as I can swallow a good draught of wine, nor shall a heart-sore of any kind ever overcome me. There are not, indeed, many people who get fat upon unfortunate love," he added, with a light sigh; "but still, with wine and a jester, one may succeed. I may not be able to boast of my success in love, yet, as you may perceive, I am in good condition." "You still sorrow, then, over the death of your young wife," said Drost Peter, sympathisingly; "that I could well see." "Sorrow! Who dares to say that I sorrow?" interrupted the count. "When any one grieves at my court, I give my fool permission to bang him with cats'-tails. Now, since you are my trusty friend," he continued, "I shall tell you how matters stand with me. Had I seen the Danish queen before last year, I had still been a bachelor perhaps, not a widower--and I had never wooed a Swedish princess. It is accursed state policy that makes almost every prince a fool; but I had the reward I merited. The princess found the Holstein count too poor to live with, and so she died; and all the honour I have gained is that of being son-in-law to a fool of an ex-king, whom any Danish knight could tear into shreds, and who is now running about from land to land, like a madman, along with a bastard woman." For some time they rode along in silence. "No one can have great respect for your unfortunate father-in-law," said Drost Peter, thoughtfully, as he dwelt, in imagination, on the Swedish King Waldemar's dethronement. "He did no honour to his great name, it is true; but, still, he was king of Sweden, by law and right. To me, it is a sad thought, that the unfortunate example has been set to other nations, of a crowned and anointed king being so overthrown. It was one of our proud Stig Andersen's doings; and therein he exceeded the king's mandate and authority. The Swedish people will not better themselves by the bargain: for a weak and sensual, but a good-natured, and, at times, even a devout king, they have taken a strong and prudent, but a fierce and sanguinary tyrant. For the despised log, they have taken a hydra. King Magnus has now taught them, with his headsman's axe, that no Swedish knight carries his head so high, that he may not strike it off." "An able king is the Swedish Magnus--that you must, nevertheless, admit," replied the count. "I do not boast of him because he is my brother-in-law; but this I know, that he is not called Magnus, or Ladislaus, in vain. If he does, at times, strike off the heads of some of the haughty great ones, still the small have reason to extol him: he has put locks upon their doors in earnest, and suffers not petty tyrants to rule where he sways the sceptre."