OLAVUS. Oh, no, there is a whole lot left.
KING. Where do you get your fixed ideas from? Have you heard some bird sing, or have you been dreaming?
OLAVUS. Neither.
KING. [Listening] Listen! That's the sound of birch-horns. Do they mean to give me a crown of birch, like the one I gave to Peder the Chancellor and Master Knut? Or is it the scaffold that.... that?...
OLAVUS. Oh, don't!
KING. What was it you called that thing—piety? Much it would have availed me to have piety at Larv Heath or Tuna Plain![1]—No, I have been right, right, right, so God help me, amen!
OLAVUS makes no answer.
KING. [Listening] They have drums, too.—Oh, everything comes home!—Do you think I can get out of this, Olof?
OLAVUS. I do! And let me give you a final piece of advice: don't leave!
KING. I don't see how it can be avoided. Do you think I'll let them take my head?—Do you know, I can actually hear the tramp-tramp of their feet as they come marching through the North Gate. And that's the Dalecarlians—my own Dalecarlians! Oh, life is cruel! Can you hear it? Tramp—tramp—tramp! Do you think I can get out of this?