It was a beautiful, calm summer evening. The dance and the mask were confined to the antechamber and the knights' hall. The national festival was celebrated with bonfires and torch-lights, with music and feasting, in the court-yard of the castle and the orchard, in the chase and on the tournament ground. The king showed himself wherever there was a joyous group assembled, most frequently conducting his lovely bride by the hand, and accompanied by his princely guests and several courtiers. They were everywhere welcomed with festive songs and acclamations. In the castle garden they were greeted by Master Rumelant and Master Poppé the strong, who, with solemn pathos, recited an elaborate and carefully-composed poem, in which they praised by turns the royal bridegroom and his bride, with the royal relatives of both, and all the nobles there present. The king thanked them with kindness for this well-meant homage, although the exaggerated praise and trite compliments did not suit his taste. But they were now surprised by a new and splendid spectacle--the bridal pair, and a number of children with wings fastened to their shoulders, who were to represent genii or angels, were led through the illuminated avenues to a remote part of the garden, from whence there was the most beautiful prospect over the Sound; here many hundred vessels burst on the sight, hung with lights in the form of crowns upon the masts. All that had excited so much astonishment at Skänor fair, and had been regarded by the people as the work of witchcraft and sorcery, was also to be seen here, but exhibited with far more dazzling effect. Superstitious fear was banished by the report of the innocence of these artists, and all were prepared to view the spectacle as a display worthy of the festival. A number of rockets of different and beautiful colours were let off from boats and floating rafts; the air glittered with artificial suns, stars, and flaming wheels, which were mirrored in the calm expanse of the sea.
It was a new and wonder-stirring sight, and afforded great delight to the spectators. All ceremony and court etiquette were forgotten; each one eagerly sought that place from whence he could best behold the dazzling pageant.
Eric had retired with his bride to a shady spot in the garden, where the fair aerial spectacle appeared to the greatest advantage. The number of guests he had to entertain, as well as the festivities, had had hitherto prevented him from exchanging a single word with her without witnesses, and it was more than a year since they had last met. He now found himself for a moment alone with her, under the mild and lovely summer sky, in which the flaming stars seemed to dance round them in the air, while the festive din was hushed, and nothing was heard but the deep solemn notes of the horn-players, floating over the Sound from a distant hill. A torrent of thought and feeling seemed ready to gush from the king's heart. "My Ingeborg! my soul's beloved!" he exclaimed, embracing her, "now hath the merciful Lord heard my inmost prayer; he hath himself united us with an inviolable sacrament; no power in heaven or earth can part us now. I am indeed the happiest of human beings; were I omnipotent I would this hour make every soul around me happy."
"Eric! my beloved Eric!" answered Ingeborg, throwing her arms around his neck, "I have this day seen with thee into the Lord's clear heaven; the troth I plighted thee at the altar I shall repeat in my dying hour; my angel shall wake me with it at the last day----"
"Think not now of death," interrupted Eric, tenderly: "our life begins but now."
"One moment may contain a thousand lives," she continued, with, heartfelt emotion; "even were one of yon flying stars to crush me in thine arms I still should deem myself happy; thou wouldest still be mine, although mine eyes should close upon all the glories of this world."
They thus talked confidentially together, and poured out their inmost souls to each other, undisturbed by their princely guests, whose whole attention was turned upon the aerial spectacle. The happy bridal pair sank, with deep emotion, into each other's arms, and appeared to forget themselves and the whole world in a silent embrace. They were suddenly aroused by a loud explosion and a hissing sound in the air; they raised their eyes and saw with astonishment the mild beams of the star-light dimmed by the brightness of a large ball of fire, which ascended hissing in the air as though it would reach the heavens. It shone clear and bright above their heads; but as they were looking at it with admiration it exploded, and dispersed into many thousand small stars, which gradually waned and disappeared.
"Noble! beautiful!" said the king. "What cannot human wisdom and art effect! The learned artist who hath prepared us this show is certainly right in some things; the deep insight into human nature, which the great Pater Roger hath attained unto in our time, will probably in after times actually change the aspect of the world, and all which we now deem great and noble will perhaps seem but as dreaming and child's play to posterity: but how mutable all things are, my Ingeborg!" he added, almost with melancholy; "even the surpassing splendour of this evening will soon fade and vanish like yon dazzling aerial vision."
"But what there hath been of life and truth and soul, my Eric," answered Ingeborg, looking tenderly into his eyes; "is it not so, my heart's beloved? All which love hath brightened will surely never seem but as an idle dream. The world will surely never be so changed that all which is sacred and divine shall fade away like an airy vision."
"No assuredly, by all the holy men, no sound wisdom can ever lead to that!" said the king eagerly, and gazed awhile in thoughtful reverie on the serene and unchanging heaven. "Tell me, my beloved Ingeborg," he resumed again with tenderness, as he looked with calm delight on his lovely bride, and pressed her hand to his lips, "wilt thou not miss thy mother and thy brothers sadly here?"