"I'faith, that is true, stern sir knight," growled the burgher: "unless we would have our houses again burnt over our heads, we must howl with the wolves, and submit to boy-rule and petticoat government."
"Fie for shame on every Danish man," cried another, "that they should patiently submit to be ruled by a king in slippers and baby-clothes."
"Thou hast a mind to be outlawed before night, my bold fellow," observed a tall personage, in a monk's habit. "A good word now-a-days may bring that on a man."
"Know you the news, holy sir?" exclaimed an awkward, heavy mass-boy to the monk: "Marsk Stig and his friends have to-day been put under the ban of the Church by the Archbishop of Lund."
"The ban--the ban!" was muttered around from one to the other, with increasing discontent.
"They could never be so infatuated," observed a tall man, enveloped in a large blue cloak.
"He begins sharply, this little master," exclaimed a jeering voice close by the side of the last speaker; "and his pinafore must be as wide as a church-door, since he can carry an archbishop in his pocket."
"The apple doesn't fall wide of the tree," remarked the corpulent burgher; whilst his neighbour began humming:--
"And so grows up the little wolf,
With sharp teeth in his jaws."
"What else could you expect?" demanded the Sleswick horseman: "all that come of the wolf, howl like the wolf, as they say in our country."