"'And do you know who I am?' said the governor, somewhat in a rage. 'I am the governor of this province, a knight of the Royal Order of the Northern Star, and one of the chamberlains of His Majesty the King.'
"'Oh, ho!' said the peasant. 'And do you, sir, know who I am?'
"He said this in such a bold and defiant manner that the governor was somewhat taken aback. He began to think that the fellow might be some great personage after all—some prince, perhaps, travelling in disguise.
"'No,'he said, in an irresolute voice, 'I do not know who you are. Who are you?'
"'Well,' replied the peasant, walking up to his face and looking him firmly in the eye, 'I'll tell you who I am—I am the man that ordered those horses.'
"After this there was nothing more to be said. The peasant quietly drove away on his journey, and the governor waited until such time as he could legally procure fresh means of locomotion."
Along the "clearstorey" of the church-like museum are a series of little chambers fitted and furnished to illustrate the life of the middle classes from 1520 to the end of the nineteenth century. These are far less distinctively Swedish than the objects taken from cottages.[119]
So modern is Stockholm, bustling capital of a great industrial nation, so entirely Classic its principal buildings, that it seems almost incongruous that it should be a town of great historic interest, whose story goes back to saga days. The site is heard of now and then in the very earliest annals of the North.
Once a king of Upsala is fabled here to have celebrated his marriage and gotten his bane. Round his neck he wore a great gold chain that his sires had worn of yore. He desired to wed the lovely Skialf, whose father, a monarch further east, he had just conquered and slain in war. She only bargained that a funeral feast for her parent might decorously precede the marriage feast for herself. The king of Upsala and his warriors poured down the grave-ale right heartily so that they could not stand. The bride and her friends had only feigned to drink so that they were in better condition for action when the feast was done. They contrived to slip one end of a rope through the great gold chain and the other end over the bough of a large oak. Thus the monarch of Upsala was hung and the bride unwed sailed home.[120]