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CHAPTER XXIV.
MALMO.
Yes! there are sighs for the bursting heart,
And tears for the sleepless eye;
But tears and sighs and sympathy,
Are luxuries unknown to me.
The wretch immured in the dungeon-keep
May snatch an hour's repose;
And dream of home and the light of heaven
Ere he wake to misery's throes;
If Hope with her radiant light be there—
I mate with the swarthy fiend Despair!
Vedder.
Here, for a page or so, we resume the MSS. of the reverend and worthy Magister Absalom Beyer.
About this period, his diary, journal, or history (which you will), for it partakes of them all, suddenly breaks off, and there are left but a few fragments, referring to a later period.
One records the baptism of the sixth son of Anna and Konrad, whom King Frederick, for his valour in capturing a Lubeck frigate that ravaged the shores of Bergen, had created Count of Saltzberg, Lord of Welsöö, and governor of Bergenhuis; and the garrulous Magister records that this baptismal ceremony, at which he officiated, and which was celebrated with great splendour, was the seventh anniversary of that joyous day on which he had blessed the nuptial ring of Anna and Konrad in the old cathedral of the bishopric of Bergen; and he further records the quantity of ale, wine, and dricka imbibed on the occasion, and the loads of venison, bread, and bergenvisch, eaten by the tenantry at the baptism of young Hans (for so baby the sixth was named); and how he screamed and kicked when the holy water fell on him, till he nearly sprang from his carved cradle, which was hollowed like a boat in the Norse fashion, lined with moss and velvet, and was borne by Christina Slingebunder, who had found her way from Westeray back to Bergen.
He also mentions that Konrad had grown somewhat florid, and rather more round in form, than when he had placed the ring on Anna's hand before that magnificent altar; and that she too, though retaining her youthful bloom, had (alas, for romance!) lost much of her slender and graceful aspect, and looked quite like the mother of the five chubby little ones, each of whom clung to her skirts with one hand, while the other was occupied with a great piece of the spiced christening cake, on which they were regaling with a satisfaction, equalled only by that of the Danish soldier, who, having again found the can and the cake offered on this occasion to Nippen, had appropriated them both to himself.
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Ten years have elapsed since the reader last heard in these pages of Bothwell's hapless earl, and the lonely towers of Malmö.