It was autumn now.
The day was dark and stormy; a grey sky spread its cold background beyond the picturesque gables and wooden fronts of the old houses of Assens. The solemn storks had all disappeared to warmer latitudes; rain, and even sleet, poured down into the narrow and muddy streets; a variety of tints were spreading over the woods; the beeches were becoming yellow, but the hardy pine of the north yet wore unchanged its dark and wiry foliage. All betokened gloom and the misfortunes that threatened Denmark, as we landed in the boats of Sir Nickelas Valdemar, and marched into the town with drums beating and colours flying.
It was a dilapidated place, very little of it having survived the warlike operations of old John of Rantzau, who, ninety years before, had routed there the army of Christopher, Duke of Oldenburg, slain Güstaf Troll, archbishop of Upsala, and levelled nearly all Assens to the ground. In the houses that remained, our soldiers were billeted by the burgomaster; while Duke Bernard, with all the officers, the count and his daughters, repaired to the adjacent castle, to be presented to the king and court.
The Scottish musketeers of the Lord Spynie, and the Danish guards, with their kettle-drummer beating on his famous silver drum, received us with all honour at the castle gate; and many a hand was held out from the ranks of Spynie, to grasp ours in warm welcome as we passed them. The brass culverins boomed from a cavalier before the gate, as a salute to our colonel and the Duke of Saxe-Weimar.
"Ah! my old trooper, dost thou smell powder again?" said he, stroking Haven, his curveting horse, which was led by a page, for, in compliment to the ladies, this gallant prince accompanied us on foot.
He gave his arm to the Count of Carlstein; ungloved I led Ernestine by the hand; Ian led Gabrielle; Sir Donald and our brother officers followed in a group behind us; and the whole were marshalled forward to the Bittersaal, or saloon of the knights, where the king awaited us.
Through folding-doors of carved oak, ushers in the royal livery admitted us to this magnificent old hall, at the upper end of which, under a canopy and upon a dais, stood King Christian, with a glittering group of courtiers.
Grotesquely carved in stone, many a column and corbel projected from the wall; from thence sprung the arched roof; between were hangings of leather embossed with gold arabesques, which had assumed a sombre brown by age. The arched fireplace, within whose vast recess a company might have dined, had around it stone benches on three sides, as in our ancient towers at home; in the centre, a pile of pine roots and Meinel logs were crackling and blazing in an enormous basket of iron.
Above the king's crimson canopy hung the moth-eaten remnant of the miraculous Dannebrog, the far-famed banner of Denmark, which was said to have been sent by the pope, for Waldemar II. to unfurl against the Pagans of Livonia; but which was taken by the warlike Ditmarsches in the war of 1580, and retaken from them by the valiant Frederick II.
A flood of crimson and yellow light fell from the painted windows on the king and his group, which, from the length of our interview, I had every means of observing. Christian was plainly attired in a military undress of buff, with gold trimmings, and buff gloves edged with gold; over one shoulder was his scarf of silk; over the other was the broad blue riband; under his left arm was a broad beaver hat edged with rich galloon; his neck was encircled by a chain of gold, at which hung the order of the Elephant, bearing on its back a silver tower studded with diamonds, and full of armed men. A black silk patch concealed the loss of his left eye, which had been destroyed by a splinter in one of those naval battles which have rendered his memory so dear to Denmark. Near him stood his queen, Anna Catharina, of the House of Brandenburg, a fair and somewhat florid-looking German, and another lady whom he had wedded with the left hand, according to the usage of the times—a fairer and more beautiful Dane, whose peculiar position imparted a gentle and retiring expression to her soft features; though that position was deemed so far from equivocal, that he created her Countess of Fehmarn (the Saraos of the north), and one of her daughters was espoused by the grand-master, Corfitz Ulfeld.