"Never mind, never mind, he did no harm; and I hope no other Englishman will again."
Leading us into another small room, the Dane approached a large iron chest, and raising, with difficulty, its heavy lid, shewed us the coronation robes of Christian lying at the bottom.
"In these robes," he said, "Christian, the present King of Denmark, was crowned; and they will never be removed hence until he is dead."
"Why?" we asked.
"It is an ancient custom still preserved in Denmark," he replied, "that her kings be buried in their robes of coronation."
He closed the lid.
To me, woven with their greatness, the fate of kings is ever one of melancholy; and the incident I have just recounted so shadowed, in a moment, the cheerfulness which had accompanied me throughout the day, that I could not observe with attention any other object of interest which presented itself, my only wish being to leave Rosenberg as speedily as I had entered it; nor could I forget the utter desolation of a man's soul, who, standing in the midst of all earthly magnificence, knows himself clad as he will be for the coffin. How impotent must seem all authority! how wan all mirth! how false all the envied supremacy of his birth!
Finding it was five o'clock, we gave a small fee to the Dane, who still kept chuckling at the capital trick he had played us with the split ceiling, and we left Rosenberg to prepare for dinner.
The good people at Copenhagen generally dine at the early hour of our English forefathers; but Sir Henry Whynne had altered his dinner time to meet our habits.
Mr. C—— would, in spite of all the civilities we called to forbid it, see us to the boat; and, then, promising to "look us up" on the morrow, vanished as suddenly as Fortunatus would have done with his invisible cap.