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strange procession pass by. First came a dozen drummers, who understood pretty
well how to handle their instruments; then came halberdiers, and some armed
with cross-bows. The principal person in the procession was a priest.
Astonished at what he saw, the Councillor asked what was the meaning of
all this mummery, and who that man was.

"That's the Bishop of Zealand," was the answer.

"Good Heavens! What has taken possession of the Bishop?" sighed the
Councillor, shaking his head. It certainly could not be the Bishop; even
though he was considered the most absent man in the whole kingdom, and people
told the drollest anecdotes about him. Reflecting on the matter, and without
looking right or left, the Councillor went through East Street and across the
Habro-Platz. The bridge leading to Palace Square was not to be found; scarcely
trusting his senses, the nocturnal wanderer discovered a shallow piece of
water, and here fell in with two men who very comfortably were rocking to and
fro in a boat.

"Does your honor want to cross the ferry to the Holme?" asked they.

"Across to the Holme!" said the Councillor, who knew nothing of the age in
which he at that moment was. "No, I am going to Christianshafen, to Little
Market Street."

Both men stared at him in astonishment.

"Only just tell me where the bridge is," said he. "It is really unpardonable
that there are no lamps here; and it is as dirty as if one had to wade through
a morass."

The longer he spoke with the boatmen, the more unintelligible did their
language become to him.

"I don't understand your Bornholmish dialect," said he at last, angrily, and
turning his back upon them. He was unable to find the bridge: there was no
railway either. "It is really disgraceful what a state this place is in,"
muttered he to himself. Never had his age, with which, however, he was always
grumbling, seemed so miserable as on this evening. "I'll take a
hackney-coach!" thought he. But where were the hackney-coaches? Not one
was to be seen.

"I must go back to the New Market; there, it is to be hoped, I shall find some
coaches; for if I don't, I shall never get safe to Christianshafen."

So off he went in the direction of East Street, and had nearly got to the end
of it when the moon shone forth.

"God bless me! What wooden scaffolding is that which they have set up there?"
cried he involuntarily, as he looked at East Gate, which, in those days, was
at the end of East Street.

He found, however, a little side-door open, and through this he went, and
stepped into our New Market of the present time. It was a huge desolate plain;
some wild bushes stood up here and there, while across the field flowed a
broad canal or river. Some wretched hovels for the Dutch sailors, resembling
great boxes, and after which the place was named, lay about in confused
disorder on the opposite bank.

"I either behold a fata morgana, or I am regularly tipsy," whimpered out the

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