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Chap. IV.
THE CASTLE CHAPEL,
49
I had made acquaintance with the silver coffins of Duke
John and his wife (great waste of useful metal), was
prepared to return; but the guardian had locked the
door, and I was in for it. “ Come, mount on this step
—here,” he pointed. We did so, jammed in among the
mouldering coffins (a good thick wall of solid masonry
separates the Protestant branch of the house from those
of the Romish persuasion) ; then suddenly he removed
the lid of a coffin, and displayed to our eyes the withered
mummy of a young girl, attired in a black velvet dress
and point lace, her fair flaxen hair hanging loosely
down, her hands meekly crossed on her bosom—a
horrid exhibition; but the form was graceful even in
death.
11 This is the high-born most noble princess, daughter
of Duke John, aged twenty-two,” he commenced. I
scrambled down as fast as I could, for I saw him
prepared to rattle at the lid of another coffin ; but we were
locked in, and there was no escape. Never was man
so impressed with the dignity of the noble dust
committed to his care: he spared us not a duke, not a
landgrave, not a princeling, adolescent or in swaddling
clothes. At last we regained our liberty (I had begun
to think of the second Christian and his dwarf), and
breathed fresh air again.
And now we must, before quitting Sønderborg, turn
to the most interesting period of her eventful history
—the long and weary incarceration of unlucky
Christian, second of the house of Oldenborg. Of him you
will have read much that is false, from German as
well as from Swedish writers. Faultless he was not;
but perhaps a little too advanced for his century. In
VOL. I. E
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