re. He means to take the
priests and the monks away from us in order to give everything to the
gentlefolk.

Dane. To the gentlefolk?

Man from Smaland. Exactly! I wish King Christian--God bless him!--had
cut off a few more heads.

Windrank. Well, is the King like that? I thought he had those noble
fellows by the ear.

Man from Smaland. He? No, he lets them be born with the right to cut
oak on my ground, if I had any. For I did have a patch of land once, you
see, but then came a lord who said that my great-grandmother had taken
it all in loan from his great-grandfather, and so there was an end to
that story.

German. Why, is the King like that? I would never have believed it.

Man from Smaland. Indeed he is! Those high-born brats run around with
their guns in our woods and pick off the deer out of sheer mischief, but
if one of us peasants were dying from hunger and took a shot at one of
the beasts--well, then he wouldn't have to starve to death, for they'd
hang him--but not to an oak--Lord, no! That would be a shame for such
a royal tree. No, just to an ordinary pine. The pine, you see, has no
crown, and that's why it isn't royal--and that's why the old song says:

The peasants we hanged in lines
From the tops of the tallest pities.

It has nothing to say about crowns, mind you.

German. But the pine carries its head high just the same, and its back
is straight.

Man from Smaland. Drink, good Sirs! You're right welcome to 't. It's a
blessed drink. If only I didn't have wife and children at home! Oh, my,
my, my! But that's all one! Oh, I know a lot more, but I know how to
keep it to myself, too.

Windrank. What do you know?

German. Maybe it's something diverting?

Man from Smaland. You see--if you counted all the pines of Smaland, I
think you'd find a whole lot more of them than of oaks.

German. You think so?

Windrank. I don't like you to talk badly of the King. I don't know what
he is doing or saying, and it isn't my business either, but I know he
takes good care of the shipping trade. Yes, it's he who has put ships
on the Spanish trade, and who has made me a skipper, and so I've got no
fault to find with him.

German. He has done it out of sheer deviltry, just to hurt the trade of
Luebeck--of Luebeck, to which he owes such a great debt!

Man from Smaland. Well, he'll get what he deserves! A steer doesn't lose
his horns when you make an ox of him. Many thanks for your com