rket; 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 Councillor. "But what's this?"

He turned round anew, firmly convinced that he was seriously ill. He
gazed at the street formerly so well known to him, and now so strange in
appearance, and looked at the houses more attentively: most of them were
of wood, slightly put together; and many had a thatched roof.

"No--I am far from well," sighed he; "and yet I drank only one glass of
punch; but I cannot suppose it--it was, too, really very wrong to give
us punch and hot salmon for supper. I shall speak about it at the first
opportunity. I have half a mind to go back again, and say what I suffer.
But no, that would be too silly; and Heaven only knows if they are up
still."

He looked for the house, but it had vanished.

"It is really dreadful," groaned he with increasing anxiety; "I cannot
recognise East Street again; there is not a single decent shop from one
end to the other! Nothing but wretched huts can I see anywhere; just
as if I were at Ringstead. Oh! I am ill! I can scarcely bear myself any
longer. Where the deuce can the house be? It must be here on this very
spot; yet there is not the slightest idea of resemblance, to such a
degree has everything changed this night! At all events here are some
people up and stirring. Oh! oh! I am certainly very ill."

He now hit upon a half-open door, through a chink of which a faint light
shone. It was a sort of hostelry of those times; a kind of public-house.
The room had some resemblance to the clay-floored halls in Holstein; a
pretty numerous company, consisting of seamen, Copenhagen bu