They rode out of the forest, and crossed an open heath; then again
they entered a pathless wood, where, towards evening, they encountered
a band of robbers.

"Whence didst thou steal that beautiful wench?" they shouted, as they
stopped the horse, and dragged its two riders down; for they were
strong and robust men. The priest had no other weapon than the knife
which he had taken from little Helga. With that he now stood on his
defence. One of the robbers swung his ponderous axe, but the young
Christian fortunately sprang aside in time to avoid the blow, which
then fell upon the unfortunate horse, and the sharp edge entered into
its neck; blood streamed from the wound, and the poor animal fell to
the ground. Helga, who had only at that moment awoke from her long
deep trance, sprang forward, and cast herself over the gasping
creature. The Christian priest placed himself before her as a shield
and protection from the lawless men; but one of them struck him on
the forehead with an iron hammer, so that it was dashed in, and the
blood and brains gushed forth, while he fell down dead on the spot.

The robbers seized Helga by her white arms; but at that moment the sun
went down, its last beam faded away, and she was transformed into a
hideous-looking frog. The pale green mouth stretched itself over half
the face, its arms became thin and slimy, and a broad hand, with
webbed-like membranes, extended itself like a fan. Then the robbers
withdrew their hold of her in terror and astonishment. She stood like
the ugly animal among them, and, according to the nature of a frog,
she began to hop about, and, jumping faster than usual, she soon
escaped into the depths of the thicket. The robbers were then
convinced that it was some evil artifice of the mischief loving Loke,
or else some secret magical deception; and in dismay they fled from
the place.

The full moon had risen, and its silver light penetrated even the
gloomy recesses of the forest, when from among the low thick
brushwood, in the frog's hideous form, crept the young Helga. She
stopped when she reached the bodies of the Christian priest and the
slaughtered horse: she gazed on them with eyes that seemed full of
tears, and the frog uttered a sound that somewhat resembled the sob of
a child who was on the point of crying. She threw herself first over
the one, then over the other; then took water up in her webbed hand,
and poured it over them; but all was in vain--they were dead, and dead
they would remain. She knew that. Wild beasts would soon come and
devour their bodies. No, that must not be; therefore she determined to
dig a grave in the ground for them, but she had nothing to dig it
with except the branch of a tree and both her own hands. With these
she worked away until her fingers bled. She found she made so little
progress, that she feared the work would never be completed. Then she
took water, and washed the dead man's face; covered it with fresh
green leaves; brought large boughs of the trees, and laid them over
him; sprinkled dead leaves amongst the branches; fetched the largest
stones she could carry, and placed them over the bodies, and filled up
the openings with moss. When she had done all this she thought that
their tomb might be strong and safe; but during her long and arduous
labour the night had passed away. The sun arose, and young Helga stood
again in all her beauty, with bloody hands, and, for the first time,
with tears on her blooming cheeks.

During this change it seemed as if two natures were wrestling within
her; she trembled, looked around her as if awakening from a painful
dream, then seized upon the slender branch of a tree near, and held
fast by it as if for support; and in another moment she climbed like a
cat up to the top of the tree, and placed herself firmly there. For a
whole long day she sat there like a frightened squirrel in the deep
loneliness of the forest, where all is still and dead, people say.
Dead! There flew by butterflies chasing each other either in sport or
in strife. There were ant-hills near, each covered with hundreds of
little busy labourers, passing in swarms to and fro. In the air danced
innumerable gnats; crowds of buzzing flies swept past; lady-birds,
dragon-flies, and other winged insects floated hither and thither;
earth-worms crept forth from the damp ground; moles crawled about;
otherwise it was still--_dead_, as people say and think.

None remarked Helga, except the jays that flew screeching to the top
of the tree where she sat; they hopped on the branches around her with
impudent curiosity, but there was something in the glance of her eye
that speedily drove them away; they were none the wiser about her,
nor, indeed, was she about herself. When the evening approached, and
the sun began to sink, the transformation time rendered a change of
position necessary. She slipped down from the tree, and, as the last
ray of the sun faded away, she was again the shrivelled frog, with the
webbed-fingered hands; but her eyes beamed now with a charming
expression, which they had not worn in the beautiful form; they were
the mildest, sweetest girlish eyes that glanced from behind the mask
of a frog--they bore witness to the deeply-thinking human mind, the
deeply-feeling human heart; and these lovely eyes burst into
tears--tears of unfeigned sorrow.

Close to the lately raised grave lay the cross of green boughs that
had been tied together--the last work of him who was now dead and
gone. Helga took it up, and the thought presented itself to her that
it would be well to place it amidst the stones, above him and the
slaughtered horse. With the sad remembrances thus awakened, her tears
flowed faster; and in the fulness of her heart she scratched the same
sign in the earth round the grave--it would be a fence that would
decorate it so well. And just as she was forming, with both of her
hands, the figure of the cross, her magic disguise fell off like a
torn glove; and when she had washed herself in the clear water of the
fountain near, and in amazement looked at her delicate white hands,
she made the sign of the cross between herself and the dead priest;
then her lips moved, then her tongue was loosened; and that name
which so often, during the ride through the forest, she had heard
spoken and chanted, became audible from her mouth--she exclaimed,
"JESUS CHRIST!"

When the frog's skin had fallen off she was again the beautiful
maiden; but her head drooped heavily, her limbs seemed to need
repose--she slept.

Her sleep was only a short one, however; she awoke about midnight, and
before her stood the dead horse full of life; its eyes glittered, and
light seemed to proceed from the wound in its neck. Close to it the
dead Christian priest showed himself--"more beautiful than Baldur,"
the Viking's wife would have said; and yet he came as a flash of fire.

There was an earnestness in his large, mild eyes, a searching,
penetrating look--grave, almost stern--that thrilled the young
proselyte to the utmost depths of her heart. Helga trembled before
him; and her memory awoke as if with the power it would exercise on
the great day of doom. All the kindness that had been bestowed on her,
every affectionate word that had been said to her, came back to her
mind with an impression deeper than they had ever before made. She
understood that it was love that, during the days of trial here, had
supported her--those days of trial in which the offspring of a being
with a soul, and a form of mud, had writhed and struggled. She
understood that she had only followed the promptings of her own
disposition, and done nothing to help herself. All had been bestowed
on her--all had been ordained for her. She bowed herself in lowly
humility and shame before Him who must be able to read every thought
of the heart; and at that moment she felt as if a purifying flame
darted through her--a light from the Holy Spirit.

"Daughter of the dust!" said the Christian priest, "from dust, from
earth hast thou arisen--from earth shalt thou again arise! A ray from
God's invisible sun shall stream on thee. No soul shall be lost. But
far off is the time when life takes flight into eternity. I come from
the land of the dead. Thou also shalt once pass through the dark
valley into yon lofty realms of brightness, where grace and perfection
dwell. I shall not guide thee now to Hedeby for Christian baptism.
First must thou disperse the slimy surface over the deep morass, draw
up the living root of thy life and thy cradle, and perform thy
appointed task, ere thou darest to seek the holy rite."

And he lifted her up on the horse, and gave her a golden censer like
those she had formerly seen at the Viking's castle; and strong was the
perfume which issued from it. The open wound on the forehead of the
murdered man shone like a diadem of brilliants. He took the cross from
the grave, and raised it high above him; then away they went through
the air, away over the rustling woods, away over the mountains where
the giant heroes are buried, sitting on the slaughtered steed. Still
onward the phantom forms pursued their way; and in the clear moonlight
glittered the gold circlet round their brows, and the mantle fluttered
in the breeze. The magic dragon, who was watching over his treasures,
raised his head and gazed at them. The hill dwarfs peeped out from
their mountain recesses and plough-furrows. There were swarms of them,
with red, blue, and green lights, that looked like the numerous sparks
in the ashes of newly-burned paper.

Away over forest and heath, over limpid streams and stagnant pools,
they hastened towards "the wild morass," and over it they flew in wide
circles. The Christian priest held aloft the cross, which looked as
dazzling as burnished gold, and as he did so he chanted the mass
hymns. Little Helga sang with him as a child follows its mother's
song. She swung the censer about as if before the altar, and there
came a perfume so strong, so powerful in its effect, that it caused
the reeds and sedges to blossom; every sprout shot up from the deep
bottom--everything that had life raised itself up; and with the rest
arose a mass of water-lilies, which looked like a carpet of
embroidered flowers. Upon it lay a sleeping female, young and
beautiful. Helga thought she beheld herself mirrored in the calm
water; but it was her mother whom she saw--the mud-king's wife--the
princess from the banks of the Nile.

The dead Christian priest prayed that the sleeper might be lifted upon
the horse. At first the latter sank under the additional burden, as if
its body were but a winding-sheet fluttering in the wind; but the sign
of the cross gave strength to the airy phantom, and all three rode on
it to the solid ground.

Then crowed the cock at the Viking's castle, and the apparitions
seemed to disappear in a mist, which was wafted away by the wind; but
the mother and daughter stood together.

"Is that myself I behold in the deep water?" exclaimed the mother.

"Is that myself I see on the shining surface?" said the daughter.

And they approached each other till form met form in a warm embrace,
and wildly the mother's heart beat when she perceived the truth.

"My child! my heart's own flower! my lotus from the watery deep!"

And she encircled her daughter with her arm, and wept Her tears
caused a new sensation to Helga--they were the baptism of love for
her.

"I came hither in the magic disguise of a swan, and I threw it off,"
said the mother. "I sank through the swaying mire deep into the mud of
the morass, which like a wall closed around me; but soon I perceived
that I was in a fresher stream--some power drew me deeper and still
deeper down. I felt my eyelids heavy with sleep--I slumbered and I
dreamed. I thought that I was again in the interior of the Egyptian
pyramid, but before me still stood the heaving alder trunk that had so
terrified me on the surface of the morass. I saw the cracks in the
bark, and they changed their appearance, and became hieroglyphics. It
was the mummy's coffin I was looking at; it burst open, and out issued
from it the monarch of a thousand years ago--the mummy form, black as
pitch, dark and shining as a wood-snail, or as that thick slimy mud.
It was the mud-king, or the mummy of the pyramids; I knew not which.
He threw his arms around me, and I felt as if I were dying. I only
felt that I was alive again when I found something warm on my breast,
and there a little bird was flapping with its wings, twittering and
singing. It flew from my breast high up in the dark, heavy space; but
a long green string bound it still to me. I heard and I comprehended
its tones and its longing: "Freedom! Sunshine! To the father!" Then I
thought of my father in my distant home, that dear sunny land--my
life, my affection--and I loosened the cord, and let it flutter away
home to my father. Since that hour I have not dreamed. I have slept a
long, dark, heavy sleep until now, when the strange sounds and perfume
awoke me and set me free."

That green tie between the mother's heart and the bird's wings, where
now did it flutter? what now had become of it? The stork alone had
seen it. The cord was the green stem; the knot was the shining
flower--the cradle for that child who now had grown up in beauty, and
again rested near her mother's heart.

And as they stood there embracing each other the stork-father flew in
circles round them, hastened back to his nest, took from it the magic
feather disguises that had been hidden away for so many years, cast
one down before each of them, and then joined them as they raised
themselves from the ground like two white swans.

"Let us now have some chat," said the stork-father, "now we understand
each other's language, even though one bird's beak is not exactly made
after the pattern of another's. It is most fortunate that you came to
night; to-morrow we should all have been away--the mother, the young
ones, and myself. We are off to the south. Look at me! I am an old
friend from the country where the Nile flows, and so is the mother,
though there is more kindness in her heart than in her tongue. She
always believed that the princess would make her escape. The young
ones and I brought these swan garbs up here. Well, how glad I am, and
how fortunate it is that I am here still! At dawn of day we shall take
our departure--a large party of storks. We shall fly foremost, and if
you will follow us you will not miss the way. The young ones and
myself will have an eye to you."

"And the lotus flower I was to have brought," said the Egyptian
princess; "it shall go within the swan disguise, by my side, and I
shall have my heart's darling with me. Then homewards--homewards!"

Then Helga said that she could not leave the Danish land until she had
once more seen her foster-mother, the Viking's excellent wife. To
Helga's thoughts arose every pleasing recollection, every kind word,
even every tear her adopted mother had shed on her account; and, at
that moment, she felt that she almost loved that mother best.

"Yes, we must go to the Viking's castle," said the stork; "there my
young ones and their mother await me. How they will stare! The mother
does not speak much; but, though she is rather abrupt, she means well.
I will presently make a little noise, that she may know we are
coming."

And he clattered with his bill as he and the swans flew close to the
Viking's castle.

Within it all were lying in deep sleep. The Viking's wife had retired
late to rest; she lay in anxious thought about little Helga, who now
for full three days and nights had disappeared along with the
Christian priest: she had probably assisted him in his escape, for it
was her horse that was missing from the stables. By what power had all
this been accomplished? The Viking's wife thought upon the wondrous
works she had heard had been performed by the immaculate Christ, and
by those who believed on him and followed him. Her changing thoughts
assumed the shapes of life in her dreams; she fancied she was still
awake, lost in deep reflection; she imagined that a storm arose--that
she heard the sea roaring in the east and in the west, the waves
dashing from the Kattegat and the North Sea; the hideous serpents
which encircled the earth in the depths of the ocean struggling in
deadly combat. It was the night of the gods--RAGNAROK, as the heathens
called the last hour, when all should be changed, even the high gods
themselves. The reverberating horn sounded, and forth over the
rainbow[3] rode the gods, clad in steel, to fight the final battle;
before them flew the winged Valkyries, and the rear was brought up by
the shades of the dead giant-warriors; the whole atmosphere was
illuminated around them by the Northern lights, but darkness conquered
all--it was an awful hour!

[Footnote 3: The Bridge of Heaven in the fables of the Scandinavian
mythology.--_Trans._]

And near the terrified Viking's wife sat upon the floor little Helga
in the ugly disguise of the frog; and she shivered and worked her way
up to her foster-mother, who took her in her lap, and disgusting as
she was in that form, lovingly caressed her. The air was filled with
the sounds of the clashing of swords, the blows of clubs, the whizzing
of arrows, like a violent hail-storm. The time was come when heaven
and earth should be destroyed, the stars should fall, and all be
swallowed up below in Surtur's fire; but a new earth and a new heaven
she knew were to come; the corn was to wave where the sea now rolled
over the golden sands; the unknown God at length reigned; and to him
ascended Baldur, the mild, the lovable, released from the kingdom of
death. He came; the Viking's wife beheld him--she recognised his
countenance: it was that of the captive Christian priest. "Immaculate
Christ!" she cried aloud; and whilst uttering this holy name she
impressed a kiss upon the ugly brow of the frog-child. Then fell the
magic disguise, and Helga stood before her in all her radiant beauty,
gentle as she had never looked before, and with speaking eyes. She
kissed her foster-mother's hands, blessed her for all the care and
kindness which she, in the days of distress and trial, had lavished
upon her; thanked her for the thoughts with which she had inspired
her mind--thanked her for mentioning _that name_ which she now
repeated, "Immaculate Christ!" and then lifting herself up in the
suddenly adopted shape of a graceful swan, little Helga spread her
wings widely out with the rustling sound of a flock of birds of
passage on the wing, and in another moment she was gone.

The Viking's wife awoke, and on the outside of her casement were to be
heard the same rustling and flapping of wings. It was the time, she
knew, when the storks generally took their departure; it was them she
heard. She wished to see them once more before their journey to the
south, and bid them farewell. She got up, went out on the balcony, and
then she saw, on the roof of an adjoining outhouse, stork upon stork,
while all around the place, above the highest trees, flew crowds of
them, wheeling in large circles; but below, on the brink of the well,
where little Helga had but so lately often sat, and frightened her
with her wild actions, sat now two swans, looking up at her with
expressive eyes; and she remembered her dream, which seemed to her
almost a reality. She thought of Helga in the appearance of a swan;
she thought of the Christian priest, and felt a strange gladness in
her heart.

The swans fluttered their wings and bowed their necks, as if they were
saluting her; and the Viking's wife opened her arms, as if she
understood them, and smiled amidst her tears and manifold thoughts.

Then, with a clattering of bills and a noise of wings, the storks all
turned towards the south to commence their long journey.

"We will not wait any longer for the swans," said the stork-mother.
"If they choose to go with us, they must come at once; we cannot be
lingering here till the plovers begin their flight. It is pleasant to
travel as we do in a family party, not like the chaffinches and
strutting cocks. Among their species the males fly by themselves, and
the females by themselves: that, to say the least of it, is not at all
seemly. What a miserable sound the stroke of the swans' wings has
compared with ours!"

"Every one flies in his own way," said the stork-father. "Swans fly
slantingly, cranes in triangles, and plovers in serpentine windings."

"Name not serpents or snakes when we are about to fly up yonder," said
the stork-mother. "It will only make the young ones long for a sort of
food which they can't get just now."

"Are these the high hills, beneath yonder, of which I have heard?"
asked Helga, in the disguise of a swan.

"These are thunder-clouds driving under us," replied her mother.

"What are these white clouds that seem so stationary?" asked Helga.

"These are the mountains covered with everlasting snow that thou
seest," said her mother; and they flew over the Alps towards the blue
Mediterranean.

"There is Africa! there is Egypt!" cried in joyful accents, under her
swan disguise, the daughter of the Nile, as high up in the air she
descried, like a whitish-yellow, billow-shaped streak, her native
soil.

The storks also saw it, and quickened their flight.

"I smell the mud of the Nile and the wet frogs," exclaimed the
stork-mother. "It makes my mouth water. Yes, now ye shall have nice
things to eat, and ye shall see the marabout, the ibis, and the crane:
they are all related to our family, but are not nearly so handsome as
we are. They think a great deal, however, of themselves, particularly
the ibis: he has been spoiled by the Egyptians, who make a mummy of
him, and stuff him with aromatic herbs. _I_ would rather be stuffed
with living frogs; and that is what ye would all like also, and what
ye shall be. Better a good dinner when one is living than to be made a
grand show of when one is dead. That is what I think, and I know I am
right."

"The storks have returned," was told in the splendid house on the
banks of the Nile, where, within the open hall, upon soft cushions,
covered with a leopard's skin, the king lay, neither living nor dead,
hoping for the lotus flower from the deep morass of the north. His
kindred and his attendants were standing around him.

And into the hall flew two magnificent white swans--they had arrived
with the storks. They cast off the dazzling magic feather garbs, and
there stood two beautiful women, as like each other as two drops of
water. They leaned over the pallid, faded old man; they threw back
their long hair; and, as little Helga bowed over her grandfather, his
cheeks flushed, his eyes sparkled, life returned to his stiffened
limbs. The old man rose hale and hearty; his daughter and his
grand-daughter pressed him in their arms, as if in a glad morning
salutation after a long heavy dream.

And there was joy throughout the palace, and in the storks' nest also;
but _there_ the joy was principally for the good food, the swarms of
nice frogs; and whilst the learned noted down in haste, and very
carelessly, the history of the two princesses and of the lotus flower
as an important event, and a blessing to the royal house, and to the
country in general, the old storks related the history in their own
way to their own family; but not until they had all eaten enough, else
these would have had other things to think of than listening to any
story.

"Now thou wilt be somebody," whispered the stork-mother; "it is only
reasonable to expect that."

"Oh! what should _I_ be?" said the stork-father. "And what have _I_
done? Nothing!"

"Thou hast done more than all the others put together. Without thee
and the young ones the two princesses would never have seen Egypt
again, or cured the old man. Thou wilt be nothing! Thou shouldst, at
the very least, be appointed court doctor, and have a title bestowed
on thee, which our young ones would inherit, and their little ones
after them. Thou dost look already exactly like an Egyptian doctor in
my eyes."

The learned and the wise lectured upon "the fundamental notion," as
they called it, which pervaded the whole tissue of events. "Love
bestows life." Then they expounded their meaning in this manner:--

"The warm sunbeam was the Egyptian princess; she descended to the
mud-king, and from their meeting sprang a flower----"

"I cannot exactly repeat the words," said the stork-father, who had
been listening to the discussion from the roof, and was now telling in
his nest what he had heard. "What they said was not easy of
comprehension, but it was so exceedingly wise that they were
immediately rewarded with rank and marks of distinction. Even the
prince's head cook got a handsome present--that was, doubtless, for
having prepared the repast."

"And what didst thou get?" asked the stork-mother. "They had no right
to overlook the most important actor in the affair, and that was
thyself. The learned only babbled about the matter. But so it is
always."

Late at night, when the now happy household reposed in peaceful
slumbers, there was one who was still awake; and that was not the
stork-father, although he was standing upon his nest on one leg, and
dozing like a sentry. No; little Helga was awake, leaning over the
balcony, and gazing through the clear air at the large blazing stars,
larger and brighter than she had ever seen them in the North, and yet
the same. She was thinking upon the Viking's wife near "the wild
morass"--upon her foster-mother's mild eyes--upon the tears she had
shed over the poor frog-child, who was now standing under the light of
the glorious stars, on the banks of the Nile, in the soft spring air.
She thought of the love in the heathen woman's breast--the love she
had shown towards an unfortunate being, who in human form was as
vicious as a wild beast, and in the form of a noxious animal was
horrible to look upon or to touch. She gazed at the glittering stars,
and thought of the shining circle on the brow of the dead priest, when
they flew over the forest and the morass. Tones seemed again to sound
on her ears--words she had heard spoken when they rode together, and
she sat like an evil spirit there--words about the great source of
love, the highest love, that which included all races and all
generations. Yes, what was not bestowed, won, obtained? Helga's
thoughts embraced by day, by night, the whole of her good fortune;
she stood contemplating it like a child who turns precipitately from
the giver to the beautiful gifts; she passed on to the increasing
happiness which might come, and would come. Higher and higher rose her
thoughts, till she so lost herself in the dreams of future bliss that
she forgot the Giver of all good. It was the superabundance of
youthful spirits which caused her imagination to take so bold a
flight. Her eyes were flashing with her thoughts, when suddenly a loud
noise in the court beneath recalled her to mundane objects. She saw
there two enormous ostriches running angrily round in a narrow circle.
She had never before seen these large heavy birds, who looked as if
their wings were clipped; and when she asked what had happened to
them, she heard for the first time the Egyptian legend about the
ostrich.

Its race had once been beautiful, its wings broad and strong. Then one
evening the largest forest birds said to it, "Brother, shall we fly
to-morrow, God willing, to the river, and drink?" And the ostrich
answered, "Yes, I will." At dawn they flew away, first up towards the
sun, higher and higher, the ostrich far before the others. It flew on
in its pride up towards the light; it relied upon its own strength,
not upon the Giver of that strength; it did not say, "God willing."
Then the avenging angel drew aside the veil from the streaming flames,
and in that moment the bird's wings were burnt, and he sank in
wretchedness to the earth. Neither he nor his species were ever
afterwards able to raise themselves up in the air. They fly
timidly--hurry along in a narrow space; they are a warning to mankind
in all our thoughts and all our enterprises to say, "God willing."

And Helga humbly bowed her head, looked at the ostriches rushing past,
saw their surprise and their simple joy at the sight of their own
large shadows on the white wall, and more serious thoughts took
possession of her mind, adding to her present happiness--inspiring
brighter hopes for the future. What was yet to happen? The best for
her, "God willing."

In the early spring, when the storks were about to go north again,
Helga took from her arm a golden bracelet, scratched her name upon it,
beckoned to the stork-father, hung the gold band round his neck, and
bade him carry it to the Viking's wife, who would thereby know that
her adopted daughter lived, was happy, and remembered her.

"It is heavy to carry," thought the stork, when it was hung round his
neck; "but gold and honour must not be flung away upon the high road.
The stork brings luck--they must admit that up yonder."

"Thou layest gold, and I lay eggs," said the stork-mother; "but thou
layest only once, and I lay every year. But neither of us gets any
thanks, which is very vexatious."

"One knows, however, that one has done one's duty," said the
stork-father.

"But that can't be hung up to be seen and lauded; and if it could be,
fine words butter no parsnips."

So they flew away.

The little nightingale that sang upon the tamarind tree would also
soon be going north, up yonder near "the wild morass." Helga had often
heard it--she would send a message by it; for, since she had flown in
the magical disguise of the swan, she had often spoken to the storks
and the swallows. The nightingale would therefore understand her, and
she prayed it to fly to the beech wood upon the Jutland peninsula,
where the tomb of stone and branches had been erected. She asked it
to beg all the little birds to protect the sacred spot, and frequently
to sing over it.

And the nightingale flew away, and time flew also.

And the eagle stood upon a pyramid, and looked in the autumn on a
stately procession with richly-laden camels, with armed and splendidly
equipped men on snorting Arabian horses shining white like silver,
with red trembling nostrils, with long thick manes hanging down to
their slender legs. Rich guests--a royal Arabian prince, handsome as a
prince should be--approached the gorgeous palace where the storks'
nests stood empty. Those who dwelt in these nests were away in the far
North, but they were soon to return; and they arrived on the very day
that was most marked by joy and festivities. It was a wedding feast;
and the beautiful Helga, clad in silk and jewels, was the bride. The
bridegroom was the young prince from Arabia. They sat at the upper end
of the table, between her mother and grandfather.

But she looked not at the bridegroom's bronzed and manly cheek, where
the dark beard curled. She looked not at his black eyes, so full of
fire, that were fastened upon her. She gazed outwards upon the bright
twinkling stars that glittered in the heavens.

Then a loud rustling of strong wings was heard in the air. The storks
had come back; and the old pair, fatigued as they were after their
journey, and much in need of rest, flew immediately down to the rails
of the verandah, for they knew what festival was going on. They had
heard already at the frontiers that Helga had had them painted upon
the wall, introducing them into her own history.

"It was a kind thought of hers," said the stork-father.

"It is very little," said the stork-mother. "She could hardly have
done less."

And when Helga saw them she rose, and went out into the verandah to
stroke their backs. The old couple bowed their necks, and the youngest
little ones felt themselves much honoured by being so well received.

And Helga looked up towards the shining stars, that glittered more and
more brilliantly; and between them and her she beheld in the air a
transparent form. It floated nearer to her. It was the dead Christian
priest, who had also come to her bridal solemnity--come from the
kingdom of heaven.

"The glory and the beauty up yonder far exceed all that is known on
earth," he said.

And Helga pleaded softly, earnestly, that but for one moment she might
be allowed to ascend up thither, and to cast one single glance on
those heavenly scenes.

Then he raised her amidst splendour and magnificence, and a stream of
delicious music. It was not around her only that all seemed to be
brightness and music, but the light seemed to stream in her soul, and
the sweet tones to be echoed there. Words cannot describe what she
felt.

"We must now return," he said; "thou wilt be missed."

"Only one more glance!" she entreated. "Only one short minute!"

"We must return to earth--the guests are all departing."

"But one more glance--the last!"

And Helga stood again in the verandah, but all the torches outside
were extinguished; all the light in the bridal saloon was gone; the
storks were gone; no guests were to be seen--no bridegroom. All had
vanished in these three short minutes.

Then Helga felt anxious. She wandered through the vast empty
halls--there slept foreign soldiers. She opened the side door which
led to her own chambers, and, as she fancied she was entering them,
she found herself in the garden: it had not stood there. Red streaks
crossed the skies; it was the dawn of day.

Only three minutes in heaven, and a whole night on earth had passed
away.

Then she perceived the storks. She called to them, spoke their
language, and the old stork turned his head towards her, listened, and
drew near.

"Thou dost speak our language," said he. "What wouldst thou? Whence
comest thou, thou foreign maiden?"

"It is I--it is Helga! Dost thou not know me? Three minutes ago we
were talking together in the verandah."

"That is a mistake," said the stork. "Thou must have dreamt this."

"No, no," she said, and reminded him of the Viking's castle, "the wild
morass," the journey thence.

Then the old stork winked with his eyes.

"That is a very old story; I have heard it from my great,
great-grandmother's time. Yes, truly there was once in Egypt a
princess from the Danish land; but she disappeared on the evening of
her wedding, many hundred years ago, and was never seen again. Thou
canst read that thyself upon the monument in the garden, upon which
are sculptured both swans and storks, and above it stands one like
thyself in the white marble."

And so it was. Helga saw, comprehended it all, and sank on her knees.

The sun burst forth in all its morning splendour, and as, in former
days, with its first rays fell the frog disguise, and the lovely form
became visible; so now, in the baptism of light, arose a form of
celestial beauty, purer than the air, as if in a veil of radiance to
the Father above. The body sank into dust, and where she had stood lay
a faded lotus flower!

"Well, this is a new finale to the story," said the stork-father,
"which I by no means expected; but I am quite satisfied with it."

"I wonder what the young ones will say to it?" replied the
stork-mother.

"Ah! that, indeed, is of the most consequence," said the
stork-father.

_The Quickest Runners._

There was a large reward offered--indeed, there were two rewards
offered, a larger and a lesser one--for the greatest speed, not in one
race alone, but to such as had got on fastest throughout the year.

"I got the highest prize," said the hare. "One had a right to expect
justice when one's own family and best friends were in the council;
but that the snail should have got the second prize I consider as
almost an insult to me."

"No," observed the wooden fence, which had been a witness to the
distribution of the prizes; "you must take diligence and good will
into consideration. That remark was made by several very estimable
persons, and that was also my opinion. To be sure the snail took half
a year to cross the threshold; but he broke his thigh-bone in the
tremendous exertion which that was for him. He devoted himself
entirely to this race; and, moreover, he ran with his house on his
back. All these weighed in his favour, and so he obtained the second
prize."

"I think my claims might also have been taken into consideration,"
said the swallow. "More speedy than I, in flight and motion, I believe
no one has shown himself. And where have I not been? Far, far away!"

"And that is just your misfortune," said the wooden fence. "You gad
about too much. You are always on the wing, ready to start out of the
country when it begins to freeze. You have no love for your
fatherland. You cannot claim any consideration in it."

"But if I were to sleep all the winter through on the moor," inquired
the swallow--"sleep my whole time away--should I be thus entitled to
be taken into consideration?"

"Obtain an affidavit from the old woman of the moor that you did sleep
half the year in your fatherland, then your claims will be taken into
consideration."

"I deserved the first prize instead of the second," said the snail. "I
know very well that the hare only ran from cowardice, whenever he
thought there was danger near. I, on the contrary, made the trial the
business of my life, and I have become a cripple in consequence of my
exertions. If any one had a right to the first prize it was I; but I
make no fuss; I scorn to do so."

"I can declare upon my honour that each prize, at least as far as my
voice in the matter went, was accorded with strict justice," said the
old sign-post in the wood, who had been one of the arbitrators. "I
always act with due reflection, and according to order. Seven times
before have I had the honour to be engaged in the distribution of the
prizes, but never until to-day have I had my own way carried out. My
plan has always hitherto been thwarted--that was, to give the first
prize to one of the first letters in the alphabet, and the second
prize to one of the last letters. If you will be so good as to grant
me your attention, I will explain it to you. The eighth letter in the
alphabet from _A_ is _H_--that stands for _Hare_, and therefore I
awarded the greatest prize to the Hare; and the eighth letter from the
end is _S_, therefore the _Snail_ obtained the second prize. Next time
the _I_ will carry off the first prize, and _R_ the second. A due
attention to order and rotation should prevail in all rewards and
appointments. Everything should go according to rule. _Rule_ must
precede merit."

"I should certainly have voted for myself, had I not been among the
judges," said the mule. "People must take into account not only how
quickly one goes, but what other circumstances are in question; as,
for instance, how much one carries. But I would not this time have
thought about that, neither about the hare's wisdom in his flight--his
tact in springing suddenly to one side, to put his pursuers on the
wrong scent, away from his place of concealment. No; there is one
thing many people think much of, and which ought never to be
disregarded. It is called THE BEAUTIFUL. I saw that in the hare's
charming well-grown ears; it is quite a pleasure to see how long they
are. I fancied that I beheld myself when I was little, and so I voted
for him."

"Hush!" said the fly. "As for me, I will not speak; I will only say
one word. I know right well that I have outrun more than one hare. The
other day I broke the hind legs of one of the young ones. I was
sitting on the locomotive before the train: I often do that. One sees
so well there one's own speed. A young hare ran for a long time in
front of the engine: he had no idea that I was there. At length he was
just going to turn off the line, when the locomotive went over his
hind legs and broke them, for I was sitting on it. The hare remained
lying there, but I drove on. That was surely getting before him; but I
do not care for the prize."

"It appears to me," thought the wild rose, but she did not say it--it
is not her nature to express her ideas openly, though it might have
been well had she done so--"it appears to me that the sunbeam should
have had the first prize of honour, and the second also. It passes in
a moment the immeasurable space from the sun down to us, and comes
with such power that all nature is awakened by it. It has such beauty,
that all we roses redden and become fragrant under it. The high
presiding authorities do not seem to have noticed _it_ at all. Were I
the sunbeam, I would give each of them a sunstroke, that I would; but
it would only make them crazy, and they will very likely be that
without it. I shall say nothing," thought the wild rose. "There is
peace in the wood; it is delightful to blossom, to shed refreshing
perfume around, to live amidst the songs of birds and the rustling of
trees; but the sun's rays will outlive us all."

"What is the first prize?" asked the earth-worm, who had overslept
himself, and only now joined them.

"It gives free entrance to the kitchen garden," said the mule. "I
proposed the prize, as a clear-sighted and judicious member of the
meeting, with a view to the hare's advantage. I was resolved he should
have it, and he is now provided for. The snail has permission to sit
on the stone fence, and to enjoy the moss and the sunshine; and,
moreover, he is appointed to be one of the chief judges of the next
race. It is well to have one who is practically acquainted with the
business in hand--on a committee, as human beings call it. I must say
I expect great things from the future--we have made so good a
beginning."

_The Bell's Hollow._

"Ding-dong! ding-dong!" sounded from the buried bell in Odensee river.
What sort of a river is that? Every child in the town of Odensee knows
it. It flows round the foot of the gardens, from the locks to the
water-mill, away under the wooden bridges. In the river grow yellow
water-lilies, brown feather-like reeds, and the soft velvet-like
bulrushes, so high and so large. Old, split willow trees, bent and
twisted, hang far over the water by the side of the monks' meadows and
the bleaching greens; but a little above is garden after garden--the
one very different from the other; some with beautiful flowers and
arbours, clean and in prim array, like dolls' villages; some only
filled with cabbages; while in others there are no attempts at a
garden to be seen at all, only great elder trees stretching themselves
out, and hanging over the running water, which here and there is
deeper than an oar can fathom.

Opposite to the nunnery is the deepest part. It is called "The Bell's
Hollow," and there dwells the merman. He sleeps by day when the sun
shines through the water, but comes forth on the clear starry nights,
and by moonlight. He is very old. Grandmothers have heard of him from
their grandmothers. They said he lived a lonely life, and had scarcely
any one to speak to except the large old church bell. Once upon a time
it hung up in the steeple of the church; but now there is no trace
either of the steeple or the church, which was then called Saint
Albani.

"Ding-dong! ding-dong!" rang the bell while it stood in the steeple;
and one evening when the sun was setting, and the bell was in full
motion, it broke loose, and flew through the air, its shining metal
glowing in the red sunbeams. "Ding-dong! ding-dong! now I am going to
rest," sang the bell; and it flew out to Odensee river, where it was
deepest, and therefore that spot is now called "The Bell's Hollow."
But it found neither sleep nor rest there. Down at the merman's it
still rings; so that at times it is heard above, through the water,
and many people say that its tones foretell a death; but there is no
truth in that, for it rings to amuse the merman, who is now no longer
alone.

And what does the bell relate? It was so very old, it was there before
our grandmothers' grandmothers were born, and yet it was a child
compared with the merman, who is an old, quiet, strange-looking
person, with eel-skin leggings, a scaly tunic adorned with yellow
water-lilies, a wreath of sedges in his hair, and weeds in his beard.
It must be confessed he was not very handsome to look at.

It would take a year and a day to repeat all that the bell said, for
it told the same old stories over and over again very minutely, making
them sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, according to its mood. It
told of the olden days--the rigorous, dark times.

To the tower upon St. Albani Church, where the bell hung, ascended a
monk. He was both young and handsome, but had an air of deep
melancholy. He looked through an aperture out over the Odensee river.
Its bed then was broad, and the monks' meadows were a lake. He gazed
over them, and over the green mound called "The Nuns Hill," beyond
which the cloister lay, where the light shone from a nun's cell. He
had known her well, and he remembered the past, and his heart beat
wildly at the recollection.

"Ding-dong! ding-dong!" This was one of the bell's stories:--

"There came up to the tower one day an idiot servant of the bishop;
and when I, the bell, who am cast in hard and heavy metal, swung about
and pealed, I could have broken his head, for he seated himself
immediately under me, and began to play with two sticks, exactly as if
it had been a stringed instrument, and he sang to it thus: 'Now I may
venture to sing aloud what elsewhere I dare not whisper--sing of all
that is kept hidden behind locks and bolts. Yonder it is cold and
damp. The rats eat the living bodies. No one knows of it; no one hears
of it--not even now, when the bell is pouring forth its loudest
peal--ding-dong! ding-dong!'

"There was a king: he was called Knud. He humbled himself both before
bishops and monks; but as he unjustly oppressed the people, and laid
heavy taxes on them, they armed themselves with all sorts of weapons,
and chased him away as if he had been a wild beast. He sought shelter
in the church, and had the doors and windows closed. The furious
multitude surrounded the sacred edifice, as I heard related; the
crows and the ravens, and the jackdaws to boot, became scared by the
noise and the tumult; they flew up into the tower, and out again; they
looked on the multitude below, they looked also in at the church
windows, and shrieked out what they saw.

"King Knud knelt before the altar and prayed; his brothers Erik and
Benedict stood guarding him with their drawn swords; but the king's
servitor, the false Blake, betrayed his lord. They knew outside where
he could be reached. A stone was cast in through the window at him,
and the king lay dead. There were shouts and cries among the angry
crowd, and cries among the flocks of frightened birds; and I joined
them too. I pealed forth, 'Ding-dong! ding-dong!'

"The church bell hangs high, sees far around, receives visits from
birds, and understands their language. To it whispers the wind through
the wickets and apertures, and through every little chink; and the
wind knows everything. He hears it from the air, for it encompasses
all living things; it even enters into the lungs of human beings--it
hears every word and every sigh. The air knows all, the wind repeats
all, and the bell understands their speech, and rings it forth to the
whole world--'Ding dong! ding dong!'

"But all this was too much for me to hear and to know. I had not
strength enough to ring it all out. I became so wearied, so heavy,
that the beam from which I hung broke, and I flew through the luminous
air down to where the river is deepest, where the merman dwells alone
in solitude; and here I am, year after year, relating to him what I
have seen and what I have heard. 'Ding-dong! ding-dong!'"

Thus rang the chimes from "The Bell's Hollow" in the Odensee river, as
my grandmother declares.

But our schoolmaster says there is no bell ringing down there, for it
could not be; and there is no merman down there, for there are no
mermen; and, when all the church bells are ringing loudly, he says
that it is not the bells, but the air that makes the sound. My
grandmother told me that the bell also said this; so, since the
schoolmaster and the bell agree in this, no doubt it is true.

The air knows everything. It is round us, it is in us; it speaks of
our thoughts and our actions; and it proclaims them farther than did
the bell now down in the Hollow in Odensee river, where the merman
dwells--it proclaims all out into the great vault of heaven, far, far
away, even into eternity, up to where the glorious bells of paradise
peal in tones unknown to mortal ears.

_Soup made of a Sausage-stick._

I.

"We had a capital dinner yesterday," said an aged female mouse to one
who had not been at the feast. "I sat only twenty-one from the old
King of the Mice: that was not being badly placed. Shall I tell you
what we had for dinner? It was all very well arranged. We had mouldy
bread, the skin of bacon, tallow candles, and sausages. Twice we
returned to the charge: it was as good as if we had had two dinners.
There was nothing but good-humour and pleasant chit-chat, as in an
agreeable family circle. Not a mite was left except the sausage-stick.
The conversation happened to fall upon the possibility of making soup
of a sausage-stick. All said they had heard of it, but no one had ever
tasted that soup, or knew how to prepare it. A health was proposed to
the inventor, who, it was remarked, deserved to be superintendent of
the poor. Was not that witty? And the old King of the Mice arose and
declared that the one among the young mice who could prepare the soup
in question most palatably should be his queen, and he would grant
them a year and a day for the trial."

"Well, that was not a bad idea," said the other mouse. "But how is the
soup made?"

"Ay, how is it made? That was what they were all asking, the young and
the old. Every one was willing enough to become the queen, but they
were all loath to take the trouble of going out into the world to
acquire the prescribed qualification; yet it was absolutely necessary
to do so. But it does not suit every one to leave her family and her
snug old mouse-hole. One cannot be going out every day after cheese
parings, and sniffing the rind of bacon. No: such pursuits, too often
indulged in, would perchance put them in the way of being eaten alive
by a cat."

These apprehensions were quite terrible enough to scare most of the
mice from going forth upon the search of knowledge. Only four
presented themselves for the undertaking. They were young and active,
but very poor. They would have gone to the four corners of the earth,
if only good fortune might attend their enterprise. Each of them took
with her a sausage-stick to remind her what she was travelling for. It
was to be her walking staff.

On the 1st of May they set out, and on the 1st of May, a year after,
they returned; but only three of them. The fourth did not report
herself, and sent no tidings of herself; and yet it was the day fixed
for the royal decision.

"There shall be no sadness or no drawback to our pleasure," said the
King of the Mice, as he gave orders that every mouse within several
miles round should be invited. They were to assemble in the kitchen.
The three travelled mice were drawn up in a row alone. In the place
of the fourth, who was absent, was deposited a sausage-stick covered
with black crepe. No one ventured to utter a word until the three had
made their statements, and the king had determined what more was to be
said.

We have now to hear all this.

II.

WHAT THE FIRST LITTLE MOUSE HAD SEEN AND LEARNT ON HER JOURNEY.

"When I first went forth into the wide world," said the little mouse,
"I thought, as so many of my age do, that I had swallowed all the
wisdom of the earth; but that was not the case--it required a year and
a day for that to come to pass. I went at once to sea, on board a ship
which was bound for the north. I had heard that cooks at sea were
pretty well acquainted with their business; but there is little to do
when one has plenty of sides of bacon, barrels of salt meat, and musty
meal at hand. One lives delicately on these nice things; but one
learns nothing like making soup of a sausage-stick. We sailed for many
days and nights, and a stormy and wet time we had of it. When we
reached our destination I left the vessel: this was far away up in the
north.

"One has a strange feeling on leaving one's own mouse-hole at home,
being carried away in a ship, which becomes a home for the time, and
suddenly finding one's self, at the distance of more than a hundred
miles, standing alone in a foreign land. I saw myself amidst a large
tangled wood full of pine and birch trees. Their scent was so strong!
It is not at all my taste; but the perfume from the wild plants was so
spicy that I was quite charmed, and thought of the sausage and the
seasoning for the soup. There were lakes amidst the forest, the water
was beautifully clear close at hand, but looking in the distance as
black as ink. There were white swans upon the lake. I mistook them at
first for foam, they lay so still; but when I saw them fly I
recognised them. They, however, belong to the race of geese. No one
can deny his kindred. I like mine, and I hastened to seek the field
mice, who, truth to tell, know very little except what concerns their
food; and it was just that on account of which I had travelled to a
foreign country. That any one should think of making soup out of a
sausage-stick seemed to them so extraordinary an idea, that it was
speedily circulated through the whole wood; but that the problem
should be solved they considered an impossibility. Little did I think
then that the very same night I should be initiated into the process.

"It was midsummer; therefore it was that the woods scented so
strongly, they said; therefore were the plants so aromatic in their
perfume, the lake so clear, and yet so dark with the white swans upon
them. On the borders of the forest, amidst three or four houses, was
erected a pole as high as a mainmast, and around it hung wreaths and
ribbons. This was the Maypole. Girls and young men danced round it,
and sang to the accompaniment of the fiddler's violin. All went on
merrily till after the sun had set, and the moon had risen, but I took
no part in the festivity; for what had a little mouse to do with a
forest ball? I sat down amidst the soft moss, and held fast my
sausage-stick. The moon shone brightly on a place where there was a
solitary tree surrounded by moss so fine--yes, I venture to say as
fine as the Mice-King's skin--but it had a green tint, and its colour
was very soothing to the eye. All at once I saw approaching a set of
the most beautiful little people, so little that they would only have
reached to my knee; they looked like men and women, but they were
better proportioned. They called themselves Elves, and their garments
were composed of the leaves of flowers, trimmed with the wings of
gnats and flies--not at all ugly. They seemed as if they were
searching for something--what I did not know; but when they came a
little nearer to me their leader tapped my sausage-stick, and said,
'This is what we want; it is all ready, all prepared;' and he became
more and more joyful as he gazed upon my walking-stick.

"'You may borrow it, but not keep it,' said I.

"'Not keep it!' they all exclaimed together, as they seized my
sausage-stick, and, dancing away to the green mossy spot, placed the
sausage-stick there in the centre of it. They determined also on
having a Maypole; and the stick they had just captured seeming quite
suited to their purpose, it was soon ornamented.

"Small spiders spun gold threads around it--hung up waving veils and
flags so finely worked, shining so snow-white under the moonbeams,
that my eyes were quite dazzled. They took the colours from the wings
of the butterflies, and sprinkled them on the white webs, till they
seemed to be laden with flowers and diamonds. I did not know my own
sausage-stick--it had become such a magnificent Maypole, that
certainly had not its equal in the world. And now came tripping
forwards the great mass of the elves, most of them very slightly
clad; but what they did wear was of the finest materials. I looked
on, of course, but in the background, for I was too big for them.

"Then what a game commenced! It was as if a thousand glass bells were
ringing, the sound was so clear and full. I fancied the swans were
singing, and I also thought I heard cuckoos and thrushes. At length it
seemed as if the whole wood was filled with music. There were the
sweet voices of children, the ringing of bells, and the songs of
birds; and all these melodious sounds seemed to proceed from the
elves' Maypole--an orchestra in itself--and that was my sausage-stick.
I never would have believed that so much could have come from it; but
much, of course, depended on what hands it fell into. I became very
much agitated, and I wept, as a little mouse can weep, from sheer
pleasure.

"The night was all too short; but, at this time of the year, the
nights are not long up yonder. At the dawn of day there arose a fresh
breeze; the surface of the lake became ruffled; all the delicately
fine veils and flags disappeared in the air; the swinging kiosks of
cobwebs, the suspension bridges and balustrades, or whatever they are
called, which were constructed from leaf to leaf, vanished into
nothing; six elves brought me my sausage-stick, and at the same time
asked if I had any wish they could fulfil; whereupon I begged them to
tell me how soup could be made from a sausage-stick.

"'What we can do,' said the foremost, laughing, 'you have just seen.
You could scarcely have recognised your sausage-stick.'

"'You mean as you transformed it,' said I; and then I told them the
cause of my journey, and what was expected at home from it. 'Of what
use,' I asked, 'will it be to the King of the Mice and all our large
community that I have seen this beautiful sight? I cannot shake the
sausage-stick and say, You see here the stick--now comes the soup!
That would be like a hoax.'

"Then the elf dipped its little finger into a blue violet, and said to
me,--

"'Look! I spread a charm over your walking-stick, and when you return
to the palace of the King of the Mice make it touch the king's warm
breast, and violets will spring from every part of the staff, even in
the coldest winter weather. See! you have now something worth taking
home, and perhaps a little more.'"

But before the little mouse had finished repeating what the elf had
said she laid her staff against the king's breast, and sure enough
there sprang forth from it the loveliest flowers. They yielded so
strong a perfume that the king commanded that the mice who stood
nearest the chimney should stick their tails in the fire, in order
that the smell of the singed hair should overpower the odour from the
flowers, which was very offensive.

"But what was 'the little more' you spoke of?" asked the King of the
Mice.

"Oh!" said the little mouse, "it is what is called an _effect_;" and
so she turned her sausage-stick. And behold, there were no more
flowers visible! She held only the naked stick, and she moved it like
a stick for beating time.

"The violets are for sight, smell, and touch, the elf told me; but
there are still wanting hearing and taste."

She beat time, and there was music--not such, however, as sounded in
the wood at the elfin fête; no, such as is heard at times in the
kitchen. It came suddenly, like the wind whistling down the chimney.
The pots and the pans boiled over, and the shovel thundered against
the large brass kettle. It stopped as suddenly as it had commenced;
and then was only to be heard the smothered song of the tea-kettle,
which was so strange with its tones rising and falling, and the little
pot and the large pot boiling, the one not troubling itself about the
other, as if neither could think. Then the little mouse moved her
time-stick faster and faster; the pots bubbled up and boiled over; the
wind roared in the chimney; the commotion was so great that the little
mouse herself got frightened, and dropped the stick.

"It was hard work to make that soup," cried the old king; "but where
is the result--the dish?"

"That is all," said the little mouse, courtesying.

"All! Then let us hear what the next has to tell," said the king.

III.

WHAT THE SECOND MOUSE HAD TO RELATE.

"I was born in the palace library," said the second mouse. "I, and
several members of my family there, have never had the good fortune to
enter the dining-room, let alone the pantry. It was only when I first
began my travels, and now again to-day, that I have even beheld a
kitchen. We had often to endure hunger in the library, but we acquired
much knowledge. The report of the reward offered by royalty for the
discovery of the process by which soup could be made of a
sausage-stick reached us even up there, and my grandmother thereupon
looked for a manuscript which, though she could not read herself, she
had heard read, wherein it was said,--

"'A poet can make soup out of a sausage-stick.'

"She asked me if I were a poet. I confessed I was not, to which she
replied that I must go and try to become one. I begged to know what
was to be done to acquire this art, for it appeared to me about as
difficult to attain as to make the soup itself. But my grandmother had
heard a good deal of reading, and she told me that the three things
principally necessary were--good sense, imagination, and feeling. 'If
thou canst go and furnish thyself with _these_, thou wilt be a poet;
and there will be every chance of thy success in the matter of the
sausage-stick.'

"So I set off to the westward, out into the wide world, to become a
poet.

"_Good sense_ I knew was the most important of all things, the two
other qualities not being so highly esteemed. So I went first after
good sense. Well, where did it dwell? 'Go to the ant; consider her
ways, and be wise,' a great king of the Hebrews has said. I knew this
from the library, and I never stopped until I reached a large
ant-hill; and there I settled myself to watch them.

"They are a very respectable tribe, the ants, and full of good sense;
everything among them is as correctly done as a well-calculated sum in
arithmetic. 'To labour and to lay eggs,' say they, 'is to live in the
present, and to provide for the future;' and that they assuredly do.
They divide themselves into the clean ants and the dirty ones. Rank is
distinguished by a number. The queen ant is number one, and her will
is their only law. She has swallowed all the wisdom, and it was of
consequence to me to listen to her; but she said so much and was so
profoundly wise, that I could scarcely comprehend her.

"She said that their hill was the highest in the world; but close to
the hill stood a tree that was higher, certainly much higher. She
could not deny this, so she did not allude to it. One evening an ant
had lost his way, and finding himself on the tree, he crept up the
trunk, not as far as the top, but much higher than any ant had ever
gone before; and when he descended, and found his way home at last, he
imprudently told in the ant-hill of something much higher at a little
distance from it. This was taken by one and all as an affront to the
whole community, and the offending ant was condemned to have his mouth
muzzled, as well as to perpetual solitude. But shortly after another
ant got as far as the tree, and made a similar journey and a similar
discovery. He spoke of it, however, discreetly and mysteriously, and
as he happened to be an ant of consideration--one of the clean--they
believed him; and when he died they placed an egg-shell over him as a
monument in honour of his extensive knowledge.

"I observed," said the little mouse, "that the ants continually move
with their eggs on their backs. One of them dropped hers. She tried
very hard to get it up again, but could not succeed; then two others
came and helped her with all their might, until they had nearly lost
their own eggs, whereupon they let the attempt alone, for one is
nearest to one's self; and the queen ant remarked that both heart and
good sense had been shown. 'These two qualities place us ants among
reasonable beings,' she said. 'Sense ought to be, and is, of the most
consequence; and I have the most of that;' and she raised herself, in
her self-satisfaction, on her hind leg. I could not mistake her, and
I swallowed her. 'Go to the ant; consider her ways, and be wise.' I
had now the queen.

"I then went nearer to the above-mentioned large tree: it was an oak.
It had high branches, a majestic crown of leaves, and was very old. I
perceived that a living creature resided in it--a female. She was
called a Dryad. She had been born with the tree, and would die with
it. I had heard of this in the library; and now I beheld one of the
real trees, and a real oak-nymph. She uttered a frightful shriek when
she saw me near her; for she was like all women, very much afraid of
mice. She, however, had more reason to be afraid of me than others of
her sex have, for I could have gnawed the tree in two, and on it hung
her life. I spoke to her kindly and cordially. This gave her courage,
and she took me in her slender hand; and when she understood what had
brought me out into the wide world, she promised that I should,
perhaps that very night, become possessed of one of the two treasures
of which I was in search. She told me that Imagination was her very
particular friend; that he was as charming as the God of Love; and
that he often, for many an hour, sought repose under the spreading
foliage of the tree, which then sighed more musically over the two. He
called her _his_ dryad, she said, and the tree _his_ tree. The mighty,
gnarled, majestic oak was just to his taste, with its broad roots sunk
deep into the earth, its trunk and its coronal rising so high in the
free air, meeting the drifting snow, the cutting winds, and the bright
sunshine, before they had reached the ground. All this she said, and
she continued: 'The birds sing up yonder, and tell of foreign lands,
and upon the only decayed branch the stork has built a nest; and it
is a pleasure to hear of the country where the pyramids stand. All
this Fancy can well depict, and very much more. I myself can describe
life in the woods from the time that I was quite little, and this tree
was so tiny that a nettle could have covered it, until now, when it is
so strong and mighty. Sit down yonder under the woodruffs, and be on
the look-out. When Fancy comes I shall find an opportunity of pinching
his wing, and stealing a little feather from it. You shall take that,
and no poet will ever have been better provided. Will that do?'

"And Imagination came; a feather was plucked from him, and I got it,"
said the little mouse. "I held it in the water till it became soft. It
was still hard of digestion, but I managed to gnaw it all up. It is
not at all easy to stuff one's self so as to be a poet--there is so
much to be put in one. I had now got two of the ingredients--good
sense and imagination; and I knew by their help that the third
ingredient was to be found in the library; for a great man has said
and written that there are romances which are useful in easing people
of a superfluity of tears, and which also act as a sort of swamp to
cast feelings into. I remembered some of these books; they had always
looked very enticing to me. They were so thumbed, so greasy, they must
have been very popular.

"I returned home to the library, ate almost as much as a whole
romance--that is to say, the soft part of it, the pith--but the crust,
the binding, I let alone. When I had digested this, and another to
boot, I perceived how my inside was stirred up; so I ate part of a
third, and then I considered myself a poet, and every one about me
said I was. I had headaches, of course, and all sorts of aches. I
thought over what story I could work up about a sausage-stick, and
there was no end of sticks and pegs crowding my mind. The queen ant
had had an uncommon intellect. I remembered the man who took a white
peg into his mouth, and both he and it became invisible. All my
thoughts ran upon sticks. A poet can write even upon these; and I am a
poet I trust, for I have fagged hard to be one. I shall be able every
day in the week to amuse you with the story of a stick. This is my
soup."

"Let us hear the third," said the King of the Mice.

"Pip, pip!" said a little mouse at the kitchen door. It was the fourth
of them, the one they thought dead. She tripped in, and jumped upon
the upper end of the sausage-stick with the black crape. She had been
journeying day and night, travelling on the railroad by the goods
train, in which she took great pleasure, and yet she had almost
arrived too late; but she hurried forward, puffing and panting, and
looking very much jaded. She had lost her sausage-stick, but not her
voice; for she began talking with the utmost velocity, as if every one
was dying to hear her, and no one could say anything to the purpose
but herself. How she did chatter! But she had arrived so unexpectedly
that no one had time to find fault with her or her talking, so she
went on. Now let us listen.

IV.

WHAT THE FOURTH MOUSE--WHO SPOKE BEFORE THE THIRD ONE HAD SPOKEN--HAD
TO RELATE.

"I went straight to the greatest city," she said. "I do not remember
its name. I do not recollect names well. I came from the railway with
confiscated goods to the town council-hall, and there I ran to the
jailer. He spoke of his prisoners, especially of one of them, who had
uttered some very imprudent words; and when these had been repeated,
and written down and read, 'The whole,' said he, 'was only--soup of a
sausage-stick; but that soup may cost him dear.' I felt interested in
the prisoner," continued the little mouse, "and I watched for an
opportunity to go in where he was. There is always a mouse-hole behind
locked doors. He looked very pale, had a dark beard, and large shining
eyes. The lamp smoked; but the walls were accustomed to this. They did
not turn any blacker. The prisoner was scratching on them both
pictures and verses; but I did not read the latter. I fancy he was
tired of being alone, for I was a welcome guest. He enticed me with
crumbs of bread, with his flute, and kind words. He was so happy with
me! I put confidence in him, and we became friends. He shared with me
bread and water, and gave me cheese and sausages. I lived luxuriously;
but it was not alone the good cheer that detained me. He allowed me to
run upon his hand and arm all the way up to his shoulder; he allowed
me to creep into his beard, and called me his little friend. I became
very dear to him, and our regard was mutual. I forgot my errand out in
the wide world; I forgot my sausage-stick in a crevice in the floor;
and there it still lies. I wished to remain where I was; for, if I
left him, the poor prisoner would have nothing to care for in this
world. I remained; but he, alas! did not. He spoke to me so sadly for
the last time, gave me a double allowance of bread and cheese parings,
kissed his finger to me, and then he was gone--gone, never to return.
I do not know his history. 'Soup of a sausage-stick!' said the jailer,
and I went to him; but I was wrong to trust in him. He took me up,
indeed, in his hand; but he put me in a cage, a treadmill. That was
hard work--jumping and jumping without getting on a bit, and only to
be laughed at.

"The jailer's grandchild was a pretty little fellow, with waving hair
as yellow as gold, sparkling, joyous eyes, and a laughing mouth.

"'Poor little mouse!' he exclaimed, peeping in at my horrid cage, and
at the same time drawing up the iron pin that closed it.

"I seized the opportunity, and sprang first to the window-ledge, and
thence to the conduit-pipe. Free, free! that was all I could think of,
and not the object of my journey.

"It became dark--it was almost night. I took up my lodgings in a
tower, where dwelt a watchman and an owl. I could not trust either of
them, and the owl least of the two. It resembles a cat, and has one
great fault--that it eats mice. But one can be on one's guard, and
that I assuredly would be. She was a respectable, extremely
well-educated old owl. She knew more than the watchman, and almost as
much as I myself did. The young owls made a great fuss about
everything.

"'Don't make soup of a sausage-stick,' said she.

"This was the severest thing she could say to them, she was so very
fond of her family. I felt so much inclined to place some reliance in
her that I cried "Pip!" from the crevice in which I was concealed. My
confidence in her seemed to please her, and she assured me that I
should be safe under her protection; that no animal would be permitted
to injure me until winter, when she might herself fall upon me, as
food would be scarce.

"She was very wise in all things. She proved to me that the watchman
could not blow a blast without his horn, which hung loosely about him.

"He piques himself exceedingly upon his performances, and fancies he
is the owl of the tower. The sound ought to be very loud, but it is
extremely weak. 'Soup of a sausage-stick!'

"I begged her to give me the recipe for the soup, and she explained it
to me thus:--

"'Soup of a sausage-stick is but a cant phrase among men, and is
differently interpreted. Every one fancies his own interpretation the
best, but in sober reality there is nothing in it whatsoever.'

"'Nothing!' cried I. That was a poser. 'Truth is not always pleasant,
but truth is always the best.' So also said the old owl. I considered
the matter, and came to the conclusion that when I brought _the best_
I brought more than 'soup of a sausage-stick;' and thereupon I
hastened homewards, so that I might arrive in good time to bring what
is most valuable--THE TRUTH. The mice are an enlightened community,
and their king is the cleverest of them all. He can make me his queen
for the sake of Truth."

"Thy truth is a falsehood," said the mouse who had not yet had an
opportunity of speaking. "I can make the soup, and I will do it."

V.

HOW THE SOUP WAS MADE.

"I have not travelled at all," said the last mouse. "I remained in our
own country. It is not necessary to go to foreign lands--one can
learn as well at home. I remained there. I have not acquired any
information of unnatural beings. I have not eaten information, or
conversed with owls. I confined myself to original thoughts. Will some
one now be so good as to fill the kettle with water, and put it on?
Let there be plenty of fire under it. Let the water boil--boil
briskly; then throw the sausage-stick in. Will his majesty the King of
the Mice be so condescending as to put his tail into the boiling pot,
and stir it about? The longer he stirs it, the richer the soup will
become. It costs nothing, and requires no other ingredients--it only
needs to be stirred."

"Cannot another do this?" asked the king.

"No," said the mouse. "The effect can only be produced by the royal
tail."

The water was boiled, and the King of the Mice prepared himself for
the operation, though it was rather dangerous. He stuck his tail out,
as mice are in the habit of doing in the dairy, when they skim the
cream off the dish with their tails; but he had no sooner popped his
tail into the warm steam than he drew it out and sprang down.

"Of course you are my queen," said he; "but we shall wait for the soup
till our golden wedding, and the poor in my kingdom will have
something to rejoice over in the future."

So the nuptials were celebrated; but many of the mice, when they went
home, said, "It could not well be called soup of a sausage-stick, but
rather soup of a mouse's tail."

They allowed that each of the narratives was very well told, but the
whole might have been better. "I, for instance, would have related my
adventures in such and such words...."

These were the critics, and they are always so wise--afterwards.

And this history went round the world. Opinions were divided about it,
but the historian himself remained unmoved. And this is best in great
things and in small.

_The Neck of a Bottle._

Yonder, in the confined, crooked streets, amidst several poor-looking
houses, stood a narrow high tenement, run up of framework that was
much misshapen, with corners and ends awry. It was inhabited by poor
people, the poorest of whom looked out from the garret, where, outside
the little window, hung in the sunshine an old, dented bird-cage,
which had not even a common cage-glass, but only the neck of a bottle
inverted, with a cork below, and filled with water. An old maid stood
near the open window; she had just been putting some chickweed into
the cage, wherein a little linnet was hopping from perch to perch, and
singing until her warbling became almost overpowering.

"Yes, you may well sing," said the neck of the bottle; but it did not
say this as we should say it, for the neck of a bottle cannot speak,
but it thought so within itself, just as we human beings speak
inwardly.

"Yes, you may well sing, you who have your limbs entire. You should
have experienced, like me, what it is to have lost your lower part, to
have only a neck and a mouth, and the latter stopped up with a cork,
as I have; then you would not sing. But it is well that somebody is
contented. I have no cause to sing, and I cannot. I could once though,
when I was a whole bottle. How I was praised at the furrier's in the
wood, when his daughter was betrothed! Yes, I remember that day as if
it were yesterday. I have gone through a great deal when I look back.
I have been in fire and in water, down in the dark earth, and higher
up than many; and now I am suspended outside of a bird-cage in the air
and sunshine. It might be worth while to listen to my story; but I do
not speak it aloud, because I cannot."

So it went on thinking over its own history, which was curious enough;
and the little bird poured forth its strains, and in the street below
people walked and drove, every one thinking of himself, some scarcely
thinking at all; but the neck of the bottle _was_ thinking.

It remembered the blazing smelt-furnace at the manufactory where it
was blown into life. It remembered even now that it had been extremely
warm; that it had looked into the roaring oven, its original home, and
had felt strongly inclined to spring back into it; but that by
degrees, as it felt cooler, it found itself comfortable enough where
it was, placed in a row with a whole regiment of brothers and sisters
from the same furnace, some of which, however, were blown into
champagne bottles, others into ale bottles; and that made a
difference, since out in the world an ale bottle may contain the
costly LACRYMÆ CHRISTI, and a champagne bottle may be filled with
blacking; but what they were born to every one can see by their shape,
so that noble remains noble even with blacking in it.

All the bottles were packed up, and our bottle with them. It then
little thought that it would end in being only the neck of a bottle
serving as a bird's glass--an honourable state of existence truly, but
still something. It did not see daylight again until it was unpacked
along with its comrades in the wine merchant's cellar, and was washed
for the first time. That was a funny sensation. After that it lay
empty and uncorked, and felt so very listless; it wanted something,
but did not know what it wanted. At length it was filled with an
excellent, superior wine, and, when corked and sealed, a label was
stuck on it outside with the words, "Best quality." It was as if it
had taken its first academic degree. But the wine was good, and the
bottle was good. The young are fond of music, and much singing went on
in it, the songs being on themes about which it scarcely knew
anything--the green sunlit hills where the wine grapes grew, where
beautiful girls and handsome swains met, and danced, and sang, and
loved. Ah! there it is delightful to dwell. And all this was made into
songs in the bottle, as it is made into songs by young poets, who also
frequently know nothing at all about the subjects they choose.

One morning it was bought. The furrier's boy was ordered to purchase a
bottle of the best wine, and this one was carried away in a basket,
with ham, cheese, and sausage; there were also the nicest butter and
the finest bread. The furrier's daughter herself packed the basket.
She was so young, so pretty! Her brown eyes laughed, and the smile on
her sweet mouth was almost as expressive as her eyes. She had
beautiful soft hands--they were so white; yet her throat and neck were
still whiter. It could be seen at once that she was one of the
prettiest girls in the neighbourhood, and, strange to say, not yet
engaged.

The basket of provisions was placed in her lap when the family drove
out to the wood. The neck of the bottle stuck out above the parts of
the white napkins that were visible. There was red wax on its cork,
and it looked straight into the eyes of the pretty girl, and also into
those of the young sailor--the mate of a ship--who sat beside her. He
was the son of a portrait painter, and had just passed a first-rate
examination for mate, and was to go on board his vessel the next day
to sail for far-distant countries. Much was said about his voyage
during the drive; and when _it_ was spoken of, there was not exactly
an expression of joy in the eyes and about the mouth of the furrier's
daughter.

The two young people wandered away into the green wood. They were in
earnest conversation. Of what were they speaking? The bottle did not
hear that, for it was still standing in the basket of provisions. It
seemed a long time before it was taken out, but then it saw pleasant
faces round. Everybody was smiling, and the furrier's daughter also
smiled; but she spoke less, and her cheeks were blushing like two red
roses.

The father took the full bottle and the corkscrew. Oh! it is
astonishing to a bottle the first time a cork is drawn from it. The
neck of the bottle could never afterwards forget that important moment
when, with a low sound, the cork flew, and the wine streamed out into
the awaiting glasses.

"To the health of the betrothed pair!" cried the father, and every
glass was drained; and the young mate kissed his lovely bride. "May
happiness and every blessing attend you both!" said the old people;
and the young man begged them to fill their glasses again for his
toast.

"To my return home and my wedding, within a year and a day!" he
cried; and when the glasses were empty he took the bottle, and lifted
it high above his head. "Thou hast been present during the happiest
day of my life; thou shalt never serve another!"

And he cast the bottle high up in the air. Ah! little did the
furrier's daughter think then that she should often look on that which
was flung up; but she was destined to do so. It fell among the thick
mass of reeds that bordered a pond in the woods. The neck of the
bottle remembered distinctly what it thought as it lay there, and it
was this: "I gave them wine, and they give me bog-water; but it was
well meant." It could no more see the betrothed young couple, or the
happy old people; but it heard in the distance the sounds of music and
of mirth. Then came two little peasant children peering among the
reeds. They saw the bottle, and carried it off with them: so it was
provided for.

At home, in the cottage among the woods where they lived, their eldest
brother, who was a sailor, had, the day before, come to say farewell;
for he was about to start on a long voyage. The mother was busy
packing various little matters, which the father was to take with him
to the town in the evening, when he went to see his son once more
before his departure, and give him again his mother's blessing. A
phial with spiced brandy was placed in the package; but at that moment
the children came in with the larger, stronger bottle which they had
found. A larger quantity could go into it than into the phial. It was
not the red wine, as before, that the bottle received, but some bitter
stuff. However, it also was excellent as a stomachic. Our bottle was
thus again to set forth on its travels. It was carried on board to
Peter Jensen, who happened to be in the same ship as was the young
mate; but he did not see the bottle, and, if he had seen it, he would
not have known it to have been the same from which were drunk the
toasts in honour of his betrothal, and to his safe return.

Although there was no longer wine in it, there was something quite as
good; and whenever Peter Jensen brought it forth, his comrades called
it "the apothecary." The nice medicine was so much in vogue that very
soon there was not a drop of it left. The bottle had a pleasant time
of it, upon the whole, while its contents were in such high favour. It
acquired the name of the great "Loerke"--"Peter Jensen's
Loerke."[4]

[Footnote 4: "Loerke," which generally means "lark," is the name
given among the lower classes in Denmark to a spirit bottle of a
peculiar shape. There is no word that corresponds with it in
English.--_Trans._]

But this time was passed, and it had lain long neglected in a corner.
It did not know whether it was on the voyage out or homewards; for it
had never been on shore anywhere. One day a great storm arose; the
black, heavy waves rolled mountains high, and heaved the ship up and
cast it down by turns; the mast came down with a crash; the sea stove
in a plank; the pumps were no longer of any avail. It was a pitch-dark
night. The ship sank; but at the last minute the young mate wrote on a
slip of paper, "_In the name of Jesus--we are lost!_" He wrote down
the name of his bride, his own name, and that of his ship; then he
thrust the note into an empty bottle that was within reach, pressed in
the cork tightly, and cast the bottle out into the raging sea. Little
did he know that it was the identical bottle which had contained the
wine in which had been drunk the toasts of joy and hope for him and
her, that was now tossing on the billows with these last
remembrances, and the message of death.

The ship sank--the crew sank--but the bottle skimmed the waves like a
sea-fowl. It had a heart then--the letter of love within it. And the
sun rose, and the sun set. This sight recalled to the bottle the scene
of its earliest life--the red glowing furnace, to which it had once
longed to return. It encountered calms and storms; but it was not
dashed to pieces against any rocks. It was not swallowed by any shark.
For more than a year and a day it drifted on--now towards the north,
now towards the south--as the currents carried it. In other respects
it was its own master; but one can become tired even of that.

The written paper--the last farewell from the bridegroom to his
bride--would only bring deep sorrow if it ever reached the proper
hands. But where were these hands, that had looked so white when they
spread the tablecloth on the fresh grass in the green wood on the
betrothal-day? Where was the furrier's daughter? Nay, where was her
country? and to what country was it nearest? The bottle knew not. It
drifted and drifted, and it was so tired of always drifting on; but it
could not help itself. Still, still it had to drift, until at last it
reached the land; but it was a foreign country. It did not understand
a word that was said, for the language was not such as it had been
formerly accustomed to hear; and one feels quite lost if one does not
understand the language spoken around.

The bottle was taken up and examined; the slip of paper in it was
observed, taken out, and opened; but nobody could make out what was
written on it, though every one knew that the bottle must have been
cast overboard, and that some information was contained in the paper;
but what _that_ was remained a mystery, and it was put back into the
bottle, and the latter laid by in a large press, in a large room, in a
large house.

Whenever any stranger came the slip of paper was taken out, opened,
and examined, so that the writing, which was only in pencil, became
more and more illegible from the frequent folding and unfolding of the
paper, till at length the letters could no longer be discerned. After
the bottle had remained about a year in the press it was removed to
the loft, and was soon covered with dust and cobwebs. Ah! then it
thought of its better days, when red wine was poured from it in the
shady wood, and when it swayed about upon the waves, and had a secret
to carry--a letter, a farewell sigh.

It now remained in the loft for twenty mortal years, and it might have
remained longer, had not the house been going to be rebuilt. The roof
was taken off, the bottle discovered and talked about; but it did not
understand what was said. One does not learn languages, living up
alone in a loft, even in twenty years. "Had I but been down in the
parlour," it thought, and with truth, "I would, of course, have
learned it."

It was now washed and rinsed. It certainly wanted cleaning sadly, and
very clear and transparent it felt itself after it--indeed, quite
young again in its old age; but the slip of paper committed to its
charge, that was lost in the washing. The bottle was now filled with
seeds. Such contents were new to it. Well stopped up and wrapped up it
was, and it could see neither a lantern nor a candle, not to mention
the sun or the moon. "One ought to see something when one goes on a
journey," thought the bottle; but it did not, however, until it
reached the place it was going to, and was there unpacked.

"What trouble these people abroad have taken about it!" was remarked;
"yet no doubt it is cracked." But it was not cracked. The bottle
understood every word that was said, for they were spoken in the
language it had heard at the furnace, at the wine merchant's, in the
wood, and on board ship--the only right good old language, one which
could be understood. The bottle had returned to its own country, and
in its joy had nearly jumped out of the hands that were holding it. It
scarcely observed that the cork had been removed, its contents shaken
out, and itself put away in the cellar to be kept and forgotten. But
home is dearest, even in a cellar. It had enough to think over, and
time enough to think, for it lay there for years; but at last one day
folks came down there to look for some bottles, and took this one with
them.

Outside, in the garden, there were great doings; coloured lamps hung
in festoons; paper lanterns, formed like large tulips, gave forth
their subdued light. It was also a charming evening; the air was calm
and clear; the stars began, one after the other, to shine in the deep
blue heavens above; while the round moon looked like a pale
bluish-grey ball, with a golden border encircling it.

There were also some illuminations in the side walks, at least enough
to let people see their way; bottles with lights in them were placed
here and there among the hedges; and amidst these stood the bottle we
know, the one that was destined to end as the mere neck of a bottle
and the glass of a bird-cage. At the period just named, however, it
found everything so exquisitely charming. It was again among flowers
and verdure, again surrounded by joy and festivity; it again heard
singing and musical instruments, and the hum and buzz of a crowd of
people, especially from that part of the gardens which were most
brilliantly illuminated. It had a good situation itself, and stood
there useful and happy, bearing its appointed light. During such a
pleasant time it forgot the twenty years up in the loft, and it is
good to be able to forget.

Close by it passed a couple arm-in-arm, like the happy pair in the
wood, the mate and the furrier's daughter. It seemed to the bottle as
if it were living that time over again. Guests and visitors of
different ages wandered up and down, gazing upon the illuminations;
and among these was an old maid, without relations, but not without
friends. Probably her thoughts were occupied, as were those of the
bottle; for she was thinking of the green woods, and of a young couple
just betrothed. These _souvenirs_ affected her much, for she had been
a party in them--a prominent party. This was in her happier hours; and
one never forgets these, even when one becomes a very old maid. But
she did not recognise the bottle, and it did not recognise her. So it
is we wear out of each other's knowledge in this world, until people
meet again as these two did.

The bottle passed from the public gardens to the wine merchant's; it
was there again filled with wine, and sold to an aëronaut, who was to
go up in a balloon the following Sunday. There was a multitude of
people to witness the ascent, there was a regimental band, and there
were many preparations going on. The bottle saw all this from a
basket, in which it lay with a living rabbit, who was very much
frightened when it saw it was to go up in the parachute. The bottle
did not know where it was to go; it beheld the balloon extending
wider and wider, and becoming so large that it could not be larger;
then lifting itself up higher and higher, and rolling restlessly until
the ropes that held it were cut, when it arose majestically into the
air, with the aëronaut, the basket, the bottle, and the rabbit; then
the music played loudly, and the assembled crowd shouted, "Hurra!
hurra!"

"It is droll to go aloft," thought the bottle; "it is a novel sort of
a voyage. Up yonder one cannot run away."

Many thousand human beings gazed up at the balloon, and the old maid
gazed among the rest. She stood by her open garret window, where a
cage hung with a little linnet, which at that time had no water-glass,
but had to content itself with a cup. Just within the window stood a
myrtle tree, that was moved a little aside, that it might not come in
the way while the old maid was leaning out to look at the balloon. And
she could perceive the aëronaut in it; she saw him let the rabbit down
in the parachute, and then, having drunk the health of the crowd
below, throw the bottle high up in the air. Little did she think that
it was just the same bottle she had seen thrown up high in honour of
herself and her lover, on a well-remembered happy day amidst the green
wood, when she was young.

The bottle had no time to think, it was so unexpectedly exalted to the
highest position it had ever attained in its life. The roofs and the
spires lay far below, and the people looked as small as pigmies.

It now descended, and that at a different rate of speed from the
rabbit. The bottle cast somersaults in the air--it felt itself so
young, so buoyant. It was half full of wine, but not long. What a trip
that was! The sun shone upon the bottle, and all the crowd looked up
at it. The balloon was soon far away, and the bottle was soon also
out of sight, for it fell upon a roof and broke in two; but the
fragments rebounded again, and leaped and rolled till they reached the
yard below, where they lay in smaller pieces; for only the neck of the
bottle escaped destruction, and it looked as if it had been cut round
by a diamond.

"It may still serve as a glass for a bird's cage," said the man in the
cellar.

But he himself had neither a bird nor a cage, and it would have cost
too much to buy these because he had found the neck of a bottle that
would answer for a glass. The old maid, however, up in the garret,
might make use of it; and so the neck of the bottle was sent up to
her. A cork was fitted to it, and, as first mentioned, after its many
changes, it was filled with fresh water, and was hung in front of the
cage of the little bird, that sang until its warbling became almost
overpowering.

"Yes, you may well sing," was what the neck of the bottle had said.

It was somewhat of a wonder, as it had been up in a balloon; but with
more of its history no one was acquainted. Now it hung as a bird's
glass, it could hear the people driving and walking in the street
below, and it could hear the old maid talking in her room to a female
friend of her youthful days. They were chatting together, but speaking
of the myrtle plant in the window, not of the neck of the bottle.

"You must not throw away two rix dollars for a wedding bouquet for
your daughter," said the old maid. "You shall have one from me full of
flowers. Look how pretty that plant is! Ah! it is a slip of the myrtle
tree you gave me the day after my betrothal, that I myself, when the
year was past, might take my wedding bouquet from it. But that day
never came. The eyes were for ever closed that were to have illumined
for me the path of happiness in this life. Away, down in the ocean's
depths, he sleeps calmly--that angel soul! The tree became an old
tree, but I have become still older; and when it died, I took its last
green branch and planted it in the earth. That slip has now grown into
a high plant, and will at last appear amidst bridal array, and form a
wedding bouquet for my friend's daughter."

And tears started to the old maid's eyes. She spoke of the lover of
her youth--of the betrothal in the wood; she thought of the toasts
that were there drunk; she thought of the first kiss, but she did not
speak of that, for she was now but an old maid. She thought of
much--much; but little did she think that outside of her window was
even then a _souvenir_ from that regretted time--the neck of the very
bottle that had been drawn when the unforgotten toasts were drunk! Nor
did the bottle-neck know her; for it had not heard all she had said,
because it had been thinking only of itself.

_The Old Bachelor's Nightcap._

There is a street in Copenhagen which bears the extraordinary name of
"Hyskenstroede." And why is it so called? and what is the meaning of
that name? It is German; but the German has been corrupted. "Häuschen"
it ought to be called, and that signifies "small houses." Those which
stood there formerly--and, indeed, for several years--were not much
larger than the wooden booths that we see now-a-days erected at fairs.
Yes, only a little larger, and with windows; but the panes were of
horn or stretched bladder, for in these days it was too expensive to
have glass windows in all houses; but the time in question was so far
back that our grandfathers' grandfathers, when they mentioned it, also
spoke of it as "in ancient days," for it was several hundred years
ago.

Many rich merchants in Bremen and Lubeck carried on business in
Copenhagen. They did not, however, go there themselves--they sent
their clerks; and these persons generally resided in the wooden houses
in the "Small Houses' Street," and held sales of ale and spices. The
German ale was so excellent, and there were so many kinds--"Bremer,
Prysing, Emser ale," even "Brunswick Mumme;" also, all sorts of
spices, such as saffron, anise, ginger, and especially pepper, that
was the most valued; and from this the German commercial travellers
acquired the name in Denmark of "Pepper Swains, or Bachelors." They
entered into an agreement before they left home not to marry; and many
of them lived there to old age. They had to do entirely for
themselves, attend to all little domestic matters, even make their own
fires if they had any. Several of them became lonely old men, with
peculiar thoughts and peculiar habits. Every unmarried man who has
arrived at a certain age is now here called after them in derision,
"Pebersvend"--old bachelor. It was necessary to relate all this, in
order that our story might be understood.

People made great fun of these old bachelors; laughed at their
nightcaps, at their drawing them down over their eyes, and so retiring
to their couches.

    "Saw the firewood, saw it through!
    Old bachelors, there's work for you.
    To bed with you your nightcaps go;
    Put out your lights, and cry, 'O woe!'"

Yes, such songs were made on them. People ridiculed the old bachelor
and his nightcap, just because they knew so little about him, or it.
Alas! let no one desire such a nightcap. And why not? Listen!

Over in the "Small Houses' Street," in ancient days, there was no
pavement; people stepped from hole to hole as in a narrow, cut-up
defile; and narrow enough this was, too. The dwellings on the opposite
side of the street stood so close together, that in summer a sail was
spread across the street from one booth to another, and the whole
place was redolent of pepper, saffron, ginger, and various spices.
Behind the desks stood few young men; no, they were almost all old
fellows; and they were by no means, as we would represent them,
crowned with a peruke or a nightcap, and equipped in shaggy
pantaloons, a vest and coat buttoned tightly up. This was the costume
in which our forefathers were painted, it is true; but this community
of old bachelors could not afford to have their pictures taken. Yet it
would have been worth while now to have preserved a portrait of one of
them, as they stood behind their desks, or on festival days, when they
wended their way to church. The hat they wore was broad-brimmed, and
with a high crown; and sometimes one of the younger men would stick a
feather in his. The woollen shirt was concealed by a deep linen
collar; the tight-fitting jacket was closely buttoned, a loose cloak
over it; and the pantaloons descended almost into the square-toed
shoes, for stockings they wore none. In the belt were stuck the eating
knife and the spoon; and, moreover, a large knife as a weapon of
defence, for such was often needed in these days.

Thus was equipped, on grand occasions, old Anthon, one of the oldest
bachelors of the "small houses;" only he did not wear the high-crowned
hat, but a fur cap, and under that a knitted cap, a veritable
nightcap, to which he had so accustomed himself that it was never off
his head: he actually possessed two of the same description. He would
have made an excellent subject for a painter; he was so skinny, so
wrinkled about the mouth and the eyes; had long fingers, with such
large joints; and his grey eyebrows were so thick. A bunch of grey
hair from one of these hung over his left eye: it certainly was not
pretty, but it made him very remarkable. It was known that he came
from Bremen, at least that his master lived there; but he himself was
from Thüringen, from the town of Eisenach, close to Wartburg. Old
Anthon spoke little of his native place, but he thought of it the
more.

The old lodgers in the street did not associate much with each other.
Each remained in his own booth, which, was locked early in the
evening, and then looked very dismal; for only a glimmering light
could be seen through the horn panes of the window in the roof,
beneath which sat, most frequently on his bed, the old man with his
German psalm-book, and chanted the evening hymn, or else he went out
and strolled about at night by way of amusement; but amusement it
could hardly be called. To be a stranger in a foreign country is a
very sad situation. No notice is taken of him unless he stands in
anyone's way.

Often when it was a pitch-dark night, with pouring rain, all around
looked woefully gloomy and desolate. No lanterns were to be seen,
except the little one that hung at one end of the street, before the
image of the Virgin Mary that adorned the wall there. The water was
heard dashing and splashing against the wooden work near, out by
Slotsholm, on which the other end of the street opened. Such evenings
are always long and lonely if there be nothing to interest one. It is
not necessary every day to pack and unpack, to make up parcels, and to
polish scales; but one must have something to do, and accordingly old
Anthon industriously mended his clothes and cleaned his shoes. When at
length he retired to rest, it was his custom to keep on his nightcap.
At first he would draw it well down, but he would soon push it up
again to look if the light were totally extinguished; nor would he be
satisfied without getting up and feeling it. He would then lie down
again, and turn on the other side, and again draw down the nightcap;
but soon the idea would cross his mind that possibly the coals might
not have become cold in the little fire-pot beneath--the fire might
not be totally out--that a spark might be kindled, fly forth, and do
mischief; and he would get out of his bed and creep down the ladder,
for it could not be called the stairs; and when, on reaching the
fire-pot, he perceived that not a spark was visible, and he might
retire to rest in peace, he would stop half way up, being seized with
the fear that the iron bolt might not be properly drawn across the
door, or the shutters properly secured; and down he would go again,
wearying his poor thin legs. By the time he crept back to his humble
couch he would be half frozen, and his teeth would be chattering in
his head with the cold. Then he would draw the covering higher up
around him, and his nightcap lower down over his eyes, and his
thoughts would wander from the business and burdens of the day; but
ah! not to soothing scenes. His reveries were never fraught with
pleasure, for then came old reminiscences, and hung their curtains up;
and sometimes they were full of pins, that pricked so severely as to
bring tears into his eyes. Such wounds old Anthon often received, and
his warm tears fell on the coverlet or the floor, sounding as if one
of sorrow's deepest strings had burst; they did not dry up, but
kindled into a flame, which cast its light for him on the panorama of
a life--a picture which never vanished from his mind. Then he would
dry his eyes with his nightcap, and chase away the tears, and
endeavour to chase away the picture with them; but it would not go,
for it was imbedded in his heart. The panorama did not follow the
exact order of events; also the saddest parts were generally most
prominent. And what were these?

"Beautiful are the beech groves in Denmark," it is said; but still
more beautiful did the beech trees in the meadows near Wartburg seem
to Anthon. Mightier and more majestic seemed to him the old oak up at
the proud baronial castle, where the swinging lantern hung over the
dark masses of rock; sweeter was the perfume of the apple blossoms
there than in the Danish land; he seemed to feel the charming scent
even now. A tear trickled down his cheeks, and he saw two little
children, a boy and a girl, playing together. The boy had rosy cheeks,
yellow waving hair, and honest blue eyes--he was the rich merchant's
son, little Anthon himself. The little girl had dark hair and eyes,
and she looked bold and clever--she was the burgomaster's daughter
Molly. The childish couple were playing with an apple. At length they
divided it in two, and each took a half. They also divided the seeds
between them, and ate them all to one; and the little girl proposed to
plant that in the ground.

"You will see what will come of this--something will come which you
can hardly fancy. An apple tree will come up, but not all at once."

And they planted the seed in a flower-pot: both of them were very
eager about it. The boy dug a hole in the mould with his finger; the
little girl placed the seed in it, and both of them filled up the hole
with earth.

"You must not pull it up to-morrow to see if it has taken root," she
said; "that should not be done. I did that with my flower: twice I
took it up to see if it was growing. I had very little sense then, and
the flower died."

The flower-pot was left in Anthon's care, and every morning, the
whole winter through, he looked at it; but nothing was to be seen
except the black earth. Then came spring; the sun shone so warmly, and
two tiny green leaves at last made their appearance in the flower-pot.

"These are Molly and me," said Anthon. "They are charming--they are
lovely."

Soon there came a third leaf. Who did that represent? And leaf after
leaf came up; while day by day, and week by week, the plant became
larger and stronger, until it grew into quite a tree. And another tear
fell again from its fountain--from old Anthon's heart.

There stretched out, near Eisenach, a range of stony hills, one of
which, round in shape, was very conspicuous: neither tree, nor bush,
nor grass grew on it. It was named Mount Venus. Therein dwelt Venus, a
goddess from the heathen ages. She was here called Fru Holle, and she
knew and could see every child in Eisenach. She had decoyed into her
power the noble knight Tannhäuser, the minnesinger, from the musical
circle of Wartburg.

Little Molly and Anthon often went to this hill, and she one day said
to him,--

"Would you dare to knock on the side of the hill and cry, 'Fru Holle!
Fru Holle! open the gate; here is Tannhäuser?' But Anthon dared not do
it. Molly dared, however; yet only these words--"Fru Holle! Fru
Holle!"--did she say very loudly and distinctly--the rest seemed to
die away on the wind; and she certainly did pronounce the rest of the
sentence so indistinctly, that Anthon was sure she had not really
added the other words. Yet she looked very confident--as bold as when,
in the summer evening, she and several other little girls came to play
in the garden with him, and when they all wanted to kiss him, just
because he would not be kissed, and defended himself from them, she
alone ventured to achieve the feat.

"_I_ dare to kiss him!" she used to say, with a proud toss of her
little head. Then she would take him round his neck to prove her
power, and Anthon would put up with it, and think it all right from
her. How pretty and how clever she was! Fru Holle within the hill was
also very charming, but her charms, it had been said, sprung from the
seducing beauty bestowed on her by the evil one; but still greater
beauty was to be found in the holy Elizabeth, the patron saint of the
country, the pious Thüringian princess, whose good works, known
through traditions and legends, were celebrated in so many places. A
picture of her hung in the chapel with a silver lamp before it, but
Molly did not resemble her.

The apple tree the two children had planted grew year after year; it
became so large that it had to be transferred to the garden, out in
the open air, where the dew fell and the sun shone warmly; it became
strong enough to withstand the severity of winter, and after winter's
hard trials it seemed as if rejoicing in the return of spring: it then
put forth blossoms. In August it had two apples, one for Molly and one
for Anthon: it would not have been well if it had had less.

The tree had grown rapidly, and Molly had grown as fast as the tree;
she was as fresh as an apple blossom, but she was no longer to see
that flower. Everything changes in this world. Molly's father left his
old home, and Molly went with him--far, far away. In our time it might
be only a few hours' journey by railway, but in those days it took
more than a day and a night to arrive so far east from Eisenach. It
was to the other extremity of Thüringia they had to go, to a town
which is now called Weimar.

And Molly wept, and Anthon wept. All these were now concentrated in
one single tear, and it had the happy rosy tinge of joy. Molly had
assured him that she cared much more for him than for all the grandeur
of Weimar.

One year passed on, two passed, and a third followed, and in all that
time there came only two letters. One was brought by the carrier, the
other by a traveller, who had taken a circuitous course, besides
visiting several cities and other places.

How often had not Anthon and Molly heard together the story of
Tristand and Isolde, and how often did not Anthon think of himself and
Molly as them! Although the name "Tristand" signified that he was born
to sorrow, and that did not apply to Anthon, he never thought as
Tristand did, "She has forgotten me!" But Isolde had not forgotten her
heart's dear friend; and when they were both dead and buried, one on
each side of the church, two linden trees grew out of their graves,
and, stretching over the roof of the church, met there in full bloom.
This was very delightful, thought Anthon, and yet so sad! But there
could be no sadness where he and Molly were concerned. And then he
whistled an air of the Minnesinger's "Walther von der Vogelweide,"--

    "Under the lime tree by the hedge;"

and especially that favourite verse,--

    "Beyond the wood, in the quiet dale,
      Tandaradai,
    Sang the melodious nightingale."

This song was always on his lips. He hummed it, and he whistled it on
the clear moonlight night, when, passing on horseback through the
deep ravine, he rode in haste to Weimar to visit Molly. He wished to
arrive unexpectedly, and he _did_ arrive unexpectedly.

He was well received. Wine sparkled in the goblets; there was gay
society, distinguished society. He had a comfortable room and an
excellent bed; and yet he found nothing as he had dreamt and thought
to find it. He did not understand himself; he did not understand those
about him; but we can understand all. One can be in a house, can
mingle with a family, and yet be a total stranger. One may converse,
but it is like conversing in a stage coach; may know each other as
people know each other in a stage coach; be a restraint upon each
other; wish that one were away, or that one's good neighbour were
away; and it was thus that Anthon felt.

"I will be sincere with you," said Molly to him. "Things have changed
much since we were together as children--changed within and without.
Habit and will have no power over our hearts. Anthon, I do not wish to
have an enemy in you when I am far away from this, as I soon shall be.
Believe me, I have a great regard for you; but to love you--as I now
know how one can love another human being--that I have never done. You
must put up with this. Farewell, Anthon!"

And Anthon also said farewell. No tears sprang to his eyes, but he
perceived that he was no longer Molly's friend. If we were to kiss a
burning bar of iron, or a frozen bar of iron, we should experience the
same sensation when the skin came off our lips.

Within twenty-four hours Anthon had reached Eisenach again, but the
horse he rode was ruined.

"What of that?" cried he. "I am ruined, and I will ruin all that can
remind me of her. Fru Holle! Fru Holle! Thou heathenish woman! I will
tear down and smash the apple tree, and pull it up by the roots. It
shall never blossom or bear fruit more."

But the tree was not destroyed; he himself was knocked down, and lay
long in a violent fever. What was to raise him from his sick bed? The
medicine that did it was the bitterest that could be--one that shook
the languid body and the shrinking soul. Anthon's father was no longer
the rich merchant. Days of adversity, days of trial, were close at
hand. Misfortune rushed in like overwhelming billows--it surged into
that once wealthy house. His father became a poor man, and sorrow and
calamity paralysed him. Then Anthon found that he had something else
to think of than disappointed love, or being angry with Molly. He had
now to be both father and mother in his desolate home. He had to
arrange everything, look after everything, and to go forth into the
world to work for his own and his parents' bread.

He went to Bremen. There he suffered many privations, and passed many
melancholy days; and all that he went through sometimes soured his
temper, sometimes saddened him, till strength and mind seemed failing.
How different were the world and mankind from what he had fancied them
in his childhood! What were now to him Minnesingers' poems and songs?
They were gall and wormwood. Yes, this was what he often felt; but
there were other times when the songs vibrated to his soul, and his
mind became calm and peaceful.

"What God wills is always the best," said he then. "It was well that
our Lord did not permit Molly's heart to hang on me. What could it
have led to, now that prosperity has left me and mine? She gave me up
before she knew or dreamed of this reverse from more fortunate days
which was hanging over us. It was the mercy of our Lord towards me.
Everything is ordained for the best. Yes, all happens wisely. She
could not, therefore, have acted otherwise, and yet how bitter have
not my feelings been towards her!"

Years passed on. Anthon's father was dead, and strangers dwelt in his
paternal home. Anthon, however, was to see it once more; for his
wealthy master sent him on an errand of business, which obliged him to
pass through his native town, Eisenach. The old WARTBURG stood
unchanged, high up on the hill above, with "the monk and the nun" in
unhewn stone. The mighty oak trees seemed as imposing as in his
childish days. The Venus mount looked like a grey mass frowning over
the valley. He would willingly have cried,--

"Fru Holle! Fru Holle! open the hill, and let me stay there, upon the
soil of my native home!"

It was a sinful thought, and he crossed himself. Then a little bird
sang among the bushes, and the old Minnesong came back to his
thoughts:--

    "Beyond the wood, in the quiet dale,
      Tandaradai!
    Sang the melodious nightingale."

How remembrances rushed upon him as he approached the town where his
childhood had been spent, which he now saw through tears! His father's
house remained where it used to be, but the garden was altered; a
field footpath was made across a portion of the old garden; and the
apple tree that he had not uprooted stood there, but no longer within
the garden: it was on the opposite side of the road, though the sun
shone on it as cheerfully as of old, and the dew fell on it there. It
bore such a quantity of fruit that the branches were weighed down to
the ground.

"It thrives!" he exclaimed. "Yes, _it_ can do so."

One of its well-laden boughs was broken. Wanton hands had done this,
for the tree was now on the side of the public road.

"Its blossoms are carried off without thanks; its fruit is stolen, its
branches are broken. It may be said of a tree as of a man, 'It was not
sung at the tree's cradle that things should turn out thus.' This one
began its life so charmingly; and what has now become of it? Forsaken
and forgotten--a garden tree standing in a common field, close to a
public road, and bending over a miserable ditch! There it stood now,
unsheltered, ill-used, and disfigured! It was not, indeed, withered by
all this; but as years advanced its blossoms would become fewer--its
fruit, if it bore any, late; and so it is all over with it."

Thus thought Anthon under the tree, and thus he thought many a night
in the little lonely chamber of the wooden house in the "Small Houses'
Street," in Copenhagen, whither his rich master had sent him, having
stipulated that he was not to marry.

"_He_ marry!" He laughed a strange and hollow laugh.

The winter had commenced early. There was a sharp frost, and without
there was a heavy snow storm, so that all who could do so kept within
doors. Therefore it was that Anthon's neighbours did not observe that
his booth had not been opened for two whole days, and that he had not
shown himself during that time. But who would go out in such weather
when he could stay at home?

These were dark, dismal days; and in the booth, where the window was
not of glass, it looked like twilight, if not sombre night. Old Anthon
had scarcely left his bed for two days. He had not strength to get up.
The intensely cold weather had brought on a severe fit of rheumatism
in his limbs, and the old bachelor lay forsaken and helpless, almost
too feeble to stretch out his hand to the pitcher of water which he
had placed near his bed; and if he could have done so, it would have
been of no avail, for the last drop had been drained from it. It was
not the fever, not illness alone that had thus prostrated him; it was
also old age that had crept upon him. It seemed to be constant night
up yonder where he lay. A little spider, which he could not see, spun
contentedly its gossamer web over his face. It was soon to stretch
like a crepe veil across the features, when the old man closed his
eyes.

He dozed a good deal; yet time seemed long and weary. He shed no
tears, and had but little suffering. Molly was scarcely ever in his
thoughts. He had a conviction that this world and its bustle were no
more for him. At one time he seemed to feel hunger and thirst. He did
feel them; but no one came to give him nourishment or drink--no one
would come. He thought of those who might be fainting or dying of
want. He remembered how the pious Elizabeth, while living on this
earth--she who had been the favourite heroine of his childish days at
home, the magnanimous Duchess of Thüringia--had herself entered the
most miserable abodes, and brought to the sick and wretched
refreshments and hope. His thoughts dwelt with pleasure on her good
deeds. He remembered how she went to feed the hungry, to speak words
of comfort to those who were suffering, and to bind up their wounds,
although her austere husband was angry at these works of mercy. He
recalled to memory the legend about her, that, as she was going on one
of her charitable errands, with a basket well filled with food and
wine, her husband, who had watched her steps, rushed out on her, and
demanded in high wrath what she was carrying; that, in her fear of
him, she replied, "Roses which I have plucked in the garden;"
whereupon he dragged the cover off of her basket, and lo! a miracle
was worked in favour of the charitable lady, for the wine and bread,
and everything in the basket, lay turned into roses.

Thus old Anthon's thoughts wandered to the heroine in history whom he
had always so much admired, until her image seemed to stand before his
dimming sight, close to his humble pallet in the poor wooden hut in a
foreign land. He uncovered his head, looked in fancy into her mild
eyes, and all around him seemed a mingling of lustre and of roses
redolent with sweet perfume. Then he felt the charming scent of the
apple blossom, and he beheld an apple tree spreading its blooming
branches above him. Yes, it was the very tree, the seeds of which he
and Molly had planted together.

And the tree swept its fragrant leaves over his hot brow, and cooled
it; they touched his parched lips, and they were like refreshing wine
and bread; they fell upon his breast, and he felt himself softly
sinking into a calm slumber.

"I shall sleep now," he whispered feebly to himself. "Sleep restores
strength--to-morrow I shall be well and up again. Beautiful,
beautiful! The apple tree planted in love I see again in glory."

And he slept.

The following day--it was the third day the booth had been shut
up--the snow drifted no longer, and the neighbours went to see about
Anthon, who had not yet shown himself. They found him lying stiff and
dead, with his old nightcap pressed between his hands. They did not
put it upon him in his coffin--he had also another which was clean and
white.

Where now were the tears he had wept? Where were these pearls? They
remained in the nightcap. Such precious things do not pass away in the
washing. They were preserved and forgotten with the nightcap. The old
thoughts, the old dreams--yes, they remained still in _the old
bachelor's nightcap_. Wish not for that. It will make your brow too
hot, make your pulses beat too violently, bring dreams that seem
reality. This was proved by the first person who put it on--and that
was not till fifty years after--by the burgomaster himself, who was
blessed with a wife and eleven children. He dreamt of unhappy love,
bankruptcy, and short commons.

"How warm this nightcap is!" he exclaimed, as he dragged it off. Then
pearl after pearl began to fall from it, and they jingled and
glittered. "I must have got the rheumatism in my head," said the
burgomaster. "Sparks seem falling from my eyes."

They were tears wept half a century before--wept by old Anthon from
Eisenach.

Whoever has since worn that nightcap has sure enough had visions and
dreams; his own history has been turned into Anthon's; his dream has
become quite a tale, and there were many of them. Let others relate
the rest. We have now told the first, and with it our last words
are--Never covet AN OLD BACHELOR'S NIGHTCAP.

_Something._

"I will be something," said the oldest of five brothers. "I will be of
use in the world, let the position be ever so insignificant which I
may fill. If it be only respectable, it will be something. I will make
bricks--people can't do without these--and then I shall have done
something."

"But something too trifling," said the second brother. "What you
propose to do is much the same as doing nothing; it is no better than
a hodman's work, and can be done by machinery. You had much better
become a mason. _That_ is something, and that is what I will be. Yes,
that is a good trade. A mason can get into a trade's corporation,
become a burgher, have his own colours and his own club. Indeed, if I
prosper, I may have workmen under me, and be called 'Master,' and my
wife 'Mistress;' and that would be something."

"That is next to nothing," said the third. "There are many classes in
a town, and that is about the lowest. It is nothing to be called
'Master.' You might be very superior yourself; but as a master mason
you would be only what is called 'a common man.' I know of something
better. I will be an architect; enter upon the confines of science;
work myself up to a high place in the kingdom of mind. I know I must
begin at the foot of the ladder. I can hardly bear to say it--I must
begin as a carpenter's apprentice, and wear a cap, though I have been
accustomed to go about in a silk hat. I must run to fetch beer and
spirits for the common workmen, and let them be 'hail fellow well met'
with me. This will be disagreeable; but I will fancy that it is all a
masquerade and the freedom of maskers. To-morrow--that is to say, when
I am a journeyman--I will go my own way. The others will not join me.
I shall go to the academy, and learn to draw and design; then I shall
be called an architect. That is something! That is much! I may become
'honourable,' or even 'noble'--perhaps both. I shall build and build,
as others have done before me. _There_ is something to look forward
to--something worth being!"

"But that something I should not care about," said the fourth. "I will
not march in the wake of anybody. I will not be a copyist; I will be a
genius--will be cleverer than you all put together. I shall create a
new style, furnish ideas for a building adapted to the climate and
materials of the country--something which shall be a nationality, a
development of the resources of our age, and, at the same time, an
exhibition of my own genius."

"But if by chance the climate and the materials did not suit each
other," said the fifth, "that would be unfortunate for the result.
Nationalities may be so amplified as to become affectation. The
discoveries of the age, like youth, may leave you far behind. I
perceive right well that none of you will, in reality, become
anything, whatever may be your expectations. But do all of you what
you please; I shall not follow your examples. I shall keep myself
disengaged, and shall reason upon what you perform. There is something
wrong in everything. I will pick that out, and reason upon it. That
will be something."

And so he did; and people said of the fifth, "He has not settled to
anything. He has a good head, but he does nothing."

Even this, however, made him something.

This is but a short history; yet it is one which will not end as long
as the world stands.

But is there nothing more about the five brothers? What has been told
is absolutely nothing. Hear further; it is quite a romance.

The eldest brother, who made bricks, perceived that from every stone,
when it was finished, rolled a small coin; and though these little
coins were but of copper, many of them heaped together became a silver
dollar; and when one knocks with such at the baker's, the butcher's,
and other shops, the doors fly open, and one gets what one wants. The
bricks produced all this. The damaged and broken bricks were also made
good use of.

Yonder, above the embankment, Mother Margrethe, a poor old woman,
wanted to build a small house for herself. She got all the broken