The Sand-Hills of Jutland Part 16

"I met her in the garden, in the ravine, in the fields. She was gathering plants and flowers, those which she knew her father made use of for the drinks and drops he was fond of distilling. Waldemar Daae was arrogant and conceited, but also he had a great deal of knowledge.

Everybody knew that, and everybody talked in whispers about it. Even in summer a fire burned in his private cabinet; its doors were always locked. He pa.s.sed days and nights there, but he spoke little about his pursuits. The mysteries of nature are studied in silence. He expected soon to discover its greatest secret--the trans.m.u.tation of other substances into gold.

"It was for this that smoke was ever issuing from the chimney of his laboratory; for this that sparks and flames were always there. And I was there too," said the wind. "'Hollo, hollo!' I sang through the chimney. There were steam, smoke, embers, ashes. 'You will burn yourself up--take care, take care!' But Waldemar Daae did _not_ take care.

"The splendid horses in the stables, what became of them?--the silver and the gold plate, the cows in the fields, the furniture, the house itself? Yes, they could be smelted--smelted in the crucibles; and yet no gold was obtained.

"All was empty in the barns and in the pantry, in the cellars and in the loft. The fewer people, the more mice. One pane of gla.s.s was cracked, another was broken. I did not require to go in by the door,"

said the wind. "When the kitchen chimney is smoking, dinner is preparing; but there the smoke rolled from the chimney for that which devoured all repasts--for the yellow gold.

"I blew through the castle gate like a warder blowing his horn; but there was no warder," said the wind. "I turned the weatherc.o.c.k above the tower--it sounded like a watchman snoring inside the tower; but no watchman was there--it was only kept by rats and mice. Poverty presided at the table--poverty sat in the clothes' chests and in the store-rooms. The doors fell off their hinges--there came cracks and crevices everywhere. I went in, and I went out," said the wind; "therefore I knew what was going on.

"Amidst smoke and ashes--amidst anxiety and sleepless nights--Waldemar Daae's hair had turned grey; so had his beard and the thin locks on his forehead; his skin had become wrinkled and yellow, his eyes ever straining after gold--the expected gold.

"I whisked smoke and ashes into his face and beard: debts came instead of gold. I sang through the broken windows and cracked walls--came moaning in to the daughter's cheerless room, where the old bed-gear was faded and threadbare, but had still to hold out. Such a song was not sung at the children's cradles. High life had become wretched life. I was the only one then who sang loudly in the castle," said the wind. "I snowed them in, and they said they were comfortable. They had no wood to burn--the trees had been felled from which they would have got it. It was a sharp frost. I rushed through loopholes and corridors, over roofs and walls, to keep up my activity. In their poor chamber lay the three aristocratic daughters in their bed to keep themselves warm. To be as poor as church mice--that was high life!

Wheugh! Would they give it up? But Herr Daae could not.

"'After winter comes spring,' said he. 'After want come good times; but they make one wait. The castle is now mortgaged--we have arrived at the worst--we shall have gold now at Easter!'

"I heard him murmuring near a spider's web:--

"'Thou active little weaver! thou teachest me to persevere. Even if thy web be swept away thou dost commence again, and dost complete it.

Again let it be torn asunder, and, unwearied, thou dost again recommence thy work over and over again. I shall follow thy example. I will go on, and I shall be rewarded.'

"It was Easter morning--the church bells were ringing. The sun was careering in the heavens. Under a burning fever the alchemist had watched all night: he had boiled and cooled--mixed and distilled. I heard him sigh like a despairing creature; I heard him pray; I perceived that he held his breath in his anxiety. The lamp had gone out--he did not seem to notice it. I blew on the red-hot cinders; they brightened up, and shone on his chalky-white face, and tinged it with a momentary brightness. The eyes had almost closed in their deep sockets; now they opened wider--wider--as if they were about to spring forth.

"Look at the alchemical gla.s.s! There is something sparkling in it! It is glowing, pure, heavy! He lifted it with a trembling hand. He cried with trembling lips, 'Gold--gold!' He staggered, and seemed quite giddy at the sight. I could have blown him away," said the wind; "but I only blew in the ruddy fire, and followed him through the door in to where his daughters were freezing. His dress was covered with ashes; they were to be seen in his beard, and in his matted hair. He raised his head proudly, stretched forth his rich treasure in the fragile gla.s.s, and 'Won--won! gold!' he cried, as he held high in the air the gla.s.s that glittered in the dazzling sunshine. But his hand shook, and the alchemical gla.s.s fell to the ground, and broke into a thousand pieces. The last bubble of his prosperity had burst. Wheugh--wheugh!

And I darted away from the alchemist's castle.

"Later in the year, during the short days, when fogs come with their damp drapery, and wring out wet drops on the red berries and the leafless trees, I came in a hearty humour, sent breezes aloft to clear the air, and began to sweep down the rotten branches. That was no hard work, but it was a useful one. There was sweeping of another sort within Borreby Castle, where Waldemar Daae dwelt. His enemy, Ove Ramel, from Basnaes, was there, with the mortgage bonds upon the property and the dwelling-house, which he had purchased. I thundered against the cracked window-panes, slammed the rickety doors, whistled through the cracks and crevices, 'Wheu-gh!' Herr Ove should have no pleasure in the prospect of living there. Ide and Anna Dorthea wept bitterly. Johanne stood erect and composed; but she looked very pale, and bit her lips till they bled. Much good would that do! Ove Ramel vouchsafed his permission to Herr Daae to remain at the castle during the rest of his days; but he got no thanks for the offer. I overheard all that pa.s.sed. I saw the homeless man draw himself up haughtily, and toss his head; and I sent a blast against the castle and the old linden trees, so that the thickest branch among them broke, though it was not rotten. It lay before the gate like a broom, in case something had to be swept out; and to be sure there _was_ a clean sweep.

"It was a sad day, a cruel hour, a heavy trial to sustain; but the heart was hard--the neck was stiff.

"They possessed nothing but the clothes they had on. Yes, they had a newly-bought alchemist's gla.s.s, which was filled with what had been wasted on the floor: it had been sc.r.a.ped up, the treasure promised, but not yielded. Waldemar Daae concealed this near his breast, took his stick in his hand, and the once wealthy man went, with his three daughters, away from Borreby Castle. I blew coldly on his wan cheeks, and ruffled his grey beard and his long white hair. I sang around them, 'Wheu-gh--wheu-gh!'

"There was an end to all their grandeur!

"Ide and Anna Dorthea walked on each side of their father; Johanne turned round at the gate. Why did she do so? Fortune would not turn.

She gazed at the red stones of the wall, the stones from Marshal Stig's castle, and she thought of his daughters:--

'The eldest took the younger's hand, And out in the wide world they went.'

She thought upon that song. Here there were three, and their father was with them. They pa.s.sed as beggars over the same road where they had so often driven in their splendid carriage to SMIDSTRUP MARK, to a house with mud floors that was let for ten marks a year--their new manor-house, with bare walls and empty closets. The crows and the jackdaws flew after them, and cried, as if in derision, 'From the nest--from the nest! away--away!' as the birds had screeched at Borreby Wood when the trees were cut down.

"And thus they entered the humble house at Smidstrup Mark, and I wandered away over moors and meadows, through naked hedges and leafless woods, to the open sea--to other lands. Wheugh--wheugh!

On--on--on!"

What became of Waldemar Daae? What became of his daughters? The wind will tell.

"The last of them I saw was Anna Dorthea, the pale hyacinth. She had become old and decrepit: that was about fifty years after she had left the castle. She lived the longest--she saw them all out."

"Yonder, on the heath, near the town of Viborg, stood the dean's handsome house, built of red granite. The smoke rolled plentifully from its chimneys. The gentle lady and her beautiful daughters sat on the balcony, and looked over their pretty garden on the brown heath.

At what were they gazing? They were looking at the storks' nests, on a castle that was almost in ruins. The roof, where there was any roof, was covered with moss and houseleeks; but the best part of it sustained the storks' nests--that was the only portion which was in tolerable repair.

"It was a place to look at, not to dwell in. I had to be cautious with it," said the wind. "For the sake of the storks the house was allowed to stand, else it was really a disgrace to the heath. The dean would not have the storks driven away; so the dilapidated building was permitted to remain, and a poor woman was permitted to live in it. She had to thank the Egyptian birds for that--or was it a reward for having formerly begged that the nests of their wild black kindred might be spared in Borreby Wood? _Then_ the wretched pauper was a young girl--a lovely pale hyacinth in the n.o.ble flower parterre. She remembered it well--poor Anna Dorthea!

"'Oh! oh! Yes, mankind can sigh as the wind does amidst the sedges and the rushes--Oh! No church bell tolled at _thy_ death, Waldemar Daae! No charity-school children sang over his grave when the former lord of Borreby was laid in the cold earth! Oh, all shall come to an end, even misery! Sister Ide became a peasant's wife. That was the hardest trial to her poor father. His daughter's husband a lowly serf, who could be obliged by his master to perform the meanest tasks! He, too, is now under the sod, and thou art there with him, unhappy Ide! O yes--O yes! it was not all over, even then; for I am left a poor, old, helpless creature. Blessed Christ! take me hence!'

"Such was Anna Dorthea's prayer in the ruined castle, where she was permitted to live--thanks to the storks.

"The boldest of the sisters I disposed of," said the wind. "She dressed herself in men's clothes, went on board a ship as a poor boy, and hired herself as a sailor. She spoke very little, and looked very cross, but was willing to work. She was a bad hand at climbing, however; so I blew her overboard before any one had found out that she was a female; and I think that was very well done on my part," said the wind.

"It was one Easter morning, the anniversary of the very day on which Waldemar Daae had fancied that he had found out the secret of making gold, that I heard under the storks' nests, from amidst the crumbling walls, a psalm tune--it was Anna Dorthea's last song.

"There was no window. There was only a hole in the wall. The sun came like a ma.s.s of gold, and placed itself there. It shone in brightly.

Her eyes closed--her heart broke! They would have done so all the same, had the sun not that morning blazed in upon her.

"The storks had provided a roof over her head until her death.

"I sang over her grave," said the wind; "I had also sung over her father's grave, for I knew where it was, and none else did.

"New times came--new generations. The old highway had disappeared in inclosed fields. Even the tombs, that were fenced around, have been converted into a new road; and the railway's steaming engine, with its lines of carriages, dashes over the graves, which are as much forgotten as the names of those who moulder into dust in them!

Wheugh--wheugh!

"This is the history of Waldemar Daae and his daughters. Let any one relate it better who can," said the wind, turning round.

And he was gone!

_The Girl who Trod upon Bread._

You have doubtless heard of the girl who trod upon bread, not to soil her pretty shoes, and what evil this brought upon her. The tale is both written and printed.

She was a poor child, but proud and vain. She had a bad disposition, people said. When she was little more than an infant it was a pleasure to her to catch flies, to pull off their wings, and maim them entirely. She used, when somewhat older, to take lady-birds and beetles, stick them all upon a pin, then put a large leaf or a piece of paper close to their feet, so that the poor things held fast to it, and turned and twisted in their endeavours to get off the pin.

"Now the lady-birds shall read," said little Inger. "See how they turn the paper!"

As she grew older she became worse instead of better; but she was very beautiful, and that was her misfortune. She would have been punished otherwise, and in the long run she was.

"You will bring evil on your own head," said her mother.

"As a little child you used often to tear my ap.r.o.ns; I fear that when you are older you will break my heart."