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 fete; 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 LACRYMAE 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 aeronaut, 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 aeronaut, 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 aeronaut 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. "Haeuschen" 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 Thueringen, 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 Tannhaeuser, 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 Tannhaeuser?' 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 Thueringian 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 Thueringia 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 Thueringia—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 bricks, and some whole ones to boot; for the eldest brother had a good heart. The poor woman built her house herself. It was very small; the only window was put in awry, the door was very low, and the thatched roof might have been laid better; but it was at least a shelter and a cover for her. There was a fine view from it of the sea, which broke in its might against the embankment. The salt spray often dashed over the whole tiny house, which still stood there when he was dead and gone who had given the bricks:—

The second brother could build in another way. He was also clever in his business. When his apprenticeship was over he strapped on his knapsack, and sang the mechanic's song:—

"While young, far-distant lands I'll tread. Away from home to build, My handiwork shall win my bread, My heart with hope be filled. And when my fatherland I see, And meet my bride—hurra! An active workman I shall be: Then who so happy and gay?"

And he was that. When he returned to his native town, and became a master, he built house after house—a whole street. It was a very handsome one, and a great ornament to the town. These houses built for him a small house, which was to be his own. But how could the houses build? Ay, ask them that, and they will not answer you; but people will answer for them, and tell you, "It certainly was that street which built him a house." It was only a small one, to be sure, and with a clay floor; but when he and his bride danced on it the floor became polished and bright, and from every stone in the wall sprang a flower which was quite as good as any costly tapestry. It was a pleasant house, and they were a happy couple. The colours of the masons' company floated outside, and the journeymen and apprentices shouted "Hurra!" Yes, that was something; and so he died—and that was also something.

Then came the architect, the third brother, who had been first a carpenter's apprentice, wearing a cap and going on errands; but, on leaving the academy, rose to be an architect, and he became a man of consequence. Yes, if the houses in the street built by his brother, the master mason, had provided him with a house, a street was called after the architect, and the handsomest house in it was his own. That was something; and he was somebody, with a long, high-sounding title besides. His children were called people of quality, and when he died his widow was a widow of rank—that was something. And his name stood as a fixture at the corner of the street, and was often in folks' mouths, being the name of a street—and that was certainly something.

Next came the genius—the fourth brother—who was to devote himself to new inventions. In one of his ambitious attempts he fell, and broke his neck; but he had a splendid funeral, with a procession, and flags, and music. He was noticed in the newspapers, and three funeral orations were pronounced over him, the one longer than the others; and much delighted he would have been with them if he had heard them, for he was fond of being talked about. A monument was erected over his grave. It was not very grand, but a monument is always something.

He now was dead, as well as the three other brothers; but the fifth—he who was fond of reasoning or arguing—out-lived them all; and that was quite right, for he had thus the last word. And he thought it a matter of great importance to have the last word. It was he who, folks said, "had a good head." At length his last hour also struck. He died, and he arrived at the gate of the kingdom of heaven. Spirits always come there two and two, and along with him stood there another soul, which wanted also to get in, and this was no other than the old Mother Margrethe, from the house on the embankment.

"It must surely be for the sake of contrast that I and yon paltry soul should come here at the same moment," said the reasoner. "Why, who are you, old one? Do you also expect to enter here?" he asked.

And the old woman courtesied as well as she could. She thought it was St. Peter himself who spoke.

"I am a miserable old creature without any family. My name is Margrethe."

"Well, now, what have you done and effected down yonder?"

"I have effected scarcely anything in yonder world—nothing that can tell in my favour here. It will be a pure act of mercy if I am permitted to enter this gate."

"How did you leave yon world?" he asked, merely for something to say. He was tired of standing waiting there.

"Oh! how I left it I really do not know. I had been very poorly, often quite ill, for some years past, and I was not able latterly to leave my bed, and go out into the cold and frost. It was a very severe winter; but I was getting through it. For a couple of days there was a dead calm; but it was bitterly cold, as your honour may remember. The ice had remained so long on the ground, that the sea was frozen over as far as the eye could reach. The townspeople flocked in crowds to the ice. I could hear it all as I lay in my poor room. The same scene continued till late in the evening—till the moon rose. From my bed I could see through the window far out beyond the seashore; and there lay on the horizon, just where the sea and sky seemed to meet, a singular-looking white cloud. I lay and looked at it; looked at the black spot in the middle of it, which became larger and larger; and I knew what that betokened, for I was old and experienced, though I had not often seen that sign. I saw it and shuddered. Twice before in my life had I seen that strange appearance in the sky, and I knew that there would be a terrible storm at the springtide, which would burst over the poor people out upon the ice, who were now drinking and rushing about, and amusing themselves. Young and old—the whole town in fact—were assembled yonder. Who was to warn them of coming danger, if none of them observed or knew what I now perceived? I became so alarmed, so anxious, that I got out of my bed, and crawled to the window. I was incapable of going further; but I put up the window, and, on looking out, I could see the people skating and sliding and running on the ice. I could see the gay flags, and could hear the boys shouting hurra, and the girls and the young men singing in chorus. All was jollity and merriment there. But higher and higher arose the white cloud with the black spot in it. I cried out as loud as I could, but nobody heard me. I was too far away from them. The wind would soon break loose, the ice give away, and all upon it sink, without any chance of rescue. Hear me they could not, and for me to go to them was impossible. Was there nothing that I could do to bring them back to land? Then our Lord inspired me with the idea of setting fire to my bed; it would be better that my house were to be burned down than that the many should meet with such a miserable death. Then I kindled the fire. I saw the red flames, and I gained the outside of the house; but I remained lying there. I could do no more, for my strength was exhausted. The blaze pursued me—it burst from the window, and out upon the roof. The crowds on the ice perceived it, and they came running as fast as they could to help me, a poor wretch, whom they thought would be burned in my bed. It was not one or two only who came—they all came. I heard them coming; but I also heard all at once the shrill whistle, the loud roar of the wind. I heard it thunder like the report of a cannon. The springtide lifted the ice, and suddenly it broke asunder; but the crowd had reached the embankment, where the sparks were flying over me. I had been the means of saving them all; but I was not able to survive the cold and fright, and so I have come up here to the gate of the kingdom of heaven; but I am told it is locked against such poor creatures as I. And now I have no longer a home down yonder on the embankment, though that does not insure me any admittance here."

At that moment the gate of heaven was opened, and an angel took the old woman in. She dropped a straw; it was one of the pieces of straw which had stuffed the bed to which she had set fire to save the lives of many, and it had turned to pure gold, but gold that was flexible, and twisted itself into pretty shapes.

"See! the poor old woman brought this," said the angel. "What dost thou bring? Ah! I know well; thou hast done nothing—not even so much as making a brick. If thou couldst go back again, and bring only so much as that, if done with good intentions, it would be something: as thou wouldst do it, however, it would be of no avail. But thou canst not go back, and I can do nothing for thee."

Then the poor soul, the old woman from the house on the embankment, begged for him.

"His brother kindly gave me all the stones with which I built my humble dwelling. They were a great gift to a poor creature like me. May not all these stones and fragments be permitted to value as one brick for him? It was a deed of mercy. He is now in want, and this is Mercy's home."

"Thy brother whom thou didst think the most inferior to thyself—him whose honest business thou didst despise—shares with thee his heavenly portion. Thou shalt not be ordered away; thou shalt have leave to remain outside here to think over and to repent thy life down yonder; but within this gate thou shalt not enter until in good works thou hast performed something."

"I could have expressed that sentence better," thought the conceited logician; but he did not say this aloud, and that was surely already—SOMETHING.



The Old Oak Tree's Last Dream.

A CHRISTMAS TALE.

There stood in a wood, high up on the side of a sloping hill near the open shore, a very old oak tree. It was about three hundred and sixty-five years old, but those long years were not more than as many single rotations of the earth for us men. We are awake during the day, and sleep during the night, and have then our dreams: with the tree it is otherwise. A tree is awake for three quarters of a year. It only sleeps in winter—that is its night—after the long day which is called spring, summer, and autumn.

Many a warm summer day had the ephemeron insect frolicked round the oak tree's head—lived, moved about, and found itself happy; and when the little creature reposed for a moment in calm enjoyment on one of the great fresh oak leaves, the tree always said,—

"Poor little thing! one day alone is the span of thy whole life. Ah, how short! It is very sad."

"Sad!" the ephemeron always replied. "What dost thou mean by that? Everything is so charming, so warm and delightful, that I am quite happy."

"But for only one day; then all is over."

"All is over!" exclaimed the insect. "What is the meaning of 'all is over?' Is all over with thee also?"

"No; I may live, perhaps, thousands of thy days, and my lifetime is for centuries. It is so long a period that thou couldst not calculate it."

"No, for I do not understand thee. Thou hast thousands of my days, but I have thousands of moments to be happy in. Is all the beauty in the world at an end when thou diest?"

"Oh! by no means," replied the tree. "It will last longer—much, much longer than I can conceive."

"Well, I think we are much on a par, only that we reckon differently."

And the ephemeron danced and floated about in the sunshine, and enjoyed itself with its pretty little delicate wings, like the most minute flower—enjoyed itself in the warm air, which was so fragrant with the sweet perfumes of the clover-fields, of the wild roses in the hedges, and of the elder-flower, not to speak of the woodbine, the primrose, and the wild mint. The scent was so strong that the ephemeron was almost intoxicated by it. The day was long and pleasant, full of gladness and sweet perceptions; and when the sun set, the little insect felt a sort of pleasing languor creeping over it after all its enjoyments. Its wings would no longer carry it, and very gently it glided down upon the soft blade of grass that was slightly waving in the evening breeze; there it drooped its tiny head, and fell into a calm sleep—the sleep of death.

"Poor little insect!" exclaimed the oak tree, "thy life was far too short."

And every summer's day were repeated a similar dance, a similar conversation, and a similar death. This went on with the whole generation of ephemera, and all were equally happy, equally gay. The oak tree remained awake during its spring morning, its summer day, and its autumn evening; now it was near its sleeping time, its night—the winter was close at hand.

Already the tempests were singing, "Good night, good night! Thy leaves are falling—we pluck them, we pluck them! Try if thou canst slumber; we shall sing thee to sleep, we shall rock thee to sleep; and thy old boughs like this—they are creaking in their joy! Softly, softly sleep! It is thy three hundred and sixty-fifth night. Sleep calmly! The snow is falling from the heavy clouds; it will soon be a wide sheet, a warm coverlet for thy feet. Sleep calmly and dream pleasantly!"

And the oak tree stood disrobed of all its leaves to go to rest for the whole long winter, and during that time to dream many dreams, often something stirring and exciting, like the dreams of human beings.

It, too, had once been little. Yes, an acorn had been its cradle. According to man's reckoning of time it was now living in its fourth century. It was the strongest and loftiest tree in the wood, with its venerable head reared high above all the other trees; and it was seen far away at sea, and looked upon as a beacon by the navigators of the passing ships. It little thought how many eyes looked out for it. High up amidst its green coronal the wood-pigeons built their nests, and the cuckoo's note was heard from thence; and in the autumn, when the leaves looked like hammered plates of copper, came birds of passage, and rested there before they flew far over the sea. But now it was winter, and the tree stood leafless, and the bended and gnarled branches were naked. Crows and jackdaws came and sat themselves there alternately, and talked of the rigorous weather which was commencing, and how difficult it was to find food in winter.