looked very gloomy and lonely. No lamps were to be seen, with the
exception of one solitary light hanging before the picture of the
Virgin that was fastened against the wall. The plash of the water
against the neighbouring rampart at the castle wharf could be plainly
heard. Such evenings are long and dreary, unless people devise some
employment for themselves. There is not always packing or unpacking to
do, nor can the scales be polished or paper bags be made continually;
and, failing these, people should devise other employment for
themselves. And that is just what old Anthony did; for he used to mend
his clothes and put pieces on his boots. When he at last sought his
couch, he used from habit to keep his nightcap on. He drew it down a
little closer; but soon he would push it up again, to see if the light
had been properly extinguished. He would touch it, press the wick
together, and then lie down on the other side, and draw his nightcap
down again; but then a doubt would come upon him, if every coal in the
little fire-pan below had been properly deadened and put out--a tiny
spark might have been left burning, and might set fire to something
and cause damage. And therefore he rose from his bed, and crept down
the ladder, for it could scarcely be called a stair. And when he came
to the fire-pan not a spark was to be discovered, and he might just go
back again. But often, when he had gone half of the way back, it would
occur to him that the shutters might not be securely fastened; yes,
then his thin legs must carry him downstairs once more. He was cold,
and his teeth chattered in his mouth when he crept back again to bed;
for the cold seems to become doubly severe when it knows it cannot
stay much longer. He drew up the coverlet closer around him, and
pulled down the nightcap lower over his brows, and turned his thoughts
away from trade and from the labours of the day. But that did not
procure him agreeable entertainment; for now old thoughts came and put
up their curtains, and these curtains have sometimes pins in them,
with which one pricks oneself, and one cries out "Oh!" and they prick
into one's flesh and burn so, that the tears sometimes come into one's
eyes; and that often happened to old Anthony--hot tears. The largest
pearls streamed forth, and fell on the coverlet or on the floor, and
then they sounded as if one of his heart-strings had broken. Sometimes
again they seemed to rise up in flame, illuminating a picture of life
that never faded out of his heart. If he then dried his eyes with his
nightcap, the tear and the picture were indeed crushed, but the source
of the tears remained, and welled up afresh from his heart. The
pictures did not come up in the order in which the scenes had occurred
in reality, for very often the most painful would come together; then
again the most joyful would come, but these had the deepest shadows of
all.
The beech woods of Denmark are acknowledged to be fine, but the woods
of Thuringia arose far more beautiful in the eyes of Anthony. More
mighty and more venerable seemed to him the old oaks around the proud
knightly castle, where the creeping plants hung down over the stony
blocks of the rock; sweeter there bloomed the flowers of the apple
tree than in the Danish land. This he remembered very vividly. A
glittering tear rolled down over his cheek; and in this tear he could
plainly see two children playing--a boy and a girl. The boy had red
cheeks, and yellow curling hair, and honest blue eyes. He was the son
of the merchant Anthony--it was himself. The little girl had brown
eyes and black hair, and had a bright clever look. She was the
burgomaster's daughter Molly. The two were playing with an apple. They
shook the apple, and heard the pips rattling in it. Then they cut the
apple in two, and each of them took a half; they divided even the
pips, and ate them all but one, which the little girl proposed that
they should lay in the earth.
"Then you shall see," she said, "what will come out. It will be
something you don't at all expect. A whole apple tree will come out,
but not directly."
And she put the pip in a flower-pot, and both were very busy and eager
about it. The boy made a hole in the earth with his finger, and the
little girl dropped the pip in it, and they both covered it with
earth.
"Now, you must not take it out to-morrow to see if it has struck
root," said Molly. "That won't do at all. I did it with my flowers;
but only twice. I wanted to see if they were growing--and I didn't
know any better then--and the plants withered."
Anthony took away the flower-pot, and every morning, the whole winter
through, he looked at it; but nothing was to be seen but the black
earth. At length, however, the spring came, and the sun shone warm
again; and two little green leaves came up out of the pot.
"Those are for me and Molly," said the boy. "That's beautiful--that's
marvellously beautiful!"
Soon a third leaf made its appearance. Whom did that represent? Yes,
and there came another, and yet another. Day by day and week by week
they grew larger, and the plant began to take the form of a real tree.
And all this was now mirrored in a single tear, which was wiped away
and disappeared; but it might come again from its source in the heart
of old Anthony.
In the neighbourhood of Eisenach a row of stony mountains rises up.
One of these mountains is round in outline, and lifts itself above the
rest, naked and without tree, bush, or grass. It is called the Venus
Mount. In this mountain dwells Lady Venus, one of the deities of the
heathen times. She is also called Lady Holle; and every child in and
around Eisenach has heard about her. She it was who lured Tannhauser,
the noble knight and minstrel, from the circle of the singers of the
Wartburg into her mountain.
[Illustration: IMPERTINENT MOLLY.]
Little Molly and Anthony often stood by this mountain; and once Molly
said:
"You may knock and say, 'Lady Holle, open the door--Tannhauser is
here!"
But Anthony did not dare. Molly, however, did it, though she only said
the words "Lady Holle, Lady Holle!" aloud and distinctly; the rest she
muttered so indistinctly that Anthony felt convinced she had not
really said anything; and yet she looked as bold and saucy as
possible--as saucy as when she sometimes came round him with other
little girls in the garden, and all wanted to kiss him because he did
not like to be kissed and tried to keep them off; and she was the only
one who dared to kiss him in spite of his resistance.
"_I_ may kiss him!" she would say proudly.
That was her vanity; and Anthony submitted, and thought no more about
it.
How charming and how teasing Molly was! It was said that Lady Holle in
the mountain was beautiful also, but that her beauty was like that of
a tempting fiend. The greatest beauty and grace was possessed by Saint
Elizabeth, the patron of the country, the pious Princess of Thuringia,
whose good actions have been immortalized in many places in legends
and stories. In the chapel her picture was hanging, surrounded by
silver lamps; but it was not in the least like Molly.
The apple tree which the two children had planted grew year by year,
and became taller and taller--so tall, that it had to be transplanted
into the garden, into the fresh air, where the dew fell and the sun
shone warm. And the tree developed itself strongly, so that it could
resist the winter. And it seemed as if, after the rigour of the cold
season was past, it put forth blossoms in spring for very joy. In the
autumn it brought two apples--one for Molly and one for Anthony. It
could not well have produced less.
The tree had grown apace, and Molly grew like the tree. She was as
fresh as an apple-blossom; but Anthony was not long to behold this
flower. All things change! Molly's father left his old home, and Molly
went with him, far away. Yes, in our time steam has made the journey
they took a matter of a few hours, but then more than a day and a
night were necessary to go so far eastward from Eisenach to the
furthest border of Thuringia, to the city which is still called
Weimar.
And Molly wept, and Anthony wept; but all their tears melted into one,
and this tear had the rosy, charming hue of joy. For Molly told him
she loved him--loved him more than all the splendours of Weimar.
One, two, three years went by, and during this period two letters were
received. One came by a carrier, and a traveller brought the other.
The way was long and difficult, and passed through many windings by
towns and villages.
Often had Molly and Anthony heard of Tristram and Iseult, and often
had the boy applied the story to himself and Molly, though the name
Tristram was said to mean "born in tribulation," and that did not
apply to Anthony, nor would he ever be able to think, like Tristram,
"She has forgotten me." But, indeed, Iseult did not forget her
faithful knight; and when both were laid to rest in the earth, one on
each side of the church, the linden trees grew from their graves over
the church roof, and there encountered each other in bloom. Anthony
thought that was beautiful, but mournful; but it could not become
mournful between him and Molly: and he whistled a song of the old
minne-singer, Walter of the Vogelverde:
"Under the lindens
Upon the heath."
And especially that passage appeared charming to him:
"From the forest, down in the vale,
Sang her sweet song the nightingale."
This song was often in his mouth, and he sang and whistled it in the
moonlight nights, when he rode along the deep hollow way on horseback
to get to Weimar and visit Molly. He wished to come unexpectedly, and
he came unexpectedly.
He was made welcome with full goblets of wine, with jovial company,
fine company, and a pretty room and a good bed were provided for him;
and yet his reception was not what he had dreamt and fancied it would
be. He could not understand himself--he could not understand the
others: but _we_ can understand it. One may be admitted into a house
and associate with a family without becoming one of them. One may
converse together as one would converse in a post-carriage, and know
one another as people know each other on a journey, each incommoding
the other and wishing that either oneself or the good neighbour were
away. Yes, this was the kind of thing Anthony felt.
"I am an honest girl," said Molly; "and I myself will tell you what it
is. Much has changed since we were children together--changed inwardly
and outwardly. Habit and will have no power over our hearts. Anthony,
I should not like to have an enemy in you, now that I shall soon be
far away from here. Believe me, I entertain the best wishes for you;
but to feel for you what I know now one may feel for a man, has never
been the case with me. You must reconcile yourself to this. Farewell,
Anthony!"
And Anthony bade her farewell. No tear came into his eye, but he felt
that he was no longer Molly's friend. Hot iron and cold iron alike
take the skin from our lips, and we have the same feeling when we kiss
it: and he kissed himself into hatred as into love.
Within twenty-four hours Anthony was back in Eisenach, though
certainly the horse on which he rode was ruined.
"What matter!" he said: "I am ruined too; and I will destroy
everything that can remind me of her, or of Lady Holle, or Venus the
heathen woman! I will break down the apple tree and tear it up by the
roots, so that it shall never bear flower or fruit more!"
But the apple tree was not broken down, though he himself was broken
down, and bound on a couch by fever. What was it that raised him up
again? A medicine was presented to him which had strength to do
this--the bitterest of medicines, that shakes up body and spirit
together. Anthony's father ceased to be the richest of merchants.
Heavy days--days of trial--were at the door; misfortune came rolling
into the house like great waves of the sea. The father became a poor
man. Sorrow and suffering took away his strength. Then Anthony had to
think of something else besides nursing his love-sorrows and his anger
against Molly. He had to take his father's place--to give orders, to
help, to act energetically, and at last to go out into the world and
earn his bread.
Anthony went to Bremen. There he learned what poverty and hard living
meant; and these sometimes make the heart hard, and sometimes soften
it, even too much.
How different the world was, and how different the people were from
what he had supposed them to be in his childhood! What were the
minne-singer's songs to him now?--an echo, a vanishing sound! Yes,
that is what he thought sometimes; but again the songs would sound in
his soul, and his heart became gentle.
"God's will is best!" he would say then. "It was well that I was not
permitted to keep Molly's heart--that she did not remain true to me.
What would it have led to now, when fortune has turned away from me?
She quitted me before she knew of this loss of prosperity, or had any
notion of what awaited me. That was a mercy of Providence towards me.
Everything has happened for the best. It was not her fault--and I have
been so bitter, and have shown so much rancour towards her!"
And years went by. Anthony's father was dead, and strangers lived in
the old house. But Anthony was destined to see it again. His rich
employer sent him on commercial journeys, and his duty led him into
his native town of Eisenach. The old Wartburg stood unchanged on the
mountain, with "the monk and the nun" hewn out in stone. The great
oaks gave to the scene the outlines it had possessed in his childish
days. The Venus Mount glimmered grey and naked over the valley. He
would have been glad to cry, "Lady Holle, Lady Holle, unlock the door,
and I shall enter and remain in my native earth!"
That was a sinful thought, and he blessed himself to drive it away.
Then a little bird out of the thicket sang clearly, and the old
minne-song came into his mind:
"From the forest, down in the vale,
Sang her sweet song the nightingale."
And here in the town of his childhood, which he thus saw again through
tears, much came back into his remembrance. The paternal house stood
as in the old times; but the garden was altered, and a field-path led
over a portion of the old ground, and the apple tree that he had not
broken down stood there, but outside the garden, on the farther side
of the path. But the sun threw its rays on the apple tree as in the
old days, the dew descended gently upon it as then, and it bore such a
burden of fruit that the branches were bent down towards the earth.
"That flourishes!" he said. "The tree can grow!"
Nevertheless, one of the branches of the tree was broken. Mischievous
hands had torn it down towards the ground; for now the tree stood by
the public way.
"They break its blossoms off without a feeling of thankfulness--they
steal its fruit and break the branches. One might say of the tree as
has been said of some men--'It was not sung at his cradle that it
should come thus.' How brightly its history began, and what has it
come to? Forsaken and forgotten--a garden tree by the hedge, in the
field, and on the public way! There it stands unprotected, plundered,
and broken! It has certainly not died, but in the course of years the
number of blossoms will diminish; at last the fruit will cease
altogether; and at last--at last all will be over!"
Such were Anthony's thoughts under the tree; such were his thoughts
during many a night in the lonely chamber of the wooden house in the
distant land--in the Haeuschen Street in Copenhagen, whither his rich
employer, the Bremen merchant, had sent him, first making it a
condition that he should not marry.
"Marry! Ha, ha!" he laughed bitterly to himself.
Winter had set in early; it was freezing hard. Without, a snow-storm
was raging, so that every one who could do so remained at home; thus,
too, it happened that those who lived opposite to Anthony did not
notice that for two days his house had not been unlocked, and that he
did not show himself; for who would go out unnecessarily in such
weather?
They were grey, gloomy days; and in the house, whose windows were not
of glass, twilight only alternated with dark night. Old Anthony had
not left his bed during the two days, for he had not the strength to
rise; he had for a long time felt in his limbs the hardness of the
weather. Forsaken by all, lay the old bachelor, unable to help
himself. He could scarcely reach the water-jug that he had placed by
his bedside, and the last drop it contained had been consumed. It was
not fever, nor sickness, but old age that had struck him down. Up
yonder, where his couch was placed, he was overshadowed as it were by
continual night. A little spider, which, however, he could not see,
busily and cheerfully span its web around him, as if it were weaving a
little crape banner that should wave when the old man closed his eyes.
The time was very slow, and long, and dreary. Tears he had none to
shed, nor did he feel pain. The thought of Molly never came into his
mind. He felt as if the world and its noise concerned him no
longer--as if he were lying outside the world, and no one were
thinking of him. For a moment he felt a sensation of hunger--of
thirst. Yes, he felt them both. But nobody came to tend him--nobody.
He thought of those who had once suffered want; of Saint Elizabeth, as
she had once wandered on earth; of her, the saint of his home and of
his childhood, the noble Duchess of Thuringia, the benevolent lady who
had been accustomed to visit the lowliest cottages, bringing to the
inmates refreshment and comfort. Her pious deeds shone bright upon his
soul. He thought of her as she had come to distribute words of
comfort, binding up the wounds of the afflicted, giving meat to the
hungry; though her stern husband had chidden her for it. He thought of
the legend told of her, how she had been carrying the full basket
containing food and wine, when her husband, who watched her footsteps,
came forth and asked angrily what she was carrying, whereupon she
answered, in fear and trembling, that the basket contained roses which
she had plucked in the garden; how he had torn away the white cloth
from the basket, and a miracle had been performed for the pious lady;
for bread, and wine, and everything in the basket had been transformed
into roses!
Thus the saint's memory dwelt in Anthony's quiet mind; thus she stood
bodily before his downcast face, before his warehouse in the simple
booth in the Danish land. He uncovered his head, and looked into her
gentle eyes, and everything around him was beautiful and roseate. Yes,
the roses seemed to unfold themselves in fragrance. There came to him
a sweet, peculiar odour of apples, and he saw a blooming apple tree,
which spread its branches above him--it was the tree which Molly and
he had planted together.
And the tree strewed down its fragrant leaves upon him, cooling his
burning brow. The leaves fell upon his parched lips, and were like
strengthening bread and wine; and they fell upon his breast, and he
felt reassured and calm, and inclined to sleep peacefully.
"Now I shall sleep," he whispered to himself. "Sleep is refreshing.
To-morrow I shall be upon my feet again, and strong and
well--glorious, wonderful! That apple tree, planted in true affection,
now stands before me in heavenly radiance----"
[Illustration: THE OPPOSITE NEIGHBOUR LOOKS AFTER OLD ANTHONY.]
And he slept.
The day afterwards--it was the third day that his shop had remained
closed--the snow-storm had ceased, and a neighbour from the opposite
house came over towards the booth where dwelt old Anthony, who had not
yet shown himself. Anthony lay stretched upon his bed--dead--with his
old cap clutched tightly in his two hands! They did not put that cap
on his head in his coffin, for he had a new white one.
Where were now the tears that he had wept? What had become of the
pearls? They remained in the nightcap--and the true ones do not come
out in the wash--they were preserved in the nightcap, and in time
forgotten; but the old thoughts and the old dreams still remained in
the "bachelor's nightcap." Don't wish for such a cap for yourself. It
would make your forehead very hot, would make your pulse beat
feverishly, and conjure up dreams which appear like reality. The first
who wore that identical cap afterwards felt all that at once, though
it was half a century afterwards; and that man was the burgomaster
himself, who, with his wife and eleven children, was well and firmly
established, and had amassed a very tolerable amount of wealth. He was
immediately seized with dreams of unfortunate love, of bankruptcy, and
of heavy times.
"Hallo! how the nightcap burns!" he cried out, and tore it from his
head.
And a pearl rolled out, and another, and another, and they sounded and
glittered.
"This must be gout," said the burgomaster. "Something dazzles my
eyes!"
They were tears, shed half a century before by old Anthony from
Eisenach.
Every one who afterwards put that nightcap upon his head had visions
and dreams which excited him not a little. His own history was changed
into that of Anthony, and became a story; in fact, many stories. But
some one else may tell _them_. We have told the first. And our last
word is--don't wish for "The Old Bachelor's Nightcap."
THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER.
The storks tell their little ones very many stories, all of the moor
and the marsh. These stories are generally adapted to the age and
capacity of the hearers. The youngest are content if they are told
"Kribble-krabble, plurre-murre" as a story, and find it charming; but
the older ones want something with a deeper meaning, or at any rate
something relating to the family. Of the two oldest and longest
stories that have been preserved among the storks, we are only
acquainted with one, namely, that of Moses, who was exposed by his
mother on the banks of the Nile, and whom the king's daughter found,
and who afterwards became a great man and a prophet. That history is
very well known.
The second is not known yet, perhaps, because it is quite an inland
story. It has been handed down from mouth to mouth, from stork-mamma
to stork-mamma, for thousands of years, and each of them has told it
better and better; and now _we_'ll tell it best of all.
The first stork pair who told the story had their summer residence on
the wooden house of the Viking, which lay by the wild moor in
Wendsyssel; that is to say, if we are to speak out of the abundance of
our knowledge, hard by the great moor in the circle of Hjoerring, high
up by the Skagen, the northern point of Jutland. The wilderness there
is still a great wide moor-heath, about which we can read in the
official description of districts. It is said that in old times there
was here a sea, whose bottom was upheaved; now the moorland extends
for miles on all sides, surrounded by damp meadows, and unsteady
shaking swamp, and turfy moor, with blueberries and stunted trees.
Mists are almost always hovering over this region, which seventy years
ago was still inhabited by wolves. It is certainly rightly called the
"wild moor;" and one can easily think how dreary and lonely it must
have been, and how much marsh and lake there was here a thousand years
ago. Yes, in detail, exactly the same things were seen then that may
yet be beheld. The reeds had the same height, and bore the same kind
of long leaves and bluish-brown feathery plumes that they bear now;
the birch stood there, with its white bark and its fine
loosely-hanging leaves, just as now; and as regards the living
creatures that dwelt here--why, the fly wore its gauzy dress of the
same cut that it wears now; and the favourite colours of the stork
were white picked out with black, and red stockings. The people
certainly wore coats of a different cut to those they now wear; but
whoever stepped out on the shaking moorland, be he huntsman or
follower, master or servant, met with the same fate a thousand years
ago that he would meet with to-day. He sank and went down to the
"marsh king," as they called him, who ruled below in the great
moorland empire. They also called him "gungel king;" but we like the
name "marsh king" better, and by that we'll call him, as the storks
did. Very little is known of the marsh king's rule; but perhaps that
is a good thing.
In the neighbourhood of the moorland, hard by the great arm of the
German Ocean and the Cattegat, which is called the Luemfjorden, lay the
wooden house of the Viking, with its stone water-tight cellars, with
its tower and its three projecting stories. On the roof the stork had
built his nest; and stork-mamma there hatched the eggs, and felt sure
that her hatching would come to something.
One evening stork-papa stayed out very long; and when he came home he
looked very bustling and important.
"I've something very terrible to tell you," he said to the
stork-mamma.
"Let that be," she replied. "Remember that I'm hatching the eggs, and
you might agitate me, and I might do them a mischief."
"You must know it," he continued. "She has arrived here--the daughter
of our host in Egypt--she has dared to undertake the journey here--and
she's gone!"
"She who came from the race of the fairies? Oh, tell me all about it!
You know I can't bear to be kept long in suspense when I'm hatching
eggs."