they were pleasant words when the woman said, "Shall I ever see thee
again, Inge? One knows not what may happen."
But Inge knew right well that her good mistress would never come to
the place where she was.
And again time went on--a long, bitter time. Then Inge heard her name
pronounced once more, and saw two bright stars that seemed gleaming
above her. They were two gentle eyes closing upon earth. So many years
had gone by since the little girl had been inconsolable and wept about
"poor Inge," that the child had become an old woman, who was now to be
called home to heaven; and in the last hour of existence, when the
events of the whole life stand at once before us, the old woman
remembered how as a child she had cried heartily at the story of Inge.
And the eyes of the old woman closed, and the eye of her soul was
opened to look upon the hidden things. She, in whose last thoughts
Inge had been present so vividly, saw how deeply the poor girl had
sunk, and burst into tears at the sight; in heaven she stood like a
child, and wept for poor Inge. And her tears and prayers sounded like
an echo in the dark empty space that surrounded the tormented captive
soul, and the unhoped-for love from above conquered her, for an angel
was weeping for her. Why was this vouchsafed to her? The tormented
soul seemed to gather in her thoughts every deed she had done on
earth, and she, Inge, trembled and wept such tears as she had never
yet wept. She was filled with sorrow about herself: it seemed as
though the gate of mercy could never open to her; and while in deep
penitence she acknowledged this, a beam, of light shot radiantly down
into the depths to her, with a greater force than that of the sunbeam
which melts the snow man the boys have built up; and quicker than the
snow-flake melts, and becomes a drop of water that falls on the warm
lips of a child, the stony form of Inge was changed to mist, and a
little bird soared with the speed of lightning upward into the world
of men. But the bird was timid and shy towards all things around; he
was ashamed of himself, ashamed to encounter any living thing, and
hurriedly sought to conceal himself in a dark hole in an old crumbling
wall; there he sat cowering, trembling through his whole frame, and
unable to utter a sound, for he had no voice. Long he sat there,
before he could rightly see all the beauty around him; for it was
beautiful. The air was fresh and mild, the moon cast its mild radiance
over the earth; trees and bushes exhaled fragrance, and it was right
pleasant where he sat, and his coat of feathers was clean and pure.
How all creation seemed to speak of beneficence and love! The bird
wanted to sing of the thoughts that stirred in his breast, but he
could not; gladly would he have sung as the cuckoo and the nightingale
sung in spring-time. But Heaven, that hears the mute song of praise of
the worm, could hear the notes of praise which now trembled in the
breast of the bird, as David's psalms were heard before they had
fashioned themselves into words and song.
For weeks these toneless songs stirred within the bird; at last, the
holy Christmas-time approached. The peasant who dwelt near set up a
pole by the old wall with, some ears of corn bound to the top, that
the birds of heaven might have a good meal, and rejoice in the happy,
blessed time.
And on Christmas morning the sun arose and shone upon the ears of
corn, which were surrounded by a number of twittering birds. Then out
of the hole in the wall streamed forth the voice of another bird, and
the bird soared forth from its hiding-place; and in heaven it was well
known what bird this was.
It was a hard winter. The ponds were covered with ice, and the beasts
of the field and the birds of the air were stinted for food. Our
little bird soared away over the high road, and in the ruts of the
sledges he found here and there a grain of corn, and at the
halting-places some crumbs. Of these he ate only a few, but he called
all the other hungry sparrows around him, that they, too, might have
some food. He flew into the towns, and looked round about; and
wherever a kind hand had strewn bread on the window-sill for the
birds, he only ate a single crumb himself, and gave all the rest to
the other birds.
In the course of the winter, the bird had collected so many bread
crumbs, and given them to the other birds, that they equalled the
weight of the loaf on which Inge had trod to keep her shoes clean; and
when the last bread crumb had been found and given, the grey wings of
the bird became white, and spread far out.
"Yonder is a sea-swallow, flying away across the water," said the
children when they saw the white bird. Now it dived into the sea, and
now it rose again into the clear sunlight. It gleamed white; but no
one could tell whither it went, though some asserted that it flew
straight into the sun.
A STORY FROM THE SAND-DUNES.
This is a story from the sand-dunes or sand-hills of Jutland; though
it does not begin in Jutland, the northern peninsula, but far away in
the south, in Spain. The ocean is the high road between the
nations--transport thyself thither in thought to sunny Spain. There it
is warm and beautiful, there the fiery pomegranate blossoms flourish
among the dark laurels; from the mountains a cool refreshing wind
blows down, upon, and over the orange gardens, over the gorgeous
Moorish halls with their golden cupolas and coloured walls: through
the streets go children in procession, with candles and with waving
flags, and over them, lofty and clear, rises the sky with its gleaming
stars. There is a sound of song and of castagnettes, and youths and
maidens join in the dance under the blooming acacias, while the
mendicant sits upon the hewn marble stone, refreshing himself with the
juicy melon, and dreamily enjoying life. The whole is like a glorious
dream. And there was a newly married couple who completely gave
themselves up to its charm; moreover, they possessed the good things
of this life, health and cheerfulness of soul, riches and honour.
"We are as happy as it is possible to be," exclaimed the young couple,
from the depths of their hearts They had indeed but one step more to
mount in the ladder of happiness, in the hope that God would give them
a child; a son like them in form and in spirit.
The happy child would be welcomed with rejoicing, would be tended with
all care and love, and enjoy every advantage that wealth and ease
possessed by an influential family could give.
And the days went by like a glad festival.
"Life is a gracious gift of Providence, an almost inappreciable gift!"
said the young wife, "and yet they tell us that fulness of joy is
found only in the future life, for ever and ever. I cannot compass the
thought."
"And perhaps the thought arises from the arrogance of men," said the
husband. "It seems a great pride to believe that we shall live for
ever, that we shall be as gods. Were these not the words of the
serpent, the origin of falsehood?"
"Surely you do not doubt the future life?" exclaimed the young wife;
and it seemed as if one of the first shadows flitted over the sunny
heaven of her thoughts.
"Faith promises it, and the priests tells us so!" replied the man;
"but amid all my happiness, I feel that it is arrogance to demand a
continued happiness, another life after this. Has not so much been
given us in this state of existence, that we ought to be, that we
_must_ be, contented with it?"
"Yes, it has been given to _us_," said the young wife, "but to how
many thousands is not this life one scene of hard trial? How many have
been thrown into this world, as if only to suffer poverty and shame
and sickness and misfortune? If there were no life after this,
everything on earth would be too unequally distributed, and the
Almighty would not be justice itself."
"Yonder beggar," replied the man, "has his joys which seem to him
great, and which rejoice him as much as the king is rejoiced in the
splendour of his palace. And then, do you not think that the beast of
burden, which suffers blows and hunger, and works itself to death,
suffers from its heavy fate? The dumb beast might likewise demand a
future life, and declare the decree unjust that does not admit it into
a higher place of creation."
"HE has said, 'In my Father's house are many mansions,'" replied the
young wife: "heaven is immeasurable, as the love of our Maker is
immeasurable. Even the dumb beast is His creature; and I firmly
believe that no life will be lost, but that each will receive that
amount of happiness which he can enjoy, and which is sufficient for
him."
"This world is sufficient for me!" said the man, and he threw his arms
round his beautiful, amiable wife, and then smoked his cigarette on
the open balcony, where the cool air was filled with the fragrance of
oranges and pinks. The sound of music and the clatter of castagnettes
came up from the road, the stars gleamed above, and two eyes full of
affection, the eyes of his wife, looked on him with the undying glance
of love.
[Illustration: IN SPAIN.]
"Such a moment," he said, "makes it worth while to be born, to fall,
and to disappear!" and he smiled. The young wife raised her hand in
mild reproach, and the shadow passed away from her world, and they
were happy--quite happy.
Everything seemed to work together for them. They advanced in honour,
in prosperity, and in joy. There was a change, indeed, but only a
change of place; not in enjoyment of life and of happiness. The young
man was sent by his sovereign as ambassador to the court of Russia.
This was an honourable office, and his birth and his acquirements gave
him a title to be thus honoured. He possessed a great fortune, and his
wife had brought him wealth equal to his own, for she was the daughter
of a rich and respected merchant. One of this merchant's largest and
finest ships was to be dispatched during that year to Stockholm, and
it was arranged that the dear young people, the daughter and the
son-in-law, should travel in it to St. Petersburg. And all the
arrangements on board were princely--rich carpets for the feet, and
silk and luxury on all sides.
In an old heroic song, "The King's Son of England," it says,
"Moreover, he sailed in a gallant ship, and the anchor was gilded with
ruddy gold, and each rope was woven through with silk," And this ship
involuntarily rose in the mind of him who saw the vessel from Spain,
for here was the same pomp, and the same parting thought naturally
arose--the thought:
"God grant that we all in joy
Once more may meet again."
And the wind blew fairly seaward from the Spanish shore, and the
parting was to be but a brief one, for in a few weeks the voyagers
would reach their destination; but when they came out upon the high
seas, the wind sank, the sea became calm and shining, the stars of
heaven gleamed brightly, and they were festive evenings that were
spent in the sumptuous cabin.
At length the voyagers began to wish for wind, for a favouring breeze;
but the breeze would not blow, or, if it did arise, it was contrary.
Thus weeks passed away, two full months; and then at last the fair
wind blew--it blew from the south-west. The ship sailed on the high
seas between Scotland and Jutland, and the wind increased just as in
the old song of "The King's Son of England."
"And it blew a storm, and the rain came down,
And they found not land nor shelter,
And forth they threw their anchor of gold,
As the wind blew westward, toward Denmark."
This all happened a long, long while ago. King Christian VII. then sat
on the Danish throne, and he was still a young man. Much has happened
since that time, much has changed or has been changed. Sea and
moorland have been converted into green meadows, heath has become
arable land, and in the shelter of the West Jute huts grow apple trees
and rose bushes, though they certainly require to be sought for, as
they bend beneath the sharp west wind. In Western Jutland one may go
back in thought to the old times, farther back than the days when
Christian VII. bore rule. As it did then, in Jutland, the brown heath
now also extends for miles, with its "Hun's Graves," its aerial
spectacles, and its crossing, sandy, uneven roads; westward, where
large rivulets run into the bays, extend marshes and meadow land,
girdled with lofty sand-hills, which, like a row of Alps, raise their
peaked summits towards the sea, only broken by the high clayey ridges,
from which the waves year by year bite out huge mouthfuls, so that the
impending shores fall down as if by the shock of an earthquake. Thus
it is there to-day, and thus it was many, many years ago, when the
happy pair were sailing in the gorgeous ship.
It was in the last days of September, a Sunday, and sunny weather; the
chiming of the church bells in the bay of Nissum was wafted along like
a chain of sounds. The churches there are erected almost entirely of
hewn boulder stones, each like a piece of rock; the North Sea might
foam over them, and they would not be overthrown. Most of them are
without steeples, and the bells are hung between two beams in the open
air. The service was over, and the congregation thronged out into the
churchyard, where then, as now, not a tree nor a bush was to be seen;
not a single flower had been planted there, nor had a wreath been laid
upon the graves. Rough mounds show where the dead had been buried, and
rank grass, tossed by the wind, grows thickly over the whole
churchyard. Here and there a grave had a monument to show, in the
shape of a half-decayed block of wood rudely shaped into the form of a
coffin, the said block having been brought from the forest of West
Jutland; but the forest of West Jutland is the wild sea itself, where
the inhabitants find the hewn beams and planks and fragments which the
breakers cast ashore. The wind and the sea fog soon destroy the wood.
One of these blocks had been placed by loving hands on a child's
grave, and one of the women, who had come out of the church, stepped
towards it. She stood still in front of it, and let her glance rest on
the discoloured memorial. A few moments afterwards her husband stepped
up to her. Neither of them spoke a word, but he took her hand, and
they wandered across the brown heath, over moor and meadow, towards
the sand-hills; for a long time they thus walked silently side by
side.
"That was a good sermon to-day," the man said at length. "If we had
not God to look to, we should have nothing!"
"Yes," observed the woman, "He sends joy and sorrow, and He has a
right to send them. To-morrow our little boy would have been five
years old, if we had been allowed to keep him."
"You will gain nothing by fretting, wife," said the man. "The boy is
well provided for. He is there whither we pray to go."
And they said nothing more, but went forward to their house among the
sand-hills. Suddenly, in front of one of the houses where the sea
grass did not keep the sand down with its twining roots, there arose
what appeared to be a column of smoke rising into the air. A gust of
wind swept in among the hills, whirling the particles of sand high in
the air. Another, and the strings of fish hung up to dry flapped and
beat violently against the wall of the hut; and then all was still
again, and the sun shone down hotly.
Man and wife stepped into the house. They had soon taken off their
Sunday clothes, and emerging again, they hurried away over the dunes,
which stood there like huge waves of sand suddenly arrested in their
course, while the sandweeds and the dunegrass with its bluish stalks
spread a changing colour over them. A few neighbours came up, and
helped one another to draw the boats higher up on the sand. The wind
now blew more sharply than before; it was cutting and cold: and when
they went back over the sand-hills, sand and little pointed stones
blew into their faces. The waves reared themselves up with their white
crowns of foam, and the wind cut off their crests, flinging the foam
far around.
The evening came on. In the air was a swelling roar, moaning and
complaining like a troop of despairing spirits, that sounded above the
hoarse rolling of the sea; for the fisher's little hut was on the very
margin. The sand rattled against the window panes, and every now and
then came a violent gust of wind, that shook the house to its
foundations. It was dark, but towards midnight the moon would rise.
The air became clearer, but the storm swept in all its gigantic force
over the perturbed sea. The fisher people had long gone to bed, but in
such weather there was no chance of closing an eye. Presently there
was a knocking at the window, and the door was opened, and a voice
said:
"There's a great ship fast stranded on the outermost reef."
In a moment the fish people had sprung from their couch, and hastily
arrayed themselves.
The moon had risen, it was light enough to make the surrounding
objects visible, to those who could open their eyes for the blinding
clouds of sand. The violence of the wind was terrible; and only by
creeping forward between the gusts was it possible to pass among the
sand-hills; and now the salt spray flew up from the sea like down,
while the ocean foamed like a roaring cataract towards the beach. It
required a practised eye to descry the vessel out in the offing. The
vessel was a noble brig. The billows now lifted it over the reef,
three or four cables' lengths out of the usual channel. It drove
towards the land, struck against the second reef, and remained fixed.
[Illustration: SAVED FROM THE WRECK.]
To render assistance was impossible; the sea rolled fairly in upon the
vessel, making a clean breach over her. Those on shore fancied they
heard the cries of help from on board, and could plainly descry the
busy useless efforts made by the stranded crew. Now a wave came
rolling onward, falling like a rock upon the bowsprit, and tearing it
from the brig. The stern was lifted high above the flood. Two people
were seen to embrace and plunge together into the sea; in a moment
more, and one of the largest waves that rolled towards the sand-hills
threw a body upon the shore. It was a woman, and appeared quite dead,
said the sailors; but some women thought they discerned signs of life
in her, and the stranger was carried across the sand-hills into the
fisherman's hut. How beautiful and fair she was! certainly she must
be a great lady.
They laid her upon the humble bed that boasted not a yard of linen;
but there was a woollen coverlet, and that would keep the occupant
warm.
Life returned to her, but she was delirious, and knew nothing of what
had happened, or where she was; and it was better so, for everything
she loved and valued lay buried in the sea. It was with her ship as
with the vessel in the song of "The King's Son of England."
"Alas, it was a grief to see
How the gallant ship sank speedily."
Portions of wreck and fragments of wood drifted ashore, and they were
all that remained of what had been the ship. The wind still drove
howling over the coast. For a few moments the strange lady seemed to
rest; but she awoke in pain, and cries of anguish and fear came from
her lips. She opened her wonderfully beautiful eyes, and spoke a few
words, but none understood her.
And behold, as a reward for the pain and sorrow she had undergone, she
held in her arms a new-born child, the child that was to have rested
upon a gorgeous couch, surrounded by silken curtains, in the sumptuous
home. It was to have been welcomed with joy to a life rich in all the
goods of the earth; and now Providence had caused it to be born in
this humble retreat, and not even a kiss did it receive from its
mother.
The fisher's wife laid the child upon the mother's bosom, and it
rested on a heart that beat no more, for she was dead. The child who
was to be nursed by wealth and fortune, was cast into the world,
washed by the sea among the sand-hills, to partake the fate and heavy
days of the poor. And here again comes into our mind the old song of
the English king's son, in which mention is made of the customs
prevalent at that time, when knights and squires plundered those who
had been saved from shipwreck.
The ship had been stranded some distance south of Nissum Bay. The
hard, inhuman days in which, as we have stated, the inhabitants of the
Jutland shores did evil to the shipwrecked, were long past. Affection
and sympathy and self-sacrifice for the unfortunate were to be found,
as they are to be found in our own time, in many a brilliant example.
The dying mother and the unfortunate child would have found succour
and help wherever the wind blew them; but nowhere could they have
found more earnest care than in the hut of the poor fisherwife; who
had stood but yesterday, with a heavy heart, beside the grave which
covered her child, which would have been five years old that day, if
God had spared it to her.
No one knew who the dead stranger was, or could even form a
conjecture. The pieces of wreck said nothing on the subject.
Into the rich house in Spain no tidings penetrated of the fate of the
daughter and the son-in-law. They had not arrived at their destined
post, and violent storms had raged during the past weeks. At last the
verdict was given, "Foundered at sea--all lost."
But in the sand-hills near Hunsby, in the fisherman's hut, lived a
little scion of the rich Spanish family.
Where Heaven sends food for two, a third can manage to make a meal,
and in the depths of the sea is many a dish of fish for the hungry.
And they called the boy Juergen.
"It must certainly be a Jewish child," the people said, "it looks so
swarthy."
"It might be an Italian or a Spaniard," observed the clergyman.
But to the fisherwoman these three nations seemed all the same, and
she consoled herself with the idea that the child was baptized as a
Christian.
The boy throve. The noble blood in his veins was warm, and he became
strong on his homely fare. He grew apace in the humble house, and the
Danish dialect spoken by the West Jutes became his language. The
pomegranate seed from Spanish soil became a hardy plant on the coast
of West Jutland. Such may be a man's fate! To this home he clung with
the roots of his whole being. He was to have experience of cold and
hunger, and the misfortunes and hardships that surrounded the humble;
but he tasted also of the poor man's joys.
Childhood has sunny heights for all, whose memory gleams through the
whole after life. The boy had many opportunities for pleasure and
play. The whole coast, for miles and miles, was full of playthings;
for it was a mosaic of pebbles, red as coral, yellow as amber, and
others again white and rounded like birds' eggs; and all smoothed and
prepared by the sea. Even the bleached fish skeletons, the water
plants dried by the wind, seaweed, white, gleaming, and long
linen-like bands, waving among the stones, all these seemed made to
give pleasure and amusement to the eye and the thoughts; and the boy
had an intelligent mind--many and great faculties lay dormant in him.
How readily he retained in his mind the stories and songs he heard,
and how neat-handed he was! With stones and mussel shells he put
together pictures and ships with which one could decorate the room;
and he could cut out his thoughts wonderfully on a stick, his
foster-mother said, though the boy was still so young and little! His
voice sounded sweetly; every melody flowed at once from his lips. Many
chords were attained in his heart which might have sounded out into
the world, if he had been placed elsewhere than in the fisherman's hut
by the North Sea.
One day another ship was stranded there. Among other things, a chest
of rare flower bulbs floated ashore. Some were put into the cooking
pots, for they were thought to be eatable, and others lay and
shrivelled in the sand, but they did not accomplish their purpose, or
unfold the richness of colour whose germ was within them. Would it be
better with Juergen? The flower bulbs had soon played their part, but
he had still years of apprenticeship before him.