ferryman; and when the latter came over with the boat, Juergen stepped
in; but before they had gone half-way across, the men whom he had seen
riding so hastily behind him, hailed the ferryman, and summoned him to
return in the name of the law. Juergen did not understand the reason of
this, but he thought it would be best to turn back, and therefore
himself took an oar and returned. The moment the boat touched the
shore, the men sprang on board, and, before he was aware, they had
bound his hands with a rope.
"Thy wicked deed will cost thee thy life," they said. "It is well that
we caught thee."
He was accused of nothing less than murder. Martin had been found
dead, with a knife thrust through his neck. One of the fishermen had
(late on the previous evening) met Juergen going towards Martin's
house; and this was not the first time Juergen had raised his knife
against Martin--so they knew that he was the murderer. The town in
which the prison was built was a long way off, and the wind was
contrary for going there; but not half an hour would be required to
get across the bay, and a quarter of an hour would bring them from
thence to Noerre Vosborg, a great castle with walls and ditches. One of
Juergen's captors was a fisherman, a brother of the keeper of the
castle; and he declared it might be managed that Juergen should for the
present be put into the dungeon at Vosborg, where Long Martha the
gipsy had been shut up till her execution.
No attention was paid to the defence made by Juergen; the few drops of
blood upon his shirt-sleeve bore heavy witness against him. But Juergen
was conscious of innocence; and as there was no chance of immediately
righting himself, he submitted to his fate.
The party landed just at the spot where Sir Bugge's castle had stood
and where Juergen had walked with his foster-parents after the burial
feast, during the four happiest days of his childhood. He was led by
the old path over the meadow to Vosborg; and again the elder
blossomed and the lofty lindens smelt sweet, and it seemed but
yesterday that he had left the spot.
In the two wings of the castle a staircase leads down to a spot below
the entrance, and from thence there is access to a low vaulted cellar.
Here Long Martha had been imprisoned, and hence she had been led away
to the scaffold. She had eaten the hearts of five children, and had
been under the delusion that if she could obtain two more, she would
be able to fly and to make herself invisible. In the midst of the
cellar roof was a little narrow air-hole, but no window. The blooming
lindens could not waft a breath of comforting fragrance into that
abode, where all was dark and mouldy. Only a rough bench stood in the
prison; but "a good conscience is a soft pillow," and consequently
Juergen could sleep well.
The thick oaken door was locked, and secured on the outside by an iron
bar; but the goblin of superstition can creep through a keyhole into
the baron's castle just as into the fisherman's hut; and wherefore
should he not creep in here, where Juergen sat thinking of Long Martha
and her evil deeds? Her last thought on the night before her execution
had filled this space; and all the magic came into Juergen's mind which
tradition asserted to have been practised there in the old times, when
Sir Schwanwedel dwelt there. All this passed through Juergen's mind,
and made him shudder; but a sunbeam--a refreshing thought from
without--penetrated his heart even here; it was the remembrance of the
blooming elder and the fragrant lime trees.
He was not left there long. They carried him off to the town of
Ringkjoebing, where his imprisonment was just as hard.
Those times were not like ours. Hard measure was dealt out to the
"common" people; and it was just after the days when farms were
converted into knights' estates, on which occasions coachmen and
servants were often made magistrates, and had it in their power to
sentence a poor man, for a small offence, to lose his property and to
corporal punishment. Judges of this kind were still to be found; and
in Jutland, far from the capital and from the enlightened well-meaning
head of the government, the law was still sometimes very loosely
administered; and the smallest grievance that Juergen had to expect was
that his case would be protracted.
Cold and cheerless was his abode--and when would this state of things
end? He had innocently sunk into misfortune and sorrow--that was his
fate. He had leisure now to ponder on the difference of fortune on
earth, and to wonder why this fate had been allotted to him; and he
felt sure that the question would be answered in the next life--the
existence that awaits us when this is over. This faith had grown
strong in him in the poor fisherman's hut; that which had never shone
into his father's mind, in all the richness and sunshine of Spain, was
vouchsafed as a light of comfort in his poverty and distress--a sign
of mercy from God that never deceives.
The spring storms began to blow. The rolling and moaning of the North
Sea could be heard for miles inland when the wind was lulled; for then
it sounded like the rushing of a thousand waggons over a hard road
with a mine beneath. Juergen, in his prison, heard these sounds, and it
was a relief to him. No melody could have appealed so directly to his
heart as did these sounds of the sea--the rolling sea, the boundless
sea, on which a man can be borne across the world before the wind,
carrying his own house with him wherever he is driven, just as the
snail carries its home even into a strange land.
How he listened to the deep moaning, and how the thought arose in
him--"Free! free! How happy to be free, even without shoes and in
ragged clothes!" Sometimes, when such thoughts crossed his mind, the
fiery nature rose within him, and he beat the wall with his clenched
fists.
Weeks, months, a whole year had gone by, when a vagabond--Niels, the
thief, called also the horse couper--was arrested; and now the better
times came, and it was seen what wrong Juergen had endured.
In the neighbourhood of Ringkjoebing, at a beer-house, Niels, the
thief, had met Martin on the afternoon before Juergen's departure from
home and before the murder. A few glasses were drunk--not enough to
cloud any one's brain, but yet enough to loosen Martin's tongue; and
he began to boast, and to say that he had obtained a house, and
intended to marry; and when Niels asked where he intended to get the
money, Martin shook his pocket proudly, and said,
"The money is there, where it ought to be."
This boast cost him his life; for when he went home, Niels went after
him, and thrust a knife through his throat, to rob the murdered man of
the expected gold, which did not exist.
This was circumstantially explained; but for us it is enough to know
that Juergen was set at liberty. But what amends did he get for having
been imprisoned a whole year, and shut out from all communion with
men? They told him he was fortunate in being proved innocent, and that
he might go. The burgomaster gave him two dollars for travelling
expenses, and many citizens offered him provisions and beer--there
were still good men, not all "grind and flay." But the best of all
was, that the merchant Broenne of Skjagen, the same into whose service
Juergen intended to go a year since, was just at that time on business
in the town of Ringkjoebing. Broenne heard the whole story; and the man
had a good heart, and understood what Juergen must have felt and
suffered. He therefore made up his mind to make it up to the poor lad,
and convince him that there were still kind folks in the world.
So Juergen went forth from the prison as if to Paradise, to find
freedom, affection, and trust. He was to travel this road now; for no
goblet of life is all bitterness: no good man would pour out such
measure to his fellow man, and how should He do it, who is love
itself?
"Let all that be buried and forgotten," said Broenne the merchant. "Let
us draw a thick line through last year; and we will even burn the
calendar. And in two days we'll start for dear, friendly, peaceful
Skjagen. They call Skjagen an out-of-the-way corner; but it's a good
warm chimney-corner, and its windows open towards every part of the
world."
That was a journey!--it was like taking fresh breath--out of the cold
dungeon air into the warm sunshine! The heath stood blooming in its
greatest pride, and the herd-boy sat on the Hun's Grave and blew his
pipe, which he had carved for himself out of the sheep's bone. Fata
Morgana, the beautiful aerial phenomenon of the desert, showed itself
with hanging gardens and swaying forests, and the wonderful cloud
phenomenon, called here the "Lokeman driving his flock," was seen
likewise.
Up through the land of the Wendels, up towards Skjagen, they went,
from whence the men with the long beards (the Longobardi, or Lombards)
had emigrated in the days when, in the reign of King Snio, all the
children and the old people were to have been killed, till the noble
Dame Gambaruk proposed that the young people had better emigrate. All
this was known to Juergen--thus much knowledge he had; and even if he
did not know the land of the Lombards beyond the high Alps, he had an
idea how it must be there, for in his boyhood he had been in the
south, in Spain. He thought of the southern fruits piled up there; of
the red pomegranate blossoms; of the humming, murmuring, and toiling
in the great beehive of a city he had seen; but, after all, home is
best; and Juergen's home was Denmark.
[Illustration: JUeRGEN'S BETTER FORTUNE.]
At length they reached "Wendelskajn," as Skjagen is called in the old
Norwegian and Icelandic writings. Then already Old Skjagen, with the
western and eastern town, extended for miles, with sand-hills and
arable land, as far as the lighthouse near the "Skjagenzweig." Then,
as now, the houses were strewn among the wind-raised sand-hills--a
desert where the wind sports with the sand, and where the voices of
the seamen and the wild swans strike harshly on the ear. In the
south-west, a mile from the sea, lies Old Skjagen; and here dwelt
merchant Broenne, and here Juergen was henceforth to dwell. The great
house was painted with tar; the smaller buildings had each an
overturned boat for a roof; the pig-sty had been put together of
pieces of wreck. There was no fence here, for indeed there was nothing
to fence in; but long rows of fishes were hung upon lines, one above
the other, to dry in the wind. The whole coast was strewn with spoilt
herrings; for there were so many of those fish, that a net was
scarcely thrown into the sea before they were caught by cartloads;
there were so many, that often they were thrown back into the sea, or
left to lie on the shore.
The old man's wife and daughter, and his servants too, came
rejoicingly to meet him. There was a great pressing of hands, and
talking, and questioning. And the daughter, what a lovely face and
bright eyes she had!
The interior of the house was roomy and comfortable. Fritters that a
king would have looked upon as a dainty dish, were placed on the
table; and there was wine from the vineyard of Skjagen--that is, the
sea; for there the grapes come ashore ready pressed and prepared in
barrels and in bottles.
When the mother and daughter heard who Juergen was, and how innocently
he had suffered, they looked at him in a still more friendly way; and
the eyes of the charming Clara were the friendliest of all. Juergen
found a happy home in Old Skjagen. It did his heart good; and his
heart had been sorely tried, and had drunk the bitter goblet of love,
which softens or hardens according to circumstances. Juergen's heart
was still soft--it was young, and there was still room in it; and
therefore it was well that Mistress Clara was going in three weeks in
her father's ship to Christiansand, in Norway, to visit an aunt, and
to stay there the whole winter.
On the Sunday before her departure they all went to church, to the
holy Communion. The church was large and handsome, and had been built
centuries before by Scotchmen and Hollanders; it lay at a little
distance from the town. It was certainly somewhat ruinous, and the
road to it was heavy, through the deep sand; but the people gladly
went through the difficulties to get to the house of God, to sing
psalms and hear the sermon. The sand had heaped itself up round the
walls of the church; but the graves were kept free from it.
It was the largest church north of the Limfjord. The Virgin Mary, with
the golden crown on her head and the child Jesus in her arms, stood
life-like upon the altar; the holy Apostles had been carved in the
choir; and on the wall hung portraits of the old burgomasters and
councillors of Skjagen; the pulpit was of carved work. The sun shone
brightly into the church, and its radiance fell on the polished brass
chandelier, and on the little ship that hung from the vaulted roof.
Juergen felt as if overcome by a holy, childlike feeling, like that
which possessed him when, as a boy, he had stood in the splendid
Spanish cathedral; but here the feeling was different, for he felt
conscious of being one of the congregation.
After the sermon followed the holy Communion. He partook of the bread
and wine, and it happened that he knelt beside Mistress Clara; but his
thoughts were so fixed upon Heaven and the holy service, that he did
not notice his neighbour until he rose from his knees, and then he saw
tears rolling down her cheeks.
Two days later she left Skjagen and went to Norway. He stayed behind,
and made himself useful in the house and in the business. He went out
fishing, and at that time fish were more plentiful and larger than
now. Every Sunday when he sat in the church, and his eye rested on the
statue of the Virgin on the altar, his glance rested for a time on the
spot where Mistress Clara had knelt beside him, and he thought of her,
how hearty and kind she had been to him.
And so the autumn and the winter time passed away. There was wealth
here, and a real family life; even down to the domestic animals, who
were all well kept. The kitchen glittered with copper and tin and
white plates, and from the roof hung hams and beef, and winter stores
in plenty. All this is still to be seen in many rich farms of the west
coast of Jutland: plenty to eat and drink, clean decorated rooms,
clever heads, happy tempers, and hospitality prevail there as in an
Arab tent.
Never since the famous burial feast had Juergen spent such a happy
time; and yet Mistress Clara was absent, except in the thoughts and
memory of all.
In April a ship was to start for Norway, and Juergen was to sail in it.
He was full of life and spirits, and looked so stout and jovial that
Dame Broenne declared it did her good to see him.
"And it's a pleasure to see you too, old wife," said the old merchant.
"Juergen has brought life into our winter evenings, and into you too,
mother. You look younger this year, and you seem well and bonny. But
then you were once the prettiest girl in Wiborg, and that's saying a
great deal, for I have always found the Wiborg girls the prettiest of
any."
Juergen said nothing to this, but he thought of a certain maiden of
Skjagen; and he sailed to visit that maiden, for the ship steered to
Christiansand, in Norway, and a favouring wind bore it rapidly to that
town.
One morning merchant Broenne went out to the lighthouse that stands far
away from Old Skjagen: the coal fire had long gone out, and the sun
was already high when he mounted the tower. The sand-banks extend
under the water a whole mile from the shore. Outside these banks many
ships were seen that day; and with the help of his telescope the old
man thought he descried his own vessel, the "Karen Broenne."
Yes, surely there she was; and the ship was sailing up with Juergen and
Clara on board. The church and the lighthouse appeared to them as a
heron and a swan rising from the blue waters. Clara sat on deck, and
saw the sand-hills gradually looming forth: if the wind held she might
reach her home in about an hour--so near were they to home and its
joys--so near were they to death and its terrors. For a plank in the
ship gave way, and the water rushed in. The crew flew to the pumps,
and attempted to stop the leak. A signal of distress was hoisted; but
they were still a full mile from the shore. Fishing boats were in
sight, but they were still far distant. The wind blew shoreward, and
the tide was in their favour too; but all was insufficient, for the
ship sank. Juergen threw his right arm about Clara, and pressed her
close to him.
With what a look she gazed in his face! As he threw himself in God's
name into the water with her, she uttered a cry; but still she felt
safe, certain that he would not let her sink.
And now, in the hour of terror and danger, Juergen experienced what the
old song told:
"And written it stood, how the brave king's son
Embraced the bride his valour had won."
How rejoiced he felt that he was a good swimmer! He worked his way
onward with his feet and with one hand, while with the other he
tightly held the young girl. He rested upon the waves, he trod the
water, he practised all the arts he knew, so as to reserve strength
enough to reach the shore. He heard how Clara uttered a sigh, and felt
a convulsive shudder pass through her, and he pressed her to him
closer than ever. Now and then a wave rolled over her; and he was
still a few cables' lengths from the land, when help came in the shape
of an approaching boat. But under the water--he could see it
clearly--stood a white form gazing at him: a wave lifted him up, and
the form approached him: he felt a shock, and it grew dark, and
everything vanished from his gaze.
On the sand-reef lay the wreck of a ship, the sea washed over it; the
white figure-head leant against an anchor, the sharp iron extended
just to the surface. Juergen had come in contact with this, and the
tide had driven him against it with double force. He sank down
fainting with his load; but the next wave lifted him and the young
girl aloft again.
The fishermen grasped them, and lifted them into the boat. The blood
streamed down over Juergen's face; he seemed dead, but he still
clutched the girl so tightly that they were obliged to loosen her by
force from his grasp. And Clara lay pale and lifeless in the boat,
that now made for the shore.
All means were tried to restore Clara to life; but she was dead! For
some time he had been swimming onward with a corpse, and had exerted
himself to exhaustion for one who was dead.
Juergen was still breathing. The fishermen carried him into the nearest
house upon the sand-hills. A kind of surgeon who lived there, and was
at the same time a smith and a general dealer, bound up Juergen's
wounds in a temporary way, till a physician could be got next day from
the nearest town.
The brain of the sick man was affected. In delirium he uttered wild
cries; but on the third day he lay quiet and exhausted on his couch,
and his life seemed to hang by a thread, and the physician said it
would be best if this string snapped.
"Let us pray that God may take him to Himself; he will never be a sane
man again!"
But life would not depart from him--the thread would not snap; but the
thread of memory broke: the thread of all his mental power had been
cut through; and, what was most terrible, a body remained--a living
healthy body--that wandered about like a spectre.
Juergen remained in the house of the merchant Broenne.
"He contracted his illness in his endeavour to save our child," said
the old man, "and now he is our son."
People called Juergen imbecile; but that was not the right expression.
He was like an instrument, in which the strings are loose and will
sound no more; only at times for a few minutes they regained their
power, and then they sounded anew: old melodies were heard, snatches
of song; pictures unrolled themselves, and then disappeared again in
the mist, and once more he sat staring before him, without a thought.
We may believe that he did not suffer, but his dark eyes lost their
brightness, and looked only like black clouded glass.
"Poor imbecile Juergen!" said the people.
He it was whose life was to have been so pleasant that it would be
"presumption and pride" to expect or believe in a higher existence
hereafter. All his great mental faculties had been lost; only hard
days, pain, and disappointment had been his lot. He was like a rare
plant torn from its native soil, and thrown upon the sand, to wither
there. And was the image, fashioned in God's likeness, to have no
better destination? Was it to be merely the sport of chance? No. The
all-loving God would certainly repay him in the life to come, for
what he had suffered and lost here. "The Lord is good to all; and His
mercy is over all His works." These words from the Psalms of David,
the old pious wife of the merchant repeated in patience and hope, and
the prayer of her heart was that Juergen might soon be summoned to
enter into the life eternal.
In the churchyard where the sand blows across the walls, Clara lay
buried. It seemed as if Juergen knew nothing of this--it did not come
within the compass of his thoughts, which comprised only fragments of
a past time. Every Sunday he went with the old people to church, and
sat silent there with vacant gaze. One day, while the Psalms were
being sung, he uttered a deep sigh, and his eyes gleamed: they were
fixed upon the altar, upon the place where he had knelt with his
friend who was dead. He uttered her name, and became pale as death,
and tears rolled over his cheeks.
They led him out of the church; and he said to the bystanders that he
was well, and had never been ill: he, the heavily afflicted, the waif
cast forth upon the world, remembered nothing of his sufferings. And
the Lord our Creator is wise and full of loving-kindness--who can
doubt it?
In Spain, where the warm breezes blow over the Moorish cupola, among
the orange trees and laurels, where song and the sound of castagnettes
are always heard, sat in the sumptuous house a childish old man, the
richest merchant in the place, while children marched in procession
through the streets, with waving flags and lighted tapers. How much of
his wealth would the old man not have given to be able to press his
children to his heart! his daughter, or her child, that had perhaps
never seen the light in this world, far less a Paradise.
"Poor child!"
Yes, poor child--a child still, and yet more than thirty years old;
for to that age Juergen had attained in Old Skjagen.
The drifting sand had covered the graves in the churchyard quite up to
the walls of the church; but yet the dead must be buried among their
relations and loved ones who had gone before them. Merchant Broenne and
his wife now rested here with their children, under the white sand.
It was spring-time, the season of storms. The sand-hills whirled up in
clouds, and the sea ran high, and flocks of birds flew like clouds in
the storms, shrieking across the dunes; and shipwreck followed
shipwreck on the reefs of "Skjagenzweig" from towards the Hunsby
dunes. One evening Juergen was sitting alone in the room. Suddenly his
mind seemed to become clearer, and a feeling of unrest came upon him,
which in his younger years had often driven him forth upon the heath
and the sand-hills.
"Home! home!" he exclaimed. No one heard him. He went out of the house
towards the dunes. Sand and stones blew into his face and whirled
around him. He went on farther and farther, towards the church: the
sand lay high around the walls, half over the windows; but the heap
had been shovelled away from the door, and the entrance was free and
easy to open; and Juergen went into the church.