man the sea had not run so high--a terrible tempest! but Juergen was in
the temple of God, and while black night reigned without, a light
arose in his soul, a light that was never to be extinguished; he felt
the heavy stone which seemed to weigh upon his head burst asunder. He
thought he heard the sound of the organ, but it was the storm and the
moaning of the sea. He sat down on one of the seats; and behold, the
candles were lighted up one by one; a richness was displayed such as
he had only seen in the church in Spain; and all the pictures of the
old councillors were endued with life, and stepped forth from the
walls against which they had stood for centuries, and seated
themselves in the entrance of the church. The gates and doors flew
open, and in came all the dead people, festively clad, and sat down to
the sound of beautiful music, and filled the seats in the church. Then
the psalm tune rolled forth like a sounding sea; and his old
foster-parents from the Hunsby dunes were here, and the old merchant
Broenne and his wife; and at their side, close to Juergen, sat their
friendly, lovely daughter Clara, who gave her hand to Juergen, and they
both went to the altar, where they had once knelt together, and the
priest joined their hands and joined them together for life. Then the
sound of music was heard again, wonderful, like a child's voice full
of joy and expectation, and it swelled on to an organ's sound, to a
tempest of full, noble sounds, lovely and elevating to hear, and yet
strong enough to burst the stone tombs.
And the little ship that hung down from the roof of the choir came
down, and became wonderfully large and beautiful, with silken sails
and golden yards, "and every rope wrought through with silk," as the
old song said. The married pair went on board, and the whole
congregation with them, for there was room and joyfulness for all. And
the walls and arches of the church bloomed like the juniper and the
fragrant lime trees, and the leaves and branches waved and distributed
coolness; then they bent and parted, and the ship sailed through the
midst of them, through the sea, and through the air; and every church
taper became a star, and the wind sang a psalm tune, and all sang
with the wind:
"In love, to glory--no life shall be lost. Full of blessedness and
joy. Hallelujah!"
And these words were the last that Juergen spoke in this world. The
thread snapped that bound the immortal soul, and nothing but a dead
body lay in the dark church, around which the storm raged, covering it
with loose sand.
* * * * *
The next morning was Sunday, and the congregation and their pastor
went forth to the service. The road to church had been heavy; the sand
made the way almost impassable; and now, when they at last reached
their goal, a great hill of sand was piled up before the entrance, and
the church itself was buried. The priest spoke a short prayer, and
said that God had closed the door of this house, and the congregation
must go and build a new one for Him elsewhere.
So they sang a psalm under the open sky, and went back to their homes.
Juergen was nowhere to be found in the town of Skjagen, or in the
dunes, however much they sought for him. It was thought that the
waves, which had rolled far up on the sand, had swept him away.
His body lay buried in a great sepulchre, in the church itself. In the
storm the Lord's hand had thrown a handful of earth on his grave; and
the heavy mound of sand lay upon it, and lies there to this day.
The whirling sand had covered the high vaulted passages; whitethorn
and wild rose trees grow over the church, over which the wanderer now
walks; while the tower, standing forth like a gigantic tombstone over
a grave, is to be seen for miles around: no king has a more splendid
tombstone. No one disturbs the rest of the dead; no one knew of this,
and we are the first who know of this grave--the storm sang the tale
to me among the sand-hills.
THE BISHOP OF BOeRGLUM AND HIS WARRIORS.
Our scene is in Northern Jutland, in the so called "wild moor." We
hear what is called the "Wester-wow-wow"--the peculiar roar of the
North Sea as it breaks against the western coast of Jutland. It rolls
and thunders with a sound that penetrates for miles into the land; and
we are quite near the roaring. Before us rises a great mound of
sand--a mountain we have long seen, and towards which we are wending
our way, driving slowly along through the deep sand. On this mountain
of sand is a lofty old building--the convent of Boerglum. In one of its
wings (the larger one) there is still a church. And at this convent we
now arrive in the late evening hour; but the weather is clear in the
bright June night around us. The eye can range far, far over field and
moor to the bay of Aalborg, over heath and meadow, and far across the
dark blue sea.
Now we are there, and roll past between barns and other farm
buildings; and at the left of the gate we turn aside to the old Castle
Farm, where the lime trees stand in lines along the walls, and,
sheltered from the wind and weather, grow so luxuriously that their
twigs and leaves almost conceal the windows.
We mount the winding staircase of stone, and march through the long
passages under the heavy roof-beams. The wind moans very strangely
here, both within and without. It is hardly known how, but people
say--yes, people say a great many things when they are frightened or
want to frighten others--they say that the old dead choir-men glide
silently past us into the church, where mass is sung. They can be
heard in the rushing of the storm, and their singing brings up strange
thoughts in the hearers--thoughts of the old times into which we are
carried back.
On the coast a ship is stranded; and the bishop's warriors are there,
and spare not those whom the sea has spared. The sea washes away the
blood that has flowed from cloven skulls. The stranded goods belong to
the bishop, and there is a store of goods here. The sea casts up tubs
and barrels filled with costly wine for the convent cellar; and in the
convent is already good store of beer and mead. There is plenty in the
kitchen--dead game and poultry, hams and sausages; and fat fish swim
in the ponds without.
The Bishop of Boerglum is a mighty lord. He has great possessions, but
still he longs for more--everything must bow before the mighty Olaf
Glob. His rich cousin at Thyland is dead, and his widow is to have the
rich inheritance. But how comes it that one relation is always harder
towards another than even strangers would be? The widow's husband had
possessed all Thyland, with the exception of the Church property. Her
son was not at home. In his boyhood he had already started on a
journey, for his desire was to see foreign lands and strange people.
For years there had been no news of him. Perhaps he had long been
laid in the grave, and would never come back to his home to rule where
his mother then ruled.
"What has a woman to do with rule?" said the bishop.
He summoned the widow before a court; but what did he gain thereby?
The widow had never been disobedient to the law, and was strong in her
just rights.
Bishop Olaf, of Boerglum, what dost thou purpose? What writest thou on
yonder smooth parchment, sealing it with thy seal, and intrusting it
to the horsemen and servants, who ride away--far away--to the city of
the Pope?
It is the time of falling leaves and of stranded ships, and soon icy
winter will come.
Twice had icy winter returned before the bishop welcomed the horsemen
and servants back to their home. They came from Rome with a papal
decree--a ban, or bull, against the widow who had dared to offend the
pious bishop. "Cursed be she, and all that belongs to her. Let her be
expelled from the congregation and the Church. Let no man stretch
forth a helping hand to her, and let friends and relations avoid her
as a plague and a pestilence!"
"What will not bend must break," said the Bishop of Boerglum.
And all forsake the widow; but she holds fast to her God. He is her
helper and defender.
One servant only--an old maid--remained faithful to her; and, with the
old servant, the widow herself followed the plough; and the crop grew,
though the land had been cursed by the Pope and the bishop.
"Thou child of hell, I will yet carry out my purpose!" cries the
Bishop of Boerglum. "Now will I lay the hand of the Pope upon thee, to
summon thee before the tribunal that shall condemn thee!"
[Illustration: JENS GLOB MEETS HIS MOTHER.]
Then did the widow yoke the two last oxen that remained to her to a
waggon, and mounted upon the waggon, with her old servant, and
travelled away across the heath out of the Danish land. As a stranger
she came into a foreign country, where a strange tongue was spoken and
where new customs prevailed. Farther and farther she journeyed, to
where green hills rise into mountains, and the vine clothes their
sides. Strange merchants drive by her, and they look anxiously after
their waggons laden with merchandise. They fear an attack from the
armed followers of the robber-knights. The two poor women, in their
humble vehicle drawn by two black oxen, travel fearlessly through the
dangerous sunken road and through the darksome forest. And now they
were in Franconia. And there met them a stalwart knight, with a train
of twelve armed followers. He paused, gazed at the strange vehicle,
and questioned the women as to the goal of their journey and the
place whence they came. Then one of them mentioned Thyland, in
Denmark, and spoke of her sorrows--of her woes--which were soon to
cease; for so Divine Providence had willed it. For the stranger knight
is the widow's son. He seized her hand, he embraced her, and the
mother wept. For years she had not been able to weep, but had only
bitten her lips till the blood started.
It is the time of falling leaves and of stranded ships, and soon will
icy winter come.
The sea rolled wine-tubs to the shore for the bishop's cellar. In the
kitchen the deer roasted on the spit before the fire. At Boerglum it
was warm and cheerful in the heated rooms, while cold winter raged
without, when a piece of news was brought to the bishop: "Jens Glob,
of Thyland, has come back, and his mother with him." Jens Glob laid a
complaint against the bishop, and summoned him before the temporal and
the spiritual court.
"That will avail him little," said the bishop. "Best leave off thy
efforts, knight Jens."
Again it is the time of falling leaves, of stranded ships--icy winter
comes again, and the "white bees" are swarming, and sting the
traveller's face till they melt.
"Keen weather to-day," say the people, as they step in.
Jens Glob stands so deeply wrapped in thought that he singes the skirt
of his wide garment.
"Thou Boerglum bishop," he exclaims, "I shall subdue thee after all!
Under the shield of the Pope, the law cannot reach thee; but Jens Glob
shall reach thee!"
Then he writes a letter to his brother-in-law, Olaf Hase, in
Sallingland, and prays that knight to meet him on Christmas Eve, at
mass, in the church at Widberg. The bishop himself is to read the
mass, and consequently will journey from Boerglum to Thyland; and this
is known to Jens Glob.
Moorland and meadow are covered with ice and snow. The marsh will bear
horse and rider, the bishop with his priests, and armed men. They ride
the shortest way, through the waving reeds, where the wind moans
sadly.
Blow thy brazen trumpet, thou trumpeter clad in foxskin! it sounds
merrily in the clear air. So they ride on over heath and
moorland--over what is the garden of Fata Morgana in the hot summer,
though now icy, like all the country--towards the church of Widberg.
The wind is blowing his trumpet too--blowing it harder and harder. He
blows up a storm--a terrible storm--that increases more and more.
Towards the church they ride, as fast as they may through the storm.
The church stands firm, but the storm careers on over field and
moorland, over land and sea.
Boerglum's bishop reaches the church; but Olaf Hase will scarce do so,
hard as he may ride. He journeys with his warriors on the farther side
of the bay, to help Jens Glob, now that the bishop is to be summoned
before the judgment seat of the Highest.
The church is the judgment hall; the altar is the council table. The
lights burn clear in the heavy brass candelabra. The storm reads out
the accusation and the sentence, roaming in the air over moor and
heath, and over the rolling waters. No ferry-boat can sail over the
bay in such weather as this.
Olaf Hase makes halt at Ottesworde. There he dismisses his warriors,
presents them with their horses and harness, and gives them leave to
ride home and greet his wife. He intends to risk his life alone in the
roaring waters; but they are to bear witness for him that it is not
his fault if Jens Glob stands without reinforcement in the church at
Widberg. The faithful warriors will not leave him, but follow him out
into the deep waters. Ten of them are carried away; but Olaf Hase and
two of the youngest men reach the farther side. They have still four
miles to ride.
It is past midnight. It is Christmas. The wind has abated. The church
is lighted up; the gleaming radiance shines through the window-frames,
and pours out over meadow and heath. The mass has long been finished,
silence reigns in the church, and the wax is heard dropping from the
candles to the stone pavement. And now Olaf Hase arrives.
In the forecourt Jens Glob greets him kindly, and says,
"I have just made an agreement with the bishop."
"Sayest thou so?" replied Olaf Hase. "Then neither thou nor the bishop
shall quit this church alive."
And the sword leaps from the scabbard, and Olaf Hase deals a blow that
makes the panel of the church-door, which Jens Glob hastily closes
between them, fly in fragments.
"Hold, brother! First hear what the agreement was that I made. I have
slain the bishop and his warriors and priests. They will have no word
more to say in the matter, nor will I speak again of all the wrong
that my mother has endured."
The long wicks of the altar lights glimmer red; but there is a redder
gleam upon the pavement, where the bishop lies with cloven skull, and
his dead warriors around him, in the quiet of the holy Christmas
night.
And four days afterwards the bells toll for a funeral in the convent
of Boerglum. The murdered bishop and the slain warriors and priests
are displayed under a black canopy, surrounded by candelabra decked
with crape. There lies the dead man, in the black cloak wrought with
silver; the crosier in the powerless hand that was once so mighty. The
incense rises in clouds, and the monks chant the funeral hymn. It
sounds like a wail--it sounds like a sentence of wrath and
condemnation that must be heard far over the land, carried by the
wind--sung by the wind--the wail that sometimes is silent, but never
dies; for ever again it rises in song, singing even into our own time
this legend of the Bishop of Boerglum and his hard nephew. It is heard
in the dark night by the frightened husbandman, driving by in the
heavy sandy road past the convent of Boerglum. It is heard by the
sleepless listener in the thickly-walled rooms at Boerglum. And not
only to the ear of superstition is the sighing and the tread of
hurrying feet audible in the long echoing passages leading to the
convent-door that has long been locked. The door still seems to open,
and the lights seem to flame in the brazen candlesticks; the fragrance
of incense arises; the church gleams in its ancient splendour; and the
monks sing and say the mass over the slain bishop, who lies there in
the black silver-embroidered mantle, with the crozier in his powerless
hand; and on his pale proud forehead gleams the red wound like fire,
and there burn the worldly mind and the wicked thoughts.
Sink down into his grave--into oblivion--ye terrible shapes of the
times of old!
* * * * *
Hark to the raging of the angry wind, sounding above the rolling sea.
A storm approaches without, calling aloud for human lives. The sea has
not put on a new mind with the new time. This night it is a horrible
pit to devour up lives, and to-morrow, perhaps, it may be a glassy
mirror--even as in the old time that we have buried. Sleep sweetly, if
thou canst sleep!
Now it is morning.
The new time flings sunshine into the room. The wind still keeps up
mightily. A wreck is announced--as in the old time.
During the night, down yonder by Loekken, the little fishing village
with the red-tiled roofs--we can see it up here from the window--a
ship has come ashore. It has struck, and is fast imbedded in the sand;
but the rocket apparatus has thrown a rope on board, and formed a
bridge from the wreck to the mainland; and all on board were saved,
and reached the land, and were wrapped in warm blankets; and to-day
they are invited to the farm at the convent of Boerglum. In
comfortable rooms they encounter hospitality and friendly faces. They
are addressed in the language of their country, and the piano sounds
for them with melodies of their native land; and before these have
died away, and the chord has been struck, the wire of thought, that
reaches to the land of the sufferers, announces that they are rescued.
Then their anxieties are dispelled; and at even they join in the dance
at the feast given in the great hall at Boerglum. Waltzes and Styrian
dances are given, and Danish popular songs, and melodies of foreign
lands in these modern times.
Blessed be thou, new time! Speak thou of summer and of purer gales!
Send thy sunbeams gleaming into our hearts and thoughts! On thy
glowing canvas let them be painted--the dark legends of the rough hard
times that are past!
THE SNOW MAN.
"It's so wonderfully cold that my whole body crackles!" said the Snow
Man. "This is a kind of wind that can blow life into one; and how the
gleaming one up yonder is staring at me." He meant the sun, which was
just about to set. "It shall not make _me_ wink--I shall manage to
keep the pieces."
He had two triangular pieces of tile in his head instead of eyes. His
mouth was made of an old rake, and consequently was furnished with
teeth.
He had been born amid the joyous shouts of the boys, and welcomed by
the sound of sledge bells and the slashing of whips.
The sun went down, and the full moon rose, round, large, clear, and
beautiful in the blue air.
"There it comes again from the other side," said the Snow Man. He
intended to say the sun is showing himself again. "Ah! I have cured
him of staring. Now let him hang up there and shine, that I may see
myself. If I only knew how I could manage to move from this place, I
should like so much to move. If I could, I would slide along yonder on
the ice, just as I see the boys slide; but I don't understand it; I
don't know how to run."
"Away! away!" barked the old Yard Dog. He was quite hoarse, and could
not pronounce the genuine "bow, wow." He had got the hoarseness from
the time when he was an indoor dog, and lay by the fire. "The sun will
teach you to run! I saw that last winter, in your predecessor, and
before that in _his_ predecessor. Away! away!--and away they all go."
"I don't understand you, comrade," said the Snow Man. "That thing up
yonder is to teach me to run?" He meant the moon. "Yes, it was running
itself, when I saw it a little while ago, and now it comes creeping
from the other side."
"You know nothing at all," retorted the Yard Dog. "But then you've
only just been patched up. What you see yonder is the moon, and the
one that went before was the sun. It will come again to-morrow, and
will teach you to run down into the ditch by the wall. We shall soon
have a change of weather; I can feel that in my left hind leg, for it
pricks and pains me: the weather is going to change."
"I don't understand him," said the Snow Man; "but I have a feeling
that he's talking about something disagreeable. The one who stared so
just now, and whom he called the sun, is not my friend. I can feel
that too."
"Away! away!" barked the Yard Dog; and he turned round three times,
and then crept into his kennel to sleep.
The weather really changed. Towards morning, a thick damp fog lay over
the whole region; later there came a wind, an icy wind. The cold
seemed quite to seize upon one; but when the sun rose, what splendour!
Trees and bushes were covered with hoar frost, and looked like a
complete forest of coral, and every twig seemed covered with gleaming
white buds. The many delicate ramifications, concealed in summer by
the wreath of leaves, now made their appearance: it seemed like a
lace-work, gleaming white. A snowy radiance sprang from every twig.
The birch waved in the wind--it had life, like the rest of the trees
in summer. It was wonderfully beautiful. And when the sun shone, how
it all gleamed and sparkled, as if diamond dust had been strewn
everywhere, and big diamonds had been dropped on the snowy carpet of
the earth! or one could imagine that countless little lights were
gleaming, whiter than even the snow itself.
"That is wonderfully beautiful," said a young girl, who came with a
young man into the garden. They both stood still near the Snow Man,
and contemplated the glittering trees. "Summer cannot show a more
beautiful sight," said she; and her eyes sparkled.
"And we can't have such a fellow as this in summer-time," replied the
young man, and he pointed to the Snow Man. "He is capital."
The girl laughed, nodded at the Snow Man, and then danced away over
the snow with her friend--over the snow that cracked and crackled
under her tread as if she were walking on starch.
"Who were those two?" the Snow Man inquired of the Yard Dog. "You've
been longer in the yard than I. Do you know them?"
"Of course I know them," replied the Yard Dog. "She has stroked me,
and he has thrown me a meat bone. I don't bite those two."
"But what are they?" asked the Snow Man.
"Lovers!" replied the Yard Dog. "They will go to live in the same
kennel, and gnaw at the same bone. Away! away!"
[Illustration: THE SNOW MAN AND THE YARD DOG.]
"Are they the same kind of beings as you and I?" asked the Snow Man.
"Why, they belong to the master," retorted the Yard Dog. "People
certainly know very little who were only born yesterday. I can see
that in you. I have age, and information. I know every one here in the
house, and I know a time when I did not lie out here in the cold,
fastened to a chain. Away! away!"
"The cold is charming," said the Snow Man. "Tell me, tell me.--But you
must not clank with your chain, for it jars within me when you do
that."
"Away! away!" barked the Yard Dog. "They told me I was a pretty
little fellow: then I used to lie in a chair covered with velvet, up
in master's house, and sit in the lap of the mistress of all. They
used to kiss my nose, and wipe my paws with an embroidered
handkerchief. I was called 'Ami--dear Ami--sweet Ami.' But afterwards
I grew too big for them, and they gave me away to the housekeeper. So
I came to live in the basement storey. You can look into that from
where you are standing, and you can see into the room where I was
master; for I was master at the housekeeper's. It was certainly a
smaller place than upstairs, but I was more comfortable, and was not
continually taken hold of and pulled about by children as I had been.
I received just as good food as ever, and even better. I had my own
cushion, and there was a stove, the finest thing in the world at this
season. I went under the stove, and could lie down quite beneath it.
Ah! I still dream of that stove. Away! away!"
"Does a stove look so beautiful?" asked the Snow Man. "Is it at all
like me?"
"It's just the reverse of you. It's as black as a crow, and has a long
neck and a brazen drum. It eats firewood, so that the fire spurts out
of its mouth. One must keep at its side, or under it, and there one is
very comfortable. You can see it through the window from where you
stand."
And the Snow Man looked and saw a bright polished thing with a brazen
drum, and the fire gleamed from the lower part of it. The Snow Man
felt quite strangely: an odd emotion came over him, he knew not what
it meant, and could not account for it; but all people who are not
snow men know the feeling.
"And why did you leave her?" asked the Snow Man, for it seemed to him
that the stove must be of the female sex. "How could you quit such a
comfortable place?"
"I was obliged," replied the Yard Dog. "They turned me out of doors,
and chained me up here. I had bitten the youngest young master in the
leg, because he kicked away the bone I was gnawing. 'Bone for bone,' I
thought. They took that very much amiss, and from that time I have
been fastened to a chain and have lost my voice. Don't you hear how
hoarse I am? Away! away! I can't talk any more like other dogs. Away!
away! that was the end of the affair."
But the Snow Man was no longer listening to him. He was looking in at
the housekeeper's basement lodging, into the room where the stove
stood on its four iron legs, just the same size as the Snow Man
himself.
"What a strange crackling within me!" he said. "Shall I ever get in
there? It is an innocent wish, and our innocent wishes are certain to
be fulfilled. I must go in there and lean against her, even if I have
to break through the window."
"You will never get in there," said the Yard Dog; "and if you approach
the stove you'll melt away--away!"