said he; "and yet we pass them carelessly by. I have myself often done
so in the fields and on the beach, where they lie in crowds. We tread
them under foot in some of our pathways, these fragments from the
remains of antiquity. I have myself done that; but now I hold all
these pebble-formed pavements in high respect. Thanks for that book;
it has driven old ideas and habits of thinking aside, and has replaced
them by other ideas, and made me eager to read something more of the
same kind. The romance of the earth is the most astonishing of all
romances. What a pity that one cannot read the first portion of
it--that it is composed in a language we have not learned! One must
read it in the layers of the ground, in the strata of the rocks, in
all the periods of the earth. It was not until the sixth part that the
living and acting persons, Mr. Adam and Mrs. Eve, were introduced,
though some will have it they came immediately. That, however, is all
one to me. It is a most eventful tale, and we are all in it. We go on
digging and groping, but always find ourselves where we were; yet the
globe is ever whirling round, and without the waters of the world
overwhelming us. The crust we tread on holds together--we do not fall
through it; and this is a history of a million of years, with constant
advancement. Thanks for the book about the pebbles. They could tell
many a strange tale if they were able.
"Is it not pleasant once and away to become like a Nix, when one is
perched so high as I am, and then to remember that we all are but
minute ants upon the earth's ant-hill, although some of us are
distinguished ants, some are laborious, and some are indolent ants?
One seems to be so excessively young by the side of these million
years old, reverend pebbles. I was reading the book on New Year's
eve, and was so wrapped up in it that I forgot my accustomed amusement
on that night, looking at 'the wild host to Amager,' of which you may
have heard.
"The witches' journey on broomsticks is well known--that takes place
on St. John's night, and to Bloksberg. But we have also the wild host,
here at home and in our own time, which goes to Amager every New
Year's eve. All the bad poets and poetesses, newspaper writers,
musicians, and artists of all sorts, who come before the public, but
make no sensation--those, in short, who are very mediocre, ride--on
New Year's eve, out to Amager: they sit astride on their pencils or
quill pens. Steel pens don't answer, they are too stiff. I see this
troop, as I have said, every New Year's eve. I could name most of
them, but it is not worth while to get into a scrape with them; they
do not like people to know of their Amager flight upon quill pens. I
have a kind of a cousin, who is a fisherman's wife, and furnishes
abusive articles to three popular periodicals: she says she has been
out there as an invited guest. She has described the whole affair.
Half that she says, of course, are lies, but part might be true. When
she was there they commenced with a song; each of the visitors had
written his own song, and each sang his own composition: they all
performed together, so it was a kind of 'cats' chorus'. Small groups
marched about, consisting of those who labour at improving that gift
which is called 'the gift of the gab:' they had their own shrill
songs. Then came the little drummers, and those who write without
giving their names--that is to say, whose grease is imposed on people
for blacking; then there were the executioners, and the puffers of bad
wares. In the midst of all the merriment, as it must have been, that
was going on, shot up from a pit a stem, a tree, a monstrous flower, a
large toadstool, and a cupola. These were the Utopian productions of
the honoured assembly, the entire amount of their offerings to the
world during the past year. Sparks flew from these various objects;
they were the thoughts and ideas which had been borrowed or stolen,
which now took wings to themselves, and flew away as if by magic. My
cousin told me a good deal more, which, though laughable, was too
malicious for me to repeat.
"I always watch this wild host fly past every New Year's eve; but on
the last one, as I told you, I neglected to look at them, for I was
rolling away in thought upon the round pebbles--rolling through
thousands and thousands of years. I saw them detached from rocks far
away in the distant north; saw them driven along in masses of ice
before Noah's ark was put together; saw them sink to the bottom, and
rise again in a sand-bank, which grew higher and higher above the
water; and I said, 'That will be Zealand!' It became the resort of
birds of various species unknown to us--the home of savage chiefs as
little known to us, until the axe cut the Runic characters which then
brought them into our chronology. As I was thus musing three or four
falling stars attracted my eye. My thoughts took another turn. Do you
know what falling stars are? The scientific themselves do not know
what they are. I have my own ideas about them. How often in secret are
not thanks and blessings poured out on those who have done anything
great or good! Sometimes these thanks are voiceless, but they do not
fall to the ground. I fancy that they are caught by the sunshine, and
that the sunbeam brings the silent, secret praise down over the head
of the benefactor. If it be an entire people that through time bestow
their thanks, then the thanks come as a banquet--fall like a falling
star over the grave of the benefactor. It is one of my pleasures,
especially when on a New Year's eve I observe a falling star, to
imagine to whose grave the starry messenger of gratitude is speeding.
One of the last falling stars I saw took its blazing course towards
the south-west. For whom was it dispatched? It fell, I thought, on the
slope by Flensborg Fiord, where the Danish flag waves over
Schleppegrell's, Laessoee's, and their comrades' graves. One fell in the
centre of the country near Soroe. It was a banquet for Holberg's
grave--a thank offering of years from many--a thank offering for his
splendid comedies! It is a glorious and gratifying fancy that a
falling star could illumine our graves. That will not be the case with
mine; not even a single sunbeam will bring me thanks, for I have done
nothing to deserve them. I have not even attained to blacking," said
Ole; "my lot in life has been only to get grease."
THE SECOND VISIT.
It was on a New Year's day that I again ascended to the church tower.
Ole began to speak of toasts. We drank one to the transition from the
old drop in eternity to the new drop in eternity, as he called the
year. Then he gave me his story about the glasses, and there was some
sense in it.
"When the clocks strike twelve on New Year's night every one rises
from table with a brimful glass, and drinks to the New Year. To
commence the year with a glass in one's hand is a good beginning for a
drunkard. To begin the year by going to bed is a good beginning for a
sluggard. Sleep will, in the course of his year, play a prominent
part; so will the glass.
"Do you know what dwells in glasses?" he asked. "There dwell in them
health, glee, and folly. Within them dwell, also, vexations and bitter
calamity. When I count up the glasses I can tell the gradations in the
glass for different people. The first glass, you see, is the glass of
health; in it grow health-giving plants. Stick to that one glass, and
at the end of the year you can sit peacefully in the leafy bowers of
health.
"If you take the second glass a little bird will fly out of it,
chirping in innocent gladness, and men will laugh and sing with it,
'Life is pleasant. Away with care, away with fear!'
"From the third glass springs forth a little winged creature--a little
angel he cannot well be called, for he has Nix blood and a Nix mind.
He does not come to tease, but to amuse. He places himself behind your
ear, and whispers some humorous idea; he lays himself close to your
heart and warms it, so that you become very merry, and fancy yourself
the cleverest among a set of great wits.
"In the fourth glass is neither plant, bird, nor little figure: it is
the boundary line of sense, and beyond that line let no one go.
"If you take the fifth glass you will weep over yourself--you will be
foolishly happy, or become stupidly noisy. From this glass will spring
Prince Carnival, flippant and crack-brained. He will entice you to
accompany him; you will forget your respectability, if you have any;
you will forget more than you ought or dare forget. All is pleasure,
gaiety, excitement; the maskers carry you off with them; the
daughters of the Evil One, in silks and flowers, come with flowing
hair and voluptuous charms. Escape them if you can.
"The sixth glass! In that sits Satan himself--a well-dressed,
conversable, lively, fascinating little man--who never contradicts
you, allows that you are always in the right--in fact, seems quite to
adopt all your opinions. He comes with a lantern to convey you home to
his own habitation. There is an old legend about a saint who was to
choose one of the seven mortal sins, and he chose, as he thought, the
least--drunkenness; but in that state he perpetrated all the other six
sins. The human nature and the devilish nature mingle. This is the
sixth glass; and after that all the germs of evil thrive in us, every
one of them spreading with a rapidity and vigour that cause them to be
like the mustard-seed in the Bible, 'which, indeed, is the least of
all seeds; but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and
becometh a tree.' Most of them have nothing before them but to be cast
into the furnace, and be smelted there.
"This is the story of the glasses," said Ole, the watchman of the
church tower; "and it applies both to those who use blacking, and to
those who use only grease."
Such was the result of the second visit to Ole. More may be
forthcoming at some future time.
_Anne Lisbeth; or, The Apparition of the Beach._
Anne Lisbeth was like milk and blood, young and happy, lovely to look
at; her teeth were so dazzlingly white, her eyes were so clear; her
foot was light in the dance, and her head was still lighter. What did
all this lead to? To no good. "The vile creature!" "She was not
pretty!"
She was placed with the grave-digger's wife, and from thence she went
to the count's splendid country-seat, where she lived in handsome
rooms, and was dressed in silks and fineries; not a breath of wind was
to blow on her; no one dared to say a rough word to her, nothing was
to be done to annoy her; for she nursed the count's son and heir, who
was as carefully tended as a prince, and as beautiful as an angel. How
she loved that child! Her own child was away from her--he was in the
grave-digger's house, where there was more hunger than plenty, and
where often there was no one at home. The poor deserted child cried,
but what nobody hears nobody cares about. He cried himself to sleep,
and in sleep one feels neither hungry nor thirsty: sleep is,
therefore, a great blessing. In the course of time Anne Lisbeth's
child shot up. Ill weeds grow apace, it is said: and this poor weed
grew, and seemed a member of the family, who were paid for keeping
him. Anne Lisbeth was quite free of him. She was a village fine lady,
had everything of the best, and wore a smart bonnet whenever she went
out. But she never went to the grave-digger's; it was so far from
where she lived, and she had nothing to do there. The child was under
their charge; _he_ who paid its board could well afford it, and the
child would be taken very good care of.
The watch-dog at the lord of the manor's bleach-field sits proudly in
the sunshine outside of his kennel, and growls at every one that goes
past. In rainy weather he creeps inside, and lies down dry and
sheltered. Anne Lisbeth's boy sat on the side of a ditch in the
sunshine, amusing himself by cutting a bit of stick. In spring he saw
three strawberry bushes in bloom: they would surely bear fruit. This
was his pleasantest thought; but there was no fruit. He sat out in the
drizzling rain, and in the heavy rain--was wet to the skin--and the
sharp wind dried his clothes upon him. If he went to the farm-houses
near, he was thumped and shoved about. He was "grim-looking and ugly,"
the girls and the boys said. What became of Anne Lisbeth's boy? What
_could_ become of him? It was his fate to be "_never loved_."
At length he was transferred from his joyless village life to the
still worse life of a sailor boy. He went on board a wretched little
vessel, to stand by the rudder while the skipper drank. Filthy and
disgusting the poor boy looked; starving and benumbed with cold he
was. One would have thought, from his appearance, that he never had
been well fed; and, indeed, that was the fact.
It was late in the year; it was raw, wet, stormy weather; the cold
wind penetrated even through thick clothing, especially at sea; and
only two men on board were too few to work the sails; indeed, it might
be said only one man and a half--the master and his boy. It had been
black and gloomy all day; now it became still more dark, and it was
bitterly cold. The skipper took a dram to warm himself. The flask was
old, and so was the glass; its foot was broken off, but it was
inserted into a piece of wood painted blue, which served as a stand
for it. If one dram was good, two would be better, thought the master.
The boy stood by the helm, and held on to it with his hard,
tar-covered hands. He looked frightened. His hair was rough, and he
was wrinkled, and stunted in his growth. The young sailor was the
grave-digger's boy; in the church register he was called Anne
Lisbeth's son.
The wind blew as it list; the sail flapped, then filled; the vessel
flew on. It was wet, chill, dark as pitch; but worse was yet to come.
Hark! What was that? With what had the boat come in contact? What had
burst? What seemed to have caught it? It shifted round. Was it a
sudden squall? The boy at the helm cried aloud, "In the name of
Jesus!" The little bark had struck on a large sunken rock, and sank as
an old shoe would sink in a small pool--sank with men and mice on
board, as the saying is; and there certainly were mice, but only one
man and a half--the skipper and the grave-digger's boy. None witnessed
the catastrophe except the screaming sea-gulls and the fishes below;
and even they did not see much of it, for they rushed aside in alarm
when the water gushed thundering into the little vessel as it sank.
Scarcely a fathom beneath the surface it stood; yet the two human
beings who had been on board were lost--lost--forgotten! Only the
glass with the blue-painted wooden foot did not sink; the wooden foot
floated it. But the glass was broken when it was washed far up on the
beach. How and when? That is of no consequence. It had served its
time, and it had been liked; that Anne Lisbeth's child had never been.
But in the kingdom of heaven no soul can say again, "Never loved!"
* * * * *
Anne Lisbeth resided in the large market town, and had done so for
some years. She was called "Madam," and held her head very high,
especially when she spoke of old reminiscences of the time she had
passed at the count's lordly mansion, when she used to drive out in a
carriage, and used to converse with countesses and baronesses. Her
sweet nursling, the little count, was a lovely angel, a darling
creature. She was so fond of him, and he had been so fond of her. How
she used to pet him, and how he used to kiss her! He was her
delight--was as dear to her as herself. He was now quite a big boy; he
was fourteen years of age, and had plenty of learning and
accomplishments. She had not seen him since she carried him in her
arms. It was many years since she had been at the count's castle, for
it was such a long way off.
"But I must go over and see them again," said Anne Lisbeth. "I must go
to my noble friends, to my darling child, the young count--yes, yes,
for he is surely longing to see me. He thinks of me, he loves me as he
did when he used to throw his little cherub arms round my neck and
lisp, 'An Lis!' Oh, it was like a violin! Yes, I must go over and see
him again."
She went part of the way in the carrier's wagon, part of the way on
foot. She arrived at the castle. It looked as grand and imposing as
ever. The gardens were not at all changed; but the servants were all
strangers. Not one of them knew anything about Anne Lisbeth. They did
not know what an important person she had been in the house formerly;
but surely the countess would tell them who she was, so would her own
boy. How she longed to see them both!
Well, Anne Lisbeth was there; but she had to wait a long time, and
waiting is always so tedious. Before the family and their guests went
to dinner she was called in to the countess, and very kindly spoken
to. She was told she should see her dear boy after dinner, and after
dinner she was sent for again.
How much he had grown! How tall and thin! But he had the same charming
eyes, and the same angelic mouth. He looked at her, but he did not say
a word. It was evident that he did not remember her. He turned away,
and was going, but she caught his hand and carried it to her lips.
"Ah! well, that will do!" he said, and hastily left the room--he, the
darling of her soul--he on whom her thoughts had centred for so many
years--he whom she had loved the best--her greatest earthly pride!
Anne Lisbeth left the castle, and turned into the open high road. She
was very sad--he had been so cold and distant to her. He had not a
word, not a thought for her who, by day and by night, had so cherished
_him_ in her heart.
At that moment a large black raven flew across the road before her,
screeching harshly.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, "what do you want, bird of ill omen that you
are?"
She passed by the grave-digger's house; his wife was standing in the
doorway, and they spoke to each other.
"You are looking very well," said the grave-digger's wife. "You are
stout and hearty. The world goes well with you apparently."
"Pretty well," replied Anne Lisbeth.
"The little vessel has been lost," said the grave-digger's wife. "Lars
the skipper, and the boy, are both drowned; so there is an end of that
matter. I had hoped, though, that the boy might by and by have helped
me with a shilling now and then. He never cost you anything, Anne
Lisbeth."
"Drowned are they?" exclaimed Anne Lisbeth; and she did not say
another word on the subject--she was so distressed that her nursling,
the young count, did not care to speak to her--she who loved him so
much, and had taken such a long journey to see him--a journey that had
cost her some money too. The pleasure she had received was not great,
but she was not going to admit this. She would not say one word to the
grave-digger's wife to lead her to think that she was no longer a
person of consequence at the count's. The raven screeched again just
over her head.
"That horrid noise!" said Anne Lisbeth; "it has quite startled me
to-day."
She had brought some coffee-beans and chicory with her; it would be a
kindness to the grave-digger's wife to make her a present of these;
and, when she did so, it was agreed that they should take a cup of
coffee together. The mistress of the house went to prepare it, and
Anne Lisbeth sat down to wait for it. While waiting she fell asleep,
and she dreamed of one of whom she had never before dreamt: that was
very strange. She dreamed of her own child, who in that very house
had starved and squalled, and never tasted anything better than cold
water, and who now lay in the deep sea, our Lord only knew where. She
dreamed that she was sitting just where she really was seated, and
that the grave-digger's wife had gone to make some coffee, but had
first to grind the coffee-beans, and that a beautiful boy stood in the
doorway--a boy as charming as the little count had been; and the child
said,--
"The world is now passing away. Hold fast to me, for thou art my
mother. Thy child is an angel in the kingdom of heaven. Hold fast to
me!"
And he seized her. But there was a frightful uproar around, as if
worlds were breaking asunder; and the angel raised her up, and held
her fast by the sleeves of her dress--so fast, it seemed to her, that
she was lifted from the ground; but something hung so heavily about
her feet, something lay so heavily on her back: it was as if hundreds
of women were clinging fast to her, and crying, "If thou canst be
saved, so may we. We will hold on--hold on!" and they all appeared to
be holding on by her. Then the sleeves of her garments gave way, and
she fell, overcome with terror.
The sensation of fear awoke her, and she found herself on the point of
falling off her chair. Her head was so confused that at first she
could not remember what she had dreamt, though she knew it had been
something disagreeable. The coffee was drunk, and Anne Lisbeth took
her departure to the nearest village, where she might meet the
carrier, and get him to convey her that evening to the town where she
lived. But the carrier said he was not going until the following
evening; and, on calculating what it would cost her to remain till
then, she determined to walk home. She would not go by the high road,
but by the beach: that was at least eight or nine miles shorter. The
weather was fine, and it was full moon. She would be at home the next
morning.
The sun had set; the evening bells that had been chiming were hushed.
All was still; not a bird was to be heard twittering among the
leaves--they had all gone to rest: the owls were away. All was silence
in the wood; and on the beach, where she was walking, she could hear
her own foot fall on the sand. The very sea seemed slumbering; the
waves rolled lazily and noiselessly on the shore, and away on the open
deep there seemed to be a dead calm: not a line of foam, not a ripple
was visible on the water. All were quiet beneath, the living and the
dead.
Anne Lisbeth walked on, and her thoughts were not engrossed by
anything in particular. She was not at all lost in thought, but
thoughts were not lost to her. They are never lost to us; they lie
only in a state of torpor, as it were, both the lately active thoughts
that have lulled themselves to rest, and those which have not yet
awoke. But thoughts come often undesired; they can touch the heart,
they can distract the head, they can at times overpower us.
"Good actions have their reward," it is written.
"The wages of sin is death," it is also written. Much is written--much
is said. But many give no heed to the words of truth--they remember
them not; and so it was with Anne Lisbeth; but they can force
themselves upon the mind.