Mogens and Other Stories | Page 8

the ground. "Then I wish I had let them be," Mogens said
earnestly.
Camilla bent down and began to gather them up. She had expected him
to help her and looked up at him in surprise, but he stood there quite
calm and looked down at her. Now as she had begun, she had to go on,
and gathered up they were; but she certainly did not talk to Mogens for
a long while. She did not even look to the side where he was. But
somehow or other they must have become reconciled, for when on their
way back they reached the oak again, Camilla went underneath it and
looked up into its crown. She tripped from one side to the other,
gesticulated with her hands and sang, and Mogens had to stand near the
hazelbushes to see what sort of a figure he had cut. Suddenly Camilla
ran towards him, but Mogens lost his cue, and forgot both to shriek and
to run away, and then Camilla laughingly declared that she was very
dissatisfied with herself and that she would not have had the boldness
to remain standing there, when such a horrible creature--and she
pointed towards herself--came rushing towards her. But Mogens
declared that he was very well satisfied with himself.
When towards sunset he was going home the councilor and Camilla
accompanied him a little way. And as they were going home she said to
her father that perhaps they ought to invite that lonesome young man
rather frequently during the month, while it was still possible to stay in
the country. He knew no one here about, and the councilor said "yes,"
and smiled at being thought so guileless, but Camilla walked along and
looked so gentle and serious, that one would not doubt but that she was
the very personification of benevolence itself.
The autumn weather remained so mild that the councilor stayed on at
Cape Trafalgar for another whole month, and the effect of the

benevolence was that Mogens came twice the first week and about
every day the third.
It was one of the last days of fair weather.
It had rained early in the morning and had remained overclouded far
down into the forenoon; but now the sun had come forth. Its rays were
so strong and warm, that the garden-paths, the lawns and the branches
of the trees were enveloped in a fine filmy mist. The councilor walked
about cutting asters. Mogens and Camilla were in a corner of the
garden to take down some late winter apples. He stood on a table with a
basket on his arm, she stood on a chair holding out a big white apron by
the corners.
"Well, and what happened then?" she called impatiently to Mogens,
who had interrupted the fairy-tale he was telling in order to reach an
apple which hung high up.
"Then," he continued, "the peasant began to run three times round
himself and to sing: 'To Babylon, to Babylon, with an iron ring through
my head.' Then he and his calf, his great-grandmother, and his black
rooster flew away. They flew across oceans as broad as Arup Vejle,
over mountains as high as the church at Jannerup, over Himmerland
and through the Holstein lands even to the end of the world. There the
kobold sat and ate breakfast; he had just finished when they came.
"'You ought to be a little more god-fearing, little father,' said the
peasant, 'otherwise it might happen that you might miss the kingdom of
heaven.'"
"Well, he would gladly be god-fearing."
"'Then you must say grace after meals,' said the peasant. . . ."
"No, I won't go on with the story," said Mogens impatiently.
"Very well, then don't," said Camilla, and looked at him in surprise.
"I might as well say it at once," continued Mogens, "I want to ask you
something, but you mustn't laugh at me."
Camilla jumped down from the chair.
"Tell me--no, I want to tell you something myself--here is the table and
there is the hedge, if you won't be my bride, I'll leap with the basket
over the hedge and stay away. One!"
Camilla glanced furtively at him, and noticed that the smile had
vanished from his face.
"Two!"

He was quite pale with emotion.
"Yes," she whispered, and let go the ends of her apron so that the
apples rolled toward all corners of the world and then she ran. But she
did not run away from Mogens.
"Three," said she, when he reached her, but he kissed her nevertheless.
The councilor was interrupted among his asters, but the district-judge's
son was too irreproachable a blending of nature and civilization for the
councilor to raise objections.
* * *
It was late winter; the large heavy cover of