O. T., A Danish Romance | Page 5

the
young Baron Wilhelm. It is the beginning of November: we find them
both with their pipes in their mouths; upon the table lie Tibullus and
Anacreon, which they are reading together for the approaching
philologicum.
In the room stands a piano-forte, with a number of music-books; upon
the walls hang the portraits of Weyse and Beethoven, for our young
Baron is musical, nay a composer himself.
"See, here we have again this lovely, clinging mist!" said Wilhelm.
"Out of doors one can fairly taste it; at home it would be a real plague
to me, here it only Londonizes the city."
"I like it!" said Otto. "To me it is like an old acquaintance from
Vestervovov. It is as though the mist brought me greetings from the sea
and sand-hills."
"I should like to see the North Sea, but the devil might live there! What
town lies nearest to your grandfather's estate?"
"Lernvig," answered Otto. "If any one wish to see the North Sea
properly, they ought to go up as far as Thisted and Hjörring. I have
travelled there, have visited the family in Börglum-Kloster; and,
besides this, have made other small journeys. Never shall I forget one
evening; yes, it was a storm of which people in the interior of the
country can form no conception. I rode--I was then a mere boy, and a
very wild lad--with one of our men. When the storm commenced we
found ourselves among the sand-hills. Ah! that you should have seen!
The sand forms along the strand high banks, which serve as dikes

against the sea; these are overgrown with sea-grass, but, if the storm
bursts a single hole, the whole is carried away. This spectacle we
chanced to witness. It is a true Arabian sand-storm, and the North Sea
bellowed so that it might be heard at the distance of many miles. The
salt foam flew together with the sand into our faces."
"That must have been splendid!" exclaimed Wilhelm, and his eyes
sparkled. "Jutland is certainly the most romantic part of Denmark.
Since I read Steen-Blicher's novels I have felt a real interest for that
country. It seems to me that it must greatly resemble the Lowlands of
Scotland. And gypsies are also found there, are they not?"
"Vagabonds, we call them," said Otto, with an involuntary motion of
the mouth. "They correspond to the name!"
"The fishermen, also, on the coast are not much better! Do they still
from the pulpit pray for wrecks? Do they still slay shipwrecked
mariners?"
"I have heard our preacher, who is an old man, relate how, in the first
years after he had obtained his office and dignity, he was obliged to
pray in the church that, if ships stranded, they might strand in his
district; but this I have never heard myself. But with regard to what is
related of murdering, why, the fishermen-- sea-geese, as they are
called--are by no means a tender-hearted people; but it is not as bad as
that in our days. A peasant died in the neighborhood, of whom it was
certainly related that in bad weather he had bound a lantern under his
horse's belly and let it wander up and down the beach, so that the
strange mariner who was sailing in those seas might imagine it some
cruising ship, and thus fancy himself still a considerable way from land.
By this means many a ship is said to have been destroyed. But observe,
these are stories out of the district of Thisted, and of an elder age,
before my power of observation had developed itself; this was that
golden age when in tumble-down fishers' huts, after one of these good
shipwrecks, valuable shawls, but little damaged by the sea, might be
found employed as bed-hangings. Boots and shoes were smeared with
the finest pomatum. If such things now reach their hands, they know
better how to turn them into money. The Strand-commissioners are

now on the watch; now it is said to be a real age of copper."
"Have you seen a vessel stranded?" inquired Wilhelm, with increasing
interest.
"Our estate lies only half a mile from the sea. Every year about this
time, when the mist spreads itself out as it does to-day and the storms
begin to rage, then was it most animated. In my wild spirits, when I
was a boy, and especially in the midst of our monotonous life, I truly
yearned after it. Once, upon a journey to Börglum-Kloster, I
experienced a storm. In the early morning; it was quite calm, but gray,
and we witnessed a kind of Fata Morgana. A ship, which had not yet
risen above the horizon, showed itself in the distance, but the rigging
was turned upside down; the masts were below, the hull