Y
ou have doubtless heard of the girl who trod upon bread, not to soil her pretty shoes, and what evil this brought upon her. The tale is both written and printed.
She was a poor child, but proud and vain. She had a bad disposition, people said. When she was little more than an infant it was a pleasure to her to catch flies, to pull off their wings, and maim them entirely. She used, when somewhat older, to take lady-birds and beetles, stick them all upon a pin, then put a large leaf or a piece of paper close to their feet, so that the poor things held fast to it, and turned and twisted in their endeavours to get off the pin.
"Now the lady-birds shall read," said little Inger. "See how they turn the paper!"
As she grew older she became worse instead of better; but she was very beautiful, and that was her misfortune. She would have been punished otherwise, and in the long run she was.
"You will bring evil on your own head," said her mother.
"As a little child you used often to tear my aprons; I fear that when you are older you will break my heart."
And she did so sure enough.
At length she went into the country to wait on people of distinction. They were as kind to her as if she had been one of their own family; and she was so well dressed that she looked very pretty, and became extremely arrogant.
When she had been a year in service her employers said to her,—
"You should go and visit your relations, little Inger."
She went, resolved to let them see how fine she had become. When, however, she reached the village, and saw the lads and lasses gossiping together near the pond, and her mother sitting close by on a stone, resting her head against a bundle of firewood which she had picked up in the forest, Inger turned back. She felt ashamed that she who was dressed so smartly should have for her mother such a ragged creature, one who gathered sticks for her fire. It gave her no concern that she was expected—she was so vexed.
A half year more had passed.
"You must go home some day and see your old parents, little Inger," said the mistress of the house. "Here is a large loaf of white bread—you can carry this to them; they will be rejoiced to see you."
And Inger put on her best clothes and her nice new shoes, and she lifted her dress high, and walked so carefully, that she might not soil her garments or her feet. There was no harm at all in that. But when she came to where the path went over some damp marshy ground, and there were water and mud in the way, she threw the bread into the mud,in order to step upon it and get over with dry shoes; but just as she had placed one foot on the bread, and had lifted the other up, the bread sank in with her deeper and deeper, till she went entirely down, and nothing was to be seen but a black bubbling pool.
That is the story.
What became of the girl? She went below to theOld Woman of the Bogs, who brews down there. The Old Woman of the Bogs is an aunt of the fairies.Theyare very well known. Many poems have been written about them, and they have been printed; but nobody knows anything more of the Old Woman of the Bogs than that, when the meadows and the ground begin to reek in summer, it is the old woman below who is brewing. Into her brewery it was that Inger sank, and no one could hold out very long there. A cesspool is a charming apartment compared with the old Bog-woman's brewery. Every vessel is redolent of horrible smells, which would make any human being faint, and they are packed closely together and over each other; but even if there were a small space among them which one might creep through, it would be impossible, on account of all the slimy toads and snakes that are always crawling and forcing themselves through. Into this place little Inger sank. All this nauseous mess was so ice-cold that she shivered in every limb. Yes, she became stiffer and stiffer. The bread stuck fast to her, and it drew her as an amber bead draws a slender thread.
The Old Woman of the Bogs was at home. The brewery was that day visited by the devil and his dam, and she was a venomous old creature who was never idle. She never went out without having some needlework with her. Shehad brought some there. She was sewing running leather to put into the shoes of human beings, so that they should never be at rest. She embroidered lies, and worked up into mischief and discord thoughtless words, that would otherwise have fallen to the ground. Yes, she knew how to sew and embroider, and transfer with a vengeance, that old grandam!
She beheld Inger, put on her spectacles, and looked at her.
"That is a girl with talents," said she. "I shall ask for her as asouvenirof my visit here; she may do very well as a statue to ornament my great-grandchildren's antechamber;" and she took her.
It was thus little Inger went to the infernal regions. People do not generally go straight through the air to them: they can go by a roundabout path when they know the way.
It was an antechamber in an infinity. One became giddy there at looking forwards, and giddy at looking backwards, and there stood a crowd of anxious, pining beings, who were waiting and hoping for the time when the gates of grace should be opened. They would have long to wait. Hideous, large, waddling spiders wove thousands of webs over their feet; and these webs were like gins or foot-screws, and held them as fast as chains of iron, and were a cause of disquiet to every soul—a painful annoyance. Misers stood there, and lamented that they had forgotten the keys of their money chests. It would be too tiresome to repeat all the complaints and troubles that were poured forth there. Inger thought it shocking to stand there like a statue: she was, as it were, fastened to the ground by the bread.
"This comes of wishing to have clean shoes," said she to herself. "See how they all stare at me!"
Yes, they did all stare at her; their evil passions glared from their eyes, and spoke, without sound, from the corner of their mouths: they were frightful.
"It must be a pleasure to them to see me," thought little Inger. "I have a pretty face, and am well dressed;" and she dried her eyes. She had not lost her conceit. She had not then perceived how her fine clothes had been soiled in the brewhouse of the Old Woman of the Bogs. Her dress was covered with dabs of nasty matter; a snake had wound itself among her hair, and it dangled over her neck; and from every fold in her garment peeped out a toad, that puffed like an asthmatic lap-dog. It was very disagreeable. "But all the rest down here look horrid too," was the reflection with which she consoled herself.
But the worst of all was the dreadful hunger she felt. Could she not stoop down and break off a piece of the bread on which she was standing? No; her back was stiffened; her hands and her arms were stiffened; her whole body was like a statue of stone; she could only move her eyes, and these she could turn entirely round, and that was an ugly sight. And flies came and crept over her eyes backwards and forwards. She winked her eyes; but the intruders did not fly away, for they could not—their wings had been pulled off. That was another misery added to the hunger—the gnawing hunger that was so terrible to bear!
"If this goes on I cannot hold out much longer," she said.
But she had to hold out, and her sufferings became greater.
Then a warm tear fell upon her head. It trickled over her face and her neck, all the way down to the bread. Another tear fell, then many followed. Who was weeping over littleInger? Had she not a mother up yonder on the earth? The tears of anguish which a mother sheds over her erring child always reach it; but they do not comfort the child—they burn, they increase the suffering. And oh! this intolerable hunger; yet not to be able to snatch one mouthful of the bread she was treading under foot! She became as thin, as slender as a reed. Another trial was that she heard distinctly all that was said of her above on the earth, and it was nothing but blame and evil. Though her mother wept, and was in much affliction, she still said,—
"Pride goes before a fall. That was your great fault, Inger. Oh, how miserable you have made your mother!"
Her mother and all who were acquainted with her were well aware of the sin she had committed in treading upon bread. They knew that she had sunk into the bog, and was lost; the cowherd had told that, for he had seen it himself from the brow of the hill.
"What affliction you have brought on your mother, Inger!" exclaimed her mother. "Ah, well! I expected no better from you."
"Would that I had never been born!" thought Inger; "that would have been much better for me. My mother's whimpering can do no good now."
She heard how the family, the people of distinction who had been so kind to her, spoke. "She was a wicked child," they said; "she valued not the gifts of our Lord, but trod them under her feet. It will be difficult for her to get the gates of grace open to admit her."
"They ought to have brought me up better," thought Inger. "They should have taken the whims out of me, if I had any."
She heard that there was a common ballad made about her, "the bad girl who trod upon bread, to keep her shoes nicely clean," and this ballad was sung from one end of the country to the other.
"That any one should have to suffer so much for such as that—be punished so severely for such a trifle!" thought Inger. "All these others are punished justly, for no doubt there was a great deal to punish; but ah, how I suffer!"
And her heart became still harder than the substance into which she had been turned.
"No one can be better in such society. I will not grow better here. See how they glare at me!"
And her heart became still harder, and she felt a hatred towards all mankind.
"They have a nice story to tell up there now. Oh, how I suffer!"
She listened, and heard them telling her history as a warning to children, and the little ones called her "ungodly Inger." "She was so naughty," they said, "so very wicked, that she deserved to suffer."
The children always spoke harshly of her. One day, however, that hunger and misery were gnawing her most dreadfully, and she heard her name mentioned, and her story told to an innocent child—a little girl—she observed that the child burst into tears in her distress for the proud, finely-dressed Inger.
"But will she never come up again?" asked the child.
The answer was,—
"She will never come up again."
"But if she will beg pardon, and promise never to be naughty again?"
"But she willnotbeg pardon," they said.
"Oh, how I wish she would do it!" sobbed the little girl in great distress. "I will give my doll, and my doll's house too, if she may come up! It is so shocking for poor little Inger to be down there!"
These words touched Inger's heart; they seemed almost to make her good. It was the first time any one had said "poor Inger," and had not dwelt upon her faults. An innocent child cried and prayed for her. She was so much affected by this that she felt inclined to weep herself; but she could not, and this was an additional pain.
Years passed on in the earth above; but down where she was there was no change, except that she heard more and more rarely sounds from above, and that she herself was more seldom mentioned. At last one day she heard a sigh, and "Inger, Inger, how miserable you have made me! I foretold that you would!" These were her mother's last words on her deathbed.
And again she heard herself named by her former employers, and her mistress said,—
"Perhaps I may meet you once more, Inger. None know whither they are to go."
But Inger knew full well that her excellent mistress would never come to the place whereshewas.
Time passed on, and on, slowly and wretchedly. Then once more Inger heard her name mentioned, and she beheld as it were, directly above her, two clear stars shining. These were two mild eyes that were closing upon earth. So many years had elapsed since a little girl had cried in childish sorrow over "poor Inger," that that child had become an old woman, whom our Lord was now about to call to himself. Atthat hour, when the thoughts and the actions of a whole life stand in review before the parting soul, she remembered how, as a little child, she had wept bitterly on hearing the history of Inger. That time, and those feelings, stood so prominently before the old woman's mind in the hour of death, that she cried with intense emotion,—
"Lord, my God! have not I often, like Inger, trod under foot Thy blessed gifts, and placed no value on them? Have I not often been guilty of pride and vanity in my secret heart? But Thou, in Thy mercy, didst not let me sink; Thou didst hold me up. Oh, forsake me not in my last hour!"
And the aged woman's eyes closed, and her spirit's eyes opened to what had been formerly invisible; and as Inger had been present in her latest thoughts, she beheld her, and perceived how deep she had been dragged downwards. At that sight the gentle being burst into tears; and in the kingdom of heaven she stood like a child, and wept for the fate of the unfortunate Inger. Her tears and her prayers sounded like an echo down in the hollow form that confined the imprisoned, miserable soul. That soul was overwhelmed by the unexpected love from those realms afar. One of God's angels wept for her! Why was this vouchsafed to her? The tortured spirit gathered, as it were, into one thought, all the actions of its life—all that it had done; and it shook with the violence of its remorse—remorse such as Inger had never felt. Grief became her predominating feeling. She thought that for her the gates of mercy would never open, and as in deep contrition and self-abasement she thought thus, a ray of brightness penetrated into the dismal abyss—a ray more vivid and glorious than the sunbeams which thaw the snow figures that the childrenmake in their gardens. And this ray, more quickly than the snow-flake that falls upon a child's warm mouth can be melted into a drop of water, caused Inger's petrified figure to evaporate, and a little bird arose, following the zigzag course of the ray, up towards the world that mankind inhabit. But it seemed afraid and shy of everything around it; it felt ashamed of itself; and apparently wishing to avoid all living creatures, it sought, in haste, concealment in a dark recess in a crumbling wall. Here it sat, and it crept into the farthest corner, trembling all over. It could not sing, for it had no voice. For a long time it sat quietly there before it ventured to look out and behold all the beauty around. Yes, it was beauty! The air was so fresh, yet so soft; the moon shone so clearly; the trees and the flowers scented so sweetly; and it was so comfortable where she sat—her feather garb so clean and nice! How all creation told of love and glory! The grateful thoughts that awoke in the bird's breast she would willingly have poured forth in song, but the power was denied to her. Yes, gladly would she have sung as do the cuckoo and the nightingale in spring. Our gracious Lord, who hears the mute worm's hymn of praise, understood the thanksgiving that lifted itself up in the tones of thought, as the psalm floated in David's mind before it resolved itself into words and melody.
As weeks passed on these unexpressed feelings of gratitude increased. They would surely find a voice some day, with the first stroke of the wing, to perform some good act. Might not this happen?
Now came the holy Christmas festival. The peasants raised a pole close by the old wall, and bound an unthrashed bundle of oats on it, that the birds of the air might also enjoythe Christmas, and have plenty to eat at that time which was held in commemoration of the redemption brought to mankind.
And the sun rose brightly that Christmas morning, and shone upon the oat-sheaf, and upon all the chirping birds that flew around the pole; and from the wall issued a faint twittering. The swelling thoughts had at last found vent, and the low sound was a hymn of joy, as the bird flew forth from its hiding-place.
The winter was an unusually severe one. The waters were frozen thickly over; the birds and the wild animals in the woods had great difficulty in obtaining food. The little bird, that had so recently left its dark solitude, flew about the country roads, and when it found by chance a little corn dropped in the ruts, it would eat only a single grain itself, while it called all the starving sparrows to partake of it. It would also fly to the villages and towns, and look well about; and where kind hands had strewed crumbs of bread outside the windows for the birds, it would eat only one morsel itself, and give all the rest to the others.
At the end of the winter the bird had found and given away so many crumbs of bread, that the number put together would have weighed as much as the loaf upon which little Inger had trodden in order to save her fine shoes from being soiled; and when she had found and given away the very last crumb, the grey wings of the bird became white, and expanded wonderfully.
"It is flying over the sea!" exclaimed the children who saw the white bird. Now it seemed to dip into the ocean, now it arose into the clear sunshine; it glittered in the air; it disappeared high, high above; and the children said that it had flown up to the sun.
"I
n the world it is always going up and down, and down and up again; but I can't go higher than I am," said Olé, the watchman of the church tower. "Ups and downs most people have to experience; in point of fact, we each become at last a kind of tower-watchman—we look at life and things from above."
Thus spoke Olé up in the lofty tower—my friend the watchman, a cheerful, chatty old fellow, who seemed to blurt everything out at random, though there were, in reality, deep and earnest feelings concealed in his heart. He had come of a good stock; some people even said that he was the son of aConferentsraad,[5]or might have been that. He had studied, had been a teacher's assistant, assistant clerk in the church; but these situations had not done much for him. At one time he lived at the chief clerk's, and was to have bed and board free. He was then young, and somewhat particular about his dress, as I have heard. He insisted on having his bootspolished and brushed with blacking, but the head clerk would only allow grease; and this was a cause of dissension between them. The one talked of stinginess, the other talked of foolish vanity. The blacking became the dark foundation of enmity, and so they parted; but what he had demanded from the clerk he also demanded from the world—real blacking; and he always got its substitute, grease; so he turned his back upon all mankind, and became a hermit. But a hermitage coupled with a livelihood is not to be had in the midst of a large city except up in the steeple of a church. Thither he betook himself, and smoked his pipe in solitude. He looked up, and he looked down; reflected according to his fashion upon all he saw, and all he did not see—on what he read in books, and what he read in himself.
[5]A Danish title.
[5]A Danish title.
I often lent him books, good books; and people can converse about these, as everybody knows. He did not care for fashionable English novels, he said, nor for French ones either—they were all too frivolous. No, he liked biographies, and books that relate to the wonders of nature. I visited him at least once a year, generally immediately after the New Year. He had then always something to say that the peculiar period suggested to his thoughts.
I shall relate what passed during two of my visits, and give his own words as nearly as I can.
Among the books I had last lent Olé was one about pebbles, and it pleased him extremely.
"Yes, sure enough they are veterans from old days, thesepebbles," 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. Ifit 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, Læssöe's, and their comrades' graves. One fell in the centre of the country near Sorö. 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 Olé; "my lot in life has been only to get grease."
It was on a New Year's day that I again ascended to the church tower. Olé 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 yearby 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 Olé, 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 Olé. More may be forthcoming at some future time.
A
nne 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 nobodyhears 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;hewho 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? Whatcouldbecome 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 havethought, 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 cherishedhimin 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 veryhouse 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 goby 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.
All sins and all virtues lie in our hearts—in thine, in mine. They lie like small invisible seeds. From without fall upon them a sunbeam, or the contact of an evil hand—they take their bent in their hidden nook, to the right or to the left. Yes, there it is decided, and the little grain of seed quivers,swells, springs up, and pours its juice into your blood, and there you are, fairly launched. These are thoughts fraught with anxiety; they do not haunt one when one is in a state of mental slumber, but they are fermenting. Anne Lisbeth was slumbering—hidden thoughts were fermenting. From Candlemas to Candlemas the heart has much on its tablets—it has the year's account. Much is forgotten—sins in word and deed against God, against our neighbour, and against our own consciences. We reflect little upon all this; neither did Anne Lisbeth. She had not broken the laws of her country, she kept up good appearances, she did not run in debt, she wronged no one; and so, well satisfied with herself, she walked on by the seashore. What was that lying in her path? She stopped. What was that washed up from the sea? A man's old hat lay there. It might have fallen overboard. She approached closer to it, stood still, and looked at it. Heavens! what was lying there? She was almost frightened; but there was nothing to be frightened at; it was only a mass of seaweed that lay twined over a large, oblong, flat rock, that was shaped something like a human being—it was nothing but seaweed. Still she felt frightened, and hastened on; and as she hurried on, many things she had heard in her childhood recurred to her thoughts, especially all the superstitious tales about "the apparition of the beach"—the spectre of the unburied that lay washed up on the lonely, deserted shore. The body thrown up from the deep, the dead body itself, she thought nothing of; but its ghost followed the solitary wanderer, attached itself closely to him or her, and demanded to be carried to the churchyard, to receive Christian burial.
"Hold on—hold on!" it was wont to say; and, as Anne Lisbeth repeated these words inwardly to herself, she suddenlyremembered her strange dream, in which the women had clung to her, shrieking, "Hold on—hold on!" how the world had sunk; how her sleeves had given way, and she had fallen from the grasp of her child, who wished, in the hour of doom, to save her. Her child—her own flesh and blood—the little one she had never loved, never spared a thought to—that child was now at the bottom of the sea, and it might come like "the apparition of the beach," and cry, "Hold on—hold on! Give me Christian burial!" And as these thoughts crowded on her mind, terror gave wings to her feet, and she hurried faster and faster on; but fear came like a cold, clammy hand, and laid itself on her beating heart, so that she felt quite faint; and as she glanced towards the sea, she saw it looked dark and threatening; a thick mist arose, and soon spread around, lying heavily over the very trees and bushes, which assumed strange appearances through it.
She turned round to look for the moon, which was behind her: it was like a pale disc, without any rays. Something seemed to hang heavily about her limbs as she attempted to hurry on. She thought of the apparition; and, turning again, she beheld the white moon as if close to her, while the mist seemed to hang like a mantle over her shoulders. "Hold on—hold on! Give me Christian burial!" she expected every moment to hear; and she did hear a hollow, terrific sound, which seemed to cry hoarsely, "Bury me—bury me!" Yes, it must be the spectre of her child—her child who was lying at the bottom of the sea, and who would not rest quietly until the corpse was carried to the churchyard, and placed like a Christian in consecrated ground. She would go there—she would dig his grave herself; and she went in the direction in which the church lay, and as she proceeded shefelt her invisible burden become lighter—it left her; and again she returned to the shore to reach her home as speedily as possible. But no sooner did her foot tread the sands than the wild sound seemed to moan around her, and it seemed ever to repeat, "Bury me—bury me!"
The fog was cold and damp; her hands and her face were cold and damp. She shivered in her fright. Without, space seemed to close up around her; within her there seemed to be endless room for thoughts that had never before entered her mind.
During one spring night here in the north the beech groves can sprout, and the next day's early sun can shine on them in all their fresh young beauty. In one single second within us can the germ of sin bud forth, swelling by degrees into thoughts, words, and deeds, though all remorse for them lies dormant.Itis quickened and unfolds itself in one single second, when conscience awakens; and our Lord awakensthatwhen we least expect it. Then there is nothing to be excused; deeds stand forth and bear witness, thoughts find words, and words ring out over the world. We are shocked at what we have permitted to dwell within us, and not stifled; shocked at what, in our thoughtlessness or our presumption, we have scattered abroad. The heart is the depository of all virtues, but also of all vices; and these can thrive in the most barren ground.
Anne Lisbeth reviewed in thought what we have expressed in words. She was overwhelmed with it all. She sank to the ground, and crawled a little way over it. "Bury me—bury me!" she still seemed to hear. She would rather have buried herself, if the grave could be an eternal forgetfulness of everything. It was the awakening hour of serious thought,of terrible thoughts, that made her shudder. Superstition came, too, by turns heating and chilling her blood; and things she would scarcely have ventured to mention rushed on her mind. Noiseless as the clouds that crossed the sky in the clear moonlight floated past her a vision she had heard of. Immediately before her sped four foaming horses, flames flashing from their eyes and from their distended nostrils; they drew a fiery chariot, in which sat the evil lord of the manor, who, more than a hundred years before, had dwelt in that neighbourhood. Every night, it is said, he drives to his former home, and then instantly turns back again. He was not white, as the dead are said to be: no, he was as black as a coal—a burnt-out coal. He nodded to Anne Lisbeth, and beckoned to her: "Hold on—hold on! So mayst thou again drive in a nobleman's carriage, and forget thine own child!"
In still greater terror, and with still greater precipitation than before, she fled in the direction of the church. She reached the churchyard; but the dark crosses above the graves, and the dark ravens, seemed to mingle together before her eyes. The ravens screeched as they had screeched in the daytime; but she now understood what they said, and each cried, "I am a raven-mother; I am a raven-mother!" And Anne Lisbeth thought that they were taunting her. She fancied that she might, perhaps, be changed into such a dark bird, and might have to screech like them, if she could not get the grave demanded of her dug.
And she threw herself down upon the ground, and she dug a grave with her hands in the hard earth, so that blood sprang from her fingers.
"Bury me—bury me!" resounded still about her. She dreaded the crowing of the cock, and the first red streak inthe east, because, if they came before her labours were ended, she would be lost. And the cock crowed, and in the east it began to be light. The grave was but half dug. An ice-cold hand glided over her head and her face, down to where her heart was. "Only half a grave!" sighed a voice near her; and something seemed to vanish away—vanish into the deep sea. It was "the apparition of the beach." Anne Lisbeth sank, terror-stricken and benumbed, on the ground. She had lost feeling and consciousness.
It was broad daylight when she came to herself. Two young men lifted her up. She was lying, not in the churchyard, but down on the shore; and she had dug there a deep hole in the sand, and cut her fingers till they bled with a broken glass, the stem of which was stuck into a piece of wood painted blue. Anne Lisbeth was ill. Conscience had mingled in Superstition's game, and had imbued her with the idea that she had only half a soul—that her child had taken the other half away with him down to the bottom of the sea. Never could she ascend upwards towards the mercy-seat, until she had again the half soul that was imprisoned in the depths of the ocean. Anne Lisbeth was taken to her home, but she never was the same as she had formerly been. Her thoughts were disordered like tangled yarn; one thread alone was straight—that was to let "the apparition of the beach" see that a grave was dug for him in the churchyard, and thus to win back her entire soul.
Many a night she was missed from her home, and she was always found on the seashore, where she waited for the spectre of the dead. Thus passed a whole year. Then she disappeared one night, and was not to be found. The whole of the next day they searched for her in vain.
Towards the evening, when the bell-ringer entered the church to ring the evening chimes, he saw Anne Lisbeth lying before the altar. She had been there from a very early hour in the morning; her strength was almost exhausted, but her eyes sparkled, her face glowed with a sort of rosy tint. The departing rays of the sun shone in on her, and streamed over the altar-piece, and on the silver clasps of the Bible, that lay open at the words of the prophet Joel: "Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God." "It was a strange occurrence," people said—as if everything were chance.
On Anne Lisbeth's countenance, when lighted up by the sun, were to be read peace and comfort. "She felt so well," she said. "She had won back her soul." During the night "the apparition of the beach"—her own child—had been with her, and it had said,—
"Thou hast only dug half a grave for me; but now for a year and a day thou hast entombed me in thy heart, and there a mother best inters her child." And he had restored to her her lost half soul, and had led her into the church.
"Now I am in God's house," said she, "and in it one is blessed."
When the sun had sunk entirely Anne Lisbeth's spirit had soared far away up yonder, where there is no more fear when one's sins are blotted out; and hers, it might be hoped, had been blotted out by the Saviour of the world.