476 UNDER THE WILLOW TREE.

ber of little kitchen gardens; but the high walls are standing yet;
with their heavy towers. The ropemaker twists his ropes on a
gallery or walk built of wood, inside the town wall, where elder
bushes grow out of the clefts and cracks, spreading their green
twigs over the little low houses that stand below: and in one of
these dwelt the master with whom Knud worked; and over the
little garret window at which Knud sat the elder tree waved its
branches.

Here he lived through a summer and a winter; but when the
spring came again he could bear it no longer. The elder was in
blossom, and its fragrance reminded him so of home, that he
fancied himself back in the garden at Kjége; and therefore Knud
went away from his master, and dwelt with another, farther in
the town, over whose house no elder bush grew.

His workshop was quite close to one of the old stone bridges,
by alow water-mill, that rushed and foamed always. Without,
rolled the roaring stream, hemmed in by houses, whose old de-
cayed gables looked ready to topple down into the water. No
elder grew here—there was not even a flower-pot with its little
green plant; but just opposite the workshop stood a great old
willow tree, that seemed to cling fast to the house, for fear of being
carried away by the water, and which stretched forth its branches
over the river, just as the willow at Kjége spread its arms across
the streamlet by the gardens there.

Yes, he had certainly gone from the “ Elder-Mother” to the
“Willow-Father.” The tree here had something, especially on
moonlight evenings, that went straight to his heart-—and that
something was not in the moonlight, but in the old tree itself.

Nevertheless, he could not remain. Whynot? Ask the willow
tree, ask the blooming elder! And therefore he bade farewell
to his master in Nuremberg, and journeyed onward.

To no one did he speak of Joanna—in his secret heart he hid
his sorrow; and he thoughtiof the deep meaning in the old childish
story of the two cakes. Now he understood why the man had a
bitter almond in his breast—he himself felt the bitterness of it;
and Joanna, who was always so gentle and kind, was typified by
the honey-cake. The strap of his knapsack seemed so tight across
his chest that he could scarcely breathe; he loosened it, but was
not relieved. He saw but half the world around him; the other
half he carried about him and within himself. And thus it stood
with him.

Not till he came in sight of the high mountains did the world
appear freer to him; and now his thoughts were turned without,
and tears came into his eyes.

The Alps appeared to him as the folded wings of the earth:
how if they were to unfold themselves, and display their varie-
gated pictures of black woods, foaming waters, clouds, and masses
of snow? At the last day, he thought, the world will: lift up its