UNDER THE WILLOW TREE. 479

stars below him hecame more and more numerous, and glowed
brighter and brighter, and moved to and fro. It was a little
town whose lights beamed there; and when he understood that,
he exerted the remains of his strength, and at last reached the
shelter of a humble inn.

That night and the whole of the following day he remained
there, for his body required rest and refreshment. It was thaw-
ing, and there was rain in the valley. But early on the second
morning came a man with an organ, who played a tune of home;
and now Knud could stayno longer. He continued his journey
towards the north, marching onward for many days with haste
and hurry, as if he were trying to get home before all were dead
there; but to no one did he speak of his longing, for no one
would have believed in the sorrow of his heart, the deepest a
human heart can feel. Such a grief is not for the world, for it is
not amusing ; nor is it even for friends ; and moreover he had
no friends—a stranger, he wandered through strange lands
towards his home in the north.

It was evening. He was walking on the public high road. The
frost began to make itself felt, and the country soon became
flatter, containing mere field and meadow. By the road-side grew
a great willow tree. Everything reminded him of home, and he
sat down under the tree: he felt very tired, his head began to
nod, and his eyes closed in slumber, but still he was conscious
that the tree stretched its arm above him; and in his wandering
fancy the tree itself appeared to be an old, mighty man—it seemed
as if the “ Willow-Father” himself had taken up his tired son in
his arms, and were carrying him back into the land of home, to
the bare bleak shore of Kjége, to the garden of his childhood.
Yes, he dreamed it was the willow tree of Kjége that had tra-
velled out into the world to seek him, and that now had found
him, and had led him back into the little garden by the streamlet,
and there stood Joanna, in all her splendour, with the golden
crown on her head, as he had seen her last, and she-called out
“Welcome!” to him.

And before him stood two remarkable shapes, which looked
much more- human than he remembered them to have been in
his childhood ; they had changed also, but they were still the two
cakes that turned the right side towards him, and looked very well.

“We thank you,” they said to Knud. “ You have loosened our
tongues, and have taught us that thoughts should be spoken out
freely, or nothing. will come of them; and now something has
indeed come of it—we are betrothed.”

Then they went hand in hand through the streets of Kjége,
and they looked very respectable in every way: there was no
fault to find with ¢4em. And they went on, straight towards the
church, and Knud and Joanna followed them; they also were
walking hand in hand; and the church stood there as it had