ts way up to take him back. The grave was accordingly
opened, and lo! he they had buried was found sucking his thumb; so
they took him up instantly, placed him on a car, harnessed two oxen to
it, and dragged him over heaths and bogs out to the sea; then the sand
drift stopped, but the sand-hills have always remained. To all this
Joergen listened eagerly; and he treasured this ancient legend in his
memory, along with all that had happened during the pleasantest days
of his childhood--the days of the funeral feast.

It was delightful to go from home, and to see new places and new
people; and he was to go still farther away. He went on board a ship.
He went forth to see what the world produced; and he found bad
weather, rough seas, evils dispositions, and harsh masters. He went as
a cabin-boy! Poor living, cold nights, the rope's end, and hard thumps
with the fist were his portion. There was something in his noble
Spanish blood which always boiled up, so that angry words rose often
to his lips; but he was wise enough to keep them back, and he felt
pretty much like an eel being skinned, cut up, and laid on the pan.

"I will come again," said he to himself. The Spanish coast, his
parents' native land, the very town where they had lived in grandeur
and happiness, he saw; but he knew nothing of kindred and a paternal
home, and his family knew as little of him.

The dirty ship-boy was not allowed to land for a long time, but the
last day the ship lay there he was sent on shore to bring off some
purchases that had been made.

There stood Joergen in wretched clothes, that looked as if they had
been washed in a ditch and dried in the chimney: it was the first time
that he, a denizen of the solitary sand-hills, had seen a large town.
How high the houses were, how narrow the streets, swarming with human
beings; some hurrying this way, others going that way--it was like a
whirlpool of townspeople, peasants, monks, and soldiers. There were a
rushing along, a screaming, a jingling of the bells on the asses and
the mules, and the church bells ringing too. There were to be heard
singing and babbling, hammering and banging; for every trade had its
workshop either in the doorway or on the pavement. The sun was burning
hot, the air was heavy: it was as if one had entered a baker's oven
full of beetles, lady-birds, bees, and flies, that hummed and buzzed.
Joergen scarcely knew, as the saying is, whether he was on his head or
his heels. T