t. An old cowherd lived in the
courtyard, and was the only other inhabitant of the place. In the
rooms heavy black cobwebs hung down, covered with dust; in the
garden everything grew just as it would; hops and climbing plants
ran like a net between the trees and bushes, and the hemlock and
nettle grew larger and stronger. The blood-beech had been outgrown
by other trees, and now stood in the shade; and its leaves were
green like those of the common trees, and its glory had departed.
Crows and choughs, in great close masses, flew past over the tall
chestnut trees, and chattered and screamed as if they had something
very important to tell one another--as if they were saying, "Now she's
come back again, the little girl who had their eggs and their young
ones stolen from them; and as for the thief who had got them down,
he had to climb up a leafless tree, for he sat on a tall ship's
mast, and was beaten with a rope's end if he did not behave himself."

The clerk told all this in our own times; he had collected it
and looked it up in books and memoranda. It was to be found, with many
other writings, locked up in his table-drawer.

"Upward and downward is the course of the world," said he. "It
is strange to hear."

And we will hear how it went with Marie Grubbe. We need not for
that forget Poultry Meg, who is sitting in her capital hen-house, in
our own time. Marie Grubbe sat down in her times, but not with the
same spirit that old Poultry Meg showed.

The winter passed away, and the spring and the summer passed away,
and the autumn came again, with the damp, cold sea-fog. It was a
lonely, desolate life in the old manor house. Marie Grubbe took her
gun in her hand and went out to the heath, and shot hares and foxes,
and whatever birds she could hit. More than once she met the noble Sir
Palle Dyre, of Norrebak, who was also wandering about with his gun and
his dogs. He was tall and strong, and boasted of this when they talked
together. He could have measured himself against the deceased Mr.
Brockenhuus, of Egeskov, of whom the people still talked. Palle Dyre
had, after the example of Brockenhuus, caused an iron chain with a
hunting-horn to be hung in his gateway; and when he came riding
home, he used to seize the chain, and lift himself and his horse
from the ground, and blow the horn.

"Come yourself, and see me do that, Dame Marie," he said. 'One can
breathe fresh and free at Norrebak.

When she went to his castle is