allest grievance Jurgen could expect was that his case should be
delayed.

His dwelling was cold and comfortless; and how long would he be
obliged to bear all this? It seemed his fate to suffer misfortune
and sorrow innocently. He now had plenty of time to reflect on the
difference of fortune on earth, and to wonder why this fate had been
allotted to him; yet he felt sure that all would be made clear in
the next life, the existence that awaits us when this life is over.
His faith had grown strong in the poor fisherman's cottage; the
light which had never shone into his father's mind, in all the
richness and sunshine of Spain, was sent to him to be his comfort in
poverty and distress, a sign of that mercy of God which never fails.

The spring storms began to blow. The rolling and moaning of the
North Sea could be heard for miles inland when the wind was blowing,
and then it sounded like the rushing of a thousand waggons over a hard
road with a mine underneath. Jurgen heard these sounds in his
prison, and it was a relief to him. No music could have touched his
heart as did these sounds of the sea--the rolling sea, the boundless
sea, on which a man can be borne across the world before the wind,
carrying his own house with him wherever he goes, just as the snail
carries its home even into a strange country.

He listened eagerly to its deep murmur and then the thought
arose--"Free! free! How happy to be free, even barefooted and in ragged
clothes!" Sometimes, when such thoughts crossed his mind, the fiery
nature rose within him, and he beat the wall with his clenched fists.

Weeks, months, a whole year had gone by, when Niels the thief,
called also a horse-dealer, was arrested; and now better times came,
and it was seen that Jurgen had been wrongly accused.

On the afternoon before Jurgen's departure from home, and before
the murder, Niels the thief, had met Martin at a beer-house in the
neighbourhood of Ringkjobing. A few glasses were drank, not enough
to cloud the brain, but enough to loosen Martin's tongue. He began
to boast and to say that he had obtained a house and intended to
marry, and when Niels asked him where he was going to get the money,
he slapped his pocket proudly and said:

"The money is here, where it ought to be."

This boast cost him his life; for when he went home Niels followed
him, and cut his throat, intending to rob the murdered man of the
gold, which did not exist.

All this was circumstan