would burst from their sockets. 'Look at the alchymic glass,' he
cried; 'something glows in the crucible, pure and heavy.' He lifted it
with a trembling hand, and exclaimed in a voice of agitation, 'Gold!
gold!' He was quite giddy, I could have blown him down," said the
Wind; "but I only fanned the glowing coals, and accompanied him
through the door to the room where his daughter sat shivering. His
coat was powdered with ashes, and there were ashes in his beard and in
his tangled hair. He stood erect, and held high in the air the brittle
glass that contained his costly treasure. 'Found! found! Gold!
gold!' he shouted, again holding the glass aloft, that it might
flash in the sunshine; but his hand trembled, and the alchymic glass
fell from it, clattering to the ground, and brake in a thousand
pieces. The last bubble of his happiness had burst, with a whiz and
a whir, and I rushed away from the gold-maker's house.

"Late in the autumn, when the days were short, and the mist
sprinkled cold drops on the berries and the leafless branches, I
came back in fresh spirits, rushed through the air, swept the sky
clear, and snapped off the dry twigs, which is certainly no great
labor to do, yet it must be done. There was another kind of sweeping
taking place at Waldemar Daa's, in the castle of Borreby. His enemy,
Owe Ramel, of Basnas, was there, with the mortgage of the house and
everything it contained, in his pocket. I rattled the broken
windows, beat against the old rotten doors, and whistled through
cracks and crevices, so that Mr. Owe Ramel did not much like to remain
there. Ida and Anna Dorothea wept bitterly, Joanna stood, pale and
proud, biting her lips till the blood came; but what could that avail?
Owe Ramel offered Waldemar Daa permission to remain in the house
till the end of his life. No one thanked him for the offer, and I
saw the ruined old gentleman lift his head, and throw it back more
proudly than ever. Then I rushed against the house and the old
lime-trees with such force, that one of the thickest branches, a
decayed one, was broken off, and the branch fell at the entrance,
and remained there. It might have been used as a broom, if any one had
wanted to sweep the place out, and a grand sweeping-out there really
was; I thought it would be so. It was hard for any one to preserve
composure on such a day; but these people had strong wills, as
unbending as their hard fortune. There was nothing they could call
their o