friend Klas Starkwolt, the cowherd, and his dog
Speed. It was about four in the morning when they entered Rambin, and
they halted in the middle of the village, about twenty paces from the
house where John was born. The whole village poured out to gaze on these
Asiatic princes, for such the old sexton, who had in his youth been at
Constantinople and at Moscow, said they were. There John saw his father
and mother, and his brother Andrew, and his sister Trine. The old
minister Krabbe stood there too, in his black slippers and white
nightcap, gaping and staring with the rest.

John discovered himself to his parents, and Elizabeth to hers; and the
wedding-day was soon fixed. And such a wedding was never seen before or
since in the island of Ruegen, for John sent to Stralsund and Greifswald
for whole boat-loads of wine and sugar and coffee; and whole herds of
oxen, sheep, and pigs were driven to the feast. The quantity of harts
and roes and hares that were shot upon the occasion it were vain to
attempt to tell, or to count the fish that was caught. There was not a
musician in Ruegen or in Pomerania that was not engaged, for John was
immensely rich, and he wished to display his wealth.

John did not neglect his old friend Klas Starkwolt, the cowherd. He gave
him enough to make him comfortable for the rest of his days, and
insisted on his coming and staying with him as often and as long as he
wished.

After his marriage John made a progress through the country with his
wife; and he purchased towns and villages and lands until he became
master of nearly half Ruegen and a very considerable Count in the
country. His father, old James Dietrich, was made a nobleman, and his
brothers and sisters gentlemen and ladies--for what cannot money do?
John and his wife spent their days in doing acts of piety and charity.
They built several churches, and had the blessing of every one that knew
them, and died universally lamented. It was Count John Dietrich that
built and richly endowed the present church of Rambin. He built it on
the site of his father's house, and presented to it several of the cups
and plates made by the underground people, and his own and Elizabeth's
glass-shoes, in memory of what had befallen them in their youth. But
they were taken away in the time of the great Charles the Twelfth of
Sweden, when the Russians came on the island and the Cossacks plundered
even the churches, and took away everything.

HOW THORSTON