dmiral wanted the black horses, and so he
praised them as he did; but his hints were not taken, therefore the ship
remained unsold. There it stood by the shore covered up with boards,
like a Noah's Ark which never reached the water. Whew! whew! get along!
get along! It was a miserable business. In the winter, when the fields
were covered with snow and the Belt was full of ice-floes which I drove
up on to the coast,' said the wind, 'the ravens and crows came in
flocks, the one blacker than the other, and perched upon the desolate,
dead ship by the shore. They screamed themselves hoarse about the forest
which had disappeared, and the many precious birds' nests which had been
devastated, leaving old and young homeless; and all for the sake of this
old piece of lumber, the proud ship which was never to touch the water!
I whirled the snow about till it lay in great heaps round the ship. I
let it hear my voice, and all that a storm has to say, I know that I did
my best to give it an idea of the sea. Whew! whew!'

'The winter passed by; winter and summer passed away! They come and go
just as I do. The snow-flakes, the apple blossom, and the leaves fall,
each in their turn. Whew! whew! they pass away, as men pass too!

'The daughters were still young. Little Ida, the rose, as lovely to look
at as when the shipbuilder turned his gaze upon her. I often took hold
of her long brown hair when she stood lost in thought by the apple-tree
in the garden. She never noticed that I showered apple-blossom over her
loosened hair; she only gazed at the red sunset against the golden
background of the sky, and the dark trees and bushes of the garden. Her
sister Johanna was like a tall, stately lily; she held herself as
stiffly erect as her mother, and seemed to have the same dread of
bending her stem. She liked to walk in the long gallery where the family
portraits hung. The ladies were painted in velvet and silk, with tiny
pearl embroidered caps on their braided tresses. Their husbands were all
clad in steel, or in costly cloaks lined with squirrel skins and stiff
blue ruffs; their swords hung loosely by their sides. Where would
Johanna's portrait one day hang on these walls? What would her noble
husband look like? These were her thoughts, and she even spoke them
aloud; I heard her as I swept through the long corridor into the
gallery, where I veered round again.

'Anna Dorothea, the pale hyacinth, was only a child of fourteen, quiet
and tho