amily. Yes, in
Paris, there is fine work!"

"The French are a wild people!" said the grandmother. "A king and a
queen they have beheaded in my time; now they will do the same with
these. Will our dear Lord suffer that such things be done to His
anointed?"

"There will be war again!" said one of the fishermen.

"Then more horses will go out of the country," said the stranger,
pressed Otto's hand, and vanished behind the sandhills.

"Was not that the horse-dealer from Varde?" inquired Otto.

"Yes, he understands languages," said the fisherman; "and thus he
is acquainted with foreign affairs sooner than we. Then they are now
fighting in France! Blood flows in the streets; it will not be so in
Denmark before the Turk binds his horse to the bush in the Viborg Lake.
And then, according to the prophecy of the sibyl, it will be near the
end of the world."

Meanwhile, everything was prepared for their embarkation. If Mr. Otto
would take the further oar, and was inclined to pass the night on the
sea, there was a place for him in the boat. But he had promised Rosalie
to be back before evening. The grandmother now prayed, kneeling with the
others, and immediately after quick strokes of the oars the flat boat
rowed away from the shore. The fate of France was forgotten; their
calling occupied the fishermen.

The old woman seemed to listen to the strokes of the oars; her dead
eyes rested immovably on the sea. A sea-mew passed close to her in
its flight. "That was a bird!" said she. "Is there no one here beside
ourselves?"

"No; no one at all," answered Otto, carelessly.

"Is no one in the hut, no one behind the sand-hills?" again asked
the grandmother. "It was not on account of the dried meat that I came
here--it was not to wet my face on the shore; I speak with you alone,
which I could not do in the house. Give me your hand! Now that the old
man rests in the grave, you yourself will guide the rudder; the estate
will be sold, and you will not come again to the west coast. Our Lord
has made it dark before my eyes before He has closed my ears and given
me leave to go. I can no longer see you, but I have you in my thought
as you looked before you left our land. That you are handsomer now I
can easily imagine; but gayer you are not! Talk you certainly can, and I
have heard you laugh; but that was little better than the two last years
you were here. Once it was different with you--no fairy could be wilder
than you!"

"With ye