d!" exclaimed Wilhelm, and his eyes
sparkled. "Jutland is certainly the most romantic part of Denmark.
Since I read Steen-Blicher's novels I have felt a real interest for that
country. It seems to me that it must greatly resemble the Lowlands of
Scotland. And gypsies are also found there, are they not?"

"Vagabonds, we call them," said Otto, with an involuntary motion of the
mouth. "They correspond to the name!"

"The fishermen, also, on the coast are not much better! Do they
still from the pulpit pray for wrecks? Do they still slay shipwrecked
mariners?"

"I have heard our preacher, who is an old man, relate how, in the first
years after he had obtained his office and dignity, he was obliged to
pray in the church that, if ships stranded, they might strand in his
district; but this I have never heard myself. But with regard to what
is related of murdering, why, the fishermen--sea-geese, as they are
called--are by no means a tender-hearted people; but it is not as bad
as that in our days. A peasant died in the neighborhood, of whom it was
certainly related that in bad weather he had bound a lantern under
his horse's belly and let it wander up and down the beach, so that the
strange mariner who was sailing in those seas might imagine it some
cruising ship, and thus fancy himself still a considerable way from
land. By this means many a ship is said to have been destroyed. But
observe, these are stories out of the district of Thisted, and of an
elder age, before my power of observation had developed itself; this was
that golden age when in tumble-down fishers' huts, after one of these
good shipwrecks, valuable shawls, but little damaged by the sea, might
be found employed as bed-hangings. Boots and shoes were smeared with the
finest pomatum. If such things now reach their hands, they know better
how to turn them into money. The Strand-commissioners are now on the
watch; now it is said to be a real age of copper."

"Have you seen a vessel stranded?" inquired Wilhelm, with increasing
interest.

"Our estate lies only half a mile from the sea. Every year about this
time, when the mist spreads itself out as it does to-day and the storms
begin to rage, then was it most animated. In my wild spirits, when I
was a boy, and especially in the midst of our monotonous life, I truly
yearned after it. Once, upon a journey to Boerglum-Kloster, I experienced
a storm. In the early morning; it was quite calm, but gray, and we
witnessed