in search of the Story; for here the wind had once murmured something to
him of “Waldemar Daae and his Daughters.” The Dryad in the tree, who
was the Story-mother herself, had here told him the “Dream of the Old Oak
Tree.” Here, in the time of the ancestral mother, had stood clipped hedges,
but now only ferns and stinging nettles grew there, hiding the scattered
fragments of old sculptured figures; the moss is growing in their eyes, but
they can see as well as ever, which was more than the man could do who
was in search of the Story, for he could not find that. Where could it be?
The crows flew past him by hundreds across the old trees, and screamed,
“Krah! da! -Krah! da!”
And he went out of the garden and over the grass-plot of the yard, into
the alder grove; there stood a little six-sided house, with a poultry-yard and
a duck-yard. In the middle of the room sat the old woman who had the
management of the whole, and who knew accurately about every egg that
was laid, and about every chicken that could creep out of an egg. But she
was not the Story of which the man was in search; that she could attest with
a Christian certificate of baptism and of vaccination that lay in her drawer.
Without, not far from the house, is a hill covered with red-thorn and
broom. Here lies an old grave-stone, which was brought here many years
ago from the churchyard of the provincial town, a remembrance of one of
the most honored councillors of the place; his wife and his five daughters,
all with folded hands and stiff ruffs, stand round him. One could look at
them so long, that it had an effect upon the thoughts, and these reacted upon
the stones, as if they were telling of old times; at least it had been so with
the man who was in search of the Story.
As he came nearer, he noticed a living butterfly sitting on the forehead of
the sculptured councillor. The butterfly flapped its wings, and flew a little
bit farther, and then returned fatigued to sit upon the grave-stone, as if to
point out what grew there. Four-leaved shamrocks grew there; there were
seven specimens close to each other. When fortune comes, it comes in a
heap. He plucked the shamrocks and put them in his pocket.
