along briskly. So he turned his steps to the mountains, ascended one side
and descended the other, still going northward till his strength began to fail,
and not a house or village could be seen. The stars shone in the sky above
him, and down in the valley lights glittered like stars, as if another sky were
beneath him; but his head was dizzy and his feet stumbled, and he felt ill.
The lights in the valley grew brighter and brighter, and more numerous, and
he could see them moving to and fro, and then he understood that there
must be a village in the distance; so he exerted his failing strength to reach
it, and at length obtained shelter in a humble lodging. He remained there
that night and the whole of the following day, for his body required rest and
refreshment, and in the valley there was rain and a thaw. But early in the
morning of the third day, a man came with an organ and played one of the
melodies of home; and after that Knud could remain there no longer, so he
started again on his journey toward the north. He travelled for many days
with hasty steps, as if he were trying to reach home before all whom he
remembered should die; but he spoke to no one of this longing. No one
would have believed or understood this sorrow of his heart, the deepest that
can be felt by human nature. Such grief is not for the world; it is not
entertaining even to friends, and poor Knud had no friends; he was a
stranger, wandering through strange lands to his home in the north.
He was walking one evening through the public roads, the country
around him was flatter, with fields and meadows, the air had a frosty
feeling. A willow-tree grew by the roadside, everything reminded him of
home. He felt very tired; so he sat down under the tree, and very soon began
to nod, then his eyes closed in sleep. Yet still he seemed conscious that the
willow-tree was stretching its branches over him; in his dreaming state the
tree appeared like a strong, old man-the “willow-father” himself, who had
taken his tired son up in his arms to carry him back to the land of home, to
the garden of his childhood, on the bleak open shores of Kjøge. And then he
dreamed that it was really the willow-tree itself from Kjøge, which had
travelled out in the world to seek him, and now had found him and carried
him back into the little garden on the banks of the streamlet; and there stood
