and cried, as if in derision, 'From the nest-from the nest! away-away!' as the
birds had screeched at Borreby Wood when the trees were cut down.
“And thus they entered the humble house at Smidstrup Mark, and I
wandered away over moors and meadows, through naked hedges and
leafless woods, to the open sea-to other lands. Wheugh-wheugh! On-on-
on!”
What became of Waldemar Daae? What became of his daughters? The
wind will tell.
“The last of them I saw was Anna Dorthea, the pale hyacinth. She had
become old and decrepit: that was about fifty years after she had left the
castle. She lived the longest-she saw them all out.”
“Yonder, on the heath, near the town of Viborg, stood the dean's
handsome house, built of red granite. The smoke rolled plentifully from its
chimneys. The gentle lady and her beautiful daughters sat on the balcony,
and looked over their pretty garden on the brown heath. At what were they
gazing? They were looking at the storks' nests, on a castle that was almost
in ruins. The roof, where there was any roof, was covered with moss and
houseleeks; but the best part of it sustained the storks' nests-that was the
only portion which was in tolerable repair.
“It was a place to look at, not to dwell in. I had to be cautious with it,”
said the wind. “For the sake of the storks the house was allowed to stand,
else it was really a disgrace to the heath. The dean would not have the
storks driven away; so the dilapidated building was permitted to remain,
and a poor woman was permitted to live in it. She had to thank the Egyptian
birds for that-or was it a reward for having formerly begged that the nests of
their wild black kindred might be spared in Borreby Wood? Then the
wretched pauper was a young girl-a lovely pale hyacinth in the noble flower
parterre. She remembered it well-poor Anna Dorthea!
“'Oh! oh! Yes, mankind can sigh as the wind does amidst the sedges and
the rushes-Oh! No church bell tolled at thy death, Waldemar Daae! No
charity-school children sang over his grave when the former lord of
