(1872)
About one Danish mile from the capital stood an old manor-house, with
thick walls, towers, and pointed gable-ends. Here lived, but only in the
summer-season, a rich and courtly family. This manor-house was the best
and the most beautiful of all the houses they owned. It looked outside as if it
had just been cast in a foundry, and within it was comfort itself. The family
arms were carved in stone over the door; beautiful roses twined about the
arms and the balcony; a grass-plot extended before the house with red-thorn
and white-thorn, and many rare flowers grew even outside the conservatory.
The manor kept also a very skillful gardener. It was a real pleasure to see
the flower-garden, the orchard, and the kitchen-garden. There was still to be
seen a portion of the manor’s original garden, a few box-tree hedges cut in
shape of crowns and pyramids, and behind these two mighty old trees
almost always without leaves. One might almost think that a storm or
water-spout had scattered great lumps of manure on their branches, but each
lump was a bird’s-nest. A swarm of rooks and crows from time immemorial
had built their nests here. It was a townful of birds, and the birds were the
manorial lords here. They did not care for the proprietors, the manor’s
oldest family branch, nor for the present owner of the manor,-these were
nothing to them; but they bore with the wandering creatures below them,
notwithstanding that once in a while they shot with guns in a way that made
the birds’ back-bones shiver, and made every bird fly up, crying “Rak,
Rak!”
The gardener very often explained to the master the necessity of felling
the old trees, as they did not look well, and by taking them away they would
probably also get rid of the screaming birds, which would seek another
place. But he never could be induced either to give up the trees or the
