*Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town takes its name from King Hroar, and the many fountains in the
neighborhood. In the beautiful cathedral the greater number of the kings and queens of Denmark are interred.
In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish Diet assemble.
Again all suddenly disappeared. Yes, and whither? It seemed to him just as if
one turned over a leaf in a book. And now stood there an old peasant-woman,
who came from Soroe,* where grass grows in the market-place. She had an old
gray linen apron hanging over her head and back: it was so wet, it certainly
must have been raining. "Yes, that it has," said she; and she now related many
pretty things out of Holberg's comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon; but
all at once she cowered together, and her head began shaking backwards and
forwards, and she looked as she were going to make a spring. "Croak! croak!"
said she. "It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness
in Sorbe!" She was now suddenly a frog, "Croak"; and now she was an old woman.
"One must dress according to the weather," said she. "It is wet; it is wet. My
town is just like a bottle; and one gets in by the neck, and by the neck one
must get out again! In former times I had the finest fish, and now I have fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the bottle, who learn wisdom, Hebrew,
Greek--Croak!"
* Sorbe, a very quiet little town, beautifully situated, surrounded by woods
and lakes. Holberg, Denmark's Moliere, founded here an academy for the sons of
the nobles. The poets Hauch and Ingemann were appointed professors here. The
latter lives there still.
When she spoke it sounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one walked
with great boots over a moor; always the same tone, so uniform and so tiring
that little Tuk fell into a good sound sleep, which, by the bye, could not do
him any harm.
But even in this sleep there came a dream, or whatever else it was: his little
sister Augusta, she with the blue eyes and the fair curling hair, was suddenly
a tall, beautiful girl, and without having wings was yet able to fly; and she
now flew over Zealand--over the green woods and the blue lakes.
"Do you hear the cock crow, Tukey? Cock-a-doodle-doo! The cocks are flying up
from Kjoge! You will have a farm-yard, so large, oh! so very large! You will
suffer neither hunger nor thirst! You will get on in the world! You will be a
rich and happy man! Your house will exalt itself like King Waldemar's tower,
and will be richly decorated with marble statues, like that at Prastoe. You
understand what I mean. Your name shall circulate with renown all round the
earth, like unto the ship that was to have sailed from Corsor; and in Roeskilde--"
"Do not forget the diet!" said King Hroar.
"Then you will speak well and wisely, little Tukey; and when at last you sink
into your grave, you shall sleep as quietly--"
"As if I lay in Soroe," said Tuk, awaking. It was bright day, and he was now
quite unable to call to mind his dream; that, however, was not at all necessary, for one may not know what the future will bring.
And out of bed he jumped, and read in his book, and now all at once he knew
his whole lesson. And the old washerwoman popped her head in at the door, nodded to him friendly, and said, "Thanks, many thanks, my good child, for
your help! May the good ever-loving God fulfil your loveliest dream!"
Little Tukey did not at all know what he had dreamed, but the loving God knew
it.
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