XI.
Among my Danish excursions was one to Slesvig in July, 1860. The Copenhagen students had been asked to attend a festival to be held at Angel at the end of July for the strengthening of the sparse Danish element in that German-minded region. There were not many who wished to go, but several of those who did had beautiful voices, and sang feelingly the national songs with which it was hoped the hearts of the Angel people, and especially of the ladies, might be touched. Several gentlemen still living, at that time among the recognised leaders of the students, went with us.
We sailed from Korsör to Flensborg one exquisite Summer night; we gave up the berths we had secured and stayed all night on deck with a bowl of punch. It was a starlight night, the ship cut rapidly through the calm waters, beautiful songs were sung and high-flown speeches made. One speech was held in a whisper, the one in honour of General de Meza, who was still a universal favourite, and who was sitting in his stateroom, waked up out of his sleep, with his white gloves and gaufred lace cuffs on and a red and white night-cap on his head. We young ones only thought of him as the man who, during the battle of Fredericia, had never moved a muscle of his face, and when it was over had said quietly: "The result is very satisfactory."
Unfriendly and sneering looks from the windows at Flensborg very soon showed the travellers that Danish students' caps were not a welcome sight there. The Angel peasants, however, were very pleasant. The festival, which lasted all day and concluded with dancing and fireworks, was a great success, and a young man who had been carousing all night, travelling all day, and had danced all the evening with pretty girls till his senses were in a whirl, could not help regarding the scene of the festival in a romantic light, as he stood there alone, late at night, surrounded by flaring torches, the fireworks sputtering and glittering about him. Some few of the students sat in the fields round flaming rings of pitch, an old Angel peasant keeping the fires alight and singing Danish songs. Absolutely enraptured, and with tears in his eyes, he went about shaking hands with the young men and thanking them for coming. It was peculiarly solemn and beautiful.
Next day, when I got out at Egebaek station on my way from Flensborg, intending to go to Idsted, it seemed that three other young men had had the same idea, so we all four walked together. They were young men of a type I had not met with before. The way they felt and spoke was new to me. They all talked in a very affectionate manner, betrayed at once that they worshipped one another, and seemed to have strong, open natures, much resembling each other. They were Ernst Trier, Nörregaard, and Baagöe, later the three well-known High School men.
The little band arrived at a quick pace on Idsted's beautiful heath, all tufts of ling, the red blossoms of which looked lovely in the light of the setting sun. We sat ourselves down on the hill where Baudissin and his staff had stood. Then Baagöe read aloud Hammerich's description of the battle of Idsted, while each of us in his mind's eye saw the seething masses of troops advance and fall upon one another, as they had done just ten years before.
Our time was short, if we wanted to get under a roof that night. At 9 o'clock we were still eight miles from Slesvig. We did the first four at a pace that was novel to me. Three-parts of the way we covered in forty- five minutes, the last two miles took us twenty. When we arrived at the hotel, there stood Madam Esselbach, of war renown, in the doorway, with her hands on her hips, as in her portrait; she summed up the arrivals with shrewd, sharp eyes, and exclaimed: "Das ist ja das junge Dänemark." Inside, officers were sitting, playing cards. Major Sommer promised us young men to show us Gottorp at 6 o'clock next morning; we should then get a view of the whole of the town from Hersterberg beforehand.
The Major, who was attacked in the newspapers after the war, and whose expression "my maiden sword," was made great fun of, showed us younger ones the magnificent church, and afterwards the castle, which, as a barracks, was quite spoilt. He acted as the father of the regiment, and, like Poul Möller's artist, encouraged the efficient, and said hard words to the slighty, praising or blaming unceasingly, chatted Danish to the soldiers, Low German to the cook, High German to the little housekeeper at the castle, and called the attention of his guests to the perfect order and cleanliness of the stables. He complained bitterly that a certain senior lieutenant he pointed out to us, who in 1848 had flung his cockade in the gutter and gone over to the Germans, had been reinstated in the regiment, and placed over the heads of brave second- lieutenants who had won their crosses in the war.
Here I parted with my Grundtvigian friends. When I spoke of them to Julius Lange on my return, he remarked: "They are a good sort, who wear their hearts in their buttonholes as decorations."
The society I fell in with for the rest of my journey was very droll. This consisted of Borup, later Mayor of Finance, and a journalist named Falkman (really Petersen), even at that time on the staff of The Dally Paper. I little guessed then that my somewhat vulgar travelling companion would develop into the Cato who wished Ibsen's Ghosts "might be thrust into the slime-pit, where such things belong," and would write articles by the hundred against me. Neither had I any suspicion, during my acquaintance with Topsöe, that the latter would one day be one of my most determined persecutors. Without exactly being strikingly youthful, the large, broad-shouldered Borup was still a young man. Falkman wrote good-humouredly long reports to Bille about Slesvig, which I corrected for him. Borup and Falkman generally exclaimed the moment I opened my mouth: "Not seraphic, now!"
We travelled together to Glücksborg, saw the camp there, and, as we had had nothing since our morning coffee at 5 o'clock, ate between the three of us a piece of roast meat six pounds weight. We spent the night at Flensborg and drove next day to Graasten along a lovely road with wooded banks on either side. It was pouring with rain, and we sat in dead silence, trying to roll ourselves up in horse-cloths. When in an hour's time the rain stopped, and we put up at an inn, our enforced silence gave place to the wildest merriment. We three young fellows--the future Finance Minister as well--danced into the parlour, hopped about like wild men, spilt milk over ourselves, the sofa, and the waitress; then sprang, waltzing and laughing, out through the door again and up into the carriage, after having heaped the girl with small copper coins.
From Graasten we proceeded to Sönderborg. The older men lay down and slept after the meal. I went up to Dybbölmölle. On the way back, I found on a hill looking out over Als a bench from which there was a beautiful view across to Slesvig. I lay down on the seat and gazed up at the sky and across the perfect country. The light fields, with their tall, dark hedges, which give the Slesvig scenery its peculiar stamp, from this high-lying position looked absolutely lovely.