FOOTNOTES:
[21] "No, thank you. Nothing! nothing!"
[22] Monk's Mountain.
[23] Manufacturers and Sealers' Associations Building.
CHAPTER VIII
SKAGEN
To Valdemar it seemed like a week, rather than just three days, since he had bidden good-bye to his mother, Karen and Aunt Amalia, and brought Karl with him up to the little painter's village of Skagen on the Kattegat, where they were to spend the months of July and August visiting Uncle Thor, who had built for himself one of the most charming of all the pretty, long, low, vine-covered homes of the famous Artist-Colony, of which he, as Court Painter, was by far the most distinguished member.
Up here was Uncle Thor's summer studio, with its row of fifteen great windows between which glorious red hollyhocks towered almost up to the red roof-tiles. On the south, the windows overlooked a gay, flower-massed garden where, on warm summer afternoons, the great sculptor loved to chat with painter-friends, and serve tea under his wind-swept old elms.
Here, in this bare and lofty studio, with its half-finished paintings and groups in clay, and, if the day be chilly, its crackling wood hearth-fire at the further end, throwing a flickering, rosy light over all,—here Valdemar was to spend many hard, long hours every day under his gifted godfather's instruction.
"In the centre of the studio stood the unfinished statue of the little Crown Prince"
"In the whole of Denmark was there ever any boy half so fortunate?" thought Valdemar to himself, as he made a mental resolution to show Uncle Thor his appreciation by the hardest work of his life. Valdemar could work hard, and he meant not only to prove to his uncle what earnest toil and definite purpose could do, but also to win his offer to send him to the Academy in the fall.
On a low platform, in the centre of the studio, stood the unfinished statue of the little Crown Prince Olaf of Norway which Uncle Thor had commenced in Copenhagen at the Royal Palace. Day by day it was nearing completion.
"And here," said Valdemar's great teacher, uncovering a smaller but similar clay figure of the same charming subject, "is work my ambitious little pupil is to finish before he leaves Skagen. It will be hard work, Valdemar, and it will put your ability as a young sculptor to a fine test. But you can do it, Valdemar, and do it creditably, too!"
"Oh, Uncle Thor! Do you really think so? I'll try hard enough!" promised the lad as he set to work in good earnest.
The long hours, which Valdemar spent daily in the studio, Karl passed either out of doors or in reading all the fascinating books on Danish history in Uncle Thor's library.
There were frequent letters to both boys from Fanö, the little island in the North Sea, where Karen, her mother, and Aunt Amalia were spending the summer. Later they were going to spend a few weeks on a large farm, for a change.
And so the weeks passed. Finally Holme Week, with its clear, bright evenings, came; but the midsummer sun was growing uncomfortably warm even as far north as Skagen.
Valdemar's work on his little Prince Olaf statue was so far advanced that Uncle Thor readily consented when the two boys begged him to let them take the dog, Frederik, along with them, and tramp over the two miles of mountainous sand-ridges which led to Denmark's most northern point, Grenen, or the Gren,—a mere desolate sand-reef, the last little tip of Jutland's mainland, which extends between the waters of the North Sea and the Baltic.
The only signs of life the boys passed on the way, as they trudged along together, often ankle-deep in the sand, were a few long-legged birds, and several huge hares which shot across the road in front of them.
"We didn't bring along more than half the sand-hills with us, did we, Valdemar?" laughed Karl, as they threw themselves down on the beach at Grenen, emptied the sand from their shoes, and donned their bathing suits.
"Talking about sand, Karl, some day I must show you all that remains of an old Gothic church tower near Skagen. One day, during a service, a great sand-storm came up and buried the church itself so suddenly that the only escape the people had was from the belfry. That is all that can be seen of that church even to-day."
Frederik barked loudly and dashed back and forth after the two boys, who were soon bubbling over with the fun and excitement of dipping their feet first into the breakers of the Skager-Rak, and then into the waters of the Kattegat, the warm July salt wind and spray tanning their bare arms and faces. Then, Frederik following, Valdemar swam far out into the sea and back again, with the utmost ease. All Danish boys can swim well, and Valdemar wanted to give Karl a demonstration of his ability as an expert swimmer.
"Kattegat! Skager-Rak!" shouted Karl, who liked something in the sound of the words. "Grenen's great! But, honest, Valdemar, never in my life did I expect to bathe in both these raging seas at once! But here I go—look now!" and he plunged out into the breakers. Frederik dashed after him to make sure that he was safe, then came bounding back again to Valdemar.
"Ow! ow!" cried Karl, limping back on one foot.
"Crabber?" inquired Valdemar. "Uncle Thor warned us to look out for crabs and shrimps up here on the beach. You sit down here and rest, Karl. I'm going to gather some of those fine sea-gull's feathers scattered along the beach for you to take back home with you for your collection of Danish souvenirs. It was mighty nice of Uncle Thor to give you that letter from King Frederik!"
"And I'm going to put my shoes and stockings right back on again while you're gone!" said Karl, surveying his painful foot with a frown.
"Oh, look, Karl!" exclaimed Valdemar, as he soon came running back, his arms full of something. "Look what I've found for you! Sea-gulls' eggs! All greenish, with brown peppery spots on them, and here's a lot of the loveliest white wing-feathers, every one tipped with black! They're all for you, Karl."
"Oh, thank you, Valdemar. Let's blow the eggs. Do you know how?"
"Yes, of course. I've got a piece of wire in my pocket. You just run this wire straight through both ends—so! Then blow and blow!"
Together the boys had soon blown all the eggs, and tied them up with the feathers in a piece of old fish-net they found on the beach. Then Karl watched Valdemar while he made a hasty sketch of Skagen Fyr, the great white lighthouse towering above the sand-hummocks near the Signal Station, where it is said that every year seventy thousand ships are signalled.
As they started on their two-mile tramp over the desolate sand-ridges back to Skagen, Valdemar gave one last lingering look towards the wild, wind-swept stretch of endless beach they were leaving, where the North Sea and the Baltic have battled against each other for countless ages, with one ceaseless roar. Back of them, range after range of low shifting sand-dunes glistened in the sun, as they stretched towards the unbroken horizon in every direction. It was a strange new world to both boys.
"What are you thinking so long about, Valdemar?" asked Karl.
"Oh, Karl, it was off there that our noble Tordenskjold's little frigate, White Eagle, pursued the great Swedish man-of-war Ösel, and made her fly in terror. There's something about the very desolation of this place that, I like," said Valdemar. "Something strange, and picturesque, and romantic, I mean, Karl. One feels some way—up here at the Gren—as though he had actually reached the world's end! I'd like to come back up here often. Wouldn't you, Karl?"
"No! There's something I don't like one bit about it! I liked the Massachusetts Cape Cod beach at home; but that was different. I'd hate to have to live very long anywhere near here! Romantic isn't the right word, Valdemar. It's a lonely, wild, and forsaken spot, with nothing at all 'romantic' about it in my eyes. To me it feels like the 'jumping off place,' all right. And I've heard, too, Valdemar, that when a great storm is blowing, and the waves are rolling mountain high, that there are just terrible shipwrecks up here at this dangerous point! Down at the Skagen Hotel, the figureheads and name-boards, that they have collected from ships of all nations, tell the tale, Valdemar."
"That's true. There was the wreck of the Daphne, with the lives of eight of the brave life-saving crew lost. Sometimes there are twenty shipwrecks a year. But, Karl, this is the sea that made Vikings! Over these same seas, where our smoky steamers now pass, once danced Long Ship, Serpent and Dragon, with their gilded dragon-beaks gleaming in the sunlight! Can't you see them, Karl? I can! Uncle Thor has often told me the wonderful Viking tales. And I've read about their marvellous courage and daring. The Eddas and Sagas of the Vikings are rich in lore of those fiery-hearted warriors, who sailed over the stormy seas in their fleets of light ash-wood ships, conquering far and wide, and meeting death light-heartedly! They say some great Viking chief is buried near here. Their cairns and barrows by thousands cover Denmark to-day."
"Oh, I've read about them at home," answered Karl, who loved courage and bravery as much as did any healthy American boy, but who loved also to tease. "They were just a race of bold sea-robbers, and pirates, always 'hatching their felonious little plans,' always ready to burn and kill; and, according to history, some of the deaths they dealt out to their enemies were truly 'Vikingish.'"
"And yet, Karl, the ancient Sagas and chronicles tell that it was our brave Vikings who first of all discovered your North America, and founded a colony they called Vineland, near where your great Harvard College is to-day. The Sagas say that, five hundred years before Columbus lived, Viking Biarne sailed to America with his ship Eyrar, and that, later, Lief, a son of Eric the Red, went over to America, too."
"Yes, I know. I've read Longfellow's poem, 'The Skeleton in Armor,' and I've seen the 'Old Mill' at Newport, which was long believed to be a Viking relic," said Karl. "But we know differently now. Nothing has been really proved."
The sun was sinking in the west as the two tired, but happy boys reached the outskirts of the straggling little village of Skagen, and trudged down the sandy road which led in and out among the fishermen's huts, with their tarred or heavily thatched roofs, and color-washed walls—some of them even built from wreckage.
Strings of fish, strung from pole to pole, were hung out to dry. Groups of sturdy fish-wives, here and there, with bronzed arms bare to the shoulder, and prettily kerchiefed heads, sat at tubs, dressing flounders for drying; and from the doorway of one hut came a voice so sweet and clear, crooning a quaint old Danish lullaby to the sleeping baby in the mother's arms, that the boys paused to listen as she sang:
"Den lille Ole, med Paraplyen
Han kender alle Smaa Folk i Byen
Hver lille Pige, hver lille Dreng,
De sover sodt i deres lille Seng."
"That was a pretty song. Tell me what it was all about," asked Karl, as they hurried on at a more rapid gait, for they were getting hungrier every minute.
"Oh, it was just a little folk-song every Dane knows. She was singing to her baby about the 'Sandman,' or den lille Ole, as we Danes say. She was telling him that the 'Sandman, with his umbrella, knows all about the little folks in town. Each little girl—each little boy—they are all sleeping sweetly in their beds.'"
They passed an old fisherman, mackintosh-clad, and another one in jersey and high boots, both hurrying towards the beach, where, in the gathering twilight, they could see a dim craft, a small fishing boat, with a few dark figures plying their trade, slowly rounding the promontory, its lights reflecting picturesquely in the water.
"Some day we must come back earlier, when more of the fishermen are home from their trips, and watch the crews at practice," said Valdemar. "These Skagen fishermen are true sons of the Vikings. It is said that there was one, once, who boasted of having saved two hundred lives."
"I hope you didn't worry about our getting home so late, Uncle Thor," said Valdemar, at the supper table that night.
"No, but here is a letter for you."
"Hurrah!" exclaimed Valdemar, as he finished reading it. "It's from mother. She says that Grandmother Ingemann has invited us all to spend Christmas with her down in Odense, and that Aage will be home for his vacation from the Military College, and be there with us, and Uncle Oscar, too, will be back again from America. Mother has decided that I am not to return to school until after Christmas, for she thinks that Karl and I are learning more by seeing our country than we could learn in school. And, best of all, mother says that I can remain up here studying with you, Uncle Thor, until September!"
"Hurrah!" said Karl. "No school until New Year's for me!"
"That means five more weeks up here with you, dear Uncle Thor!" continued Valdemar. "Now I can entirely finish the task you gave me to do, the Prince Olaf statue. I'm so glad, Uncle Thor!"
"And I'm glad, too, Valdemar, for you are doing me great credit as a pupil. I am going to be very proud of that statue of yours, Valdemar, when it is finished."
These last five weeks passed for Valdemar much as the first five had—in the studio.
"Study—diligent, earnest and honest," said Uncle Thor, "will win many honors for you when you are older, Valdemar. If you work hard, you should some day gather some of the roses that strew the path of the Danish artist, my boy."
"But once you said that Denmark was almost overcrowded with art students, Uncle Thor, didn't you?"
"That is true. But many of them fail to go on with their work; they lose courage and drop out. Others become interested in something else, and so leave their art studies. The few who do keep on usually learn all they can from the art schools in Denmark, and then go to Italy for further study."
"Yes, as you did, Uncle Thor, and as Thorvaldsen did, too," said Valdemar. "Oh, Uncle Thor! Do you think that, when I am older, I may ever be able to study in Italy?"
"My dear little Valdemar, anything is possible for you, if you work hard enough," was the great artist's answer.
CHAPTER IX
A DANISH PEASANT WEDDING
Karen's fair skin was tanned so many shades darker than her flaxen locks that Valdemar and Karl hardly knew her. Far down on the delightful Vesterhavet,[24] on the sandy little island of Fanö, she had spent the happy summer-time with her mother and Aunt Amalia, first at the seashore, and later on the great farm of Peder Sörensen, near Nordby, where, most of the time, she had played out of doors in the sun and wind.
The merry harvest season had passed soon after Valdemar and Karl had arrived. They remembered how the harvesters had laid aside the last sheaf, decorated it with flowers and ribbons, and carried it in procession. Then had followed the great Höst Gilde, or Harvest Feast, a very festive function when sturdy men and rosy-cheeked maidens danced hand-in-hand.
Then, later, in the same beautiful month of October, had followed another folk-festival, and Mortin's Day,[25] when in the evening everybody ate "Mortin's Goose," stuffed with boiled apples and black fruit.
Sometimes, on some of the children's many trips over to play on the beach by the West Sea, they had brought back pieces of amber washed up by the water. Karl found some pretty big pieces to add to his rapidly growing collection of Danish souvenirs, which now included not only the coral specimens, sea-gull's eggs and wing-feathers, but Fanö amber, and, best of all, Uncle Thor's gift of the great white envelope and letter from the Royal Palace.
Peder Sörensen was not a farmer himself. Like most of the men of Fanö, he was a sailor. It was the Fanö wives who, in their picturesque though rather unbecoming dress, cultivated the land, drove the cattle to pasture and the sheep to graze among the sand-hills, and it was they who milked the fine "Red Danish" cows at night, and made the far-famed "Best Danish" butter, with which they welcomed home their seafaring husbands.
Fru Anna Sörensen, who had studied farming and dairying at the Agricultural College, always presented a neat and attractive appearance in her dark blue dress with its one note of bright color down around the very hem, and her quaint red and blue kerchief head-dress, with its inevitable loose ends, which Valdemar graphically described as "rabbit's ears."
All the women of Fanö dressed just so, except, of course, upon some great occasion like Lowisa Nielsen's wedding, which was to take place in November.
Almost before they knew it, the short summer had flown, and November, with its cool, bright days, had come, bringing Lowisa Nielsen's wedding invitation, which the Bydemand,[26] in white trousers, topboots, and a nosegay in his buttonhole, carried over to the Sörensens on horseback.
For propriety's sake, Fru Sörensen allowed him to knock a second time before opening the door, then politely asked him within.
"Greetings from the father and mother, and Lowisa, to yourself, your husband and guests," he began, as he took the proffered seat. "Your presence is truly desired at the wedding on Thursday next at ten o'clock. Come early, accompany the bridal party to the church, and hear their marriage service, return with them for dinner, remain for supper, then amuse yourselves with dancing and games the whole night; and then come again the next day, and take your places from the first day, and they will be sure to do the same for you when wanted from choice, on some enjoyable occasion."
This unique invitation being delivered, the Bydemand arose as if to go, but Fru Sörensen, with Danish hospitality, and according to an old custom, quickly produced a flagon of home-brewed beer, and a raisin-decorated wheaten cake, which she offered him.
As he finished the flagon and was about to leave, he turned at the door to add, as though an afterthought: "Then you must not forget to send a convenient amount of butter, eggs, a pail of fresh milk and two jars of cream."
"I will gladly," replied Fru Sörensen, as he departed.
On the wedding morning, at the appointed time, Fru Anna Sörensen and her guests, Fru Ingemann, Mrs. Hoffman, and the children, who had never seen a peasant wedding before, drove over to the great Nielsen Bonnegaard,[27] passed through the massive stone gateway, and into the open courtyard. They were graciously received by Fru Nielsen, and seated with the other guests upon wooden benches ranged around the walls of a spacious family apartment, whose polished rafters converged into a sharp-spiked peak at the centre.
Lowisa, a fair-haired, blue-eyed Danish peasant maiden, to-day looked unusually attractive, decked out in bridal array,—a pretty but tight-fitting homespun, escaping the floor all around by several inches. From Lowisa's richly gold-embroidered, tall scarlet cap, or "hood," as the Danes call it, hung pendent innumerable brilliant ornaments—round balls of metal and other fantastic dangles, all waving and twinkling as she moved. Extending from the back were vast bows and streamers of scarlet ribbon, under which she wore a head-dress of very rare and delicate lace. And the filmy white fichu, which crossed over her bosom, disclosed a rounded throat, circled by a bangle necklace of gold and silver coins.
As soon as the last guest had arrived, the whole party was driven over to the church,—the bride and her family in the forward "rock-away," the bridegroom in the next, then, in another, a band of rustic musicians, who, as soon as all the guests were seated in the different vehicles, struck up a lively air.
At the proper moment, the bridegroom, young Nils Rasmussen, a fine-looking fellow of true Saxon type, took his position beside Lowisa at the altar.
On returning to the house, the little church party was met by an eager, expectant company of guests, who had been invited to join them for the wedding-dinner. The bridal couple took their places at the middle of the cross-tables, which were arranged to form a square, after the fashion of ancient banquet tables, and, when all the guests were seated, the serving-maids brought in great bowls of steaming rice, and placed four to each table, deftly dividing the contents of each into as many sections, by making deep cross-shaped indentures, into which they sprinkled cinnamon and sugar and poured a cupful of hot butter. Then each guest, four to a bowl, lifted his spoon, dipped it into the delicious gröd, and began to eat. Meats followed, with wheaten cakes, highly decorated, and home-brewed beer of a very peculiar, rich, honeyed taste, and with the singing of a beautiful old Danish hymn the repast was brought to a close.
Then the room was cleared and the dancing began. It was certainly a beautiful sight, with every one decked out in festive attire.
"Nie tak,"[28] coyly refused each girl upon her first invitation to dance, according to an old law of peasant decorum, which also prevented the bridal couple, who led the dancing, from speaking to, or even noticing each other again during the entire festivities.
As the afternoon wore on the dancing continued. Between seven and eight, supper without rice was served, followed immediately by more dancing, which continued until four o'clock in the morning.
By ten o'clock the next morning the fiddlers had again arrived, and the dancing was renewed, this time with a noticeable increase in the number of rosy-cheeked, snowy-haired, elderly couples, in quaint holiday dress of homespun, with silver-buckled shoes. The bride continued to dance gracefully and bravely on, although paling cheeks told of her weariness.
Fru Nielsen explained that the third and last day would only differ from the first in that there would be fewer guests present, after which all would begin making formal calls upon the bride, which was considered the height of good form.