The peninsula of Jutland possesses nothing of the natural beauty which Zealand and Funen present—splendid beeches and odoriferous clover-fields in the neighborhood of the salt sea; it possesses at once a wild and desolate nature, in the heath-covered expanses and the far-stretching moors. East and west are different; like the green, sappy leaf, and grayish white sea-weed on the sea shore. From the Woods of Marselisborg to the woods south of Coldinger Fjord, is the land rich and blooming; it is the Danish Nature in her greatness. Here rises the Heaven Mountain, with its wilderness of coppice and heather; from here you gaze over the rich landscape, with its woods and lakes, as far down as the roaring Cattegat.
The western coast, on the contrary, lies without a tree, without bushes, with nothing but white sand-hills stretching along the roaring ocean, which scourges the melancholy coast with sand-storms and sharp winds. Between these contrasts, which the east and west coasts present, the Hesperides and Siberia, lies the vast heath which stretches itself from the Lyneborg sand to the Skagen’s reef. No hedge shows here the limits of possession. Among the crossing tracks of carriage wheels must thou seek thy way. Crippled oaks, with whitish-green moss overgrown to the outermost branches, twist themselves along the ground, as if fearing storms and the sea-mist. Here, like a nomadic people, but without flocks, do the so-called Tartar bands wander up and down, with their peculiar language and peculiar ceremonies. Suddenly there shows itself in the interior of the heathy wilderness a colony—another, a strange people, German emigrants, who through industry compel the meagre country to fruitfulness.
From Veile, Otto wished to take the road through Viborg, as the most direct and the shortest to his grandfather’s estate, which lay between Nisumfjord and Lemvig.
The first heath-bushes accosted him as dear friends of his childhood. The beautiful beech-woods lay behind him, the expanse of heath began; but the heath was dear to him: it was this landscape which formed the basis of many dear recollections.
The country became ever higher with brown heights, beyond which nothing was visible; houses and farms became more rare, the cherry orchards transformed themselves into cabbage-gardens. Only single spots were free from heather, and here grew grass, but short, and like moss or duckweed which grows upon ponds: here birds congregated by hundreds, and fluttered twittering into the air as the carriage drove past.
“You know where to find the green spot in the heath, and how to become happy through it,” sighed Otto. “Could I only follow your example!”
At a greater distance rose bare hills, without ling or ploughed land; the prickly heath looked brown and yellow on the sharp declivities. A little boy and girl herded sheep by the way-side; the boy played the Pandean pipe, the little girl sang a psalm,—it was the best song which she knew how to sing to the traveller, in order to win a little present from him.
The day was warm and beautiful, but the evening brought the cold mist from the sea, which, however, in the interior of the country loses something of its power.
“That is a kiss of welcome from my home,” said Otto; “the death-kiss of the mermaid! In Funen they call it the elf maiden.”
Within the last few years a number of children have been sent from the Orphan Asylum to the heath, in order that, instead of Copenhagen rogues, they may become honest Jutland peasants. Otto had a boy of this description for his coachman. The lad was very contented, and yet Otto became low-spirited from his relation. Recollections from his own life stirred within his breast. “Return thanks to God,” said he, and gave the lad a considerable present; “on the heath thou hast shelter and a home; in Copenhagen, perhaps, the sandy beach would have been thy nightly resting-place, hunger and cold the gifts which the day would bring thee.”