“What wouldst thou know, dear heart?”
“I’m thinking there’s something in the forest air that makes sensible folks mad. Many’s the time I have been walking in Bigum woods, when I would keep on running and running, till I got into the very thickest of it. I’d be wild with glee and sing at the top of my voice and walk and pick flowers and throw them away again and call to the birds, when they flew up—and then, on the sudden, a strange fright would come over me, and I would feel, oh! so wretched and so small! Whenever a branch broke I’d start, and the sound of my own voice gave me more fright than anything else. Hast thou never felt it?”
Before Ulrik Frederik could answer her song rang out:
“Right merrily in the woods I go
Where elm and apple grow,
And I pluck me there sweet roses two
And deck my silken shoe.
Oh, the dance,
Oh, the dance,
Oh, tra-la-la!
Oh, the red, red berries on the dogrose bush!”
and as she sang, the whip flew down over her horse, she laughed, hallooed, and galloped at top speed along a narrow forest path, where the branches swept her shoulders. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks burned, she did not heed Ulrik Frederik calling after her. The whip whizzed through the air again, and off she went with reins slack! Her fluttering habit was flecked with foam. The soft earth flew up around her horse. She laughed and cut the tall ferns with her whip.
Suddenly the light seemed to be lifted from leaf and branch and to flee from the rain-heavy darkness. The rustling of the bushes had ceased, and the hoof-beats were silent, as she rode across a stretch of forest glade. On either side the trees stood like a dark encircling wall. Ragged gray clouds were scudding over the black, lowering heavens. Before her rolled the murky blue waters of the Sound, and beyond rose banks of fog. She drew rein, and her tired mount stopped willingly. Ulrik Frederik galloped past, swung back in a wide circle, and halted at her side.
At that moment a shower fell like a gray, heavy, wet curtain drawn slantwise over the Sound. An icy wind flattened the grass, whizzed in their ears, and made a noise like foaming waves in the distant tree-tops. Large flat hailstones rattled down over them in white sheets, settled like bead strings in the folds of her dress, fell in a spray from the horses’ manes, and skipped and rolled in the grass as though swarming out of the earth.
They sought shelter under the trees, rode down to the beach, and presently halted before the low door of the Bide-a-Wee Tavern. A stable-boy took the horses, and the tall, bareheaded inn-keeper showed them into his parlor, where, he said, there was another guest before them. It proved to be Hop-o’-my-Thumb, who rose at their entrance, offering to give up the room to their highnesses, but Ulrik Frederik graciously bade him remain.
“Stay here, my man,” he said, “and entertain us in this confounded weather. I must tell you, my dear,”—turning to Marie,—“that this insignificant mannikin is the renowned comedian and merry-andrew of ale-houses, Daniel Knopf, well learned in all the liberal arts such as dicing, fencing, drinking, shrovetide sports, and such matters, otherwise in fair repute as an honorable merchant in the good city of Copenhagen.”
Daniel scarcely heard this eulogy. He was absorbed in looking at Marie Grubbe and formulating some graceful words of felicitation, but when Ulrik Frederik roused him with a sounding blow on his broad back, his face flushed with resentment and embarrassment. He turned to him angrily, but mastered himself, and said with his coldest smile: “We’re scarce tipsy enough, Colonel.”