His labours were carried on by night, and with the utmost secresy, not to attract attention. During the day he rested, and either spent the hours lounging by the sea-side, or he slept. But, whether waking or sleeping, he was haunted by the thoughts of the hidden treasure, and of the wealth he would acquire, and the consequence he would attain, when he discovered and enjoyed it. It was shocking to see that pale and meagre creature, when the moon shone upon the scene of his labours, working away eagerly, bending over the spade, and listening anxiously when every fresh heap of earth was cast up: by turns cheating himself with hopes of success, then groaning at his disappointment, yet still persevering in the search for a prize which continued to evade his grasp.
In winter the ground was frozen, and as Ebbe was obliged to cease his digging, he left his hut, and went to Hjerting, where he hired himself out among the peasantry as a day-labourer. His history soon oozed out, and his very shy, reserved manners prevented him from making acquaintances, while his fellow-labourers jeered him. 'There goes the gold-digger!' the children would cry after him when he showed himself in the streets. These scoffers, who beheld him now in so humble a position, by-and-by, when he had found the treasure, should witness his triumph. 'Wait a little!' he thought; 'success will come at last, and the day cannot be very far distant!'
When spring succeeded to winter, Ebbe left the service he had taken, and returned to his hut, where he recommenced his labours with as much assiduity as before, and with the same result. The small space in which his operations were carried on soon resembled a deep pit, wherein gravel and sand, stone and clay, were gathered together in large heaps. But the treasure was nowhere visible.
When at length the ground had been entirely turned up, every inch examined, and he could dig no lower down, Ebbe fell into the deepest despair; his last hope had vanished, and with it all the strength and energy which hope alone had sustained. He was found one day sitting on the outside of the door of his hut, gazing on vacancy straight before him, lost in a reverie from which nothing seemed to have the power of rousing him.
At this very time a report was spread in the neighbourhood that Jörgen and his father-in-law had found the shipwrecked mariner's treasure--for this appeared the easiest mode of accounting for the increasing prosperity of the heretofore young fisherman. Ebbe heard this rumour; he believed it, and this belief added greatly to the bitterness of his disappointment, and was as poison to his mind.
Three years afterwards, a wan, wasted, spectral-looking figure might be seen wandering about in the vicinity of Hjerting; it was the unfortunate Ebbe, who had become deranged. The harmless lunatic was received into the poor-house at Hjerting, but spent most of his days in a remote and secluded valley, away among the sand hills. There he might be heard singing and talking to himself, whilst he occupied himself diligently in digging deep holes in the sand. One winter evening he did not return, as usual, to the poor-house. The next morning he was found, frozen to death, in a grave--it might be called--which he had dug in the sand the day before.
[DAMON AND PYTHIAS.]
FROM THE DANISH OF CARL BERNHARD.
In the so-called good old times, when grown-up people could sometimes be childish--now-a-days even children themselves are above such infirmities--in these good old times one often heard a ballad, a favourite song, which was as common as the lively popular airs that are now repeated nightly at the casinos; but these old songs were by no means lively, for lively music was not then in vogue; the songs were almost all sentimental. There was one ditty about 'Friendship, Hope, and Love,' in which Love was depicted as 'light red,' and of which I can now remember but two lines. It was very generally sung:
'Friendship rarely doth abound.
Tell me where it can be found!'