she said. In the gardenstood at that time a rare tree, which she herself had planted. Itwas called the blood-beech- a kind of negro growing among the othertrees, so dark brown were the leaves. This tree required muchsunshine, for in continual shade it would become bright green like theother trees, and thus lose its distinctive character. In the loftychestnut trees were many birds' nests, and also in the thickets and inthe grassy meadows. It seemed as though the birds knew that theywere protected here, and that no one must fire a gun at them.
  Little Marie came here with Soren. He knew how to climb, as wehave already said, and eggs and fluffy-feathered young birds werebrought down. The birds, great and small, flew about in terror andtribulation; the peewit from the fields, and the crows and daws fromthe high trees, screamed and screamed; it was just such din as thefamily will raise to the present day.
  "What are you doing, you children?" cried the gentle lady; "thatis sinful!"
  Soren stood abashed, and even the little gracious lady looked downa little; but then he said, quite short and pretty,
  "My father lets me do it!"
  "Craw-craw! away-away from here!" cried the great black birds, andthey flew away; but on the following day they came back, for they wereat home here.
  The quiet gentle lady did not remain long at home here on earth,for the good God called her away; and, indeed, her home was ratherwith Him than in the knightly house; and the church bells tolledsolemnly when her corpse was carried to the church, and the eyes ofthe poor people were wet with tears, for she had been good to them.
  When she was gone, no one attended to her plantations, and thegarden ran to waste. Grubbe the knight was a hard man, they said;but his daughter, young as she was, knew how to manage him. He used tolaugh and let her have her way. She was now twelve years old, andstrongly built. She looked the people through and through with herblack eyes, rode her horse as bravely as a man, and could fire off hergun like a practiced hunter.
  One day there were great visitors in the neighborhood, thegrandest visitors who could come. The young King, and his half-brotherand comrade, the Lord Ulric Frederick Gyldenlowe. They wanted tohunt the wild boar, and to pass a few days at the castle of Grubbe.
  Gyldenlowe sat at table next to Marie Grubbe, and he took her bythe hand and gave her a kiss, as if she had been a relation; but shegave him a box on the ear, and told him she could not bear him, atwhich there was great laughter, as if that had been a very amusingthing.
  And perhaps it was very amusing, for, five years afterwards,when Marie had fulfilled her seventeenth year, a messenger arrivedwith a letter, in which Lord Gyldenlowe proposed for the hand of thenoble young lady. There was a thing for you!
  "He is the grandest and most gallant gentleman in the wholecountry," said Grubbe the knight; "that is not a thing to despise."
  "I don't care so very much about him," said Marie Grubbe; butshe did not despise the grandest man of all the country, who sat bythe king's side.
  Silver plate, and fine linen and woollen, went off to Copenhagenin a ship, while the bride made the journey by land in ten days. Butthe outfit met with contrary winds, or with no winds at all, forfour months passed before it arrived; and when it came, my LadyGyldenlowe was gone.
  "I'd rather lie on coarse sacking than lie in his silken beds,"she declared. "I'd rather walk barefoot than drive with him in acoach!"