Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/145

Rh Daa stood grave and silent for a time. 'The proudest tree may bend, but it does not break,' said something within him. The daughters wept and every one else at the Castle was wiping their eyes; but Madam Daa had fared away, and I fared away too! Whew! whew!" said the wind.

"I came back again; I often came back across the island of Funen and the waters of the Belt and took up my place on Borreby shore close to the great forest of oaks. The ospreys and the wood pigeons used to build in it, the blue raven, and even the black stork! It was early in the year; some of the nests were full of eggs, while in others the young ones were just hatched. What a flying and screaming was there! Then came the sound of the axe, blow upon blow; the forest was to be felled. Waldemar Daa was about to build a costly ship, a three-decked man-of-war, which it was expected the King would buy. So the wood fell, the ancient landmark of the seaman, the home of the birds. The shrike was frightened away; its nest was torn down; the osprey and all the other birds lost their nests, too, and they flew about distractedly, shrieking in their terror and anger. The crows and the jackdaws screamed in mockery, 'Caw! caw!' Waldemar Daa and his three daughters stood in the middle of the wood among the workmen. They all laughed at the wild cries of the birds except Anna Dorothea, who was touched by their distress, and when they were about to fell a tree which was half-dead, and on whose naked branches a black stork had built its nest, out of which the young ones were sticking their heads, she begged them with tears in her eyes to spare it. So the tree with the black stork's nest was allowed to stand. It was only a little thing.

"The chopping and the sawing went on—the three-decker was built. The master builder was a man of humble origin, but of noble loyalty; great power lay in his eyes and on his forehead, and Waldemar Daa liked to listen to him, and little Ida liked to listen, too, the eldest, fifteen-year-old daughter. But whilst he built the ship for her father, he built a