Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/227

Rh still asleep. Yes, they were fast asleep; so he went softly, very softly, in his short little shirt, to the wheel and began to spin. The cord flew off and the wheel ran faster and faster. I kissed his yellow hair and his large blue eyes. It was a pretty picture.

"His mother woke just then. She put the curtain aside and looked out and thought she saw a Brownie or some other little sprite. 'In Heaven's name,' she said, pushing her husband; he opened his eyes, rubbed them, and looked at the busy little figure. 'Why, it is our Bertel!' he said. And my eye turned away from the poor little room. My glances extend so far that at the same moment I looked in at the galleries of the Vatican where the sculptured gods stand. I flooded the Laocoön group with my light, and the marble seemed to sigh. I pressed a gentle kiss upon the bosom of the muses; they almost seemed to move. But my glance rested longest upon the great Nile group with the colossal god. He leant pensively against the Sphinx, dreamy and thoughtful, as if he was pondering on the bygone years. Little Cupids played around him sporting with the crocodiles. One tiny little Cupid sat inside the cornucopia with his arms folded looking at the great solemn river-god. He was a true picture of the little boy at the spinning-wheel; his features were the same. This little marble child was lifelike and graceful in the extreme, yet the wheel of time had turned more than a thousand times since he sprang from the marble. Just so many times as the little boy turned the spinning-wheel in the humble little room had the greater wheel of time whirled round, and yet will whirl, before the present time creates marble gods like these.

"Now all this happened years ago," continued the moon. "Yesterday I looked down on to a bay on the east coast of Zealand. The cliffs round it were beautifully wooded, and in the midst of the woods stood an old red castle with swans swimming in the moat. A little country town lay near with