Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/200

 After a while the gardener told his master that he could bring him a fresh artichoke flower, which he said was even more wonderfully beautiful than the first, and everybody agreed with him.

“That is all right, Larsen,” said the nobleman, “but it is rather out of season.”

The autumn arrived, and with it a frightful storm, which continued in violence the whole night, so that in the borders of the forest many trees were thrown down, to the great grief of the nobleman.

“It is not a sad thing for you, gardener,” he said, for to Larsen’s great joy the storm had thrown down both the great trees with the birds’ nests on them.

Even during the storm could be heard the cawing and cries of the rooks and jackdaws; and those in the castle said the poor birds flew against the window in their terror, as if seeking shelter.

“Now you are free, Larsen,” said the nobleman; “the storm has overthrown the trees, and the birds will soon make another home in the forest. There is nothing left now to remind us of olden times—each ornament, each memory of the past has perished, and it makes me very sorrowful.”

The gardener remained silent, but he said to himself, “Now I shall have a beautiful sunny spot, which will be very useful to me.”

Hitherto he could do nothing on it—now it should be an ornament to the garden, and a joy to his noble master.

The great trees which had been thrown down were very old, and had in falling injured and crushed two elegantly-clipped box-trees. Here was also a kind of thicket formed by the growth of underwood, which separated the spot from the fields and forests that belonged to other landowners.

Till now no other gardener had thought of doing anything similar to what Larsen intended to do. In the richest profusion he set, or sowed, plants of every description in what appeared to him a rich soil, in shady spots or in sunshine, as they needed; and whatever he wished to produce grew here splendidly under the vault of heaven.

The young juniper tree from the adjoining heath, which he had transplanted, became, as it grew taller, like the Italian Cyprus in form and colour, with white prickly Christmas thorns, and would be always green both in the heat of summer and the cold of winter, and was very beautiful to see.

In the foreground grew many species of beautiful ferns, almost like the children of the palm, and others showed their relationship to the deltcate, fine fern, called Venus’s hair.

Here also stood the despised burdock, that in its young freshness is so beautiful, that it is even used in bouquets. The burdock grows on dry ground. In moist ground the gorse lettuce flourishes, also a common plant, yet still from its great height and splendid leaf, is so picturesquely beautiful.

Several plants grew high, with flower upon flower crowded together like a massive, many-branched candelabra, as if they were intended to carry the king’s candles.