Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/81

 same was entwined in her golden ringlets. Her large blue eyes were very beautiful to look at. She was the same age as the boy; and they kissed each other, and felt very happy. They left the arbour together, hand in hand, and found themselves in a beautiful flower-garden, which belonged to their home. On the green lawn their father’s stick was tied up. There was life in this stick for the little ones; for no sooner did they place themselves upon it than the white knob changed into a pretty neighing head, with a black flowing mane, and four long slim legs sprung forth. The creature was strong and spirited, and galloped with them round the grass-plot. “Hurrah! now we will ride many miles away,” said the boy; “we’ll ride to the nobleman’s estate, where we went last year.” Then they rode round the grass-plot again; and the little maiden, who, we know, was Elder-tree mother, kept crying out, “Now we are in the country. Do you see the farmhouse, with a great baking-oven, which sticks out from the wall by the roadside like a gigantic egg? There is an elder spreading its branches over it, and a cock is marching about, and scratching for the chickens. See how he struts! Now we are near the church. There it stands on the hill, shaded by the great oak-trees, one of which is half dead. See, here we are at the blacksmith’s forge. How the fire burns! And the half-clad men are striking the hot iron with the hammer, so that the sparks fly about. Now then, away to the nobleman’s beautiful estate.” And the boy saw all that the little girl spoke of as she sat behind him on the stick; for it passed before him, although they were only galloping round the grass-plot. Then they played together in a side-walk, and raked up the earth, to make a little garden. Then she took elder-flowers out of her hair, and planted them; and they grew just like those which he had heard the old people talking about, and which they had planted in their young days. They walked about hand-in-hand, too, just as the old people had done when they were children; but they did not go up the round tower, nor to Fredericksburg garden. No; but the little girl seized the boy round the waist, and they rode all over the whole country,—sometimes it was spring, then summer, then autumn, and winter followed,—while thousands of images were presented to the boy’s eyes and heart, and the little girl constantly sung to him, “You must never forget all this.” And, through their whole flight, the elder-tree sent forth the sweetest fragrance.

They passed roses and fresh beech-trees, but the perfume of the elder-tree was stronger than all, for its flowers hung round the little maiden’s heart, against which the boy so often leaned his head during their flight.

“It is beautiful here in the spring,” said the maiden, as they stood in a grove of beech-trees covered with fresh green leaves, while at their feet the sweet-scented thyme and blushing anemone lay spread amid the green grass in delicate bloom. “Oh, that it were always spring in the fragrant beech-groves.”

“Here it is delightful in summer,” said the maiden, as they passed old knights’ castles, telling of days gone by, and saw the high walls and pointed gables mirrored in the rivers beneath, where swans were sailing about and peeping into the cool green avenues. In the fields the corn waved to and fro