could stay no longer.
He continued his journey towards the north, marching onward for many
days with haste and hurry, as if he were trying to get home before all
were dead there; but to no one did he speak of his longing, for no one
would have believed in the sorrow of his heart, the deepest a human
heart can feel. Such a grief is not for the world, for it is not
amusing; nor is it even for friends; and moreover he had no friends--a
stranger, he wandered through strange lands towards his home in the
north.

It was evening. He was walking on the public high-road. The frost
began to make itself felt, and the country soon became flatter,
containing mere field and meadow. By the road-side grew a great willow
tree. Everything reminded him of home, and he sat down under the tree:
he felt very tired, his head began to nod, and his eyes closed in
slumber, but still he was conscious that the tree stretched its arms
above him; and in his wandering fancy the tree itself appeared to be
an old, mighty man--it seemed as if the "Willow-father" himself had
taken up his tired son in his arms, and were carrying him back into
the land of home, to the bare bleak shore of Kjoege, to the garden of
his childhood. Yes, he dreamed it was the willow tree of Kjoege that
had travelled out into the world to seek him, and that now had found
him, and had led him back into the little garden by the streamlet, and
there stood Joanna, in all her splendour, with the golden crown on her
head, as he had seen her last, and she called out "welcome" to him.

And before him stood two remarkable shapes, which looked much more
human than he remembered them to have been in his childhood: they had
changed also, but they were still the two cakes that turned the right
side towards him, and looked very well.

"We thank you," they said to Knud. "You have loosened our tongues, and
have taught us that thoughts should be spoken out freely, or nothing
will come of them; and now something has indeed come of it--we are
betrothed."

Then they went hand in hand through the streets of Kjoege, and they
looked very respectable in every way: there was no fault to find with
_them_. And they went on, straight towards the church, and Knud and
Joanna followed them; they also were walking hand in hand; and the
church stood there as it had always stood, with its red walls, on
which the green ivy grew; and the great door of the church flew open,
and the organ sounded, and they walk