ble lady drove towards the baronial mansion, with her three
daughters, in a gilded carriage drawn by six horses. The daughters
were young and fair--three charming blossoms, rose, lily, and pale
hyacinth. The mother was a proud tulip, and never acknowledged the
salutation of one of the men or maids who paused in their sport to do
her honour: the gracious lady seemed a flower that was rather stiff in
the stalk.

"Rose, lily, and pale hyacinth; yes, I saw them all three! Whose
lambkins will they one day become? thought I; their Street-goat will
be a gallant knight, perhaps a prince. Huh--sh! hurry along! hurry
along!

"Yes, the carriage rolled on with them, and the peasant people resumed
their dancing. They rode that summer through all the villages round
about. But in the night, when I rose again," said the Wind, "the very
noble lady lay down, to rise again no more: that thing came upon her
which comes upon all--there is nothing new in that.

"Waldemar Daa stood for a space silent and thoughtful. 'The proudest
tree can be bowed without being broken,' said a voice within him. His
daughters wept, and all the people in the mansion wiped their eyes;
but Lady Daa had driven away--and I drove away too, and rushed along,
huh--sh!" said the Wind.

* * * * *

"I returned again; I often returned again over the Island of Fuenen,
and the shores of the Belt, and I sat down by Borreby, by the splendid
oak wood; there the heron made his nest, and wood-pigeons haunted the
place, and blue ravens, and even the black stork. It was still spring;
some of them were yet sitting on their eggs, others had already
hatched their young. But how they flew up, how they cried! The axe
sounded, blow on blow: the wood was to be felled. Waldemar Daa wanted
to build a noble ship, a man-of-war, a three-decker, which the king
would be sure to buy; and therefore the wood must be felled, the
landmark of the seamen, the refuge of the birds. The hawk started up
and flew away, for its nest was destroyed; the heron and all the birds
of the forest became homeless, and flew about in fear and in anger: I
could well understand how they felt. Crows and ravens croaked aloud as
if in scorn. 'Crack, crack! the nest cracks, cracks, cracks!'

"Far in the interior of the wood, where the noisy swarm of labourers
were working, stood Waldemar Daa and his three daughters; and all
laughed at the wild cries of the birds; only one, the youngest,