The winds tale

wthorn hedge of the garden towards the brown heath. What were they looking at? Their glances fell upon a stork`s nest, which was built upon an old tumbledown hut. The roof, as far as one existed at all, was covered with moss and lichen. The stork`s nest covered the greater part of it, and that alone was in a good condition; for it was kept in order by the stork himself. That is a house to be looked at, and not to be touched,” said the Wind. “For the sake of the stork`s nest it had been allowed to remain, although it is a blot on the landscape. They did not like to drive the stork away; therefore the old shed was left standing, and the poor woman who dwelt in it allowed to stay. She had the Egyptian bird to thank for that; or was it perchance her reward for having once interceded for the preservation of the nest of its black brother in the forest of Borreby? At that time she, the poor woman, was a young child, a white hyacinth in a rich garden. She remembered that time well; for it was Anna Dorothea.
“`O-h, o-h,` she sighed; for people can sigh like the moaning of the wind among the reeds and rushes. `O-h, o-h,` she would say, `no bell sounded at thy burial, Waldemar Daa. The poor school-boys did not even sing a psalm when the former lord of Borreby was laid in the earth to rest. O-h, everything has an end, even misery. Sister Ida became the wife of a peasant; that was the hardest trial which befell our father, that the husband of his own daughter should be a miserable serf, whom his owner could place for punishment on the wooden horse. I suppose he is under the ground now; and Ida-alas! alas! it is not ended yet; miserable that I am! Kind Heaven, grant me that I may die.`
“That was Anna Dorothea`s prayer in the wretched hut that was left standing for the sake of the stork. I took pity on the proudest of the sisters,” said the Wind. “Her courage was like that of a man; and in man`s clothes she served as a sailor on board ship. She was of few words, and of a dark countenance; but she did not know how to climb, so I blew her overboard before any one found out that she was a woman; and, in my opinion, that was well done,” said the Wind.
On such another Easter morning as that on which Waldemar Daa imagined he had discovered the art of making gold, I heard the tones of a psalm under the stork`s nest, and within the crumbling walls. It was Anna Dorothea`s last song. There was no window in the hut, only a hole in the wall; and the sun rose like a globe of burnished gold, and looked through. With what splendor he filled that dismal dwelling! Her eyes were glazing, and her heart breaking; but so it would have been, even had the sun not shone that morning on Anna Dorothea. The stork`s nest had secured her a home till her death. I sung over her grave; I sung at her father`s grave. I know where it lies, and where her grave is too, but nobody else knows it.
“New times now; all is changed. The old high-road is lost amid cultivated fields; the new one now winds along over covered graves; and soon the railway will come, with its train of carriages, and rush over graves where lie those whose very names are forgoten. All passed away, passed away!
“This is the story of Waldemar Daa and his daughters. Tell it better, any of you, if you know how,” said the Wind; and he rushed away, and was gone.