They traveled up toward the Lime Fiord, toward Skagen, through the land of the Vends, whence the men with the long beards - which had earned them the name of Lombards - had emigrated when, in the days of the famine under King Snio, it was decreed that all the children and old people should be put to death. But Gambaruk, a noble woman of great wealth, had proposed instead that all the young should leave the country.
Jörgen was learned enough to know all this, and although he had never seen the land of the Lombards beyond the Alps, he could easily picture it to himself, for had he not in his boyhood seen the south, Spain? He could remember clearly the piled heaps of fruit, the scarlet pomegranate blossoms, the noise and din and ringing of bells in that great beehive of a city. But he still loved best the land of his home, and Jörgen's home was Denmark.
At last they reached "Vendilskaga," as Skagen is called in the old Norse and Icelandic sagas. Even then old Skagen, with its Easter and Westertown, stretched for miles with sand dunes and farmland as far as the lighthouse near Grenen. Houses and farms were strewn among the shifting sand dunes - it is a wild land where the wind plays constantly in the loose sand, and where the screams of sea gulls, sea swallows, and wild swans cut sharply through the eardrum.
A few miles southwest of Grenen is High or Old Skagen; here Merchant Brönne lived, and here Jörgen would now live. The house was tarred; each of the little outhouses had an inverted boat for a roof, and driftwood joined together formed the pigsty. There was no inclosure, for there was nothing to inclose; but on ropes, strung in long rows one above another, hung countless fishes drying in the wind. The whole shore was strewn with dead herring; in fact, the nets could hardly be thrown into the sea before they would be filled with them. Great loads of herring were caught and taken inland. They were so plentiful that many were often thrown back into the sea or left to rot on the sand.
The merchant's wife and daughter, and even the servants, rushed out in delight to greet the father when they arrived home. There was such handshaking, so much noise, so much to talk about! And the daughter had such a sweet face and lovely eyes!
The house was cozy and roomy inside; the table was set with plates of fish, flounder fit for a king, and wine from Skagen's own vineyard, the great ocean, from which the grapes drifted ashore already pressed, both in barrels and bottles.
When mother and daughter had heard who Jörgen was, and learned how cruelly he, an innocent man, had been treated, they looked upon him with kindness, and the beautiful Miss Clara's bright eyes sparkled more warmly than before.
Jörgen found a blessed home in Old Skagen; it did his heart good; it had suffered so much cruelty, even the bitterness of love, which either softens or hardens the heart. But Jörgen was still young, his heart still soft, and there was a vacant place in it. For that reason it was perhaps just as well that in three weeks Clara was to sail for Christiansand, in Norway, to spend the winter with an aunt.
The Sunday before her departure, all were to go together to Holy Communion. The church was large and stately, built by the Dutch and Scotch many centuries before, and quite a distance from where the town is now situated. The church was somewhat dilapidated now, and the way through the deep sand made hard walking, but people did not mind these difficulties to get to the house of God, to sing psalms, and to hear the sermon. The sand was piled up outside the wall around the cemetery, but the graves had still been kept free of it.
It was the largest church north of the Lime Fiord. The Virgin Mary, with a golden crown on her head and the infant Saviour in her arms, was painted in bright colors above the altar; the holy Apostles were ranged around the choir, and high on the wall there hung portraits of Skagen's old burgomasters and councilmen, with their insignia of office. The pulpit was carved. The sun shone brightly into the church, lighting up the polished brass chandelier and the little vessel that hung down from the roof. Jörgen was overwhelmed by the same pure, childlike feeling of devotion that had thrilled his soul when, a boy, he had stood in the rich Spanish cathedral. But here the feeling was different, for in this place he felt that he was one of the congregation.
After the sermon came the Communion, and when Jörgen knelt with the others to receive the consecrated bread and wine, he found that he was kneeling next to Miss Clara. But his thoughts were so raised to God and the Holy Sacrament that not until they rose did he realize that she had been his neighbor. Then he saw the salt tears rolling down her cheeks.
Two days later she sailed for Norway, and Jörgen went out to help on the farm and with the fishing; there were more fish to be caught there in those days than there are now. Shoals of mackerel shone brightly in the darkness of the night, thus betraying the course they were following. The sea robins snarled, and the crabs gave pitiful cries when they were caught; fish are not as voiceless as people say. Jörgen was more quiet than they; he kept his secret - and yet some day it would perhaps burst forth.
Every Sunday when he sat in church and his eyes rested on the picture of the Virgin Mother, they also paused a moment on the spot where Miss Clara had knelt beside him, and he thought of her and her kindness to him.
The autumn brought its rain and sleet. The water rose up in the town of Skagen, for the sand could not absorb it all; people had to wade through it, and sometimes even sail through the streets in boats. Snowstorms and sandstorms followed; ship after ship was wrecked on those fatal reefs; the sand whirled about and buried the houses until the occupants had to creep out through the chimneys. But that was not an unusual occurrence there. Indoors were comfort and warmth; the blazing and crackling fires were fed with peat or with dried wood from the wrecks, and Merchant Brönne read aloud from an old chronicle. He read about Prince Hamlet of Denmark and of how he landed from England and fought a great battle near Bovbjerg; his grave was at Ramme, only a few miles from the eel seller's home, where the heath was like an immense cemetery, studded with hundreds of viking grave mounds. Merchant Brönne had visited Hamlet's grave. There was more talk of the olden days and of their English and Scottish neighbors, and then Jörgen sang the old ballad about "The King of England's Son," about the stately ship, and how it was decked out:
The blessed words of our dear Lord
Were written in gold on panels aboard.
On the prow, in colors rare,
The King's son clasped his maiden fair.