KAREN. [Footnote:  The scene of this tale is laid in Denmark.]

There was once in Krarup Kro [Footnote:  Kro, a country inn.] a girl named Karen.  She had to wait upon all the guests, for the innkeeper’s wife almost always went about looking for her keys.  And there came many to Krarup Kro—­folk from the surrounding district, who gathered in the autumn gloamings, and sat in the inn parlour drinking coffee-punches, usually without any definite object; and also travellers and wayfarers, who tramped in, blue and weather-beaten, to get something hot to carry them on to the next inn.

But Karen could manage everything all the same, although she walked about so quietly, and never seemed in a hurry.

She was small and slim, quite young, grave and silent, so that with her there was no amusement for the commercial travellers.  But decent folks who went into the tavern in earnest, and who set store on their coffee being served promptly and scalding hot, thought a great deal of Karen.  And when she slipped quietly forward among the guests with her tray, the unwieldy frieze-clad figures fell back with unaccustomed celerity to make way for her, and the conversation stopped for a moment.  All had to look after her, she was so charming.

Karen’s eyes were of that large gray sort which seem at once to look at one and to look far, far beyond, and her eyebrows were loftily arched, as if in wonder.

Therefore strangers thought she did not rightly understand what they asked for.  But she understood very well, and made no mistakes.  There was only something strange about her, as if she were looking for something far away, or listening, or waiting, or dreaming.

The wind came from the west over the low plains.  It had rolled long, heavy billows across the Western Sea; [Footnote:  German Ocean.] salt and wet with spray and foam, it had dashed in upon the coast.  But on the high downs with the tall wrack-grass it had become dry and full of sand and somewhat tired, so that when it came to Krarup Kro it had quite enough to do to open the stable-doors.

But open they flew, and the wind filled the spacious building, and forced its way in at the kitchen-door, which stood ajar.  And at last there was such a pressure of air that the doors in the other end of the stable also burst open; and now the west wind rushed triumphantly right through the building, swinging the lantern that hung from the roof, whisking the ostler’s cap out into the darkness, blowing the rugs over the horses’ heads, and sweeping a white hen off the roost into the watering-trough.  And the cock raised a frightful screech, and the ostler swore, and the hens cackled, and in the kitchen they were nearly smothered with smoke, and the horses grew restless, and struck sparks from the stones.  Even the ducks, which had huddled themselves together near the mangers, so as to be first at the spilt corn, began quacking; and the wind howled through the stable with a hellish din, until a couple of men came out from the inn parlour, set their broad backs against the doors and pressed them to again, while the sparks from their great tobacco-pipes flew about their beards.