“Ah!” she cried to him.  “Now I know what I have longed to know, that your love is less than mine, for you can love yet be doubtful of miracles; while to me, now that I have loved, no miracle can be aught but small.”  She bowed herself over me.  “Art dying, old friend?  Look up and learn that God, being Love, deserts not lovers.”

Then she stooped and gathered, as I thought, a handful of snow from the deck; but lo! when she pressed it to my lips, and I tasted, it was heavenly manna.

And looking up past her face I saw the ribbons of the North Lights fade in a great and wide sunlight, bathing the deck and my frozen limbs.  Nor did they feel it only, but on the wind came the noise of bergs rending, springs breaking, birds singing, many and curious.  And with that, as I am a sinful man, I gazed up into green leaves; for either we had sailed into Paradise or the timbers of the White Wolf were swelling with sap and pushing forth bough upon bough.  Yea, and there were roses at the mast’s foot, and my fingers, as I stretched them, dabbled in mosses.  While I lay there, breathing softly, as one who dreams and fears to awake, I heard her voice talking among the noises of birds and brooks, and by the scent it seemed to be in a garden; but whether it spake to me or to Ebbe I knew not, nor cared.  “The Lord is my Shepherd, and guides me,” it said, “wherefore I lack nothing.  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:  He leadeth me by comfortable streams:  He reviveth my soul.  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no harm:  Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.”  But, a little after, I knew that the voice spake to my master, for it said:  “Let us go forth into the field, O beloved:  let us lodge in the villages:  let us get up betimes to the vineyard and see if the vine have budded, if its blossom be open, the pomegranates in flower.  Even there will I give thee my love.”  Then looking again I saw that the two had gone from me and left me alone.

But, blessed be God, they took not away the vision, and now I know certainly that it is no cheat.  For here sit I, dipping my pen into the unfrozen ink, and, when a word will not come, looking up into the broad branches and listening to the birds till I forget my story.  It is long since they left me; but I am full fed, and the ship floats pleasantly.  After so much misery I am as one rocked on the bosom of God; and the pine resin has a pleasant smell.

[1] The courtship of Ebbe, the poor esquire of Nebbegaard, and the maiden Mette is a traditional tale of West Jutland.  A version of it was Englished by Thorpe from Carit Etlar’s “Eventyr og Folkesagen fra Jylland”:  but this, while it tells of Ebbe’s adventures at the “Bride-show,” and afterwards at the hunting-party, contains no account of the lovers’ escape and voyage, or of the miracle which brought them comfort at the last.  Indeed, Master Kurt contradicts the common tale in many ways, but above all in his ending, wherein (although he narrates a miracle) I find him worthy of belief.