When the sun rose, John arranged the procession, and they set out for Rambin.  Every well-known object that they saw awoke pleasing recollections in the bosom of John and his bride; and as they passed by Rodenkirchen, John recognised, among the people that gazed at and followed them, his old friend Klas Starkwolt, the cowherd, and his dog Speed.  It was about four in the morning when they entered Rambin, and they halted in the middle of the village, about twenty paces from the house where John was born.  The whole village poured out to gaze on these Asiatic princes, for such the old sexton, who had in his youth been at Constantinople and at Moscow, said they were.  There John saw his father and mother, and his brother Andrew, and his sister Trine.  The old minister Krabbe stood there too, in his black slippers and white nightcap, gaping and staring with the rest.

John discovered himself to his parents, and Elizabeth to hers; and the wedding-day was soon fixed.  And such a wedding was never seen before or since in the island of Ruegen, for John sent to Stralsund and Greifswald for whole boat-loads of wine and sugar and coffee; and whole herds of oxen, sheep, and pigs were driven to the feast.  The quantity of harts and roes and hares that were shot upon the occasion it were vain to attempt to tell, or to count the fish that was caught.  There was not a musician in Ruegen or in Pomerania that was not engaged, for John was immensely rich, and he wished to display his wealth.

John did not neglect his old friend Klas Starkwolt, the cowherd.  He gave him enough to make him comfortable for the rest of his days, and insisted on his coming and staying with him as often and as long as he wished.

After his marriage John made a progress through the country with his wife; and he purchased towns and villages and lands until he became master of nearly half Ruegen and a very considerable Count in the country.  His father, old James Dietrich, was made a nobleman, and his brothers and sisters gentlemen and ladies—­for what cannot money do?  John and his wife spent their days in doing acts of piety and charity.  They built several churches, and had the blessing of every one that knew them, and died universally lamented.  It was Count John Dietrich that built and richly endowed the present church of Rambin.  He built it on the site of his father’s house, and presented to it several of the cups and plates made by the underground people, and his own and Elizabeth’s glass-shoes, in memory of what had befallen them in their youth.  But they were taken away in the time of the great Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, when the Russians came on the island and the Cossacks plundered even the churches, and took away everything.

HOW THORSTON BECAME RICH.

When spring came Thorston made ready his ship and put twenty-four men on board of her.  When they came to Finland they ran her into a harbour, and every day he went on shore to amuse himself.