’This was why his chimney flamed and smoked and sparkled.  Yes, I was there, too,’ said the wind.

[Illustration:  I used to meet her in the garden, the ravine, and in the manor fields.  She was always picking flowers and herbs, those she knew her father could use for healing drinks and potions.]

’Away with you, away!  I sang in the back of the chimney.  Smoke smoke, embers and ashes, that is all it will come to!  You will burn yourself up in it.  Whew! whew! away with it!  But Waldemar Daa could not let it go.

’The fiery steeds in the stable, where were they?  The old gold and silver plate in cupboard and chest, where was that?  The cattle, the land, the castle itself?  Yes, they could all be melted down in the crucible, but yet no gold would come.

’Barn and larder got emptier and emptier.  Fewer servants; more mice.  One pane of glass got broken and another followed it.  There was no need for me to go in by the doors,’ said the wind.  ’A smoking chimney means a cooking meal, but the only chimney which smoked here swallowed up all the meals, all for the sake of the red gold.

’I blew through the castle gate like a watchman blowing his horn, but there was no watchman,’ said the wind.  ’I twisted round the weather-cock on the tower and it creaked as if the watchman up there was snoring, only there was no watchman.  Rats and mice were the only inhabitants.  Poverty laid the table; poverty lurked in wardrobe and larder.  The doors fell off their hinges, cracks and crannies appeared everywhere; I went in and out,’ said the wind, ’so I know all about it.

’The hair and the beard of Waldemar Daa grew grey, in the sorrow of his sleepless nights, amid smoke and ashes.  His skin grew grimy and yellow, and his eyes greedy for gold, the long expected gold.

’I whistled through the broken panes and fissures; I blew into the daughters’ chests where their clothes lay faded and threadbare; they had to last for ever.  A song like this had never been sung over the cradles of these children.  A lordly life became a woeful life!  I was the only one to sing in the castle now,’ said the wind.  ’I snowed them up, for they said it gave warmth.  They had no firewood, for the forest was cut down where they should have got it.  There was a biting frost.  Even I had to keep rushing through the crannies and passages to keep myself lively.  They stayed in bed to keep themselves warm, those noble ladies.  Their father crept about under a fur rug.  Nothing to bite, and nothing to burn! a lordly life indeed!  Whew! whew! let it go!  But this was what Waldemar Daa could not do.

’"After winter comes the spring,” said he; “a good time will come after a time of need; but they make us wait their pleasure, wait!  The castle is mortgaged, we are in extremities—­and yet the gold will come—­at Easter!”

’I heard him murmur to the spider’s web.—­“You clever little weaver!  You teach me to persevere!  If your web is broken, you begin at the beginning again and complete it!  Broken again—­and cheerfully you begin it over again.  That is what one must do, and one will be rewarded!”