And the third flame led him to the wretched huts of Greenland, where the preacher Hans Egede [Footnote:  Hans Egede went to Greenland in 1721, and toiled there during fifteen years among incredible hardships and privations.  Not only did he spread Christianity, but exhibited in himself a remarkable example of a Christian man.] wrought, with love in every word and deed; the flame was a star on his breast, another heart in the Danish arms.

And the spirit of the old grandfather flew on before the waving flames, for his spirit knew whither the flames desired to go.  In the humble room of the peasant woman stood Frederick VI., writing his name with chalk on the beam.[Footnote:  On a journey on the west coast of Jutland, the King visited an old woman.  When he had already quitted her house, the woman ran after him, and begged him, as a remembrance, to write his name upon a beam; the King turned back, and complied.  During his whole lifetime he felt and worked for the peasant class; therefore the Danish peasants begged to be allowed to carry his coffin to the royal vault at Roeskilde, four Danish miles from Copenhagen.] The flame trembled on his breast, and trembled in his heart; in the peasant’s lowly room his heart, too, became a heart in the Danish arms.  And the old grandfather dried his eyes, for he had known King Frederick with the silvery locks and honest blue eyes, and had lived for him; he folded his hands, and looked in silence straight before him.

Then came the daughter-in-law of the old grandfather, and said it was late, and he ought now to rest; for the supper table was spread.

“But it is beautiful, what you have done, grandfather!” said she.  “Holger Danske, and all our old coat of arms!  It seems to me just as if I had seen that face before!”

“No, that can scarcely be,” replied the old grandfather; “but I have seen it, and I have tried to carve it in wood as I have kept it in my memory.  It was when the English lay in front of the wharf, on the Danish 2d of April [Footnote:  On the 2d of April, 1801, occurred the naval battle between the Danes and the English, under Sir Hyde Parker and Nelson.] when we showed that we were old Danes.  In the Denmark, on board which I was, in Steen Bille’s squadron, I had a man at my side—­it seemed as if the bullets were afraid of him!  Merrily he sang old songs, and shot and fought as if he were something more than a man.  I remember his face yet; but whence he came, and whither he went, I know not—­ nobody knows.  I have often thought he might have been old Holger Danske himself, who had swum down from the Kronenburgh, and aided us in the hour of danger; that was my idea, and there stands his picture.”

And the statue threw its great shadow up against the wall, and even over part of the ceiling; it looked as though the real Holger Danske were standing behind it, for the shadow moved, but this might have been because the flame of the candle did not burn steadily.