schoolboys came with their books under their arms, saying: "Two thousand inhabitants"; and even this was a boast, for there were not anything like so many.
And Little Tuk lay in his bed; he seemed to be dreaming, and yet not dreaming. But some one seemed close by him.
"Little Tukky! Little Tukky!" said a voice that proceeded from a seaman, quite a little fellow, no bigger than a middy, though he was not one—"I bring you greetings from Corsör. It is a rising town, and a very lively one, possessing both steamers and stage coaches. People used to call it an ugly and tiresome place; because, formerly, travellers had to wait in its port for a favourable wind, before the introduction of steamers; but now, it no longer deserves such an epithet.
"'I am situated on the coast,' said Corsör, 'but I have roads, and pleasure-gardens; and I have given birth to a poet, both witty and entertaining, which all are not. I once formed the pro-
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ject of fitting out a ship to sail round the world, but I did not carry it out, though I could have done so; and besides all the rest, I am fragrant with perfume; for the loveliest roses bloom outside my gates.'"
Little Tuk looked before him, and saw a mass of red and green; but when the confusion of colours had somewhat .subsided, he perceived it was a cliff, near the bay, all overgrown with roses; at the top of which towered a fine old church with a couple of high Gothic turrets. Large streams of water sprang from the cliff, and close by sat an aged king with a gold crown on his white hair; this was King Hroar-o'-the-Streams, near which stands the town of Roeskilde, as it is now called. And all the kings and queens of Denmark, with all their gold crowns on their heads, went hand-in-hand into the old church, while the organ was playing, and the streams were flowing. For nearly all the sovereigns of Denmark lie buried in this beautiful church.
Little Tuk saw and heard everything that was passing. "Do not forget the provinces," said King Hroar.
Then all vanished—though where it went to, he knew not; but it was just as if the leaf of a book had been turned over.
And now there stood before him an old peasant woman, from Soröe, a quiet little town, where grass grows in the market-place. Her head and shoulders were covered with a gray linen apron that was as wet as if it had been drenched by the rain.
"And so it has," said she. And she told a great many interesting things, from Holberg's comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon. For Holberg had founded a military academy in her native town.
On a sudden, however, she shrivelled up, and wagged her head as if she were going to take a leap. "Croak!" quoth she, "it is wet—it is wet; and it is as comfortably still as the grave in Soröe." And she at once became a frog. "Croak!" cried she, and again she changed to an old woman.
"One must dress according to the weather," said she. "It is wet—it is wet. My native place is like a bottle—one must come in at the corking, and go out at the corking. Formerly we had the finest fish; and now we have healthy, rosy-cheeked brats at the bottom of the bottle, and they learn philosophy, Greek and Hebrew. Croak!"
It sounded exactly as if frogs were squeaking, or as if somebody was walking over a swamp with heavy boots; her tone was so monotonous and so tiresome, that Little Tukky fell fast asleep, which was the best thing for him.
