and they would remain unmoved. Most of them are without steeples, and the bells are hung between two beams in the open air. At the close of the service, the congregation passed out into the churchyard, where not a tree nor a bush could be seen; not a flower had been planted, nor a wreath hung on the graves. Rough mounds marked the spots where the dead lay buried, and long, waving grass grew thickly over the whole churchyard. Here and there a grave had for a monument a half-decayed block of wood, rudely cut into the form of a coffin, and these blocks are often brought from the forest of West Jutland. This forest is like the shores of the wild sea: here the inhabitants find beams and planks and fragments from wrecks, which have been cast ashore by the breakers, and are soon discoloured by the wind and the sea-fogs. One of these blocks had been placed by loving hands on a child’s grave; and a woman who came out of church stepped towards it. She stood still with her eyes resting on the weather beaten monument, and in a few moments her husband came and joined her. Neither of them spoke a word; but he took her hand, and led her away from the grave across the purple heath, over moor and meadow, towards the sand-hills. For a long time they walked thus silently, side by side.
“It was a good sermon to-day,” said the man at length. “If we had not a loving God, we should have nothing.”
“Yes,” replied the woman. “He sends joy and sorrow, and He has a right to send them. To-morrow our little boy would have been five years old, if we had been permitted to keep him.”
“It is useless to continue fretting, wife,” said the man. “The boy is well off now. He is where we hope and pray to go.”
They said no more, but went on toward their house among the sand-hills. Suddenly, in front of one of the houses, where the seaweed did not bind the sand together with its twining roots, there arose what appeared a thick cloud of smoke. A gust of wind, rushing between the hills, hurled the particles of sand high into the air, Then came another gust, so violent that the strings of fish hung up to dry flapped and beat wildly against the walls of the house; and then all was still again, and the sun shone forth with renewed heat. Husband and wife stepped into the house; quickly they took off their Sunday clothes; and, coming forth again, hurried away over the hills which stood there like huge waves of sand suddenly arrested in their course, while the seaweeds and the bluish stems of the sand-grass covered them with ever-changing colours. A few neighbours joined them, and helped one another to draw the boats higher up on the sand. The wind now blew as strong as ever; it was cold and cutting; and as they returned over the sand-hills, sand and sharp stones blew in their faces. The waves, crested with white foam, rose high in the air, and the wind cut the crests off, and scattered the foam on every side.
Evening came on. In the air was a rushing sound, a moaning or complaining, like the voices of despairing spirits, that sounded in the fisherman’s little hut, which was on the very margin of the hull, above the hoarse rolling of the sea. The sand rattled against the window-panes, and every now and then came a violent gust of wind that shook the house to its
