Page:Love's trilogy.djvu/295

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'GOD'S PEACE'
285

Hill, but its beauty is real enough. It is a perfect smiling idyl. After all Rough-Hill does not lack greatness, for it has got its wonderful view.

I reach the pavilion, a yellow, wooden building, outside which a waiter and an army of sparrows are busy clearing away from the little tables the remnants of the picnic baskets. I look round and am overwhelmed by the beauty of the view. At my foot I see the entire town, and behind it the fjord, which, like a river clear as a mirror, winds in and out amongst hills and meadows. My glance reaches for miles on both sides. An endless stretch of sky, water, and fertile Danish land and the town, of which the red roofs seem to have slipped down the green slopes of Rough-Hill.

Here I have my entire old town spread out in front of me, and at the same moment I feel that here I must stay. I therefore let the waiter call the landlord, and five minutes afterwards I am installed in the pavilion's two attics. They are not generally let, for it is not a custom of the pavilion to take lodgers, but they are let to me when I also offer to rent them for the winter.

Now I have got my future home in order. Here is no luxury, but everything I need. A good bed in the sleeping-room, and in the sitting-room a large table, some chairs, and even a sofa.

I have unpacked my books and my pipe is filled. Since I was a young student I have not tasted a pipe.

God bless you cigars and cigarettes. But what