In Spain, where balmy breezes blow over the Moorish
cupolas and gently stir the orange and myrtle groves, where singing
and the sound of the castanets are always heard, the richest
merchant in the place, a childless old man, sat in a luxurious
house, while children marched in procession through the streets
with waving flags and lighted tapers. If he had been able to press
his children to his heart, his daughter, or her child, that had,
perhaps never seen the light of day, far less the kingdom of
heaven, how much of his wealth would he not have given! "Poor
child!" Yes, poor child—a child still, yet more than thirty years
old, for Jurgen had arrived at this age in Old Skjagen.
The shifting sands had covered the graves in the
courtyard, quite up to the church walls, but still, th
