102 STRAY- AW AYS 



gravity, took us along in a barouche, against a dusty 

 wind, at a dignified four miles an hour. The beech- 

 woods of Marselisborg undulated mildly in front of 

 us ; the villa of the leading doctor beheld our progress 

 from behind its rose-bushes. It was a day of solemn, 

 comfortable sightseeing, under the direction of our 

 hostess of yesterday, who shrank from none of the 

 duties that had been thrust upon her. A farm-gate 

 led us into a road between stubble-fields; then with 

 a plunge we were out of the sunshine, and into the 

 darkness of the woods. Beech trees everywhere, 

 vista on vista of grey stems, slender and bare, standing 

 upon a level floor of dead leaves. Their green canopy 

 was spread high above; they supported it in multi- 

 tudes, but without crowding, each at its proper inter- 

 val. The barouche rolled smoothly on, the wheels 

 snapped a dead twig here and there, the big hoofs 

 of the chestnuts beat pleasantly on the earthy track, 

 and turn after turn showed more and more beech 

 trees. But among them not one bulky, free-grown 

 trunk, with branches swung low and wide; nothing 

 but this academy of pallid striplings, who yet had 

 not the air of youth. It is thus with the Danish 

 beech-woods, as far as we have seen them; they are 

 close and clannish, too well-drilled to permit of 

 character in the individual, but refined, and not 

 wanting in a lofty sentiment peculiar to themselves 

 and to their nationality. 



Getting out of the barouche, we walked, by winding 

 paths, to a knob of high ground, from which the trees 

 had fallen back with true Danish respect for anything 

 of the nature of a hill. Many feet had worn away 

 the grass down to the pale, sandy soil, till the knob 

 looked like a bald head ; scraps of paper testified to 

 the picnic party, and the sea, glittering to us across 

 the tops of the trees, indicated that this was a place 



