128 STRAY -AW AYS 



is swept away in a burst of confidence about the cook. 

 Certainly in Denmark our only assurance of the cook's 

 existence was in her cooking, which in itself was 

 eloquence. 



Presently there arrived a landau, sent for us by our 

 hostess' brother, the magnate of the district, head of 

 the great house of Holstein-Rathlou, and holder of 

 the hereditary office of Hofjagermester, a position 

 corresponding in some degree to that of our Master 

 of the Buckliounds. The landau had two tall carriage- 

 horses of the English pattern, between whose ears 

 glittered the curious ornaments, like tiny gongs 

 suspended in toy stirrups, that are worn only by the 

 horses of the nobility in Denmark ; the coachman had 

 a gold band round his hat, and wore a long moustache 

 (the latter in strict accord with the Danish fashion 

 for servants). We, and our friends of the morning, 

 took our places, and were driven swiftly and softly 

 through the woods of Rathlousdahl. We went by 

 thickly-shaded tracks, with sideward glimpses of 

 open country that revealed tall trees drawn up in line 

 along straight roads, and cattle grazing on boundary- 

 less pastures ; now and then a herd of fallow deer 

 would flit spectrally across an upland, leap into sil- 

 houette on its crest, and drop out of sight behind it. 

 It was a wood of free and various growth, interpreting 

 in a thousand transparent tints of green and filtered 

 lights the gleam of afternoon sun that was shining 

 among the wet leaves, while the springs of the landau 

 bounded soothingly witli the occasional rut in the 

 deep sand of the track, and the horses went with 

 complete kindliness up and down steep and crooked 

 places and over unparapeted rustic bridges, while the 

 twigs brushed their unresenting ears, and the coach- 

 man and his hat bowed as incessantly as Royalties 

 to escape destruction. 



