136 STRAY -AW AYS 



into the train with a minuteness that suggested a 

 background of large and vacant afternoon; he 

 pulled himself and his family on the lake with his 

 coat on ; he and the warm weather were obviously 

 on the wane. All along the lake ran woods of fir 

 and beech, and we joggled pleasantly through them 

 to Silkeborg in the sunshine. Then we passed out 

 of the woodlands across a river shadowed by the 

 trees; a manufactory chimney rose incongruously 

 beside it, and we were presently occupied in con- 

 versing by signs with the porter of the Dania Hotel. 



With chattering teeth we were rattled and bumped 

 in the hotel 'bus over the enormous paving-stones, 

 and saw low, red-roofed streets lengthen behind us 

 in prim perspective, till we crossed a wide square to 

 the archway of the Dania. It was a very large 

 hotel, and it did not surprise us to find that it was 

 empty. My cousin and I seldom come short of our 

 destiny. We come like Claudian, full of good feeling, 

 but fraught with devastation; we sit, like Marius, 

 among the ruins of hotel-keepers, accepting with 

 simulated cheer the concentrated devotion of our 

 victims. No footfall save our own traversed the 

 parquet of the huge dining-room of the Dania; 

 nothing except our faltering " ver saa god " disturbed 

 the infinite leisure of the waiters. 



It was still early in the afternoon, and we wan- 

 dered down the sloping town to the river. Wliy not 

 take a boat ? My cousin knew how to ask for one, 

 she said, and here were boats and boatmen idle by 

 the dozen. She addressed herself to the nearest 

 boatman, who stared, sliook his head, and unloosed 

 his soul in Danish, while tlie other boatmen seemed 

 unreasonably amused. We passed on, and decided 

 to walk in the woods of Norreskov, on the hill opposite. 

 Then, as we walked up the tidy, tourist-worn track. 



