IN THE STATE OF DENMARK 137 



my cousin remembered that she had asked the 

 boatman for a bath. "I want a bath. Can you 

 give me one ? " was what she seems to have said. 



The Norreskov woods are hilly, full of roads, of 

 benches placed for the due admiration of the view, 

 and of placards indicating the way to the benches. 

 We selected a placard with an inscription relating, 

 as far as was comprehensible, to the Queen of Den- 

 mark, and found ourselves on the highest point 

 available, looking abroad over a long, wooded valley, 

 and through it, over the lake, to Himmelbjerg. In 

 the deeps of the valley the river went with a long 

 bend from the lake to Silkeborg, and through the 

 bridges and pleasure-boats of the town to another 

 lake, set in the woodland beyond. It was not Kil- 

 larney exactly, but it was an eminently graceful and 

 well-finished view, expansive too, and generously 

 wooded, and notwithstanding the coolness of the airs 

 that toyed with the summer's sandwich papers, we 

 sat long in contemplation of it. Disdaining paths, 

 we picked our way down the face of the height, and 

 came on still glades full of heather, and tracks ankle- 

 deep in silver sand; still descending, we struggled 

 tlirough red-stemmed dogwood bushes, and all the 

 jungle that filled the spaces between the grey trunks 

 of beeches to the river brink, and found there a 

 beautiful tranquillity of mirrored trees making a 

 path to the mirrored sunset. A boat with a tall 

 white sail came on through the reflections like a 

 ghost, moving in obedience to some following breath 

 of the evening; she passed up the pictured sky- 

 track and became dark against the apricot west. 



A steady, splashing sound grew audible, a sound 

 that had the methodical beat of commerce in it, and 

 lieralded the advance of one of the ungainly hjille- 

 baade, the wheel-boats, worked by hand, in which the 



