Mogens and Other Stories

Book Excerpt: mirror, with jaggedtongues of gray-blue rippled water, with streaks that were smooth andstreaks that were rippled, and the sunlight rested on the smoothplaces and quivered in the ripples. It captured one's eye and drew itacross its surface, carried it along the shores, past slowly roundedcurves, past abruptly broken lines, and made it swing around the greentongues of land; then it let go of one's glance and disappeared inlarge bays, but it carried along the thought--Oh, to sail! Would it bepossible to hire boats here?No, there were none, said a little fellow, who lived in the whitecountry-house near by, and stood at the shore skipping stones over thesurface of the water. Were there really no boats at all?Yes, of course, there were some; there was the miller's, but it couldnot be had; the miller would not permit it. Niels, the miller's son, had nearly gotten a spanking when he had let it out the other day. Itwas useless to think about it; but then there was the gentleman, wholived with NicRead Mor