occurred only one real German word, and that was "_Besen_," a word
which I had picked up out of the various dialects which my father
brought home from Holstein.

"Thou hast indeed some benefit from my travels," said he in joke. "God
knows whether thou wilt get as far; but that must be thy care. Think
about it, Hans Christian!" But it was my mother's intention that as
long as she had any voice in the matter, I should remain at home, and
not lose my health as he had done.

That was the case with him; his health had suffered. One morning he
woke in a state of the wildest excitement, and talked only of campaigns
and Napoleon. He fancied that he had received orders from him to take
the command. My mother immediately sent me, not to the physician, but
to a so-called wise woman some miles from Odense. I went to her. She
questioned me, measured my arm with a woolen thread, made extraordinary
signs, and at last laid a green twig upon my breast. It was, she said,
a piece of the same kind of tree upon which the Saviour was crucified.

"Go now," said she, "by the river side towards home. If your father
will die this time, then you will meet his ghost."

My anxiety and distress may be imagined,--I, who was so full of
superstition, and whose imagination was so easily excited.

"And thou hast not met anything, hast thou?" inquired my mother when I
got home. I assured her, with beating heart, that I had not.

My father died the third day after that. His corpse lay on the bed: I
therefore slept with my mother. A cricket chirped the whole night