A Story From the Sand-hills, part 1 · page 21 2101Two people were seen to embrace and plunge together into the sea, and the next moment one of the largest waves that rolled towards the sand-hills threw a body on the beach.102It was a woman; the sailors said that she was quite dead, but the women thought they saw signs of life in her, so the stranger was carried across the sand-hills to the fisherman's cottage.103How beautiful and fair she was!104She must be a great lady, they said.105They laid her upon the humble bed; there was not a yard of linen on it, only a woollen coverlet to keep the occupant warm.106Life returned to her, but she was delirious, and knew nothing of what had happened or where she was; and it was better so, for everything she loved and valued lay buried in the sea.107The same thing happened to her ship as to the one spoken of in the song about "The King of England's Son."108"Alas! how terrible to see The gallant bark sink rapidly."109Fragments of the wreck and pieces of wood were washed ashore; they were all that remained of the vessel.110The wind still blew violently on the coast.111For a few moments the strange lady seemed to rest; but she awoke in pain, and uttered cries of anguish and fear.checked by a teacher112She opened her wonderfully beautiful eyes, and spoke a few words, but nobody understood her.--And lo! as a reward for the sorrow and suffering she had undergone, she held in her arms a new-born babe.113The child that was to have rested upon a magnificent couch, draped with silken curtains, in a luxurious home; it was to have been welcomed with joy to a life rich in all the good things of this world; and now Heaven had ordained that it should be born in this humble retreat, that it should not even receive a kiss from its mother, for when the fisherman's wife laid the child upon the mother's bosom, it rested on a heart that beat no more--she was dead.1 2← previousThe Snail and the Rose-treenext →A Story From the Sand-hills, part 2↑ back to Fairy Tales of Hans Christian AndersenThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg27200/158/page/2/