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He saw Joanna, and how charming and how beautiful she looked! She was certainly married to a stranger, but that was all in the play something that was only make-believe, as Knud knew very well. If it had been real, he thought, she would never have had the heart to send him a ticket that he might go and see it. And all the people shouted and applauded, and Knud cried out "hurrah!"

So the folk-lore was not so far out after all, and the church was rebuilt with two towers, as it should be. Under its eaves, whether of straw or tile, the two boys played their childish games, and before long there came to join in them another of their own age, young Valdemar, whose father, the very Knud Lavard mentioned above, had been foully murdered a while before.

King Svend sought him high and low to finish his dastardly work, while on Thing he wailed loudly before the people that Valdemar and Knud had tried to kill him, showing in proof of it his cloak, which he had rent with his own sword. But Valdemar's friends were wide awake.

There, where the Rhine rolls onward like a great billow, and dissolves itself into snowflakes, where glistening clouds are ever changing as if here was the place of their creation, while the rainbow flutters about them like a many-colored ribbon, there did Knud think of the water-mill at Kjoge, with its rushing, foaming waters.

She was a grown maiden, quite different from what Knud had fancied her, and much more beautiful. In all Kjöge there was not a girl like her. How graceful she was, and with what an odd unfamiliar glance she looked at Knud! But that was only for a moment, and then she rushed towards him as if she would have kissed him. She did not really do so, but she came very near it.

"Our master first," said the cake-couple, and made room for Joanna and Knud, who knelt by the altar, and she bent her head over him, and tears fell from her eyes, but they were icy cold, for it was the ice around her heart that was melting melting by his strong love; and the tears fell upon his burning cheeks, and he awoke, and was sitting under the old willow tree in the strange land, in the cold wintry evening: an icy hail was falling from the clouds and beating on his face.

After this, Knud was bound apprentice to a shoemaker; he was growing a great boy, and could not be allowed to run wild any longer. Besides, he was going to be confirmed. Ah, how happy he would have been on that festal day in Copenhagen with little Joanna; but he still remained at Kjoge, and had never seen the great city, though the town is not five miles from it.

I know I am only a poor journeyman shoemaker, but I shall work and strive yes, I shall tell her so. Nothing comes of silent love: I have learned that from the cakes." And Sunday came round, and Knud sallied forth; but, unluckily, they were all invited out for that evening, and were obliged to tell him so. Joanna pressed his hand and said, "Have you ever been to the theatre? You must go once.

When little Knud heard this dream, it seemed as if he could not bear the mocking and jeering again; how could he dare to go into the water now, after Joanna's dream! He never would do it, for this dream always satisfied him. The parents of these children, who were poor, often sat together while Knud and Joanna played in the gardens or in the road.

Knud proved as good and gallant as his father, holding Denmark bravely against all foes, and when the Emperor Barbarossa sent to him to appear before the imperial court at Ratisbon and do homage for his crown, he returned a defiant answer.