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958 GODFATHER'S PICTURE-BOOK
And outside it stood " The Haven", the merchants' harbour:
Mermaid's bower 'mid gleaming lakes, Built in groves of green.
'The foreigners came there and bought the wealth of fish, built booths and houses, with bladders for window-panes—glass was too dear ; then came warehouses with gables and windlasses. Look! inside the shops sit the old bachelors ; they dare not marry ; they trade in ginger and pepper, the pepper-lads.
1 The north-east wind blows through the streets and lanes, sends the dust flying, and tears a thatched roof off. Cows and pigs walk about in the street-ditch.
"'I shall cow and subdue them," says the north-east wind; " whistle round the houses and round Axel's house 1 I cannot miss it! They call it' Gallows' Castle on Thieves' Island '." '
And Godfather showed a picture of it, which he himself had drawn. On the walls were stake after stake, and on every one sat the head of a captured pirate, and showed the teeth.
1 That really happened,' said Godfather ; ' and it is worth knowing about.
* Bishop Absalon was in his bath-room, and heard through the thin walls the arrival of a ship of freebooters. At once he sprang out of the bath and into his ship, blew his horn, and his crew came. The arrows flew into the backs of the robbers, who rowed hard to get away. The arrows fastened themselves in their hands, and there was no time to tear them out. Bishop Absalon caught every living soul and cut his head off, and every head was set up on the outer wall of the castle. The north-east wind blew with swollen cheeks—with bad weather in his jaw, as the sailors say.
' " Here I will stretch myself out," said the wind ; " here I will lie down and look at the whole affair." .
1 It rested for hours, it blew for days ; years went past.
1 The watchman came out on the castle tower; he looked to the east, to the west, to the south, and the north. There you have it in the picture,' said Godfather, and |
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