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398
FREDERIKSVÆRK.
Chap. XXVI.
pasturage, garden, and all possible cultivation. We
were growing tired of our drive when we arrived at the
village of Kregome, whose churchwardens, with the
traditional good taste of that valuable body of men, have just
painted the tower of their quaint gabled church a bright
salmon colour, and the body white. Here we first caught
a peep of the Roeskilde fiorde, and then hurried down
through a shady wood, postilions jagging the horses’
mouths all the way, to the town, if so it can be called,
of Frederiksværk, once celebrated as a royal
manufactory of arms, now sold and turned over to the hands of
common mortals. Christian VI. had a tiny palace
in the woods hard by—where had he not one ?—lately
purchased, with its adjoining gardens, by a Danish
merchant for the sum of 1000Z. Were I an intelligent
individual, which I don’t pretend to be, I should have
forthwith visited the manufactories and written about the
highly interesting processes of forging, burnishing, and
what not, screwed a ha’porth of statistics out of the
directors who conducted me round, and been most proud
as well as pleased at imparting my knowledge to you and
other people who care, in all probability, as little about it
as myself. I did, however, no such thing. J’ai fait mes
preuves. For the last thirty years have inspected
two-thirds of the manufactures of Europe—bouche béante—
from the scrunching of copper at Fahlun to the polishing
of sword-blades at Toledo; amjustaswiseas ever; could
make nothing if I tried, and don’t want to—it’s not my
business—I never yet understood the principle of the
knife-grinder’s wheel.
When we had discussed our fresh prawns and coffee
—N.B. said prawns in Denmark do not taste of the salt
sea, like our own—we permitted ourselves to be lionized
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