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CHAPTER III
Winter came with hard times for the beasts of
the forest and the birds of the fields. It was a poor
Christmas within mud-walled huts and timbered ships.
The Western Sea was thickly studded with wrecks, icy
hulks, splintered masts, broken boats, and dead ships.
Argosies were hurled upon the coast, shattered to worthless
fragments, sunk, swept away, or buried in the sand; for
the gale blew toward land with a high sea and deadly cold,
and human hands were powerless against it. Heaven and
earth were one reek of stinging, whirling snow that drifted
in through cracked shutters and ill-fitting hatches to
poverty and rags, and pierced under eaves and doors to wealth
and fur-bordered mantles. Beggars and wayfaring folk
froze to death in the shelter of ditches and dikes; poor
people died of cold on their bed of straw, and the cattle of
the rich fared not much better.
The storm abated, and after it came a clear, tingling
frost, which brought disaster on the land—winter pay for
summer folly! The Swedish army walked over the Danish
waters. Peace was declared, and spring followed with green
budding leaves and fair weather, but the young men of
Sjaelland did not ride a-Maying that year; for the Swedish
soldiers were everywhere. There was peace indeed, but it
carried the burdens of war and seemed not likely to live
long. Nor did it. When the May garlands had turned dark
and stiff under the midsummer sun, the Swedes went against
the ramparts of Copenhagen.
During vesper service on the second Sunday in August,
the tidings suddenly came: “The Swedes have landed at
Korsor.” Instantly the streets were thronged. People walked
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