"However swift, there ran no brook, But o'er it Ingeborg he took; How sweet, when roaring torrents frighten, To feel her soft arms round him tighten. "The first spring flowers by sunshine fed, The earliest strawberries turning red, The first of autumn's golden treasure He proffered her with eager pleasure."[26] [26] Translation of Thomas A. E. and Martha A. L. Holcomb, Chicago, 1877. I have taken the liberty to substitute "strawberries," which is the correct translation of "Smultron," for berries. At the age of seventeen Tegner entered the University of Lund, accompanied by three young Myhrmans, whose father had generously promised to share with Assessor Branting the expenses of his academic education. His playmate, familiarly called Achilles, had to share his room, and thus it came to pass that Hector and his deadly foe became bedfellows. In fact the bed in question, being intended for but one, afforded the scantiest possible accommodations for two, and often threatened to collapse under their united weight. Aching in every joint from the discomfort of their cramped position, they would then get up and spend the remainder of the night in playing chess. At the University Tegner soon made his mark, and two years later took his degree of _Magister Artium_ with great distinction, being, according to the extraordinary custom of the country, laurel-crowned in the cathedral as the first of twenty-four candidates. The Swede loves pomp and ceremonious display, and rarely misses an opportunity for a fine stage effect. I do not mean to insinuate, of course, that Esaias Tegner was unworthy of the honor which was conferred upon him; but it seems a terrible cheapening of the laurel to place it annually upon the brows of a herd of deedless striplings, standing upon the threshold of their careers. Tegner was but nineteen years of age when the Muse, contrary to her habit, gave him the crown without the dust, generously rewarding him in advance of performance. But he came very near forfeiting the fruits of all his fair fame by participating in a hostile demonstration in front of the house of the University's rector, who was justly unpopular. His manly bearing, however, and the friendship of several of the professors saved him from the _consilium abeundi cum infamia_, with which he was threatened. Instead of that he was appointed _docent_ in aesthetics, Secretary to the Faculty of Philosophy, and Assistant University Librarian. His summer vacations he spent at Raemen with the Myhrmans. His playmate, Miss Anna, was now sixteen years of age, and had undergone that miraculous transformation, which never loses its delightful mystery, from childhood into young womanhood. He went away one day and bade good-by to an awkward kangaroo-like girl in short skirts, and returned in a few months to greet a lovely, blushingly dignified young lady, who probably avowed no more her fondness for him