And she was shaken by sobs. He stood and looked at her. “Oh, my friend, my beloved!” he said quietly. “How happy you are, who are so good! How happy to have such a beautiful soul!” CHAPTER XX KEVENHÜLLER In the year 1770, in Germany, the afterwards learned and accomplished Kevenhüller was born. He was the son of a count, and could have lived in lofty palaces and ridden at the Emperor’s side if he had so wished; but he had not. He could have liked to fasten windmill sails on the castle’s highest tower, turn the hall into a locksmith’s workshop, and the boudoir into a watch-maker’s. He would have liked to fill the castle with whirling wheels and working levers. But when he could not do it he left all the pomp and apprenticed himself to a watch-maker. There he learned everything there was to learn about cogwheels, springs, and pendulums. He learned to make sun-dials and star-dials, clocks with singing canary-birds and horn-blowing shepherds, chimes which filled a whole church-tower with their wonderful machinery, and watch-works so small that they could be set in a locket. When he had got his patent of mastership, he bound his knapsack on his back, took his stick in his hand, and wandered from place to place to study everything that went with rollers and wheels. Kevenhüller was no ordinary watch-maker; he wished to be a great inventor and to improve the world. When he had so wandered through many lands, he turned his steps towards Värmland, to there study mill-wheels and mining. One beautiful summer morning it so happened that he was crossing the market-place of Karlstad. But that same beautiful summer morning it had pleased the wood-nymph to extend her walk as far as the town. The noble lady came also across the market-place from the opposite direction, and so met Kevenhüller. That was a meeting for a watch-maker’s apprentice. She had shining, green eyes, and a mass of light hair, which almost reached the ground, and she was dressed in green, changeable silk. She was the most beautiful woman Kevenhüller had ever seen. He stood as if he had lost his wits, and stared at her as she came towards him. She came direct from the deepest thicket of the wood, where the ferns are as high as trees, where the giant firs shut out the sun, so that it can only fall in golden drops on the yellow moss. I should like to have been in Kevenhüller’s place, to see her as she came with ferns and pine-needles tangled in her yellow hair and a little black snake about her neck. How the people must have stared at her! Horses bolted, frightened by her long, floating hair. The street boys ran after her. The men dropped their meat-axes to gape at her. She herself went calm and majestic, only smiling a little at the excitement, so that Kevenhüller saw her small, pointed teeth shine between her red lips.