Young David had once asked me to read Ovid's Elegiacs with him, and this
was the beginning of our closer acquaintance. In town, in the Winter, we
two younger ones were only rarely with the rest of the family, but in
Summer it was different. The Minister had built a house at Rungsted, on
a piece of land belonging to his brother, who was a farmer and the owner
of Rungstedgaard, Rungstedlund and Folehavegaard, a shrewd and practical
man. To this villa, which was in a beautiful situation, overlooking the
sea, I was often invited by my friend to spend a few days in the Summer,
sometimes even a month at a time. At first, of course, I was nothing to
the rest of the family; they received me for the son's sake; but by
degrees I won a footing with them, too. The handsome, clever and
sprightly mistress of the house took a motherly interest in me, and the
young daughters showed me kindness for which I was very grateful.
The master of the house sometimes related an anecdote, as, for instance,
about Heiberg's mad pranks as a young man. When he went off into the
woods and got hungry, he used to take provisions from the stores in the
lockers of the phaetons that put up at Klampenborg, while the people
were walking about in the park, and the coachmen inside the public-
house. One day, with Moehl and David, he got hold of a huge layer-cake.
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