have sworn that he had caught a glimpse of a fine bright slim damsel,
who was laughing and making fun of him. She peeped at him from beneath
her hand, because of the sun, and her sleeves were tucked up.
A little while afterwards a dark-blue blouse appeared above the
brushwood.
He was after it in an instant.
He ran and ran till he had half a mind to give up, but then a frock and
a bare shoulder gleamed betwixt an opening in the leaves.
And off again he pelted as hard as he could, till he began to think that
it must have all been imagination.
Then he saw her right in a corner of the green bushes. Her hair had been
torn out of its plaits from the speed with which she had flown through
the bushes. She stood still, and looked back as if she were terribly
frightened.
But the lad thought to himself that if she had run away with his
drumsticks, she should pay for it.
And off they ran again, she in front, and he behind.
Now and again she turned round and laughed and gibed, and gave a toss
and a twist, so that it looked as if her long wavy hair were writhing
and wriggling and twisting like a serpent's tail.
At last she turned round on the top of the hill, laughed, and held out
his drumsticks towards him.
But now he was determined to catch her. He was so near that he made grab
after grab at her; but just as he was about to lay hold of her hard by a
fence, she was over it, while he tumbled after her into the enclosure of
a homestead.
Then she cried and shouted up to the house, "Randi, and Brandi, and
Gyri, and Gunna!"
And four girls came rushing down over the sward.
But the last of them, who had a fine ruddy complexion and heavy
golden-red hair, stood and greeted him so graciously with her downcast
eyes, as if she was quite distressed that they should play such wanton
pranks with a strange young man.
She stood there abashed and uncertain, poor thing! just like a child,
who knows not whether it should say something or not; but all the while
she sidled up nearer and nearer to him. Then, when she was so close to
him that her hair almost touched him, she opened her blue eyes wide, and
looked straight at him.
But she had a frightfully sharp look in those eyes of hers.
"Rather come with me, and thou shalt have dancing--or art thou tired, my
lad?" cried a girl with blue-black hair, and a wild dark fire in her
eyes. She tripped up and down, and clapped her hands. She had white
teeth and hot breath, and would have dragged him off with her.
"Tie thyself up behind first, black Gyri!" giggled the others.
And immediately she let the lad go, and wobbled and twisted, and went
backwards so oddly.
He couldn't help staring after the black lassie, who stood and writhed
and twisted so uncomfortably, as if she were concealing something behind
her, and had, all at once, become so meek.
But the fine bright girl with the slim slender waist, who had rushed on
before him, and who seemed to him the loveliest of them all, began to
laugh at him again and tease him.
Run as he might, he shouldn't catch her, she jibed and jeered; never
should he find his drumsticks again, she said.
But then her mood shifted right round, and she flung herself down
headlong, and began to cry. She had followed his drumming the whole day,
she said, and never had she heard any fellow who could beat rat-tat-tat
so well; nor had she ever seen a lad who was so handsome while he was
asleep. "I kissed thee then," said she, and smiled up at him so
sorrowfully.
"Beware of the serpent's tongue, lest it bite thee, swain! Tis worst of
all when it licks thee first," whispered the bashful one with the
golden-red hair. She would fain have stolen between them so softly.
And all at once the swain recollected the snake, which was as slender,
and supple, and quick, and sparkling as the girl who lay there on the
hill-side, and wept and made fun at the same time and looked oddly alert
and wary.
But a stooping, somewhat clumsy little thing now stuck her head quickly
in between, and smiled shamefacedly at him, as if she knew and could
tell him so much. Her eyes sparkled a long way inwards, and across her
face there passed a sort of pale golden gleam, as when the last sunbeam
slowly draws away from the grassy mountain slope.
"At my place," said she, "thou shalt hear such _Langelejk_[1] as none
else has ever heard. I will play for thee, and thou shalt listen to
things unknown to others. Thou shalt hear all that sings, and laughs,
and cries in the roots of trees, and in the mountains, and in all things
that grow, so that thou wilt never trouble thy head about anything else
in the world."
Then there was a scornful laugh; and up on a rock he saw a tall strongly
built girl, with a gold band in her hair and a huge wand in her hand.
She lifted a long wooden trumpet with such splendid powerful arms, threw
back her neck with such a proud and resolute air, and stood firm and
fast as a rock while she blew.
And it sounded far and wide through the summer evening, and rang back
again across the hills.
But she, the prettiest and daintiest of them all, who had cast herself
on the ground, stuck her fingers in her ears, and mimicked her and
laughed and jeered.
Then she glanced up at him with her blue eyes peeping through her
ashen-yellow hair, and whispered---
"If thou dost want me, swain, thou must pick me up."
"She has a strong firm grip for a gentle maiden," thought he to himself,
as he raised her from the ground.
"But thou must catch me first," cried she.
And right towards the house they ran--she first, and he after her.
Suddenly she stopped short, and putting both arms akimbo, looked
straight into his eyes: "Dost like me?" she asked.
The swain couldn't say no to that. He had now got hold of her, and would
have put his arm round her.
"'Tis for thee to have a word in the matter, father," she shouted all at
once in the direction of the house; "this swain here would fain wed me."
And she drew him hastily towards the hut door.
There sat a little grey-clad old fellow, with a cap like a milk-can on
his head, staring at the livestock on the mountain-side. He had a large
silver jug in front of him.
"'Tis the homestead westward in the Blue Mountains that he's after, I
know," said the old man, nodding his head, with a sly look in his eyes.
"Haw, haw! That's what they're after, is it?" thought the swain. But
aloud he said, "'Tis a great offer, I know; but methinks 'tis a little
hasty too. Down our way 'tis the custom to send two go-betweens first of
all to arrange matters properly."
"Thou _didst_ send two before thee, and here they be," quoth she
smartly, and produced his drumsticks.
"And 'tis usual with us, moreover, to have a look over the property
first; though the lass herself have wit enough and to spare," added he.
Then she all at once grew so small, and there was a nasty green glitter
in her eyes---
"Hast thou not run after me the livelong day, and wooed me right down in
the enclosure there, so that my father both heard and saw it all?" cried
she.
"Pretty lasses are wont to hold back a bit," said the swain, in a
wheedling sort of way. He perceived that he must be a little subtle
here; it was not all love in this wooing.
Then she seemed to bend her body backwards into a complete curve, and
shot forward her head and neck, and her eyes sparkled.
But the old fellow lifted his stick from his knee, and she stood there
again as blithe and sportive as ever.
She stretched herself out tall and stiff, with her hands in her silver
girdle; and she looked right into his eyes and laughed, and asked him if
he was one of those fellows who were afraid of the girls. If he wanted
her he might perchance be run off his legs again, said she.
Then she began tripping up and down, and curtseying and making fun of
him again.
But all at once he saw on the sward behind her what looked like the
shadow of something that whisked and frisked and writhed round and
round, and twisted in and out according as she practised her wheedling
ways upon him.
"That is a very curious long sort of riband," thought the drummer to
himself in his amazement. They were in a great hurry, too, to get him
under the yoke, he thought; but they should find that a soldier on his
way to the manoeuvres is not to be betrothed and married offhand.
So he told them bluntly that he had come hither for his drumsticks, and
not to woo maidens, and he would thank them to let him have his
property.
"But have a look about you a bit first, young man," said the old fellow,
and he pointed with his stick.
And all at once the drummer saw large dun cows grazing all along the
mountain pastures, and the cow-bells rang out their merry peals. Buckets
and vats of the brightest copper shone all about, and never had he seen
such shapely and nicely dressed milkmaids. There must needs be great
wealth here.
"Perchance thou dost think 'tis but a beggarly inheritance I have here
in the Blue Mountains," said she, and sitting down on a haycock, she
began chatting with him. "But we've four such _sætar[2]_ as this, and
what I inherit from my mother is twelve times as large."
But the drummer had seen what he had seen. They were rather too anxious
to settle the property upon him, thought he. So he declared that in so
serious a matter he must crave a little time for consideration.
Then the lass began to cry and take on, and asked him if he meant to
befool a poor innocent, ignorant, young thing, and pursue her and drive
her out of her very wits. She had put all her hope and trust in him, she
said, and with that she fell a-howling.
She sat there quite inconsolable, and rocked herself to and fro with all
her hair over her eyes, till at last the drummer began to feel quite
sorry for her and almost angry with himself. She was certainly most
simple-minded and confiding.
All at once she twisted round and threw herself petulantly down from the
haycock. Her eyes spied all about, and seemed quite tiny and piercing as
she looked up at him, and laughed and jested.
He started back. It was exactly as if he again saw the snake beneath the
birch tree down there when it trundled away.
And now he wanted to be off as quickly as possible; he cared no longer
about being civil.
Then she reared up with a hissing sound. She quite forgot herself, and a
long tail hung down and whisked about from behind her kirtle.
He shouldn't escape her in that way, she shrieked. He should first of
all have a taste of public penance and public opinion from parish to
parish. And then she called her father.
Then the drummer felt a grip on his jacket, and he was lifted right off
his legs.
He was chucked into an empty cow-house, and the door was shut behind
him.
There he stood and had nothing to look at but an old billy-goat through
a crack in the door, who had odd, yellow eyes, and was very much like
the old fellow, and a sunbeam through a little hole, which sunbeam crept
higher and higher up the blank stable wall till late in the evening,
when it went out altogether.
But towards night a voice outside said softly, "Swain! swain!" and in
the moonlight he saw a shadow cross the little hole.
"Hist! hist! the old man is sleeping at the other side of the wall," it
sounded.
He knew by the voice that it was she, the golden-red one, who had
behaved so prettily and been so bashful the moment he had come upon the
scene.
"Thou need'st but say that thou dost know that serpent-eye has had a
lover before, or they wouldn't be in such a hurry to get her off their
hands with a dowry. Thou must know that the homestead westwards in the
Blue Mountains is mine. And answer the old man that it was me, Brandi,
that thou didst run after all the time. Hist! hist! here comes the old
man," she whispered, and whisked away.
But a shadow again fell across the little hole in the moonlight, and the
duck-necked one stuck her head in and peeped at him.
"Swain, swain, art thou awake?"
"That serpent-eye will make thee the laughingstock of the neighbourhood.
She's spiteful, and she stings. But the homestead westward in the Blue
Mountains is mine, and when I play there the gates beneath the high
mountains fly open, and through them lies the road to the nameless
powers of nature. Do but say that 'twas me, Randi, thou wert running
after, because she plays so prettily on the _Langelijk_.--"Hist, hist!
the old man is stirring about by the wall!"--she beckoned to him and was
gone.
A little afterwards nearly every bit of the hole was darkened, and he
recognised the Black one by her voice.
"Swain, swain!" she hissed.
"I had to bind up my kirtle to-day behind," said she, "so we couldn't go
dancing the _Halling-fling_[3] together on the green sward. But the
homestead in the Blue Mountains is my lawful property, and tell the old
man that it was madcap Gyri thou wast running after to-day, because thou
art so madly fond of dancing jigs and _hallings_."
Then she clapped her hands aloud, and straightway was full of fear lest
she should have awakened the old man.
And she was gone.
But the lad sat inside there, and thought it all over, and looked up at
the thin pale summer moon, and he thought that never in his whole life
had he been in such evil case.
From time to time he heard something moving, scraping, and snorting
against the wall outside. It was the old fellow who lay there and kept
watch over him.
"Thou, swain, thou," said another voice at the peep-hole.
It was she who had planted herself so firmly on the rock with such
sturdy hips and such a masterful voice.
"For these three hundred years have I been blowing the _langelur[4]_
here in the summer evenings far and wide, but never has it drawn any one
westward hither into the Blue Mountains. And let me tell thee that we
are all homeless and houseless, and all thou seest here is but glitter
and glamour. Many a man has been befooled hither time out of mind. But I
won't have the other lasses married before me. And rather than that any
one of them should get thee, I'll free thee from the mountains. Mark me,
now! When the sun is hot and high the old man will get frightened and
crawl into his corner. Then look to thyself. Shove hard against the door
of the hayloft, and hasten to get thee over the fence, and thou wilt be
rid of us."
The drummer was not slow to follow this counsel. He crept out the moment
the sun began to burn, and cleared the fence with one good bound.
In less than no time he was down in the valley again.
And far, far away towards sunrise in the mountains, he heard the sound
of her _langelur_.
He threw his drum across his shoulder, and hied him off to the
manoeuvres at Moen.
But never would he play rat-tat-tat and beat the tattoo before the
lasses again, lest he should find himself westwards in the Blue
Mountains before he was well aware of it.
* * * * *
[1] A long slow dance, and the music to it.
[2] A _Sæter_ (Swed. _säter_) is a remote pasturage with huts upon it,
where the cows are tended and dairy produce prepared for market and home
use during the summer.
[3] A country dance of a boisterous jig-like sort.
[4] A long wooden trumpet.
* * * * *
"_IT'S ME_."
[Illustration: "IT'S ME."]
"IT'S ME"
They had chatted so long about the lasses down in the valley; and what a
fine time they had of it there, that Gygra's[1] daughter grew sick and
tired of it all, and began to heave rocks against the mountain side. She
was bent upon taking service in the valley below, said she.
"Then go down to the ground gnome first, and grind thy nose down, and
tidy thyself up a bit, and stick a comb in thy hair instead of an iron
rake," said the dwellers in the mountains.
So Gygra's daughter tramped along in the middle of the river, till the
foss steamed and the storm whirled round about her. Down she went to the
ground gnome, and was scoured and scrubbed and combed out finely.
* * * * *
One evening a large-limbed coarse-grained wench stepped into the
general-dealer's kitchen, and asked if she could be taken into service.
"You must be cook, then," said Madame[2]. It seemed to her that the
wench was one who would stir the porridge finely, and would make no
bones about a little extra wood-chopping and tub-washing. So they took
her on.
She was a roughish colt, and her ways were roughish too. The first time
she carried in a load of wood, she shoved so violently against the
kitchen door that she burst its hinges. And however many times the
carpenter might mend the door, it always remained hingeless, for she
burst it open with her foot every time she brought in wood.
When she washed up, too, heaps and heaps of pots and pans were piled up
higgledy-piggledy from meal to meal, so that the kitchen shelves and
tables could hold no more, and bustle about as she might, they never
seemed to grow less.
Nor had her mistress a much better opinion of her scouring.
When Toad, for so they called her, set to work with the sand-brush, and
scrubbed with all her might, the wooden, tin, and pewter vessels would
no doubt have looked downright bonny if they hadn't broken to bits
beneath her hands. And when her mistress tried to show her how it ought
to be done, she only gasped and gaped.
Such sets of cracked cups, and such rows of chipped and handleless jugs
and dishes, had never before been seen in that kitchen.
And then, too, she ate as much as all the other servants put together.
So her mistress complained to her master, and said that the sooner they
were well quit of her the better.
Out into the kitchen went the general dealer straightway. He was quite
red in the face, and flung open the kitchen-door till it creaked again.
He would let her know, he said, that she was not there to only stand
with her back to the fire and warm her dirty self.
Now when he saw the lazy sluttish beast lounging over the kitchen bench
and doing nothing but gape through the window-panes at his boats, which
lay down by the bridge laden with train-oil, he was downright furious.
"Pack yourself off this instant!" said he.
But Toad showed her teeth, and grinned and blinked up at him, and said
that as master himself had come into the kitchen, he should see that she
did not eat his bread for nothing.
Then she slouched down to the boats, and snorted back at him with her
arm before her face. Before any one could guess what she was after, she
had one of the heavy hogsheads of train-oil on her back.
And back she came through the kitchen door, all smirking and smiling,
and begged father to be so good as to tell her where she was to put it.
He simply stood and gaped at her. Such a thing he had never seen before.
And hogshead after hogshead she carried from the boat right up into the
shop.
The general dealer laughed till he quite gasped for breath, and slapped
his thighs so far as his big belly would let him reach them.
Nor was he sparing of compliments.
And into the dwelling-room he rushed almost as quickly as he had rushed
out of it.
"Mother has no idea what a capital wench she has got," said he.
But, ever after that, she put her hand to nothing, nay, not so much as
to drive a wooden peg into the wall, and if some one else hadn't warmed
up a thing or two now and then, there would have been very little to eat
in the house. It was as much as they could do to get her away from the
fireside at meal times.
When her mistress complained about it, her master said that she oughtn't
to expect too much. The lass surely required a little rest now and
again, after carrying such drayman's loads as she did.
But Toad always had an ogle and a grin ready at such times as the
general dealer came through the door from the shop. Then she grew quick
and lively enough, and went on all sorts of errands, whether it was with
the bucket to the spring or to the storehouse for bread. And when she
saw that her mistress was out of the way, she took it upon herself to do
exactly as she liked, both in this and in that.
No sooner was the pot hung on the pot-hook, than she would slip away
with a big saucer and fetch sirup from the shop. And she would flounce
down before the porridge dish and gobble to her heart's content. If any
of her fellow-servants claimed an equal share, she would simply answer,
"It's me!"
They dared not rebel. Since the day she had taken up the hogsheads of
train-oil, they knew that she had master on her side.
But her mistress was not slow to mark the diminishing both of the
sirup-pot and the powdered sugar, and she perceived also in which
direction the gingerbreads and all the butter and bacon went. For out
the wench would come, munching rye cakes and licking the sirup from her
fingers.
And she grew as round and thick and fat as if she would burst.
When her mistress took away and kept the key, Toad would poke her head
into the parlour door, and ogle and writhe at the general dealer, and
ask if there was anything to carry up to the store-room. And then he
would go to the window and watch her as she lifted and carried kegs of
fish and casks of sugar and sacks of meal.
He laughed till he coughed again, and, wiping the sweat from his
forehead, would bellow all over the place--"Can any one of my labouring
men carry loads like Toad can?"
And when her master came home, dripping wet and benumbed with cold, from
his first autumn voyage, it was Toad who was first and foremost to meet
him and unbutton his oil-skin jacket for him, and undo his sou'wester,
and help him off with his long sea-boots.
He shivered and shook; but she was not slow to wring out his wet
stockings for him, and fetch no end of birch bark and huge logs. Then
she made up a regular bonfire in the fireplace, and placed him cosily in
the chimney corner.
Madame came to give her husband some warm ale posset; but she was so
annoyed to see the wench whisking and bustling about him, that she went
up into the parlour and howled with rage.
Early in the morning, the general dealer bawled and shouted downstairs
for his long worsted stockings. They could hear that he was peevish and
cross because he had to put on his sea-jacket and cramped water-boots,
and go out again into the foul weather.
He tore open the kitchen door, and asked them furiously how much longer
they were going to keep him waiting.
But now his mouth grew as wide open as the door-way he stood in, and his
face quite lit up with satisfaction.
Round about the walls, and in the warmth of the chimney corner, hung his
sou'wester, and his oil-skin jacket, and his trousers, and every blessed
bit of clothes he was to put on, as dry as tinder. And in the middle of
the kitchen bench he saw his large sea-boots standing there, so snug,
and so nicely greased, that the grease ran right down the shafts and
over the straps.
Such a servant for looking after him and taking care of him he had not
believed it possible to get for love or money, cried the general dealer.
But now his wife could contain herself no longer. She showed him that
the clothes were both scorched and burned, and that the whole of one
side of the oilskin jacket was crumpled up with heat, and cracked if one
pulled it never so lightly.
And in she dragged the big butter-keg, that he might see for himself how
the wench had stuck both his boots in it and used it to grease them
with.
But the general dealer stood there quite dumfoundered, and glanced now
at the boots and now at the butter-tub.
He snapped his fingers, and his face twitched, and then he began to wipe
away his tears.
He hastened to go in that they might not see that he was weeping.
"Mother does not know how kindly the wench has meant it all," he sobbed.
Good heavens! what if she _had_ used butter for his boots, if she had
only _meant_ well. Never would he turn such a lass out of the house.
Then the wife gave it up altogether, and let the big kitchen wench rule
as best she might. And it was not very long either before Toad let the
key of the store-room remain in the door from morn till eve. When any
one bawled out to her, "Who's inside there?" she would simply answer,
"It's me!"
And she didn't budge from the gingerbread-box, as she sat there and ate,
even for Madame herself. But she always had an eye upon her master the
general dealer.
But he only jested with her, and asked her if she got food enough, and
said that he was afraid he would, one day, find her starved to death.
Towards Christmas time, when folks were making ready to go a-fishing,
Madame was busy betimes and bustled about as usual, and got the great
caldron taken down into the working-room for washing and wool-stamping.
The cooks hired for the occasion rolled out the _lefser_,[3] and baked
and frizzled on the flat oven-pans. And they brought in herring kegs
from the shop, and meal and meat, both cured and fresh, and weighed and
measured, and laid in stores of provisions.