pot--only nobody with her this time."

Olof had been lying on his back, hands under his head, looking up into
the darkness. All at once he sat up, and stared at the speaker.

"'Twas a queer girl, thinks I, and lights my pipe. Walking all those
miles out from the town to sit on a rock--as if there wasn't rocks
enough elsewhere. Anyway, 'twas no business of mine. And after that
she was there every day--just about midday, always the same time, and
always sitting just there in one place."

"But what was she doing there?"

"Doing? Nay, she wasn't doing anything. Just sitting there, and
staring like."

"'Twas Antti she was staring at--that'll be it," laughed one. "You
must have been a fine young fellow those days, Antti!"

"You keep your tongue between your teeth, young fellow; 'tis no
laughing matter I'm telling you."

The men looked at one another, and nodded. A faint breath of wind
sighed through the trees on the slope, a pair of twin stems creaked
one against the other with a melancholy sound. The men puffed at their
pipes.

"Well, there she sits, and never song nor word to hear. Lord knows
what she'd be thinking of all the time. Then one day I came down to
the river, and was going over to Metsamantila for some butter. Just
passing by the rock I was, and there she is all of a sudden, coming
towards me, and all dressed in black from top to toe."

"Ho!"

"I was all taken aback, you can think. She'd a black veil over
her face, and all. But a sweet, pretty thing to see, ay, that she
was--like a blessed angel. I pulled off my cap, and she looks up at me
and nods. And it gave me such a queer sort of feeling, I just turned
round and stood staring after her."

"Was it just a young girl?"

"Young? Ay, no more than twenty, at most. Well, I stood there watching
her till she's out of sight among the trees. And then it all seemed
clear enough. 'Twas her father or mother was dead, no doubt, and
that's why she came out here all alone, for comfort, like. Anyway, I
was going on. Then, just past the rock there's a man calls out, 'She's
gone!'

"I was near falling backwards at that. I called out to see what was
the matter, and ran down to the shore.

"'Thrown herself down!' cries out the other man, and goes racing off
down to the water.

"We both ran all we could, but there was nothing to see. We waited
a bit, but she didn't come up. So I went off to the village, and the
other man to the town.

"They got her up after-