ommon ran
a double row of small booths, which had just been erected for the coming
fair; and sturdy young fellows from the country, with their rough carts
and shaggy ponies, were gathering along the highway, to skirmish a
little in advance of their bargains.

The road enticed us onward, into the country. On our left, a long slope
descended to an upper arm of the harbor, the head of which we saw to be
near at hand. The opposite shore was fairly laid out in grain-fields,
through which cropped out, here and there, long walls of granite, rising
higher and higher towards the west, until they culminated in the round,
hard forehead of a lofty hill. There was no other point within easy
reach which promised much of a view; so, rounding the head of the bay,
we addressed ourselves to climbing the rocks, somewhat to the surprise
of the herd-boys, as they drove their cows into the town to be milked.

Once off the cultivated land, we found the hill a very garden of wild
blooms. Every step and shelf of the rocks was cushioned with tricolored
violets, white anemones, and a succulent, moss-like plant with a golden
flower. Higher up there were sheets of fire-red pinks, and on the summit
an unbroken carpet of the dwarf whortleberry, with its waxen bells.
Light exhalations seemed to rise from the damp hollows, and drift
towards us; but they resolved themselves into swarms of mosquitoes, and
would have made the hill-top untenable, had they not been dispersed by a
sudden breeze. We sat down upon a rock and contemplated the widespread
panorama. It was nine o'clock, and the sun, near his setting, cast long
gleams of pale light through the clouds, softening the green of the
fields and forests where they fell, and turning the moist evening haze
into lustrous pearl. Inlets of the lake here and there crept in between
the rocky hills; broad stretches of gently undulating grain-land were
dotted with the houses, barns, and clustered stables of the Finnish
farmers; in the distance arose the smokes of two villages; and beyond
all, as we looked inland, ran the sombre ridges of the fir-clad hills.
Below us, on the right, the yellow houses of the town shone in the
subdued light,--the only bright spot in the landscape, which elsewhere
seemed to be overlaid with a tint of dark, transparent gray. It was
wonderfully silent. Not a bird twittered; no bleat of sheep or low of
cattle was heard from the grassy fields; no shout of children, or
evening hail from th