to collect all the cows, that
graze in these mountains, about me. Did you not hear the cattle this
minute? The wolves also, and bears, and other predatory animals, do not
like its note; and when they hear it, will crouch to the ground and hide
themselves."

Issuing from the firs that formed a forest at the lower part of the
valley, two girls hurried towards us; and running and walking by turns,
they made haste to the cottage near which we stood.

"Who lives here?" I said, pointing to the miserable building.

"Those two girls," answered the Norwegian.

"Alone?" I asked.

"Yes, alone," replied the guide; "but they will go away when the winter
comes, for then the cattle are removed. It is only the months of summer
that they pass up here, to take care of these pigs, and sheep, and
cows."

"Only the months of summer," I thought; but by this time the two girls
had reached the cottage; and I could not help regarding them with some
little interest. The eldest was not more than eighteen, the youngest
four years less; and they possessed the simplicity and shyness of manner
such children of the mountain might be supposed naturally to imbibe from
the mode of life they led, and the desolation which surrounded them.
They wore no covering to the feet or head, and their arms and shoulders
were equally bare; and though naturally of a very fair complexion, their
faces had, by constant exposure to the sun, been tanned; but, lo! when
they smiled, their coral lips, curved like the bow that shot the arrow
through the heart of Psyche, parted to show a row of teeth as smooth and
pure as the snows of Siggen.

The pigs, that were lately digging up the soil by hundreds, trotted
towards these girls yet breathing heavily from the speed with which they
had run, and looking up in their faces, grunted and squeaked without any
apparent cause; and some of these swine told their wants, or affection,
with such painful shrillness, that it was almost impossible to make
ourselves heard.

Opening the cottage door with a wooden key, the eldest girl led us into
a small room appropriated as a dairy, in which were eight or ten large
basins of wood filled with milk, in the various gradations of
decomposition from its natural sweet state to that of acidity, until it
took the solidity of cream cheese. I do not know that the Norwegians
have any precise system of making cheese by churning; but from what I
saw, and I am now only speaking of the poorer peasan