ursing through it is a turbulent stream, on one side of which there is
a road. At some distance up the slopes farms are spread; the buildings
are mostly low and unpainted, yet numerous; heaps of mown hay and fields
of half ripe grain are dotted about.

When the last curve of the valley is left behind the fjord becomes
visible. It lies sparkling beneath an uplifting fog. So completely is it
shut in by mountains that it looks like a lake.

Along the road there jogs at the customary trot a horse with a
cariole-skyds.[2] In the cariole may be seen a waterproof coat and a
south-wester, and between these a beard, a nose, and a pair of
spectacles. Lashed to the back seat is a trunk, and seated on this, with
her back to the cariole, is a full-grown "skyds"-girl, snugly bundled up
in a kerchief. She sits there dangling her coarsely-shod feet. Her arms
are tucked in under the kerchief. Suddenly she bursts out with:
"Magnhild! Magnhild!"

The traveler turned to look after a tall woman in a waterproof cloak who
had just walked past. He had caught a glimpse of a delicately-outlined
face, beneath a hood which was drawn over the brow; now he saw the owner
standing with her forefinger in her mouth, staring. As he was somewhat
persistent in his gaze, she blushed.

"I will step in just as soon as I put up the horse," called out the
skyds-girl.

They drove on.

"Who was that, my dear?" asked the traveler.

"She is the wife of the saddler down at yonder point," was the reply.

In a little while they had advanced far enough to gain a view of the
fjord and the first houses on the point. The skyds-girl reined in the
horse and jumped down from the trunk. She first attended to the animal's
appearance, and then busied herself with her own toilet. It had ceased
raining, and she removed her kerchief, folded it, and stowed it away in
a little pocket in front of the cariole. Then thrusting her fingers
under her head-kerchief she tried to arrange her hair, which hung in
matted locks over her cheeks.

"She had such a singular look,"--he pointed over his shoulders.

The girl fixed her eyes on him, and she began to hum. Presently she
interrupted herself with,--

"Do you remember the land-slide you passed a few miles above here?"

"I passed so many land-slides."

She smiled.

"Yes; but the one I mean is on the other side of a church."

"It was an old land-slide?"

"Yes; it happened long ago. But that is where once lay the gard
belong