By his bearskin cap, his tanned leather jacket, the musket slung across his back, his short, tight-fitting drawers, his bare knees, his bark shoes, and the glittering axe in his hand, it was easy to guess that the companion of the two miners was a mountaineer from the north of Norway.
Certainly, any one who saw from afar these three weird figures, upon which the flames, fanned by the salt breeze, cast a red, flickering light, might well have been frightened, even had he no faith in spectres and demons; it would have been enough that he believed in thieves and was somewhat richer than the ordinary poet.
The three men constantly turned their heads toward the winding path through the wood which fringes Ralph’s meadow, and judging by such of their words as were not carried off by the wind, they were expecting a fourth person.
“I say, Kennybol, do you know that we should not be allowed to wait so peacefully for this envoy from Count Griffenfeld, if we were in the neighboring meadow, Goblin Tulbytilbet’s meadow, or yonder in St. Cuthbert’s bay?”
“Don’t talk so loud, Jonas,” replied the mountaineer; “blessed be Ralph the Giant, who protects us! Heaven save me from setting foot in Tulbytilbet’s meadow! The other day I thought I was picking hawthorn there, and I gathered mandrake instead, which began to bleed and shriek, and nearly drove me mad.”
“Nearly, Kennybol? For my part, I think that the mandrake’s shriek produced its full effect upon your feeble brains.”
“Feeble brains yourself!” said the vexed mountaineer; “just see, Jonas, he jests at mandrake. He laughs like a lunatic playing with a death’s-head.”
“Hum!” answered Jonas. “Let him go to Walderhog cave, where the heads of those whom Hans, the foul fiend of Iceland, has murdered, come back every night to dance about his bed of withered leaves, and gnash their teeth to lull him to sleep.”
“But,” rejoined the young man, “did not Mr. Hacket, for whom we are waiting, promise us that Hans of Iceland would take the lead in our rebellion?”
“He did,” replied Kennybol; “and with the help of that demon we are sure to conquer the green jackets of Throndhjem and Copenhagen.”
“So much the better!” cried the old miner. “But I’m not the man to stand guard beside him at night.”