The gipsies appeared to have slept most of the day. They had not even quarrelled. We began to think they must be ill, until we found they had diligently inspected nearly every single article we possessed, which were afterwards carefully arranged upside down. We decided to move very early the next day, and Ole had the gröd at once prepared for breakfast the next morning.
Before retiring to rest, we strolled on the turf near our tents, and watched the secluded valley by moonlight. Vast ranges of snowy mountains were before us silvered by the moon. As we looked down the valley, we could not help observing, a large shadowed outline, representing the figure of a woman, singularly distinct, and formed by the conformation of a hill above the ravine. It was Sunday, and no music was given at the sœters.
“That gipsy grandmother has all the appearance of a sowanee” (sorceress).--“All the appearance of one!” said Antonio; “and is she not really one? She knows more crabbed things, and crabbed words than all the errate betwixt here and Catalonia; she has been amongst the wild Moors, and can make more drows, poisons, and philtres than any one alive. She once made a kind of paste, and persuaded me to taste, and shortly after I had done so, my soul departed from my body, and wandered through horrid forests and mountains, amidst monsters and duendes, during one entire night. She learned many things amidst the Corahai, which I should be glad to know.”
THE MEISGRIE--WE CROSS A RIVER--THE SLIPPERY ROCK--AN ACTIVE GUIDE--THE CARRIER’S AID--THE LAME HORSE--MELKE-DALSTINDERNE--THE STONY WAY--THE NEDREVAND--OLE’S NIGHT QUARTERS--THE LAKE BY MOONLIGHT--EARLY RISING--EISBOD ON THE BYGDIN LAKE--THE POET’S HOUSE--VINJE THE POET--THE POETICAL MORTGAGE--PLEASANT ACQUAINTANCE--OLD NORWEGIAN POETRY--THE REINDEER HUNTER--ESMERALDA CONDONED.
At twenty minutes past two o’clock we were up. Calling Ole and our gipsies, we had our gröd and milk for breakfast. Our expenses at Skögadal amounted to nine marks eighteen skillings, as follows--
2 lbs. butter 2 0 Cheese 0 6 36 cakes of fladbröd 2 6 5 cans milk, 9 skillings per can 1 21 8 lbs. barley meal 1 8 Sœter women 0 13 Carrier crossing river 1 0 ------ 9 6 ======