"Inconvenience?" said she, surprised, and
again slowly turned on her heel; "no, not that
I know."
"Then tell me if there are people living here
in the neighborhood, or if the light deceived
me, which I saw from the other side of the river."
"Follow me," answered Aasa, and she na
vely
reached him her hand; "my father's name is
Lage Ulfson Kvaerk; he lives in the large house
you see straight before you, there on the hill;
and my mother lives there too."
And hand in hand they walked together,
where a path had been made between two
adjoining rye-fields; his serious smile seemed to
grow milder and happier, the longer he lingered
at her side, and her eye caught a ray of more
human intelligence, as it rested on him.
"What do you do up here in the long winter?"
asked he, after a pause.
"We sing," answered she, as it were at ran-
dom, because the word came into her mind;
"and what do you do, where you come from?"
"I gather song."
"Have you ever heard the forest sing?"
asked she, curiously.
"That is why I came here."
And again they walked on in silence.
It was near midnight when they entered the
large hall at Kvaerk. Aasa went before, still
leading the young man by the hand. In the
twilight which filled the house, the space
between the black, smoky rafters opened a vague
vista into the region of the fabulous, and every
object in the room loomed forth from the dusk
with exaggerated form and dimensions. The
room appeared at first to be but the haunt of
the spirits of the past; no human voice, no human
footstep, was heard; and the stranger
instinctively pressed the hand he held more
tightly; for he was not sure but that he was
standing on the boundary of dream-land, and some
elfin maiden had reached him her hand to lure
him into her mountain, where he should live
with her forever.
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