way inwards, and across her face there passed a sort of pale golden gleam, as when the last sunbeam slowly draws away from the grassy mountain slope.
“At my place,” said she, “thou shalt hear such Langelejk38 as none else has ever heard. I will play for thee, and thou shalt listen to things unknown to others. Thou shalt hear all that sings, and laughs, and cries in the roots of trees, and in the mountains, and in all things that grow, so that thou wilt never trouble thy head about anything else in the world.”
Then there was a scornful laugh; and up on a rock he saw a tall strongly built girl, with a gold band in her hair and a huge wand in her hand.
She lifted a long wooden trumpet with such splendid powerful arms, threw back her neck with such a proud and resolute air, and stood firm and fast as a rock while she blew.
And it sounded far and wide through the summer evening, and rang back again across the hills.
But she, the prettiest and daintiest of them all, who had cast herself on the ground, stuck her fingers in her ears, and mimicked her and laughed and jeered.
Then she glanced up at him with her blue eyes peeping through her ashen-yellow hair, and whispered—
“If thou dost want me, swain, thou must pick me up.”
“She has a strong firm grip for a gentle maiden,” thought he to himself, as he raised her from the ground.
“But thou must catch me first,” cried she.
And right towards the house they ran—she first, and he after her.
Suddenly she stopped short, and putting both arms akimbo, looked straight into his eyes: “Dost like me?” she asked.
The swain couldn’t say no to that. He had now got hold of her, and would have put his arm round her.
“’Tis for thee to have a word in the matter, father,” she shouted all at once in the direction of the house; “this swain here would fain wed me.”
And she drew him hastily towards the hut door.
There sat a little grey-clad old fellow, with a cap like a milk-can on his head, staring at the livestock on the mountain-side. He had a large silver jug in front of him.
“’Tis the homestead westward in the Blue Mountains that he’s after, I know,” said the old man, nodding his head, with a sly look in his eyes.
“Haw, haw! That’s what they’re after, is it?” thought the swain. But aloud he said, “’Tis a great offer, I know; but methinks ’tis a little hasty too. Down our way ’tis the custom to send two go-betweens first of all to arrange matters properly.”
“Thou didst send two before thee, and here they be,” quoth she smartly, and produced his drumsticks.
“And ’tis usual with us, moreover, to have a look over the property first; though the lass herself have wit enough and to spare,” added he.
Then she all at once grew so small, and there was a nasty green glitter in her eyes—
“Hast thou not run after me the livelong day, and wooed me right down in the enclosure there, so that my father both heard and saw it all?” cried she.
“Pretty lasses are wont to hold back a bit,” said the swain, in a wheedling sort of way. He perceived that he must be a little subtle here; it was not all love in this wooing.
Then she seemed to bend her body backwards into a complete curve, and shot forward her head and neck, and her eyes sparkled.
But the old fellow lifted his stick from his knee, and she stood there again as blithe and sportive as ever.
She stretched herself out tall and stiff, with her hands in her silver girdle; and she looked right into his eyes and laughed, and asked him if he was one of those fellows who were afraid of the girls. If he wanted her he might perchance be run off his legs again, said she.
Then she began tripping up and down, and curtseying and making fun of him again.
But all at once he saw on the sward behind her what looked like the shadow of something that whisked and frisked and writhed round and round, and twisted in and out according as she practised her wheedling ways upon him.
“That is a very curious long sort of riband,” thought the drummer to himself in his amazement. They were in a great hurry, too, to get him under the yoke, he thought; but they should find that a soldier on his way to the manoeuvres is not to be betrothed and married offhand.
So he told them bluntly that he had come hither for his drumsticks, and not to woo maidens, and he would thank them to let him have his property.
“But have a look about you a bit first, young man,” said the old fellow, and he pointed with his stick.
And all at once the drummer saw large dun cows grazing all along the mountain pastures, and the cow-bells rang out their merry peals. Buckets and vats of the brightest copper shone all about, and never had he seen such shapely and nicely dressed milkmaids. There must needs be great wealth here.
“Perchance thou dost think ’tis but a beggarly inheritance I have here in the Blue Mountains,” said she, and sitting down on a haycock, she began chatting with him. “But we’ve four such sætar39 as this, and what I inherit from my mother is twelve times as large.”
But the drummer had seen what he had seen. They were rather too anxious to settle the property upon him, thought he. So he declared that in so serious a matter he must crave a little time for consideration.
Then the lass began to cry and take on, and asked him if he meant to befool a poor innocent, ignorant, young thing, and pursue her and drive her out of her very wits. She had put all her hope and trust in him, she said, and with that she fell a-howling.
She sat there quite inconsolable, and rocked herself to and fro with all her hair over her eyes, till at last the drummer began to feel quite sorry for her and almost angry with himself. She was certainly most simple-minded and confiding.
All at once she twisted round and threw herself petulantly down from the haycock. Her eyes spied all about, and seemed quite tiny and piercing as she looked up at him, and laughed and jested.
He started back. It was exactly as if he again saw the snake beneath the birch tree down there when it trundled away.
And now he wanted to be off as quickly as possible; he cared no longer about being civil.
Then she reared up with a hissing sound. She quite forgot herself, and a long tail hung down and whisked about from behind her kirtle.
He shouldn’t escape her in that way, she shrieked. He should first of all have a taste of public penance and public opinion from parish to parish. And then she called her father.
Then the drummer felt a grip on his jacket, and he was lifted right off his legs.
He was chucked into an empty cow-house, and the door was shut behind him.
There he stood and had nothing to look at but an old billy-goat through a crack in the door, who had odd, yellow eyes, and was very much like the old fellow, and a sunbeam through a little hole, which sunbeam crept higher and higher up the blank stable wall till late in the evening, when it went out altogether.
But towards night a voice outside said softly, “Swain! swain!” and in the moonlight he saw a shadow cross the little hole.
“Hist! hist! the old man is sleeping at the other side of the wall,” it sounded.
He knew by the voice that it was she, the golden-red one, who had behaved so prettily and been so bashful the moment he had come upon the scene.
“Thou need’st but say that thou dost know that serpent-eye has had a lover before, or they wouldn’t be in such a hurry to get her off their