And Katharine laughed and whispered back:
"I hope you are having a really good flirtation with him."
"Ja, ja," she answered softly, "like the English boy says 'reeping good!'"
Grimmer and wilder still grew the mountainous country. They had now passed the region of the dwarf-birch and willow-bushes, and had come to what is called the "lichen zone," where the reindeer-moss predominates, and where the bushes are either creeping specimens, growing in tussocks, or else hiding their branches among the lichens so that only the leaves show above them. It seemed almost impossible to believe that here, on these more or less barren mountain-plateaus, good grazing could be found for the cattle during the summer months. Yet it was true enough that in this particular district the cows and goats of about fifty Saeters found their summer maintenance, about fifty of the great Gaards down in the side valleys of the Gudbrandsdal owning, since time immemorial, portions of the mountain grazing-land. The Sollis' Saeter was not in this region. It was fifty miles distant from the Solli Gaard, and, as Jens told the pilgrims, took two whole days to reach, over a much rougher country than that which they had just traversed.
"This is nothing," said Jens smiling grimly, when the Swedish lady was nearly thrown out of the gig on to Svarten's back. "We call this a good road; and it goes right up to the first Saeter. Then you can drive no more. Now you see the smoke rising from the huts. We are there now."
Jens, usually so reserved and silent, was quite animated. The mountain-air, and the feeling of being in the wild, free life he loved so much, excited him. He was transformed from a quiet, rather surly lad into an inspired human being fitted to his own natural environment. Gerda, looking at him, thought immediately of Björnson's Arne.
"You love the mountains, Jens?" she said to him.
"Yes," he answered simply. "I am always happy up at the Saeter. One has thoughts."
They halted outside the first Saeter, and turned to look at the beautiful scene. They were in the midst of low mountains. In the distance, across the lake, they could see the snow-peaks of the great Jutenheim range—the home of the giants. Around them rose strange weird mountain forms, each one suggestive of wayward and grim fancy. And over to the right, towering above a group of castle-mountains, peopled with strange phantoms born of the loneliness and the imagination, they saw the glistening peaks of the Rondane caught by the glow of the sun setting somewhere—not there. And below them was another mountain-lake, near which nestled two or three Saeters apart from the rest, and in which they could see the reflection of the great grey-blue clouds edged with gold. And above them passed in tumultuous procession the wonders of a Norwegian mountain evening sky of summer-time: clouds of delicate fabric, clouds of heavy texture: calm fairy visions, changing imperceptibly to wild and angry spectacle: sudden pictures of fierce and passionate joy, and lingering impressions of deepest melancholy,—all of it faithfully typical of the strange Norwegian temperament.