“Listen! is not that a bell, on the side of the hill?” We listened accordingly. Sure enough it was the sound of a bell on the side of the mountain, mingling with the never-ceasing hum of the distant waterfalls. It must be some cattle grazing, and the sæter could not be far off. “Try if you can’t make your way up in the direction of the sound. The building must be there.”
During the half-hour that my Sancho was absent, I tramped disconsolately, like “the knight of the sorrowful figure,” up and down a little square of ground by the horse, to keep myself warm, as, besides being wet, I sensibly felt the cold of the perpetual snow which lay not far off. In due time Simon returned. The solitary bell was that of a horse, who was feeding on the slope, but no sæter could he find.
“Can you holloa?” I exclaimed; “let’s holloa both together.”
“I can’t, sir,” croaked he; “I have no voice.” And now I perceived what I had before scarcely noticed, that his voice did not rise above the compass of a cracked tea-kettle. So, as a last resource, I commenced a stentorian solo—“Wi har tabt Veien; hvor er Stölen,”—(We have lost our way. Where is the stöl?)—till the rocks rebellowed to the sound. Suddenly I hear in the distance a sound as of many cattle-bells violently rung, and then, as suddenly, all the noise ceased.
“Strange that. Did you not hear it?” I asked.
“Surely they were cattle.”
My guide’s superstitions, I fancy, began to be worked on, and he said nothing. Neither did any response come to my louder inquiries, except that of the echoes. There was nothing for it, then, but to unload the horse, and take up a position under the lee of some stone. The night was frosty, and my pea-coat was wet through, with immersion in the river. Nevertheless, I put it on, and over all, the horse-rug, regular cold water-cure fashion. Then, munching some of the contents of my wallet, and drinking my last glass of brandy, I lit a pipe. Before long, a bright star rose above the mountain, and out twinkled, by degrees, several other stars.
“The moon,” my man said, “must soon follow;” but before her cold light was shed across the valley, I had dozed off. At four o’clock I was awoke by Simon, begging me to rise, which I felt very loth to do. Awakened by the cold, he had got up, and by the grey dawn had discovered the sæter, not many hundred yards distant.
“My good Englishman, do get up, and dry yourself,” he added, “they’ve lit a fire.”