It was drawing on toward dinner time when they came to the last gentle ascent leading to the top of Glory Peak. There the juniper bushes and "old woman's switches" (dwarf birch) grew so high that the animals were quite lost to sight among them. Lisbeth and the boys could only see the course of their charges by a wavelike movement that passed over the tops of the bushes and by the sticking up of a pair of horns here and there. Ole thought that this was a good place to leave the flocks for a time, while they themselves went on ahead. The animals were so tired and hungry that they would stay there quietly for an hour or so; then, when rested, they would be sure to follow to the peak, for a goat was never satisfied until it had mounted to the highest possible point, where it could look about in all directions. Ole's plan was assented to, and it proved to be a good one.
Ole led Lisbeth and Peter around a curve toward the north. He wanted to show them exactly where the king and queen came up on the day of their visit. To be sure, they were not really king and queen that day, but they were on the very point of being: they were crown prince and crown princess. They had left their horses down on the mountain side where the road grew too steep for driving, and had walked the rest of the way. Oh, what a large company they had with them!—the county magistrate, the district judge, and officers so richly dressed that they could scarcely move. Seven or eight of the principal farmers of the district were also in the company, and first among these were Nordrum, Jacob's master, and the master of Hoel Farm, who was then living. These two wore queer old-fashioned swallow-tailed coats. All around over the whole mountain top were crowds of other people gazing at the lively scene.
"The king looked wonderfully fine, didn't he?" asked Lisbeth.
"No. The county magistrate looked much finer, and so did the officers, and even the people who waited upon them. But it could easily be seen that he was the king, for he was a head taller than any of the others."
"The king must be tremendously strong," said Peter.
"Strong! Of course he is! And he must have use for every bit of his strength, too, for he has to govern all the others."
"Was the queen also very large?" asked Lisbeth.
"No, she was not much larger than an ordinary woman. She was unusually earnest and modest-looking, father said. There was not so much fuss and feathers with her as with the other women folk."
"No," said Peter; "the old frump that my father drove laughed even at the magistrate, and found fault because his hands were too big."
"Humph!" said Ole; "that was a joke. As if a grown-up fellow should not have big fists! Anyhow, I don't see how she could have seen them, for the magistrate wore his white gloves, although it was high summer."