[[4]] The strips of meadow which lie between high rocks in Norway would be parched by the reflection of the long summer sunshine, and unproductive, if the inhabitants did not use great industry in the irrigation of their lands. They conduct water from the spring-heads by means of hollow trunks of trees laid end to end, through which water flows in the directions in which It is wanted, sometimes for an extent of fifty miles from one spring.
And Oddo went to close and fasten the door; and then he sat down on the ground, rested his arms on his grandfather's knees, and told his story in such a low tone that no "little bird" under the eaves could "carry the matter."
"O grandfather, what a mind that fellow has! He will go crazy with horror soon. I am not sure that he is not crazy now."
"He has murdered Rolf, has he?"
"I can't be sure. He is like one bewitched, that cannot hold his tongue. While I was bringing the troughs, one by one, for him to lay, where the meadow was driest, he still kept muttering and muttering to himself. As often as I came within six yards of him, I heard him mutter, mutter. Then when I helped him to lay the troughs, he began to talk to me. I was not in the mind to make him many answers; but on he went, just the same as if I had asked him a hundred questions."
"It was such an opportunity for a curious boy, that I wonder you did not."
"Perhaps I might, if he had stopped long enough. But if he stopped for a moment to wipe his brow (for he was all trembling with the heat), he began again before I could well speak. He asked me whether I had ever heard that drowned men could show their heads above water, and stare with their eyes, and throw their arms about, a whole day—two days after they were drowned."
"Ay! Indeed! Did he ask that?"
"Yes, and several other things. He asked whether I had ever heard that the islets in the fiord were so many prison-houses."
"And what did you say?"