Three times returned the martial yell.
It died upon Rochastle’s plain,
And silence claimed her evening reign.”
Lady of the Lake.
Evening had already begun to close in, and the dark branches of the firs, which for the last five or six miles had canopied the road, were beginning to grow darker still, when the carioles emerged from the great forest into a green park-like glade, studded with feathering clumps of birch and spruce; and rattled up to the door of the little inn that stood on the borders of it, which was the place appointed for the meet.
The inn, which, after all, was little better than a post-house, was evidently not large enough to contain a tenth part of the crowd collected in front of it; nor did the half dozen wooden houses, which formed the village, afford much more extensive accommodation.
Few, however, of those there assembled seemed to care much about the matter; the evening was warm, the sky was clear, and the stars were beginning to twinkle merrily through the calm blue sky; the good green wood was shelter enough for the hardy peasants and their equally hardy landlords, and would have been shelter enough though the ground had been white with snow.
Fires were beginning to rise here and there, bringing into view the gipsy-like groups collected round them, as they sat, stood, or lay at full-length upon the turf—some busied about the little tin kettles, in which they were mixing their rye gröd, some bringing in fuel, some returning from the inn and the temporary stalls that had been established round it for the sale of bread, cheese, butter, brandy, and other necessaries; though most of the party had brought good store of provision in their own bags. Some—and they mostly the elders of the parish—were quietly smoking their pipes, and discussing the events of former skals, and prophesying good or bad of the present one, according as their dispositions were sanguine or the reverse; but all were talking, laughing, hand-shaking, imparting or listening to little pieces of domestic news, or parish scandal—for, in the forest parishes, (and in Sweden most parishes are of that character), a skal brings together men who have but few other opportunities of meeting.
A few old stagers, indeed, were trying to get one good night’s sleep, in order to prepare themselves for the fatigues of which the morrow was but the beginning, and were stretching themselves on the turf, with their feet towards their fires; but new arrivals were continually rousing them up, and some fresh Calle Jonsen, or Swen Larssen, or Nils Ericsen, would be continually dropping in with fresh inquiries, fresh news, and fresh greetings.
From the windows of the inn, which were wide open, a broad, bright glare of light was streaming across the glade, obscured now and then by the shadow of some great head and shoulders—for the room was full of people,—but strong enough, notwithstanding, to light up the boughs of the old lime trees that shaded the porch, glittering among their soft green leaves, as if they really were what the Swedes suppose them to be, the roosting places of the Spirits of Light.