“That is the very reason,” said Torkel; “the nearer the svedgefall, the more air,—the more air the closer the understuff.”
The Parson thought this remarkably good reasoning, and set himself boldly to face the difficulty, instead of shrinking from it,—a proceeding which, were it generally followed in our course through life, would seldom fail to meet with its reward.
It did not on this occasion, at all events, for after a hundred yards or so of hard struggle, they suddenly emerged into an open plain of some miles in length, and a good half mile across. It was not a svedgefall, as Torkel had imagined, but the clearing formed by an old fire, the effects of which nature had already, in a great measure, succeeded in repairing; for a coarse grass, gemmed with all manner of flowers, covered the greater part of it, through which the spiræa raised its feathery head; large tracts were vividly green with young birches, as yet hardly higher than the grass, but closely set, as if planted in a nursery;—here and there the cranberry threw a gleam of crimson into nature’s carpeting, while the epilobium—an absolute tree compared to the dwarf plants around it—showed, with its thickly set flowers, a mass of lilac; and the fox-glove (in Sweden a holy flower), bent its head and rang its fairy bells, inaudible by mortal ears, whenever a good angel passed it by on his errand of mercy. A few great mournful dead trees were still stretching out their helpless and blackened branches, like the old and ruined families after a revolution, sorrowful remembrances of the glories which had passed away; but most of these had dropped where they had stood, and were already concealed by the vigorous young undergrowth, which was springing up all the more vigorously because the soil had been for ages fertilized by the leaves of their predecessors.
The Parson sat down exhausted on one of these remains of fallen majesty, and fanned himself with his broad-leafed hat, while Torkel, standing on the highest point he could find, cast a look up and down the opening, which seemed as silent and as destitute of animal life as any part they had hitherto traversed.
“There is something,” said he; “I see it move—I am sure there is something alive there.”
The Parson was up in an instant, with his telescope in his hand.
“There it is,” said Torkel, “on the farther edge, just under the high trees—that tall dead trunk with a forked head is exactly in the line; look there, I see it move now as plainly as possible.”
“I have got it now,” said the Parson, “and it is a bear, too, if ever I saw one in the Zoological Gardens.”
“Hush!” said Torkel; “do not say that, or we shall never get a shot at it.”
“Why?” said the Parson; “it is almost out of sight, let alone out of hearing.”