The Captain was proceeding to wash his face and hands in the well-head, but the men begged him not to pollute it; the rill below, they said, did not so much signify.
The place had been noted by Birger for a halt, and right glad were they all to disembarrass themselves of their respective loads, and to stretch themselves in various attitudes of repose picturesque enough upon the whole, under the great white poplars whose restless leaves fluttered over head though no one could feel the breeze that stirred them, and shaded the fairy precincts of the haunted well.
The Parson threw himself on his back upon the turf with his jacket, waistcoat, and shirt-collar wide open, his arms extended, and his neckerchief, which he had removed, spread over his face and bare neck to keep off the musquitoes. He was not asleep exactly, nor, strictly speaking, could it be said that he was awake; he was enjoying that quiet dreamy sort of repose, that a man thoroughly appreciates after walking for five or six hours on a burning hot summer’s day. His blood was still galloping through his veins, and he was listening to the beat of his own pulses.
“This is very delightful, very,” he said, in a drowsy drawling voice, speaking rather to himself than to Torkel. “A very curious sound, one, two, three, it sounds like distant hammers.”
“Oh, the Thousand!” said Torkel, “where are we lying?”
The Parson, when he threw himself down on the hill side, had been a great deal too hot and tired to pay much attention to his couch, beyond the evident fact that the turf was very green and inviting, and that it contained no young juniper or other uncomfortable bedding: roused by Torkel’s observation, he sat upright, and seeing nothing very remarkable except a good rood of lilies of the valley at his feet, the scent of which he had been unconsciously enjoying, and which did not look at all terrible, stared at him. “Well,” said he, “what is the matter? where should we be lying?”
“I do not know,” said Torkel, “that is, I do not know for certain; but did you not say you heard hammers? Stay,” he said, looking as if he had resolved to do some desperate deed—“yes, I will, I am determined,” and he took a piece of clay that was sticking on his right boot, and having patted it into the size of a half-crown, put it on his head and dashed his hat on over it. Then shading his eyes with his hand, he looked fixedly at the hill, as if he were trying to look through it. “No,” said he, “I do not see anything, I hope and trust you are mistaken.”
“What can you be about?” said the Parson impatiently, “have you found a brandy shop in the forest?”
“I thought it must be the Bjergfolk,” he said, “when you heard the hammers. I never can hear them myself, because I was not born on a Saturday, and I thought perhaps you might have been. It is a very round hill too, just the sort of place they would choose, and they have not a great deal of choice nowadays, there are so many bells in the churches, and the Trolls cannot live within the sound of bells.”
“No?” said the Parson, “why not?”