CHAPTER XXI
THE BARKING DOGS
Springtime had dawned in the Frozen Land. The sun was riding high in the sky, and the air was balmy with the breath of the south. The snow had melted on the meadows, and the ice had floated out of the inlets. The sea was no longer gray and shivering, but pale blue and motionless. The wild geese honked noisily in the marshy lakes and sought their nesting places by the creeks. Swallows twittered under the eaves and cuckoos called to each other among the budding bushes.
On her couch beside the door Dame Louhi, the Wise Woman of the North, sat reclining. Very ugly she was, toothless and grim, wrinkled with age and altogether unlovely. The Maid of Beauty was busy at her housework, sweeping, spinning, baking, weaving. The doors were open and warm breezes from southern seas breathed through the low-raftered hall, playing with the deerskin curtains and with the maiden’s silken hair. [[197]]
Suddenly an uproar was heard, a sound feeble at first but every moment growing louder. It was not an unusual sound, but it was unusually disturbing, unusually persistent and annoying.
“What is that, my daughter?” inquired Dame Louhi, sitting up and listening.
“Oh, it is naught but the dogs barking,” answered the maiden. “They are over at the fishermen’s huts by the shore. Perhaps they see some beggar or wild man coming down the path from the forest.”
The noise increased, it was spreading. It sounded as though a score of watchdogs were barking in concert.
The Wise Woman was disturbed and growing nervous. “Daughter,” she said, “I never heard such barking. Surely something strange is happening. Go out to the gate, look down the road, and see what is the matter.”