Puh!—only one more hill now, and here is the top at last. And there ahead lie the great uplands, with marsh and mound and gleaming tarns. Ah, what a relief! What wonder that his step grows lighter and quicker? Before he knows it he is singing aloud in mere gaiety of heart. Ah, dear God, what if after all it were not too late to be young!
A saeter. A little hut, standing on a patch of green, with split-stick fence and a long cow-house of rough planks—it must be a saeter! And listen—isn’t that a girl singing? Peer slipped softly through the gate and stood listening against the wall of the byre. “Shap, shap, shap,” went the streams of milk against the pail. It must be a fairy sitting milking in there. Then came the voice:
Oh, Sunday eve, oh, Sunday eve,
Ever wast thou my dearest eve!
“Shap, shap, shap!” went the milk once more in the pail—and suddenly Peer joined in:
Oh bright, oh gentle Sunday eve—
Wilt ever be my dearest eve!
The milking stopped, a cowbell tinkled as the cow turned her inquiring face, and a girl’s light-brown head of hair was thrust out of the doorway—soon followed by the girl herself, slender, eighteen, red-cheeked, fresh and smiling.
“Good evening,” said Peer, stretching out his hand.
The girl looked at him for a moment, then cast a glance at her own clothes—as women will when they see a man who takes their fancy.
“An’ who may you be?” she asked.
“Can you cook me some cream-porridge?”