"Well, there she sits, and never song nor word to hear. Lord knows what she'd be thinking of all the time. Then one day I came down to the river, and was going over to Metsamantila for some butter. Just passing by the rock I was, and there she is all of a sudden, coming towards me, and all dressed in black from top to toe."
"Ho!"
"I was all taken aback, you can think. She'd a black veil over her face, and all. But a sweet, pretty thing to see, ay, that she was—like a blessed angel. I pulled off my cap, and she looks up at me and nods. And it gave me such a queer sort of feeling, I just turned round and stood staring after her."
"Was it just a young girl?"
"Young? Ay, no more than twenty, at most. Well, I stood there watching her till she's out of sight among the trees. And then it all seemed clear enough. 'Twas her father or mother was dead, no doubt, and that's why she came out here all alone, for comfort, like. Anyway, I was going on. Then, just past the rock there's a man calls out, 'She's gone!'
"I was near falling backwards at that. I called out to see what was the matter, and ran down to the shore.
"'Thrown herself down!' cries out the other man, and goes racing off down to the water.
"We both ran all we could, but there was nothing to see. We waited a bit, but she didn't come up. So I went off to the village, and the other man to the town.
"They got her up after—at the first haul. She'd gone down like a stone to the bottom, just at the spot. But there was no getting her to life again, try all we could. Just as beautiful to look at she was, for all she was dead. Ay, a lovely thing, a lovely thing. We'd had to undo her clothes a bit, trying to bring her round, and her skin—'twas like white silk. Seemed almost a sin to touch her with our rough hands and all…."
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