Two little Finns

by Mary E. Ropes

And while they were eating, Blonda, suddenly remembering the disappearance of the linen, and thinking that Freskel might perhaps throw some light upon her loss, said, "By the bye, Freskel, such a strange thing has happened to me; I have lost some linen towelling I had woven. Did any beggar or stranger chance to come in while thou wert alone here a day or two ago, or didst thou perchance leave the door open when thine errand here was done? The roll could not have disappeared by itself, yet gone it most surely is."

Freskel gave no reply for a minute, but he put down the wooden spoon with which he was eating his barley porridge, and glanced round the table quickly, furtively.

"No," he said, at last, "Freskel knows nothing; how should a poor fool like Freskel know?" Then he gulped down his mug of milk, stuffed a bunch of rye bread into his pocket, and rose abruptly from the table.

"The hunt will be out," he said, "and I must go, for how will the grand city people find their way without Freskel to guide them?"

And seemingly glad to get away, he opened the door, and sprang across the threshold, and into the forest, to meet the party who had bespoken his services as leader.

Grubert and Tonie went out soon after breakfast, but shortly returned, saying that Philip Bexal had given all the woodmen a holiday on account of the hunt, so that no felling or carting of timber should disturb the game, or interfere with the sportsmen, who, he had heard, were some very grand people from the Court of St. Petersburg.

Thinking, however, that they might be of service in some way, and wishing, at all events, to see the sport, if they could do so without going too far from home, the father and son soon set forth again, asking Blonda to bring their dinner to them, and promising to meet her, as near one o'clock as possible, at a place known by the name of the Grey Cave, a deep, rocky hollow in a sort of cliff, at the back of which a chain of hills, full of boulders and fragments of stone, skirted the eastern side of the forest.

Blonda had plenty to do all the morning, and by noon she was quite glad to set her kitchen in order, pack up the dinner in a basket, and dress herself for going out. It was a cold day, and she was clothed even more warmly than usual, adding to her accustomed wraps a large, thick scarlet shawl, which she folded corner-wise and put round her head, crossing it over her chest, and loosely looping together the ends behind at the waist.

As she trotted away with her sheep-skin capote, her high over-all felt boots, her red shawl, her basket on her arm, and a stout stick in her hand, she looked like a very comfortable, substantial "Little Red Riding Hood," going forth to see the world, but far too sensible and experienced to be taken in by any sort of wolf which Finland could produce.

Blonda did not go into the wood at all, but kept along at the foot of the range of hills, wending her way in and out among the great blocks of stone, and avoiding the deep snowdrifts, which her practised eye easily detected. Arrived at the cave, she set down her basket on a flat stone, and creeping just within the arch of the cavern, for shelter from the keen wind, she sat down to rest a bit, for she had been on her feet all the morning, and now she was a little weary with her walk.