"Nonsense, lassies!" said Anders; "even if it were anything uncanny, we have guns enough here to fire a shot over a whole pack of them, and men enough to fire them too. Don't stand dawdling there, Karin, but open the door."
Karin did as she was bid, and drew back the wooden bolt.
"My!" she cried, "if it isn't Peter the Forester! Come in, Peter. Come in."
In strode Peter, a strapping fellow, long past youth, but still hale and hearty. His tight-fitting breeches and hose showed a well-knit frame; over his many-buttoned jacket he wore a loose cloak of russet woollen stuff, "Wadmel," as they call it in the north of Scotland, and "Vadmal," as they call it in Norway. A broad, flapping wide-awake covered his head, which on this occasion was tied down across the top, and under the chin by a red cotton kerchief. On his shoulder was his rifle.
"Why, Peter," said Anders, "what brought you out in such Deil's weather?"
"Well!" said Peter, "the owner of the sawmills down at the end of the dale on the other side of the Fjeld, sent me up here last night to see if I could mark down any reindeer for him; and so I came, though I told him 'twas no use. The poor, silly body fancies the deer are like a pack of barn-door fowls, that you can count morning and evening, as they go out and come home to roost. He little thinks that the deer seen to-day here, are to-morrow fifty miles off, or more; but as I wanted to cross the Fjeld, and look at the forest on the other side down in the dale, I said I would come and tell him if I saw any deer; and to make a long story short, I came, and thought to get here last night; but just on the edge of the Fjeld it grew dark as pitch, and so I crept into a reft in the rocks, and spent the night as I best could. Luckily I had fladbrod and gammelost, and a flask of brandy, else I should have fared badly. But here I am, drenched to the skin, and nigh starved. Let me have a pair of dry stockings, and a bowl of milk, and make myself comfortable. But God's peace! I did not see you had English lords here. Good day! Good day! After deer, too, no doubt. Did you see the deer yesterday?"
While Anders told him in a low voice who we were, in which story Edward's mishap was sure to find a place, Peter took off his shoes and stockings, and put on dry ones, and then draining off his bowl of milk, sate before the fire to enjoy his pipe.
But Anders was not going to let him off so lightly.
"You must often hear and see strange things in the woods, and on the Fjeld, Peter!"
"Aye! aye!" replied Peter, under a cloud of puffs, to this rather leading question. "Aye, aye, I have both heard and seen many things. Strange sounds and noises; sometimes for all the world like the sweetest music."