The pony-boy caught the contagion of his high spirits, and as they cantered along he sang snatches of the Elf-song:
"Dance by night and dance by day,
Life and time will pass away,
Love alone will last alway."
He was a tall lad of eighteen who must have resembled his mother, for he had the pink and white face of a girl. They had passed the hot springs and the Ellida river, and risen to the heights of the first hill on their journey before the sunshine of the boy's spirits began to be overcast. Then as they rested their ponies and tightened the girths, he said in a frightened whisper:
"Do you hear it, sir?"
"Hear what?" said Christian Christiansson.
"The Peak," said the boy, pointing to a rock of rugged outline that stood on the topmost line of the mountain to their right, with a dark cloud, that was like a great monster of the air, poised above it.
"What about it, my boy?"
"The storm and the Peak are friends, sir, for they always talk together before the wind comes down. When people hear them talking they tremble, because they know the storm is coming."
"Let us get on then," said Christian Christiansson.
In half-an-hour they had come to the bleak and barren country of the Red Hill, the Red Lake, and the Deep Tarn with its dark waters and gloomy shore, and by that time the great cloud which had been poised above the Peak was broken into many parts, and each part seemed to be fighting the others in the sky, for there were volleys of sound like thunder.