“Its white foam looked whiter than ever in the gathering dusk. The grey clouds which were fast closing in overhead sent down a cold grey light, and the water before it broke no longer sparkled with the sun’s gay beams, but looked leaden and cold and deep. Then breasted with snow like the stormy petrel, it came flying down the precipice, to plunge into the deep fiord below. Its very voice seem changed; for the wind had died away, and the steady roar of the water was the only sound that broke the hush.
“There was no living creature in sight,—unless a little lemming peeped out of his hole, or an eagle soared across the sky, a mere speck upon its clouds. The cows had reached the valley and now stood quietly chewing the cud, having had the precaution to turn their backs to the wind; and now Norrska fetched the milkpails, and drove the red cow up to the milking-corner. And as she went, a snowflake fell on her forehead and another fell on top of her head; and the fir trees sighed, and bowed their heads to what they couldn’t help. Norrska sighed too.
“‘The winter is coming,’ she said, ‘and the snow; and truly the alpebod is but poorly filled. And Sneeflocken sick—and Laaft not home from Lofoden!—And Kline—what can keep him?’ And again she looked towards the fall.
“Kline was there now—she could see him plain enough, though he was but a little spot on that sharp ridge by the waterfall. The path itself was hard to find, as it wound about over and under and around the points of rock that met on the ledge. A stranger could scarce have climbed it but on hands and knees. Yet down there came Kline, sure-footed as a chamois—swiftly down; and singing praises of the rocks and streams and woods and snow as he came. But before he reached the foot of the hill Kline’s song stopped,—with the first look at the hut his thoughts had outrun his feet; and with a quieter step now he came down into the valley and up to where his mother sat milking the red cow. In one hand was a gun, in the other a string of golden plovers.
“‘How late, Kline!’ said Norrska.
“‘Yes mother—I tried to get shot at a reindeer. How is she?’
“Norrska silently pointed to a snowflake, which falling on her hand as she talked, had lain for a moment in all its pure beauty, but was now melting fast away. She watched till it disappeared, and then bending her head lower than ever, she resumed her work.
“Kline stood silent and thoughtful.
“‘May be not, mother,’ he said at length. ‘Her appetite has been better lately. See—I have these plovers for her to-night, and to-morrow I will have the deer. Think of my finding one in these parts!’