She raised her eyes, and, with a smile, turned them towards the bay, when observing that the sailors were painting the cutter's hull, and scraping the spars, she appeared pleased with the sight; and dropping her eyes towards the ground again, her tiny foot dallied with a blade of grass, and, almost inaudibly,
"Call me Gunilda," she said.
A few minutes more separated us, and I wandered down the mountain. The beauty of face and form,—the childish simplicity,—the virtue and innocence of Gunilda's heart,—gave a nobler impulse to mine. I retired to rest, but slept not; for when I dozed, the clouds would lower around the yacht, and, the wind blowing with overwhelming force, every successive wave threatened the little bark with instant destruction; then, lo! the black vapours would rise from the surface of the sea, and rolling away to the south, leave all the heaven clear and blue; and there, shining in the west, the crescent moon, not three days old, would slant quite close to Hesperus, twinkling by her nether edge, to help and show the way across the ocean; and while the fair breeze filled the sails, and all the sailors sang for joy, a linnet, blown from off the land, would, shivering, perch upon the yard; and when the boatswain strove to catch the bird, for fear it flew away and should be lost, the foolish thing would stretch its wings and, fluttering, fall within the vessel's course to sink beneath her bows; and when it rose again a long way in her wake, I thought I heard Gunilda's screams for help, and I would wake.
Then when I awoke, throughout the night, scaring the timid spirit of sleep, a thousand dogs ashore howled and bayed the moon, as if all the ghosts of the million souls that had perished since the far times when Norway became the abode of men, had returned to earth, and were walking through the streets of Christiania.
The dark grey mantle of morning had only enveloped the shades of night, when I banished sleep, and the hour being yet too early to leave my bed, I lay listening to the growls of Sailor, as he remonstrated with Jacko for coming too close to him; while Jacko, in a low, murmuring twitter, pointed out how scantily the straw was spread in the hutch, and how chilly felt the Northern air to him, a little Indian born between the Tropics.
"Well, D——," I said, about five hours afterwards, when I had gone on deck, and saw the sailing-master sitting without his jacket, on the taffrail, abaft the shrouds, smoking his morning pipe, "What do you think of the day? Shall we move to-day?"
"Why, sir," replied D——, capping me, "what little wind there is, draws up the Fiord, dead on end; but, as the day goes on, it's just as likely to draw down. You see, sir," he said, directing my attention to some fleecy clouds, not larger than my thumb-nail, and floating above the mountains to the north-east, "those clouds seem coming this way."
"Yes, I see," I answered; "but I hope we shall not go away to-day."
"I don't think, sir," said D——, "we shall have any more air to-day, than what there is now. The glass is high; and in these northern latitudes, during the summer months, there is little change of weather."
"However, you can make some excuse," I observed, "if there be not sufficient wind, for it is no good floating on the Fiord in a calm."