Page:Christmas Fireside Stories.djvu/290

 278 A Summer Night in a Norwegian Forest. There was no one at home but a black eat, who was sitting quite content and purring on the hearth, and a dazzling white cock, who was walking up and down the passage breasting himself and crowing incessantly, as much as to say : '* Now I am the cock of the walk ! " The swallows, which had been tempted here in great numbers on account of the quantity of insects to be found in proximity to the wood, and had established themselves in the barn and under the eaves, were gambolling, circling, and twittering fearlessly about in the sunshine. Tired with the heat and my walk, I threw myself down on the grass in the shadow of the house, where I lay half-asleep enjoying a quiet rest, when I was startled by an unpleasant clamour, — the jarring voice of a woman, who was trying by alternately scolding and using pet names .o pacify a litter of grunting pigs on the farm. By following the sound I came upon a bare-footed old woman with a yellow dried-up countenance, who was bending down over the pigs' trough, busy filling it with food, for which the noisy little creatures were fighting, tearing, pushing, and yelling, with expec tation and delight. On my questioning her about the road, she answered me by asking me another question, while she, without raising herself up, turned her head half away from her pets to stare at me. " Where might you come from ? " When she had got a satisfactory answer to this, she continued, while she repeatedly addressed herself to the young pigs : little piggies then ! The road to Stubdale, do you say ? Just look at that one now ! Will you let the others get something as well, you rascal ! Hush, hush ! Be quiet, will you ! Oh, poor fellow, did I kick you then ? Yes, yes, Ill tell you the road directly, — it's — it's ftraight on through the wood till you come to the big water-wheel ! " As this direction seemed to me to be rather vague for a road of about fourteen miles length through a forest, I asked her if I could not hire a lad who knew the road, to go with me. " No, bless you! Is it likely?N she said, as she left the
 * Ah, so ! —you are at school at the parson's, eh !— hush, hush !