Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/76

 knees a little, and if you find that I am an obstinate person now, then console yourself with the idea that I shall certainly not be otherwise when I reach the top."

The decided manner, mixed with pleasant humour, with which she said this, suddenly dragged me down from my pedestal, and, to tell the truth, made me feel so small, that I might have crept into a mouse-hole. In default of such, I crept up the slope, and bore the deadly fear that something might happen to my companion, as a just punishment.

Both of us, however, reached the summit in safety.

The white surface, which stretched in front of us right up to the blasted rock, suggested to me the ruins of a temple. Mill-stones were lying about in long rows, like enormous portions of fallen columns. We also saw regularly cut stone blocks and curb-stones, which together gave the idea of partial foundations. Heaps of sand, rubble, and larger broken stones had here and there formed banks intersecting the ground, some of which were covered with miniature woods, consisting of the American elder, the scarlet-coloured berries of which stood flaring against the shiny white masses of stone. On one side appeared a tiled roof with a smoking chimney; it was a smithy, a thing which each quarry possessed.

After having passed over one of the banks we found ourselves in the hindermost part of the quarry, just in front of the rock itself. Here stood the owner and two workmen. Our landlord took his wooden pipe from his mouth, and welcomed us by saying that we had just come in the nick of time; they were quite ready. A big man, in neat check trousers and a fairly clean shirt, stood with his back bent towards the stone surface, where he seemed to be examining something; he turned his red-bearded