Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/376

354 Still the town-mouse said she was sure she had the best of it, and they could not agree at all. So at last they promised to pay one another a visit at Yule, that they might taste and see which lived best. The town-mouse was the one that had to pay the first visit, and she went through woods and deep dales; for though the fell-mouse had come down to the lowlands for the winter, the road was both long and heavy. It was uphill work, and the snow was both deep and soft, so that she was both weary and hungry by the time she got to her journey's end.

"Now I shall be glad to get some food," she said, when she got there. As for the fell-mouse, she had scraped together all sorts of good things. There were kernels of nuts, and liquorice-root and other roots, and much else that grows in wood and field. All this she had in a hole deep under-ground where it would not freeze, and close by was a spring which was open all the winter, so that she could drink as much water as she chose. There was plenty of what was to be had, and they fed both well and good; but the town-mouse thought it was not more than sorry fare.

"One can keep life together with this," she said; "but it isn't choice, not at all. But now you must be so kind as come to me, and taste what we have in town."

Well, the fell-mouse was willing, and it was not long before she came. Then the town-mouse had gathered together something of all the Christmas fare which the mistress of the house had dropped as she went about, when she had taken a drop too much at Yule. There were bits of cheese, and odds and ends