Page:Through South Westland.djvu/72

26 bill of fare! They told us we were very lucky in thus crossing the rivers, for the heat was bringing down sudden floods from the melting snows in the ranges.

When we left this sunny, beautiful spot, we entered on a lonely bit of road, except for an isolated house or two at long intervals, which looked helplessly small face to face with the forest. Rosy children would run out from them to wave to us, and I always wanted to go in and see who lived in these lonely spots. I did too, sometimes. I used to hear touching little tales, and the women especially were glad to see me. Once it was a story of a young girl, brought up in the palace at Copenhagen who followed her sailor-husband out to this far land, in utter ignorance of the life before her. She found herself alone—cut off by rivers on each side from neighbours twenty miles away. She dared not cross them on her horse; the forest frightened her as much as the rivers. “What did you do?” I asked. “I cried for two years; then my baby came—that comforted me, and I cheered up a bit. I gave up thinking about getting back when I had three or four of them wanting everything!” Now they are all grown men and women, and in forty years she has never seen one of her own people. She showed me groups and photographs taken in Denmark: the beautiful old burgher house, with grave, prosperous-looking men and women; the palace and the streets of Copenhagen. How