f he loved them.
Thus it was that on the afternoon of the seventh day of July, 188-,
having, for purposes of identification, a letter in my pocket to "Olaf
of the Mountain from his friend Dr. Robson," I stood, in the rain in
the so-called "street" of L----, on the ------ Fiord, looking over the
bronzed feces of the stolid but kindly peasants who lounged silently
around, trying to see if I could detect in one a resemblance to the
picture I had formed in my mind of "Olaf of the Mountain," or could
discern in any eye a gleam of special interest to show that its
possessor was on the watch for an expected guest.
There was none in whom I could discover any indication that he was not
a resident of the straggling little settlement. They all stood quietly
about gazing at me and talking in low tones among themselves, chewing
tobacco or smoking their pipes, as naturally as if they were in Virginia
or Kentucky, only, if possib-
le, in a somewhat more ruminant manner. It
gave me the single bit of home feeling I could muster, for it was, I
must confess, rather desolate standing alone in a strange land, under
those beetling crags, with the clouds almost resting on our heads,
and the rain coming down in a steady, wet, monotonous fashion. The
half-dozen little dark log or frame-houses, with their double windows
and turf roofs, standing about at all sorts of angles to the road, as if
they had rolled down the mountain like the great bowlders beyond them,
looked dark and cheerless. I was weak enough to wish for a second that
I had waited a few days for the rainy spell to be over, but two little
bareheaded children, coming down the road laughing and chattering,
recalled me to myself. They had no wrapping whatever, and nothing on
their heads but their soft flaxen hair, yet they minded the rain no more
than if they had been ducklings. I saw that these-