Have you heard his voice's call,
Call of love,

Song of love?

O'er my heart the sound did fall

And hushed its quick desire.

He has kissed my lips all red and glowing,
He has kissed my lips all red and glowing

as fire.

There! Now we must get the water to boil. (Picks up the tufts of bearberry and goes to Tota.) See what Arnes brought you!

Tota. They are berries.

Halla. Yes, but you must not eat them or you will get a pain in your little stomach. (Rises and finds a long, stiff straw.) Now I'll show you what you can do. (Threading the berries on the straw, she counts.) One, two-four—six, seven-so many years your father and mother have been in the hills. (Strokes Tota's hair.) When you are sixteen, we shall have lived here for twenty years, and then we shall be free again. On that day, Tota shall wear snowwhite clothes and shoes of colored leather, and mother will clasp her silver girdle around your waist. And when we come down to the lowlands, the first one we meet is a young man with silver buttons in his coat. He stops and turns his horse and stands looking after you ever so long. Then your mother has grown old and wrinkled, and her hair is almost as white as snow. Your father, too, has grown old. But you are straight as a silver-weed, and when you run, you lift your feet high!

Enter Kari and Arnes.

Kari (laughing). Ah, now it's steaming. I nearly fell

headlong into the cave, when we lifted the cover from the

entrance.

Halla. Did you? (Gives the straw to Tota.) Now you can go on by yourself. (Rises.) Is there any need of closing the cave every time? When it's not raining, it might be left

open.

Kari. No harm in being careful. If they should come upon us suddenly, we surely should not have time to close the entrance, and they would find the cave and destroy all our stores, as they did five years ago. Do you remember when we came back to the old place and found nothing but ashes?—and winter setting in. Not a single piece of mutton did they leave us.

Halla. I don't easily forget.

Kari. Whenever I think of it, I feel like doing something wicked. After all, we are human too.

Halla (laughing coldly). We're only the foxes who take their sheep.

Kari (to Arnes). How did you hide your stores when you were alone?

Arnes. I had many hiding-places. Once I stole some twenty-eight pounds of butter. I stuffed it down into a fissure in a rock.

Kari. That was pretty shrewd. (They are silent.)

Halla. Did you

tain this afternoon?

have a clear outlook from the moun

Kari. Yes. There was a little mist far to the southward. Halla. It was from the south that the cloud came in my dream.

Kari. You can never forget about that dream.

Halla. I counted fourteen men who came riding out of

the cloud. (Silent for a moment.) You are quite sure the two men whose tracks you saw a month ago did not get on our trail?

Kari. Quite sure. If they had, they would have come closer.

Halla. Just think if they had seen smoke and told about it down in the parish!

Kari. They have done nothing of the kind; for if they had, they would have been up here with many men long ago. Ah, the water is boiling.

(Halla lifts the kettle from the fire and pours water over the herbs.)

Kari. Your tea will soon be giving out.

Halla. Yes, I must take a day and gather enough for the winter. I will go down to the Sun Valley. Nowhere else are the herbs so fine.

(They drink their tea.)

Kari. Don't forget to lay in a store of herbs for your salve. You know how troublesome a little scratch can be, when the cold gets into it. You kept the honey I found? Halla. I did.

Kari. That is good for wounds, too. And you must gather cotton grass for lamp wicks. (Goes to Tota and gives her tea.) Tota must have a taste, too.

Arnes (has been looking at Halla). Your hair was quite black before, but now there has come a sheen of red into it. Kari. I have not noticed it, but your freckles are all gone, I have seen that. (Patting her cheek.) Are you going to give us more tea?

Halla. As much as you want.

Kari (rises and goes into the hut; returns with three wooden pipes and two pouches, one large and one small). You need

not be saving of the leaves, but the tobacco I shall have to dole out to you.

(They fill their pipes.)

Halla (smiling). It was foolish of you to teach me to

smoke.

Kari. Why should n't you have that boon as well as I? (Shakes his bag.) You need not be shy, I have more in the cave, and when winter sets in and the snow is fit for skiing, we'll take Arnes down to my brother's. He promised to lay in good stores of tobacco and salt, and I will pay him with wool, as I did last time.

Halla. If only you don't end by being caught on one of those journeys!

Kari. Never! (They sit smoking in silence.) Now I am just in the mood to listen to a good story. Have you one to tell us? Arnes (rising). No, I have not. (Goes toward the gorge.) Kari. It does not matter if you have told it before. Halla. Arnes may be saving them for the winter. Kari (rises; lays down his pipe). Do you know what you should do? Have a good talk with Arnes. I believe he is getting restless and thinks of leaving us.

Halla. I hope not.

Kari. I will go and take a bath. You can speak better to him alone, and I need to wash off the sweat. (Sings on his way out.)

Far in the hills I wandered; softly shone the summer night,

And the sun had ne'er a thought of sleeping.

Now will I bring my sweetheart dear the hidden treasure bright,

For faithfully my vows I would be keeping.

Heigh, ho!

New and fine my stockings are, new and fine my shoes, And not a care in all the world to plague me!

Halla (sits silent). Is time hanging heavy on you up here? Arnes (goes to her). No, that is only something Kari has got into his head, because I am not always merry.

Halla (smiling). Once you boasted of being kin to the trolls.

Arnes. So I am. (Halla rises; blows a great puff of smoke into his face; laughs. Arnes takes hold of her wrists.) Once there were two trolls. They quarrelled and turned each other into stone. One had to stand where all the birds dropped their filth, and the other had to stand where all the winds blew. Which would you rather be?

Halla (tears herself away). I have not been turned to stone yet. (Laughs.) I thought you had forgotten all your old stories.

Arnes. You are strong.

Halla (sits down on the grass, leaning on her arm). Can you foretell things from the clouds?

Arnes. Yes, about the weather.
Halla. I don't mean that.

Arnes (sits down beside her). When I was a child, I used to sail my viking ships on the clouds. Do you want me to foretell your fate?

Halla. You just said that you could not.

Arnes. The clouds tell nothing about our lives. They are only the dreamlands of earth. Will you let me see your arm? Halla. Why?

Arnes (lifts her arm). You think these lines on your arm are nothing but marks drawn by heather and grass, but