Part 27 (1/2)

A grand, impressive sight at all seasons. In autumn, the swollen waters pour down as from a cornucopia; in winter, folk from the town come driving over the frozen flood, racing one against another; in spring, the river overflows its banks, spreading silt on the meadows as in the land of the Nile; and in summer, the haymakers are lulled by the song of the gra.s.shoppers and the scent of the hay to dream of paradise, where the children of men even now may enter in for some few days in every year.

A league of river, a league of meadow land--but at one spot two great rocks stand out as if on guard.

One rises from the very verge, the water lapping its foot as it stands dreaming and gazing over to its fellow of the farther side.

Neitokallio is its name.

The other is more cold and proud. It stands drawn back a little way from the bank, with head uplifted as in challenge, looking out through the treetops across the plain. And this is Valimaki.

At the foot of Valimaki a camp-fire was burning. It was midnight. A group of lumbermen were gathered round the fire, some lying stretched out with knapsacks under their heads, some leaning one against another. Blue clouds of smoke curled up from their pipes.

The red fire glowed and glowed, flaring up now and again into bright flame, tinging the fir stems on the slope as if with blood, and throwing weird reflections out on to the dark waters of the river. The men sat in silence over their pipes.

”Look!” said one at last, nodding up towards the head of the rock.

”Looks almost as if she was sitting there still, looking down into the river.”

Several nodded a.s.sent.

”Maybe there _is_ someone sitting there.”

”Nay, 'tis only a bit of a bush or something. But 'tis the very same spot where she sat, that's true.”

”What's the story?” asks one--a newcomer, on his first trip to Nuolijoki. ”Some fairy tale or other?”

”Fairy tale?” one of the elders breaks in. ”You're a stranger, young man, that's plain to see. 'Tis a true story enough, and not so long since it all happened neither.”

”Fourteen years,” says Antti, knocking the ashes from his pipe. ”I remember it all as plain as yesterday. Ay, there's queer things happen in life.”

”Did you see it yourself, then?”

”Ay, I did that--and not likely to forget it. 'Twas on that rock I saw her first time, and a young lad with her.”

Some of the men sat up and began filling their pipes afresh.

”Her betrothed, maybe?”

”Ay--or something like it. I didn't know at the time. I was clearing stray logs here on the sh.o.r.e, and saw them sitting up there together, looking at the water. I sat down too for a bit, and lit a pipe, and thinking to myself; well, water's water, and water it'll be for all their looking. Anyhow, I doubt they must look at something, just to pa.s.s the time.”

”Well, and what then? What happened?”

”Nay, they did but sit there a bit and then went away. But next day again, I was working there same as before, and there's my young miss a-sitting there in the very spot--only n.o.body with her this time.”

Olof had been lying on his back, hands under his head, looking up into the darkness. All at once he sat up, and stared at the speaker.

”'Twas a queer girl, thinks I, and lights my pipe. Walking all those miles out from the town to sit on a rock--as if there wasn't rocks enough elsewhere. Anyway, 'twas no business of mine. And after that she was there every day--just about midday, always the same time, and always sitting just there in one place.”

”But what was she doing there?”

”Doing? Nay, she wasn't doing anything. Just sitting there, and staring like.”