“And of course you say it is, and it was true all I told you about the forest before.  And it gets finer as we go on—­you can hear the axe at work all round about, echoing over across the valley.  Now we must go and say a word to the men.

“But you don’t want to, but I say we must, and you can stay behind a little if you like.  And so off we go down the hillside—­hey, what a pace!  And up the next, and there we are on the top.  We can see them at work down in the valley below.  It looks like a lot of ants at work, you think.  And so it does.  And we go across, and you’ve got to be careful and show how nicely you can go.  The snow’s all frozen, and creaks underfoot; the men look up, and the stupid ones stand staring open-mouthed.  And I bid them good-day, and go up to them a little ahead, and they answer again, and some of them touch their caps, not knowing quite what to do.  All of them look astonished—­what’s this come to see them now?  And I tell them it’s just a young lady from the town, come out to see a bit of the country, and I’m showing her round.  They understand that all right.  And then I tell them you’re a foreigner, and can’t speak a word of their tongue, and that’s why you stay behind and won’t come up.  Then they’re all surprised again at that, and some of them won’t believe there can be folk that don’t speak their language at all; but I tell them it’s true all the same, and they stare again, the stupid ones gaping wider than before.

“‘She’s put on country clothes so as not to be noticed,’ I tell them; ’and if you saw her in her fine dresses, with a real hat on her head and all—­why, your eyes’d fall out of your heads, if you stare like that now.’  And they laugh at that, a roar of laugh that echoes all round.

“Then I come back to you, and we go on again.

“But now you begin scolding me for playing silly tricks and telling them all those wild tales—­there’s neither sense nor meaning in it, you say.  But then I simply ask you if you didn’t see yourself what a treat it was for the men.  Simple woodcutter folk—­it’ll be something to remember all their lives, how one day a beautiful foreign lady came out to visit them in the forest.  And then you must remember to be a foreigner all day.  If I have to speak to you when there’s anyone else about, I say it in Swedish; you can’t speak Swedish, of course, but all you have to do is just nod and smile and speak with your eyes—­that’s all that’s needed.

“‘But I won’t,’ you say.  ‘I’m not going to pretend like that.’”

Here the girl herself broke in:  “No, that I certainly wouldn’t either, so that’s true enough.”

“Oh, but you’d have to, you know, once we’ve started.  And so we go on.  There’s nobody from our parts among the gangs at work there, so there’s no risk of anyone knowing you really.

“And so we go on, from one gang to another.  And it all goes off splendidly.  But then we come to a clearing, where the men are just lighting a fire of pine knots.  It’s their dinner-time, and we’re going to sit down and have dinner with them, say I.