he heavens above, that is, whose depth only faith and fancy can
fathom. But however long you looked at Aasa, you could never be quite
sure that she looked at you; she seemed but to half notice whatever went
on around her; the look of her eye was always more than half inward,
and when it shone the brightest, it might well happen that she could not
have told you how many years she had lived, or the name her father gave
her in baptism.

Now Aasa was eighteen years old, and could knit, weave, and spin, and it
was full time that wooers should come. "But that is the consequence of
living in such an out-of-the-way place," said her mother; "who will risk
his limbs to climb that neck-breaking rock? and the round-about way over
the forest is rather too long for a wooer." Besides handling the loom
and the spinning-wheel, Aasa had also learned to churn and make cheese
to perfection, and whenever Elsie grieved at her strange behavior she
always in the end consoled herself with the reflection that after all
Aasa would make the man who should get her an excellent housewife.

The farm of Kvaerk was indeed most singularly situated. About a hundred
feet from the house the rough wall of the mountain rose steep and
threatening; and the most remarkable part of it was that the rock itself
caved inward and formed a lofty arch overhead, which looked like a huge
door leading into the mountain. Some short distance below, the slope of
the fields ended in an abrupt precipice; far underneath lay the other
farm-houses of the valley, scattered like small red or gray dots, and
the river wound onward like a white silver stripe in the shelter of the
dusky forest. There was a path down along the rock, which a goat or a
brisk lad might be induced to climb, if the prize of the experiment were
great enough to justify the hazard. The common road to Kvaerk made a
large circuit around the forest, and reached the valley far up at its
northern end.

It was difficult to get anything to grow at Kvaerk. In the spring all
the valley lay bare and green, before the snow had begun to think of
melting up there; and the night-frost would be sure to make a visit
there, while the fields along the river lay silently drinking the summer
dew. On such occasions the whole family at Kvaerk would have to stay
up during all the night and walk back and forth on either side of the
wheat-fields, carrying a long rope between them and dragging it slowly
over the heads of the rye, to