these shadows,
these changeful lights?

Do you see above the meadows on that lowest slope which undulates around
the higher hills of Jarvis two or three hundred houses roofed with
"noever," a sort of thatch made of birch-bark,--frail houses, long and
low, looking like silk-worms on a mulberry-leaf tossed hither by the
winds? Above these humble, peaceful dwellings stands the church, built
with a simplicity in keeping with the poverty of the villagers. A
graveyard surrounds the chancel, and a little farther on you see
the parsonage. Higher up, on a projection of the mountain is a
dwelling-house, the only one of stone; for which reason the inhabitants
of the village call it "the Swedish Castle." In fact, a wealthy Swede
settled in Jarvis about thirty years before this history begins, and did
his best to ameliorate its condition. This little house, certainly not
a castle, built with the intention of leading the inhabitants to build
others like it, was noticeable for its solidity and for the wall that
inclosed it, a rare thing in Norway where, notwithstanding the abundance
of stone, wood alone is used for all fences, even those of fields.
This Swedish house, thus protected against the climate, stood on rising
ground in the centre of an immense courtyard. The windows were sheltered
by those projecting pent-house roofs supported by squared trunks of
trees which give so patriarchal an air to Northern dwellings. From
beneath them the eye could see the savage nudity of the Falberg, or
compare the infinitude of the open sea with the tiny drop of water in
the foaming fiord; the ear could hear the flowing of the Sieg, whose
white sheet far away looked motionless as it fell into its granite
cup edged for miles around with glaciers,--in short, from this vantage
ground the whole landscape whereon our simple yet superhuman drama was
about to be enacted could be seen and noted.

The winter of 1799-1800 was one of the most severe ever known to
Europeans. The Norwegian sea was frozen in all the fiords, where, as a
usual thing, the violence of the surf kept the ice from forming. A wind,
whose effects were like those of the Spanish levanter, swept the ice of
the Strom-fiord, driving the snow to the upper end of the gulf. Seldom
indeed could the people of Jarvis see the mirror of frozen waters
reflecting the colors of the sky; a wondrous site in the bosom of
these mountains when all other aspects of nature are levelled beneath
successive sh