Knowest thou the deep, cool dale,
Where church-like stillness doth prevail;
Where neither flock nor herd you meet;
Which hath no name nor track of feet?

Velhaven.

Heimdal, we call a branch of Hallingdal, misplace it in the parish of Aal, and turn it over to the learned that they may wonder at our boldness. Like its mother valley it possesses no historical memories. Of the old kings of Hallingdal one knows but very little. Only a few monumental stones, a few burial-mounds, give a dim intelligence of the mighty who have been. It is true that a people dwelt here, who from untold ages were renowned as well for their simplicity and their contentedness under severe circumstances as for their wild contest-loving disposition; but still, in quiet as in unquiet, built and dwelt, lived and died here, without tumult and without glory, among the ancient mountains and the pine-woods, unobserved by the rest of the world.

One river, the son of Hallen-Jokul, flows through Heimdal. Foaming with wild rage it comes through the narrow mountain-pass down into the valley, finds there a freer field, becomes calm, and flows clear as a mirror between green shores, till its banks become again compressed together by granite mountains. Then is it again seized upon by disquiet, and rushes thence in wild curves till it flings itself into the great Hallingdal river, and there dies.

Exactly there, where the stream spreads itself out in the extended valley, lies a large estate. A well-built, but somewhat decayed, dwelling-house of wood stretches out its arms into the depths of the valley. Thence may be seen a beautiful prospect, far, far into the blue distance. Hills overgrown with, wood stretch upward from the river, and cottages surrounded with inclosed fields and beautiful grassy paths, lie scattered at the foot of the hills. On the other side of the river, a mile-and-half from the Grange, a chapel raises its peaceful tower. Beyond this the valley gradually contracts itself.

On a cool September evening, strangers arrived at the Grange, which had now been long uninhabited. It was an elderly lady, of a noble but gloomy exterior, in deep mourning. A young, blooming maiden accompanied her. They were received by a young man, who was called there “the Steward.” The dark-appareled lady vanished in the house, and after that was seen nowhere in the valley for several months. They called her there “the Colonel’s lady,” and said Mrs. Astrid Hjelm had experienced a very strange fate, of which many various histories were in circulation. At the estate of Semb, which consisted of the wide-stretching valley of Heimdal, and which was her paternal heritage, had she never, since the time of her marriage, been seen. Now as widow she had again sought out the home of her childhood. It was known also and told, that her attendant was a Swedish girl, who had come with her from one of the Swedish watering-places, where she had been spending the summer, in order to superintend her housekeeping; and it was said, that Susanna Bjoerk ruled as excellently as with sovereign sway over the economical department, over the female portion of the same, Larina the parlour-maid, Karina the kitchen-maid, and Petro the cook, as well as over the farm-servants Mathea, Budeja, and Goeran the cattle-boy, together with all their subjects of the four-footed and two-legged races. We will now with these last make a little nearer acquaintance.