“He is an odd stick, but, for all that, a capital fellow; and I have no doubt you would get on admirably with him.” At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the pastor’s man, Hans, who came to tell the “young miss” that there was a big tramp hovering about the barns in the “out-fields,” where he had been sleeping during the last three nights. He was a dangerous character, Hans thought, at least judging from his looks, and it was hardly safe for the young miss to be roaming about the fields at night as long as he was in the neighborhood. “Why don’t you speak to the pastor, and have him arrested?” said Arnfinn, impatient of Hans’s long-winded recital. “No, no, say nothing to father,” demanded Augusta, eagerly. “Why should you arrest a poor man as long as he does nothing worse than sleep in the barns in the out-fields?” “As you say, miss,” retorted Hans, and departed. The moon came up pale and mist-like over the eastern mountain ridges, struggled for a few brief moments feebly with the sunlight, and then vanished. “It is strange,” said Arnfinn, “how everything reminds me of Strand to-night. What gloriously absurd apostrophes to the moon he could make! I have not told you, cousin, of a very singular gift which he possesses. He can attract all kinds of birds and wild animals to himself; he can imitate their voices, and they flock around him, as if he were one of them, without fear of harm.” “How delightful,” cried Augusta, with sudden animation. “What a glorious man your friend must be!” “Because the snipes and the wild ducks like him? You seem to have greater confidence in their judgment than in mine.” “Of course I have--at least as long as you persist in joking. But, jesting aside, what a wondrously beautiful life he must lead whom Nature takes thus into her confidence; who has, as it were, an inner and subtler sense, corresponding to each grosser and external one; who is keen-sighted enough to read the character of every individual beast, and has ears sensitive to the full pathos of joy or sorrow in the song of the birds that inhabit our woodlands.” “Whether he has any such second set of senses as you speak of, I don’t know; but there can be no doubt that his familiarity, not to say intimacy, with birds and beasts gives him a great advantage as a naturalist. I suppose you know that his little book has been translated into French, and rewarded with the gold medal of the Academy.” “Hush! What is that?” Augusta sprang up, and held her hand to her ear. “Some love-lorn mountain-cock playing yonder in the pine copse,” suggested Arnfinn, amused at his cousin’s eagerness. “You silly boy! Don’t you know the mountain-cock never plays except at sunrise?” “He would have a sorry time of it now, then, when there IS no sunrise.” “And so he has; he does not play except in early spring.”