News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-02-02
THE SPIRIT OF THE MIST.

A wild, bleak place it seemed tt
strangers, but as it was, Dame Brett
mann loved it. Her thatched cottage
was placed in niche far up the noun
tain side, and all around were rocks and
clefts, and snatches of hilly clearings,
where her little flock of sheep browsed,
except when the snow lay there in greaI
drifts, as it did throughout every win.
ter.
People wondered that the dame should
have chosen such an isolated rugged
spot for her abode, while the valley lay
beneath, with its green fields, its spark
ling streams and varied woodland, which
could not find footing in the shallow
soil above.
The reason that the dame loved the
place, with its summer gusts and sud-
den storms, its winter cold and driving
SHOWS, was that she was native Swiss,
and all these reminded her of the land
she had left years and years before.
Then she had been a hale young ma
tron, with strong, honest, toilsome,
good man, and three chubby-cheeked
little ones tugging after her, clinging to
her short insey skirts, as she worked
with willing heart and hands to add
comforts to the new home. All, mel
she had seen sorrow since, and her hus-
band and babies all lay in the church
yard, with slabs of rough granite above
their heads.
Now she was a withered, wrinkled old
woman, with hair lying white and
smooth beneath her muslin cap, and
with rheumatic twinges that often kept
path upon the Sabbath day, to the
little church where she had gone regu-
larly for forty years.
Only Bretta, her grand-niece, lived
with her IL her eyrie cottage home. A
blithesome, neat-handed lass was Bretta,
but with head as light as her heart,
and some vain notions in it, which gave
Dame Breitmann many a qualm of mis-
giving, and called many reproof down
upon the young girl.
But Bretta was a willful mink, and
the DANES precepts fell without i'm
preston upon her mind. She heard
without needing, and forgot all warn
ings when there was danger that they
would interfere with her pleasure. she
would linger in the village where she
went to sell the punches OF produce
gathered from the thorn-hedged gar
den, the great, white-shelled eggs from
the poultry-yard, and the rolls of yell
low butter which the dame gathered
from the milk of her one COW.
Never Saturday but Bretta, in her
neat, short gown and white starched
sun-bonnet, with the heavy basket on
her arm, trudged down the mountain
path, out across the valley to the vii
lage houses, where her patrons lived.
And never such an occasion but she
with yard or two of gaudy
ribbon, tinsel brooch, or some other
bit of fnery to adorn herself at next
days meeting, where she dropped
penny into the mission-box instead
of the shilling which the dame allowed
her.
All this troubled the good dame sore
ly, and besides, she worried herself
into fever of anxiety every night when
the girl went down the mountain to
drivo tho no1v nv fro,,o fba common ,Doc
lures. The dusk would creep down and |
the mist settle over the valley, before |
the bell about Crumble's neck could |
be heard tingling as she came slowly up |
the path. 1t was no use to find fault |
with or to send her hours earlier, for
she only loitered the more on the way.
But Dame Breitmann need not have |
feared for her. Bretta was feet and |
sure of foot as chamois, and knew
every rock and crevice until she could |
tread them in the darkest night
Make haste, Bretta," the dame
would say, every evening when the girl |
tied her bonnet over her glossy brown |
hair. Get thee home before the twi- |
light falls"
cay, granny" Bretta would respond,
away before another admoni-
ton could be given her.
And then she would sing snatches of
song, and turn from the path into all
sorts of out-of-the-way places, in search |
of gray lichens and red cup-moss, or
up the precipice after glitter
ing sparks, which she was sure were
precious Jewels until she reached them,
when they turned to pink or white peb-
bles in her hand. So when the valley |
was reached, the shadows would lie
thick and dark in every nook, and the |
top would be lost from sight |
by the mist which hung between. Then
Bretta, who knew nothing of fear,
would call Crumple and start her along
the path, while she fingered to chat
with the lasses she might encounter
on the green. So it was that she
trudged homeward one night, later even
than was her wont, with Crumble's bell
sounding far ahead.
Now, the broad path up the noun
tain wound in and out in great curves,
avoiding the chasms, and choosing the |
most gradual ascent. There was another |
and more direct way which Bretta often
followed, and which she chose now to |
accelerate her return. This was narrow |
and rough, and in some places so steen |