“‘Do you think we can stay on?’ asked one little cone; and the others would have said they didn’t know, but the wind gave the tree such another shake that their words were lost.
“And again the fir trees bowed to let him pass, and swayed from side to side, and the great branches creaked and moaned and flung themselves about in a desperate kind of way; but the leaves played sweet music. It was their fashion whenever the wind blew.
“‘I think we shall have snow,’ said the tallest of the fir trees, looking over the heads of his companions.
“‘The sky is very clear,’ remarked a very small and inexperienced fir, who was so short he could not see much of anything.
“‘Yes,’ said the tall one, ‘so you think; but there is a great deal of sky besides that which is over our heads; and I can see the wind gathering handfuls of snow-clouds, which he will fling about us presently.’
“‘Yes,’—repeated the tall fir, with another graceful bend—‘I see them—they are coming.’
“The evergreens were all sorry to hear this, for nothing depressed them so much as snow; the rain they could generally shake off,—at least if it didn’t freeze too hard.
“As for the beeches, they said if that was the case they must put off their summer clothes directly. And one little beech, with a great effort, did succeed in shaking off half-a-dozen green leaves the next time the wind came that way.
“‘You need not hurry yourselves,’ said the tall fir—‘this is only an early storm—the winter will not come yet. I can still see the sun for a few minutes every day.’
“And that was true. For a few minutes the sun shewed himself above the horizon, and then after making a very small arch in the sky, down he went again. Then came the long afternoon of clear twilight; and the longer night, when the stars threw soft shadows like a young moon, and looked down to see their bright eyes in the deep fiord that lay at the foot of the fir trees. For this was on the north-west side of Norway; and the fir trees grew by one of the many inlets of the sea which run far away for miles into the country, and are called fiords.
“At the mouth the fiord was so narrow, and the overhanging trees so thick, that you might have coasted along, backwards and forwards, without perceiving the entrance; but to the country people it was well known, and unmistakeably marked out by one particular hemlock. Pushing your little boat through its green branches that dipped their fingers in the water, the fiord opened before you. The banks on each side were for the most part very steep, and often wooded to the water’s edge; while sometimes a pitch of bare rocks and a noisy cataract came rough and tumble down together, pouring disturbance into the smooth waters of the fiord.