nothing more to do with men, and the old master and the young lady
might look for him as long as they pleased. That they did so he
never doubted.

And he forgot all that he had learned, both the difficult French
words which the young lady taught him in the drawing-room, and the
incomparably easier expletives which he had picked up on his own
account in the servants' hall.

Only two human sounds clung to his memory, the last relics of his
vanished learning. When he was in a thoroughly good humor, he would
often say, "Bonjour, madame!" But when he was angry, he shrieked,
"Go to the devil!"

Through the dense rain-mist he sped swiftly and unswervingly;
already he saw the white wreath of surf along the coast. Then he
descried a great black waste stretching out beneath him. It was a
peat moor.

It was encircled with farms on the heights around; but on the low
plain--it must have been over a mile [Note: One Norwegian mile is
equal to seven English miles.] long--there was no trace of human
meddling; only a few stacks of peat on the outskirts, with black
hummocks and gleaming water-holes between them.

"Bonjour, madame!" cried the old raven, and began to wheel in great
circles over the moor. It looked so inviting that he settled
downward, slowly and warily, and alighted upon a tree-root in the
midst of it.