of dewy fields, pretty birch groves and light, shimmering streams. There was still a pale rosy glow in the sky, which was reflected in the lake. She had never seen anything lovelier than that night!
All at once she saw a large, beautiful stallion grazing in the shore-meadow of a bay. His coat was a dapple gray, his mane so long it swept the ground, and his tail, which was thick as a rye-sheaf, also reached to the ground. The horse was broad across the hindquarters and high at the withers; he had a small head, with fine, clear eyes, his legs were slender, his hoofs a silvery white that glistened like polished metal as he lifted them in the grass. His body bore no marks of harness or saddle.
Lisa Maja had just walked her horse, Svarten, down a hillside, and was now going at the same slow pace toward the meadow where the stallion grazed. She went so close to him there was but the fence between them; by putting out her hand she could have stroked his haunches.
The stallion seemed not to have noticed them before; but now he raised his head and looked up at the young girl. And Lisa Maja was so pretty that the young swains would drop axe, or scythe, or whatever they had in hand, when she came riding, and hurry down to the roadside to hang over the fence till she had gone by.
Fancy! When the beautiful stallion raised his eyes to her, there was the same look of admiration in his gaze that the peasant lads sent her from the roadside.
