It is just after sunset of an August evening. The scene is a room in a mountain hut, furnished only with a table, benches. and a low broad window seat. Through this window three rocky peaks are seen by the light of a moon which is slowly whitening the last hues of sunset. An oil lamp is burning. SEELCHEN, a mountain girl, eighteen years old, is humming a folk-song, and putting away in a cupboard freshly washed soup-bowls and glasses. She is dressed in a tight-fitting black velvet bodice. square-cut at the neck and partly filled in with a gay handkerchief, coloured rose-pink, blue, and golden, like the alpen-rose, the gentian, and the mountain dandelion; alabaster beads, pale as edelweiss, are round her throat; her stiffened. white linen sleeves finish at the elbow; and her full well-worn skirt is of gentian blue. The two thick plaits of her hair are crossed, and turned round her head. As she puts away the last bowl, there is a knock; and LAMOND opens the outer door. He is young, tanned, and good-looking, dressed like a climber, and carries a plaid, a ruck-sack, and an ice-axe.
LAMOND. Good evening!
SEELCHEN. Good evening, gentle Sir!
LAMOND. My name is Lamond. I'm very late I fear.
SEELCHEN. Do you wish to sleep here?
LAMOND. Please.
SEELCHEN. All the beds are full--it is a pity. I will call Mother.
LAMOND. I've come to go up the Great Horn at sunrise.
SEELCHEN. [Awed] The Great Horn! But he is impossible.
LAMOND. I am going to try that.
SEELCHEN. There is the Wine Horn, and the Cow Horn.
LAMOND. I have climbed them.
SEELCHEN. But he is so dangerous--it is perhaps--death.
LAMOND. Oh! that's all right! One must take one's chance.
SEELCHEN. And father has hurt his foot. For guide, there is only Mans Felsman.
LAMOND. The celebrated Felsman?
SEELCHEN. [Nodding; then looking at him with admiration] Are you that Herr Lamond who has climbed all our little mountains this year?
LAMOND. All but that big fellow.
SEELCHEN. We have heard of you. Will you not wait a day for father's foot?
LAMOND. Ah! no. I must go back home to-morrow.
SEELCHEN. The gracious Sir is in a hurry.
LAMOND. [Looking at her intently] Alas!
SEELCHEN. Are you from London? Is it very big?
LAMOND. Six million souls.
SEELCHEN. Oh! [After a little pause] I have seen Cortina twice.
LAMOND. Do you live here all the year?
SEELCHEN. In winter in the valley.
LAMOND. And don't you want to see the world?
SEELCHEN. Sometimes. [Going to a door, she calls softly] Hans!
[Then pointing to another door] There are seven German gentlemen asleep in there!
LAMOND. Oh God!
SEELCHEN. Please? They are here to see the sunrise. [She picks up a little book that has dropped from LAMOND'S pocket I have read several books.
LAMOND. This is by the great English poet. Do you never make poetry here, and dream dreams, among your mountains?
SEELCHEN. [Slowly shaking her head] See! It is the full moon.
While they stand at the window looking at the moon, there enters a lean, well-built, taciturn young man dressed in Loden.
SEELCHEN. Hans!
FELSMAN. [In a deep voice] The gentleman wishes me?
SEELCHEN. [Awed] The Great Horn for to-morrow! [Whispering to him]
