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Title: Forest Scenes in Norway and Sweden: being Extracts from the Journal of a Fisherman
Author: Newland, Rev. Henry Garrett
Language: English
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SWEDEN: BEING EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF A FISHERMAN ***
[Illustration: BEAR-HUNT.
_Front._]
FOREST SCENES
IN
NORWAY AND SWEDEN:
BEING
Extracts from the Journal of a Fisherman.
BY
THE REV. HENRY NEWLAND,
RECTOR AND VICAR OF WESTBOURNE,
AUTHOR OF “THE ERNE: ITS LEGENDS AND ITS FLY-FISHING,” ETC. ETC.
The Second Edition.
LONDON:
G. ROUTLEDGE & CO. FARRINGDON STREET;
NEW YORK: 18, BEEKMAN STREET.
1855.
TO MY MUCH-ESTEEMED FRIEND, THE PUBLIC.
MY DEAR PUBLIC,—
I have frequently heard you remark, in that quaint and pithy manner so
peculiarly your own, that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
If you should happen to find the book which I here present to your notice
to be really of such a character as your friend Jack might have written
under these distressing circumstances, I am afraid I cannot plead this
very sensible observation of yours as my excuse; for I must confess,
which I do with thankfulness, that in my time I have enjoyed quite as
much play as is good for me, or for any one, in this working-day world of
ours. On this point, therefore, my book must stand on its own merits.
But, as I am extremely solicitous of your good opinion, and should be
very sorry to see you err on the opposite extreme, imagining, as indeed
you might, that mine has been “all play and no work,” I must request you
to look at the Parson at home as well as the Parson abroad,—in short, to
read my “Confirmation and First Communion,” as well as my “Forest Life;”
a proceeding which, if it does not benefit you, my dear Public (and I
sincerely hope it may), will, at all events,—through the medium of his
Publisher,—benefit, and that materially,
Your faithful Servant,
THE AUTHOR.
WESTBOURNE VICARAGE, _July 7th, 1854_.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION _Page_ 1
CHAPTER I.—Preparations 8
CHAPTER II.—The Voyage 18
CHAPTER III.—The Shipwash Sand 26
CHAPTER IV.—The Landfall 38
CHAPTER V.—Christiansand 49
CHAPTER VI.—The Torjedahl 61
CHAPTER VII.—The Encampment Mosse Eurd 78
CHAPTER VIII.—Making a Night of it 92
CHAPTER IX.—The Hell Fall 108
CHAPTER X.—Departure from Torjedahl 122
CHAPTER XI.—The Mountain March 141
CHAPTER XII.—The Homestead 158
CHAPTER XIII.—The Church 172
CHAPTER XIV.—Breaking up the Encampment 193
CHAPTER XV.—Eider Duck Hunting 203
CHAPTER XVI.—The Coasting Voyage 220
CHAPTER XVII.—Gotheborg 238
CHAPTER XVIII.—Trollhättan 253
CHAPTER XIX.—Gäddebäck 267
CHAPTER XX.—Wenern 280
CHAPTER XXI.—The Meet 295
CHAPTER XXII.—The Commencement of the Skal 305
CHAPTER XXIII.—The Satterval 318
CHAPTER XXIV.—Making another Night of it 333
CHAPTER XXV.—The Watch Fire 349
CHAPTER XXVI.—Beating out the Skal 367
CHAPTER XXVII.—The Ball 377
CHAPTER XXVIII.—The Wedding 389
CHAPTER XXIX.—Homeward Bound 402
FOREST LIFE: A FISHERMAN’S SKETCHES IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN.
INTRODUCTION.
Sketches in Norway and Sweden! Are they fact or fiction? are they to be
instructive or simply entertaining? These are questions which the public
has a right to ask, and which the author means to answer as truly as he
can. He hopes there will be a little of both. At least, in making this
selection from his own and his friends’ journals, he has had both these
objects in his eye, and he trusts he has been able to keep his eye upon
them both at the same time, and that without any very great amount of
squinting. The framework which he has adopted is that of a very popular
description of authors—the historical romancers, and, if he might venture
to say so, of a certain equally popular historian: that is to say,
fiction founded upon fact. He has laid down absolute facts, or what he
believes to be facts, for his groundwork, and has dressed them up to suit
his fancy.
These Northern Sketches are, in truth, a continuation of a former work,
“The Erne, its Legends and its Fly-fishing;” as the expedition which
gave rise to them was in every respect the same as the old Belleek
fishing-association, with a simple change of scene. They are therefore
written upon the same plan, which the author has found extremely
convenient and very suitable to his purpose.
That purpose was not only to preserve the recollections of a most
enjoyable time, but also to convey as much real information on the
subjects treated on as he could compass; and with such an object before
him, absolute fiction would have been useless.
His descriptions, therefore, in that book were real descriptions, his
anecdotes, real anecdotes—the incidents of the story did actually happen;
his instructions in the art of fly-fishing and the hydrography of the
river were the results of his own experience, and the fairy legends
were his own collections. Unless these things had been true, his book
would have been merely a book of entertainment,—and he was ambitious of
something beyond that. Everything of this kind, therefore, was recorded
accurately; and in the few instances in which the requirements of the
story compelled the author to transplant his incidents, their real
localities were always given.
All this was important to the public, or, at least, as important as the
subject itself; but it was of no consequence to any one, except for the
gratification of mere curiosity, to be able to identify the precise
Captain A. who broke the weirs of the Laune, while such information
would not have raised Captain A.’s character at the Horse-Guards. The
Liberal member for B. might enjoy the recollection of the row he got up
at Kildoney, but might not find it convenient to be reminded of it on the
hustings. Attorneys might look askance at Barrister C., who for a whole
summer had directed his studies to the practice of Club-law; while Parson
D., who had passed three months of his life waist-high in the Erne, might
possibly expect, were he identified, to have cold water thrown upon him
by his Bishop for the rest of his life.
With all these matters, interesting enough to the characters themselves,
the public had nothing whatever to do: it was sufficient for them that
they had their information and their story; and, provided the incidents
of that story happened to some one, it signified little to them, which,
of all the letters of the alphabet, composed his name. The public should
feel grateful to any fisherman who has truly revealed the silks and
feathers of his favourite fly; it is what very few fishermen will do: let
them be satisfied with that: they shall never know—they have no right to
know—which of all the “Squires” that haunted the Erne it was who landed
the “Schoolmaster” on the “Bank of Ireland.”
In the present sketches the author has not so much reason to conceal the
names of his characters; he can hurt no one. He has no rows or “ructions”
to record; more’s the pity, for there is nothing so interesting to
read about. Still, there are advantages in carrying out the same plan:
first, it makes the continuation obvious—some of the Erne characters
are again introduced: and this is not a fiction; for when rail-roads
began to multiply, and sporting cockneys began to infest the innocent
Erne, frightening its salmon and exacerbating its proprietors, that
pleasant coterie of fishermen, who, in earlier and better times, were
wont to concoct their punch and tell their stories at Mother Johnstone’s
fire-side, and hang their great two-handed rods upon her hospitable
brackets, actually did betake themselves to the exile of foreign lands.
But, in the second place, it conveys the same information in a more
entertaining manner: the author is able to piece his characters; making
them, like _Mrs. Malaprop’s_ Cerberus, “three gentlemen at once,” by
combining into one the incidents that happened to many. The author has
thus availed himself of other journals and other note-books besides his
own, and has been able to appropriate their contents, and to distribute
whatever was characteristic of the country, into a series of connected
sketches, instead of perpetually changing his locality and introducing
new characters. He by no means intends to identify himself with his
fictitious Parson, nor will he even undertake to say, that he was himself
in all instances personally present whenever the Parson comes upon the
scene: he will answer for the truth of nothing beyond the detached
incidents and descriptions.
Neither can these Sketches be used as an itinerary. Now and then,
though not often, names of places have been even suppressed or altered,
and incidents transplanted. They will, indeed, give glimpses—slight,
but true as far as they go—of northern scenery, costume, travelling
peculiarities, and, above all, sport. They will contain practical hints
and available directions, but it is only in a general way. They are
not at all intended as a guide-book, nor will they at all supersede the
indispensable Murray.
The traveller, following upon the author’s footsteps, will find himself
lost at two points of the narrative—the village of Soberud, and the
locality of the Skal. In the former of these the reason is evident
enough—the author wishes to convey an idea of what sort of men the
Norwegian clergy are, not to draw the attention of subsequent travellers
to any individual clergyman. In the case of the skal there is another
reason. Although Mr. Lloyd, the author of “Northern Wild Sports,” being
a great hunter, has always contrived to get a shot at the bear, it is,
nevertheless, true, that an ordinary man sees about as much of a skal as
a regimental officer does of a battle—that is to say, he sees about a
dozen men on each side of him: and, it may well happen, that the share
of any given individual in the most successful of skals, will amount
to hearing a great deal of firing, and, at the end of three or four
days’ hard work, seeing five or six carcasses paraded at the nearest
village. In order, therefore, to give his readers a graphic sketch of a
skal, without violently outraging probability, it was necessary for the
author to _make his ground_, that is to say, to imagine ground of such a
description that it was possible for his characters to see what was going
on. It is not altogether fictitious either, for the traveller will find a
good deal of it in the Toftdahl Valley, though this was never, so far as
the author knows, the scene of a summer skal.
Similarly, also, though there is no such village as Soberud, that
being the name of a district near Larvig in which Sir Hyde Parker’s
fishing-lodge is situated and where the author caught a good many
salmon and trout, yet the traveller will be able to patch together
the fictitious country from real and actual elements. The church is
Hitterdahl—but as there is no lake at Hitterdahl, one has been borrowed
for it from the country between Larvig and Frederiksvärn—the “Lake of the
Woods” is, really, about four miles north-east of the village of Boen;
the little lake where the diver was shot, together with the forest about
it, about as far to the west of the same place; and the dark sombre pine
wood is, really, situated in the valley of the Nid. This last has been
slightly altered to suit the locality, for it is next to impossible to
lose oneself in the Nid forest, the river itself being sufficient guide;
but the rest is all drawn as accurately as the author’s recollections,
aided by his journals, will enable him to depict it. With respect to
the characters, Tom, Torkel, and Jacob were attendants on the author
and his companions, and, though “a little rose upon,” to use a nautical
expression, are drawn from actual life, and in their own proper names.
The Captain and Parson, as has been said before, are not to be considered
actual characters; that is to say, characters responsible as having
done and said all that they are represented to have done and said, but
merely as pegs upon which to hang the author’s personal experiences, or
pieces of information which he may have received. The same may be said
of Birger. It was necessary to associate with the party an intelligent
Swede, and Lieut. Birger was chosen to fill that office. Bjornstjerna
is wholly fictitious. Hjelmar is a real character; and his adventure
in the Najaden frigate was related by him exactly as they are conveyed
to the reader, the steamer following out among the islands the precise
track of the chase. The author, however, will not undertake to say that
the actual name of Hjelmar will be found on the watch and quarter bills
of the frigate, though Hulm was actually her captain, and was actually
buried near Lyngör, where his monument may be seen to this day. Moodie is
a real character, though his name, also, is fictitious; or, rather, it
is derived from a nick-name that the author understands he has acquired
either by his courage or his foolhardiness: the appellation Modige,
which is pronounced very like our English name, Moodie, is translatable
either way. He does not, however, live at Gäddebäck, which is the name
of a house formerly occupied by the celebrated Mr. Lloyd, the author
of “Wild Sports of the North,” and “Scandinavian Adventures,” to whose
kindness the author is indebted for his being able to describe, from
experience, the fishing of the Gotha, which is drawn as accurately as
the author’s recollection served him. The traveller need not, however,
fear the quicksand which engulphed poor Jacob; that scene, and a very
ridiculous one it was, occurred on the Torjedahl just below Oxea. The
fisherman is cautioned not to be guided in his choice of a river by the
author’s success on the Torjedahl. It is too clear, too much overhung,
and too steadily and regularly rapid to be a first-rate river under any
circumstances. There are few shallows in it, for there are no tributaries
below the Falls of Wigeland, and no salmon can get above them; therefore,
its breeding-ground is very limited indeed; probably the flats of Strei,
Oxea, and Mosse Eurd, form the whole of it. The author’s success must be
attributed to the fact of his fly having been the first of his kind that
ever floated on those transparent waters.
The songs which are put into the mouths of the different characters,
are really Norwegian or Swedish, and are given as specimens. They are
translations by Hewitt, Forester, Knightley, and others. Scandinavia has
always been remarkable for its lyrical poetry from the earliest times;
and the _Gammle Norgé_ of Bjerregaard, which is given in chapter viii.,
would seem to show that the cup of poetic inspiration which Odin stole
from the keeping of Gunlauth, and stored up in Asgard, is not yet empty.
By far the best of the modern poets of the North is Grundtvig, but his
subjects are, for the most part, of a nature too solemn for a work so
light as this; a short specimen from his hymns is given in chapter xviii.
The Evening Hymn, in chapter xxiii., though in common use in Norway, is
not Norwegian; it belongs to the ancient church, and is said to be as old
as the days of Ambrose and Augustine.
The legends are collected from all manner of sources: many of them
from Tom and Torkel, some from the Eddas and Sagas, some from Malet
and Knightley; they are all, however, legitimate Scandinavian legends,
believed implicitly by some one or other.
One word about the voyage out. It signifies little to the public when and
where those incidents really happened—whether in the North Sea, or in the
Bay of Biscay, or in the Mediterranean; but it signifies to them a great
deal, to know that these things actually did happen once, and may happen
again at any time.
The main incidents adapted to that fictitious voyage are strictly and
literally true. A large steamer was upon one occasion in the precise
situation ascribed to the _Walrus_,—and—in the absence of its skipper,
who for the time had mysteriously disappeared—was saved by the promptness
of one of the passengers, precisely as is described in the narrative.
And it is also true that the same vessel, after a run of not more than
five hundred miles, did find herself fifty miles out of her course.
The compasses, no doubt, being in fault, as they always are on such
occasions—poor things!
These are important matters for the public to be made acquainted with;
for the public do very frequently go down to the sea in steamers, and
therefore any individual reader may at any time find himself in the very
same situation.
The author has enlarged upon this, in the faint hope of drawing attention
to these matters. He would suggest that some sort of superintendence
would not be altogether superfluous, and that it is not entirely right
that the lives of two or three hundred men on the deep sea should
be entrusted to a skipper not competent to navigate a river, nor be
committed to a vessel so parsimoniously found as to be unable to
encounter casualties which might happen any day in a voyage to Ramsgate.
On a subject so important as this, the author thinks it his duty to state
that these incidents, extraordinary as they may appear, are in no way
fictitious; that they did happen under his own eye; and that the mate,
the only real sailor on board, did request of him, after the escape, a
certificate that he, at least, had done his duty. If that man should
be still alive, he possesses a most unique document, a certificate of
seamanship, signed by a clergyman of the United Church of England and
Ireland.
The skipper’s name the author does not think it necessary to record. He
is not likely to be employed again; for he is one of those who have since
immortalised themselves in the public prints, by losing his vessel—a
circumstance which, it will readily be believed, did not excite any very
great feelings of surprise in the mind of the author.
CHAPTER I.
PREPARATIONS.
“In every corner
Carefully look thou
Ere forth thou goest.”
_Hávamál._
There is no saying more true than that “he who would make a tour abroad,
must first make the tour of London.” There are miscellaneous articles
of appropriate clothing to be got together; there are bags, knapsacks,
portmanteaus, to be fitted. Above all, there are passports to be
procured; than which no plague more vexatious, more annoying, or more
utterly useless for any practicable or comprehensible purpose, has been
devised by modern ingenuity.
But if this is a necessary preliminary on ordinary occasions, much more
is it necessary when the contemplated expedition has for its object
sporting, and the northern wildernesses for its contemplated locality. In
addition to the cares of ordinary travel, there are now tents, blankets,
cloaks, guns, rifles, to be thought of; rods, reels, gaffs, lines, to
be overhauled and repaired; material-books to be replenished, and the
commissariat department to be adequately looked to. Deep and anxious, yet
not without their pleasures, are the responsibilities which rest on the
shoulders of him who undertakes the conduct of such an expedition as this.
Such were the thoughts that crossed the mind of the Parson, as—business
in his musing eye, care on his frowning brow, and determination in his
compressed lip—he stood under the archway of the Golden Cross; his hands
mechanically feeling for the pockets of his fishing-jacket, which had
been exchanged for a clerical frock-coat more befitting the locality,
and his mouth pursing itself up for his habitual whistle, which, had he
indulged in it where he then stood, might have been considered neither
appropriate nor decorous.
“Don’t you think this list rather a long one,” said the Captain, who
had now joined him from the interior of the hotel, holding in his hand
a pretty closely-written sheet of foolscap. “These are all very good
things, and very useful things no doubt, but how are we to stow them, and
how are we to carry them? Yours is anything but light marching order.”
“Why should it be?”
“My principle is, that no traveller can be too lightly equipped.”
“And a very good principle, too,” said the Parson. “Heavy and useless
incumbrances are the invariable attributes of travelling Englishmen. You
may know them by their endless train of household goods, as you would
know a snail by its shell.”
“I believe,” said the Captain, “that foreign rail-roads are regulated
precisely so as to tax us English tourists. Travel on whatever line you
please in England, except that grasping Brighton and South Coast, and you
may take just exactly what luggage you like; while abroad, the fare is
so low and the charge for luggage so high, that an Englishman generally
pays double; while the Frenchman, whose three spare collars and bottle
of hair-oil are in his pocket; and the German, whose great tobacco-bag
and little reticule of necessaries are so constructed as to fit the
allowance, are permitted to go free.”
“Upon my word, I do not object to the tax; it is a tax upon folly.
What can be so absurd as such a miscellaneous collection as Englishmen
generally carry with them? What can a traveller want beyond a dry suit of
clothes and half-a-dozen shirts and stockings?”
“There is a slight incongruity between your words and your actions,” said
the Captain, holding up the list.
“Tush! put that paper into your pocket, and tell me what we are going to
do. When I went on my reconnoitring expedition to Norway last year, my
fourteen-foot rod, my fly-book, and a change of clothes constituted all
the cares of my life; and I contend, as you do, that no traveller whose
object is information has any business with more. But we are going now
more in the character of settlers: we are not going to explore, but to
enjoy that which has been explored for us. Why should we not, therefore,
take whatever may make life enjoyable?”
“Only for fear we may be called upon to choose between leaving them
behind or leaving our purpose unaccomplished,” said the Captain.
“Do you think I have calculated my ambulances so badly? But come along.
We must consult Fortnum and Mason first. I can explain all that on our
road.
“Considering how wild and uninhabited the greater part of the country
is, both in Norway and Sweden,” the Parson resumed, as they crossed the
pavement under Nelson’s pillar, “it is astonishing how easily you may
travel, and how little impediment are your _impedimenta_. The posting
regulations are admirable. On every road there are posting stations
at convenient distances, and, by writing to these, the traveller may
command, at stated prices, every horse and cart in the district.”
“And at moderate prices?” said the Captain, whose means were not so
abundant as to make him indifferent to expense.
“No, not at moderate prices; for I do not call a penny an English mile a
moderate price, and this is what you pay in Sweden; and in Norway it is
not more than three-halfpence, except in favoured spots in the vicinity
of towns, where they are permitted to charge three-fold. My plans,
therefore, are these. We are not going to travel, but to visit certain
fishing stations, most of which are at no great distance from the coast;
let us take, therefore, everything that will make us comfortable at these
different settlements. As long as we coast, we have always traders of
some sort or other, and generally as nice and comfortable little steamers
as you can desire. When our road lies along the fjords or lakes, boats
are to be had from the post stations on the same terms as you get the
carts, a rower reckoning the same as a horse; and when we want to take
to the land, we have but to order as many carts as will hold our traps.”
“And how do we travel ourselves?” said the Captain.
“There is no carriage in the world so pleasant for fine weather as the
cariole; and I propose that we each buy one. If we have to get them new,
they do not cost above thirty specie-dalers—that is to say, about seven
or eight pounds—with all their harness and fittings, in the very first
style; and you may always sell them again at the end of your journey.
That is the way the natives manage, and they are terrible gadabouts.
You always find some jobber or other to take it off your hands. But the
chances are that we shall meet with a choice of second-hand carioles to
begin with. I gave twenty specie-dalers for mine last year, and sold it
for fifteen. Drammen is the place for these things, up in Christiania
fjord: it is the Long Acre of Norway.”
“What sort of things are these carioles?—Gigs, I suppose, to carry two.”
“Not they—barely one: and no great room for baggage either. A
Scandinavian is of your way of thinking, and does not trouble himself
with spare shirts. One horse draws one man, and that is all. If your gig
carries two, you are charged a horse and a half for it. In Sweden they
have a sort of light spring waggon, drawn by three horses, which will
take our followers admirably, with as much luggage as we like to stow;
and by having the collars of the harness made open at the top, they will
do for all the variety of horses we may meet with on our road. This is
better than the Norwegian mode of engaging the farm carts; for in this,
so much time is lost at every stage in restowing luggage, that it becomes
a serious hindrance. However, in Norway we must do as the Norwegians do.
The light waggon would make a very unpleasant conveyance down some of
their mountain roads.”
“And how do you manage crossing the fjords and lakes?”
“Easily enough. Every ferry-boat will take a cariole; and as for
coasting, a cariole ranks as a deck passenger—that is to say, about ten
skillings for a sea mile, you paying for your own passage in the cabin
about twenty.”
“You travellers get so confoundedly technical. What the deuce do you mean
by a sea mile and a skilling? And how am I to compare two things neither
of which I know anything about?”
“A regular traveller’s fault,” said the Parson. “There is not a book
written that does not abound with these absurdities. Well, a skilling is
a halfpenny in our money, and a sea mile is four of our miles, and a land
mile eight, nearly.”
“Pretty liberal in their measures of length,” said the Captain.
“Why, they have plenty of it, and to spare; as you will find when
you come to travel from one place to another. But their money is not
plentiful, and they dole it out in very small denominations indeed.”
“But here we are at Fortnum and Mason’s; and now for the stores.”
“I observe, you always go to the most expensive places,” said the Captain.
“That is because I cannot afford to go to the cheaper ones,” said the
Parson. “On such an expedition as this, you should never take inferior
stores. One hamper turning out bad when unpacked at the end of a thousand
miles or so of carriage, will make more than the difference between the
cheapest and the most expensive shop in London. But, to show you that I
do study economy, I will resist the temptation of these preserved meats;
and, let me tell you, it is a temptation, for up the country you will
get nothing but what you catch, gather, or shoot. This, however, is a
necessary,” pointing to some skins of portable soup; “there is not a
handier thing for a traveller; it goes in the smallest compass of any
sort of provisions; it is always useful on a pinch, and some chips of
it carried in the waistcoat pocket on a pedestrian expedition, make a
dinner, not exactly luxurious, but quite sufficient to do work upon.
This we must lay in a good store of; in fact, if we have this, we need
not be very anxious about anything else. Other things are luxuries:
this is a necessary of life. Tea we must take: there is nothing more
refreshing after a hard day’s work, and you cannot get it anywhere in the
country. At least, what you do meet with is altogether _maris expers_,
being a villanous composition of dried strawberry leaves and other home
productions. Oil, too—we must take plenty of that; we shall want it for
the frying-pan.”
“Have they no butter, then?” said the Captain.
“Yes, they have, and in great plenty too; of all varieties of quality,
from very bad, down to indescribably beastly. They call it smör,
pronouncing the dotted _o_ like the French _eu_; and I can assure you
their very best butter tastes just as the word sounds.”
“Well, then, I vote for some of these sardines, to take off the taste.”
“With all my heart,” said the Parson; “they flavour anything, when they
are not made of salted bleak, as they generally are—so does cayenne
pepper. We may as well have some cocoa paste, and a Bologna sausage or
two may prove a useful luxury.”
“What do you say to a cask of biscuits?” said the Captain. “What sort of
bread have they?”
“Do you recollect that old story told of Charles the Twelfth, when he
said of the bread brought to him, that it was not good, but that it might
be eaten? No one can tell the heroism of that speech who has not eaten
the Swedish black bread, which is generally the only representative of
the staff of life procurable. It is gritty, it is heavy, it is puddingy;
if you throw it against a wall it will stick there—and as for sourness,
O, ye gods! they purposely keep the leaven till it is uneatably sour, and
then fancy it becomes wholesome.”
“Well, I suppose it does,” said the Captain. “The Squire used to say,
that everything that was good, is unwholesome or wrong; and I suppose the
converse is true. But why not take the biscuits?”
“Because we can get that which will answer our purpose perfectly when
we arrive at the country, and that without the carriage, and at a much
cheaper rate. There is not a seaport town in all the coast where you may
not get what they call Kahyt Scorpor, a sort of coarse imitation of what
nurses in England feed babies upon, under the name of tops and bottoms.
They are made of rye, and are as black as my hat; but they are very good
eating, keep for ever, and are cheap enough in all conscience, being from
four to six skillings to the pound, that is to say, threepence. In Norway
they call them Rö Kovringer.”
“We will take some rice, which very often comes in well by way of
vegetables in a kettle of grouse soup; and a good quantity of chocolate,
which packs easily, and furnishes a breakfast on the shortest possible
notice. And this, I think, will do very well for the commissariat
department of our expedition.”
“And now for arms and ammunition,” said the Captain.
“Everything we are likely to want in that department, we must take with
us—guns, of course. Shot certainly may be got at Christiansand, and the
other large towns; up the country, though, you will get neither that nor
anything else: but powder can be got nowhere, at least, powder that does
not give you an infinity of trouble in cleaning your gun, on account of
the quantity of deposit it leaves. That little magazine of yours, with
its block-tin canisters and brass screw-stoppers, will hold enough for us
two, unless we meet with very good sport indeed, and in that case we must
put up with the manufacture of the country.”
“And for guns?” said the Captain. “I shall certainly take that little
pea-rifle I brought from Canada. I want to bring down a bear.”
“We shall be more likely to get a crack at a seal, where we are going,”
said the Parson. “Bears are not so plentiful in Norway as is generally
supposed. People imagine that they run about in flocks like sheep;
however, it is possible that there may be a bear-hunt while we are there.
As for rifles, I own I am partial to our own English manufacture. Those
little pea affairs are sensible things enough in their own country, where
one wanders for weeks on end through interminable forests and desolate
prairies on foot, and where a pound of lead more or less in your knapsack
is a matter of consequence: but where we have means of transport, I see
no great sense in them. A pea, no doubt, will kill, if it hits in the
right place; but, like the old Duke, I have myself rather a partiality
for the weighty bullet. However, each man to his fancy. The great merit
of every gun, rifle, or pistol, lies behind the stock,—a truth that
dandy sportsmen are apt to forget; a pea sent straight is better than a
two-ounce ball beside the mark.”
“Well,” said the Captain, laughing, “I think I can hold my little Yankee
pretty straight; but we shall want shot-guns more than rifles. I may as
well take that case I had from Westley Richards, if you do not think it
too heavy.”
“Not at all; you can always leave the case behind, and take one gun in a
waterproof cover when we go on light-armed expeditions. This will furnish
us with a spare gun in case of accidents. I shall take my own old one,
and a duck gun—which last will be common property, and I think with this
we shall be pretty sufficiently armed. Pointers and setters are of no
great use, unless it is a steady old stager, who will retrieve; for you
must recollect there is no heath, and very little field shooting. The
character of the country is cover, not very thick anywhere, and in many
places interspersed with glades and openings. We shall do better with
beaters: a water-dog, however, is indispensable. Lakes and rivers abound,
and so do ducks, teal, and snipes.”
“Have you thought about tents?” said the Captain.
“Well,” said the Parson, “I am not sure that tents are indispensable,
and they certainly are not a little cumbersome. While we are fishing we
can do very well without them: by the water-side we can never be without
a cottage of some sort to put our heads under if it should come on bad
weather, for every house in the whole country stands on the banks of
some lake or river. I must say, though, when you get up into the fjeld
after the grouse and the ducks, or, it may be, bigger game, it is another
affair altogether. You may then go twenty or thirty miles on end without
seeing a human habitation, unless you are lucky enough to meet with a
säter, and you know what a highland bothy is, for dirt and vermin. But,
even in the fjeld, I do not know that we should want tents; you can have
no idea of the beauty of a northern summer’s night, and the very little
need one has of any cover whatever. I remember, last year, standing
on one of their barrows, smoking my pipe at the foot of an old stone
cross, coeval, probably, with St. Olaf, and shadowing the tomb of some
of his followers that Hakon the Jarl thinned off so savagely. It was
deep midnight, and there was not a chill in the air, or dew enough on
the whole headland to fill the cup of a Lys Alf. The full round moon was
shining down upon me from the south, while a strong glowing twilight was
still lighting up the whole northern sky, where the sun was but just hid
under the horizon. The whole scene was as light as day, with the deep
solemn stillness of midnight all the while. I could distinctly make out
the distant fishing-boats; I could almost distinguish what the men were
doing in them, through the bright and transparent atmosphere; but at the
same time all was so still that I could hear the whistle of the wings,
as flight after flight of wild-fowl shot over me in their course to
seaward, though they were so high in the air that I could not distinguish
the individual birds, only the faint outline of the wedge-like figure in
which they were flying. I remember, that night, thinking how perfectly
unnecessary a tent was, and determining not to bring one; and, that night
at all events, I acted up to my conviction; for, when my pipe was out, I
slept at the foot of the old cross till the sun warned me that the salmon
were stirring.”
“All very pleasant, no doubt,” said the Captain; “very enjoyable indeed:
but does it never rain at night in this favoured land of yours?”
“Upon my word, it does not very often,” said the Parson; “at least, not
in the summer-time. Besides, you cannot conceive how well the men tent
themselves with pine-branches.”
“I do not quite like the idea,” said the Captain. “It is all very well to
sleep out when anything is to be got by it; but, when there is nothing to
be got by it but the rheumatism, to tell you the honest truth—unlucky, as
the old women say it is—I rather prefer contemplating the moon through
glass.”
“Well, I will tell you what we can do,” said the Parson, “and that will
be a compromise. We can get some canvas made up into two lug sails.
These will help us uncommonly in our passage over lakes and fjords, for
their boats are seldom well provided in that respect; and when we get to
our destination, lug sails—being square, or, to speak more accurately,
parallelogrammatical—will make us very capital gipsy tents, with two
pairs of cross-sticks and a ridge-pole, which we shall always be able
to cut from the forest. I think we may indulge ourselves so far. As for
waterproof jackets, trousers, boots, and so forth, I need not tell you
about that: you have been out before, and know the value of these when
you want to fish through a rainy day. We shall not have so dripping a
climate here as we had in Ireland, certainly, but we shall have one use
for our waterproof clothing which we had not there, and that is, when we
bivouac, vulcanised India-rubber is as good a defence against the dew and
the ground-damp as it is against the rain. A case of knife, fork, and
spoon apiece is absolutely necessary, for they do not grow in the fjeld.
A light axe or two, and a couple of hand-bills, a hammer and nails,
which are just as likely to be wanted to repair our land-carriages as
our boats. If you are at all particular in shaving—which, by-the-by, is
not at all necessary—you may as well take a portable looking-glass. You
will not find it so easy to shave in the reflection of a clear pool—a
strait to which I was reduced when I was there last year. And now, I
think, we have everything—that is to say, if you have taken care of the
fishing-tackle, as you engaged to do.”
“I have not taken care of your material-book.”
“No,” said the Parson; “but I have taken very good care of that myself.
Fly-making may be a resource to fall back upon, if we meet with rainy
weather, and my book is well replenished.”
“Everything else,—rods, books, reels, gaffs, and so forth,—I have packed
in the old black box which we had with us at Belleek, with spare line,
and water-cord, and armed wire, and eel hooks, and, in fact, everything
that we can possibly want; and a pretty heavy package it makes, I can
assure you.”
“Well,” said the Parson, “we may go to sleep now with a clear conscience.
But so much depends upon a good start, that a little extra trouble, on
the first day, will be found to save, in the end, a multiplicity of
inconveniences.”
CHAPTER II.
THE VOYAGE.
“Hurrah! hurrah! up she’s rising,—
Stamp and go, boys! up she’s rising,—
Round with a will! and up she’s rising,
Early in the morning.
What shall us do with a lubberly sailor?—
What shall us do with a lubberly sailor?—
Put him in the long-boat and make him bale her,
Early in the morning.
Hurrah! hurrah! up she’s rising.”—
&c. &c. _ad infinitum_.
_Anchor Song._
Clear and joyous as ever a summer’s day came out of the heavens, was the
12th of June, 18—, when the good ship _Walrus_, with her steam up, her
boats secured, and everything ready for sea, lay lazily at single anchor
off Blackwall-stairs. The weather was as still and calm as weather might
be. The mid-day sun, brilliant and healthful, imparted life and animation
even to the black and unctuous waters, that all that morning had, in
the full strength of the spring tide, been rushing past her sides. The
breeze, light and fitful, just stirred the air, but was altogether
powerless on the glazy surface of the stream, which sent back, as from a
polished and unbroken mirror, the exact double of every mast, yard, and
line of cordage, that reposed above it. The ships lay calm and still. The
outward-bound had tided down with the first of the ebb, and were already
out of sight, and the few sails that still hung festooned in their bunt
and clew-lines, lay as motionless as the yards that held them. Like light
and airy dragon-flies, just flitting on the surface, and apparently
without touching it, the river steamers were darting from wharf to wharf;
while ever and anon a great heavy sea-going vessel would grind her
resistless way, defying wind and tide, and dashing the black wave against
the oily-looking banks.
Steamer after steamer passed, each steadily bent on her respective
mission; and the day wore on—yet there lay the _Walrus_, though her
sea-signalling blue Peter had hung from her fore-truck ever since
day-light, and the struggling and impatient steam would continually burst
in startling blasts from her safety-valves. The tide was slackening
fast; the chain cable, that all that forenoon had stretched out taut and
tense from her bows, like a bar of iron, now hung up and down from her
hawsehole, while the straws and shavings and floating refuse of the great
capital began to cling round her sides.
“It is a great honour, no doubt, to carry an ambassador, with Heaven
knows how many stars of every degree of Russian magnitude in his train,”
said the Parson, who, seated on the taffrail, with his legs dangling
over the water, had been watching the turning tide, and grumbling, as
ship after ship in the lower reaches began to swing at her anchors,
while three or four of the more energetic craft were already setting
their almost useless sails, and yo-ho-ing at their anchors, preparatory
to tiding up; “it is a very great honour, and I hope we are all duly
sensible of it; but, like most great honours, it is a very particular
nuisance. These Russian representatives of an autocrat majesty must fancy
they can rule the waves, when all the world knows it is only Britannia
that can do that. They have let the whole of this lovely tide pass
by—(the Parson cast his eyes on the greasy water)—and fancy, I suppose,
that daddy Neptune is bound to supply them with a new one whenever they
please to be ready for it.”
“Why, Mate!” said the Captain, as a smart sailor-like looking fellow
fidgeted across the quarter-deck, with an irregular step and an anxious
countenance; “is this what you call sailing at ten a.m. precisely? Most
of us would have liked another forenoon on shore, but your skipper was so
confounded peremptory; and this is what comes of it.”
“What is one to do, sir?” said the Mate, who seemed fully to participate
in the Captain’s grievance. “These Russians have taken up all the private
cabins for their own particular use, and occupy half the berths in the
main and fore-cabins besides—we cannot help waiting for them. They have
pretty well chartered the ship themselves—what can we do? But,” continued
he, after a pause, during which he had been looking over the side, as the
steamer now began evidently to swing in her turn, “I wish we had gone
down with the morning’s tide.”
“We should have been at the mouth of the river by this time,” said the
Captain, “if we had started when we ought.”
“Yes,” said the Mate, “and we should now be crossing the dangerous
shoals, with fair daylight and a rising tide before us.”
“Why, surely you are not afraid,” said the Parson; “that track is as well
beaten as the turnpike road.”
The Mate shrugged his shoulders, and stepped forward, giving some
unnecessary orders in a tone unnecessarily sharp and angry.
“Well, Birger, what news? Do you see anything of them?”
The individual addressed was a smart, active, little man, with a quick
grey eye, and a lively, pleasant, good-humoured countenance, who was
coming aft from the bridge of the steamer, on which he had been seated
all the forenoon, sketching, right and left of him groups of shipping on
the water and groups of idlers on the deck.
“Anything of whom?” said he. “Oh! the Russians. No, I don’t know. I
suppose they will come some time or other; it does not signify—it is
all in the day’s work. Look here,”—and he opened his portfolio, and
displayed, in wild confusion all over his paper, the domes of Woolwich,
the houses of Blackwall, the forests of masts and yards in the Pool,
two or three picturesque groups of vessels, a foreign steamer or two,
landing her weary and travel-soiled passengers at the Custom-house—and,
over leaf, and in the background as it were, slight exaggerations of the
ungainly attitudes in which his two friends were then sprawling. “If
you had found something as pleasant as this grumbling to fill up your
time with, you would not be wasting your eyes and spoiling your temper in
looking for the Russians. They are going back to their own country, poor
devils! no wonder they are slow about it. Did you ever see a boy going to
school?”
“Birger is not over-fond of the Russians,” said the Captain.
“Few Swedes are,” said Birger; “remember Finland and Pomerania.”
“Besides, it is not over-pleasant to have a great White Bear sitting
perpetually at one’s gate, always ready to snap up any of one’s little
belongings that may come in its way. The Russian fleet is getting
formidable, and Revel and Kronstadt are not very far from the mouth of
the Mälar.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Birger, gallantly; “we are the
sons of the men who, under Gustaf, taught that fleet a lesson.”
“You are a gallant set of fellows,” said the Parson; “and Sweden would
be a precious hard nut to crack. But your long-armed friends over the
water know the value of a ring fence, and would dearly like a seaboard.
Only fancy that overpowering country, which is now kept in order by
the rest of Europe, only because, just at present, it lies at the back
of creation, and cannot get out of the Baltic, Black, and White Seas,
to do harm to any one,—only fancy that pleasant land, with its present
unlimited resources, and Gothenborg for its Portsmouth, and Christiania,
and Frederiksvärn and Christiansand for its outports—a pleasant vision,
is it not, Mr. Guardsman? Don’t you think it probable that something of
this sort has soothed the slumbers of the White Bear we were speaking of,
before this?”
“Did you ever hear of Charles the Twelfth? He taught that White Bear to
dance.”
“He taught that White Bear to fight,” said the Captain, “and an apt
scholar he found him. There was more lost at Pultava than Charles’s
gallant army.”
“There are men in Sweden yet,” said Birger, slightly paraphrasing the
legend of “Holger.”
“There are,” said the Parson; “and if you could only agree among
yourselves, you might have hopes of muzzling the White Bear yet. Another
union of Calmar?”
“O, hang the union of Calmar; there is no more honesty in a Dane or
a Norseman than there is in a Russ. We are not going to have another
Bloodbath at Stockholm. My mother is a Lejonhöved,[1] and I am not likely
to forget that day.”
“I should have thought you more nearly connected with the Svinhöved
family,” said the Parson; “but depend upon it, unless you men of the
north can make up your quarrels, the White Bear will chop you up in
detail, and us after you.”
Birger, who, in some incomprehensible way, traced his descent from the
founder of Stockholm, the great and terrible Earl Birger, was a smart
young subaltern in the Royal Guards, and though his present dress—a
modest and unpretending blouse—was anything but military, his well-set-up
figure, firm step, and jaunty little forage cap stuck on one side of his
head, sufficiently revealed his profession. From his earliest youth he
had discovered a decided talent for drawing, and in accordance with a
most praiseworthy custom in the Swedish service, he had been travelling
for the last twelvemonth at the expense of the Government, and was now
returning to the “Kongs Ofver Commandant’s Expedition,” with a portfolio
filled with valuable sketches, and a mind no less well stored with
military knowledge, which he had collected from every nation in Europe.
The Captain had fallen in with him at the Swedish ambassador’s, and,
being himself something of an artist, had struck up on the spot a sort of
professional friendship with him. The pleasant little subaltern was thus,
from that time forward, enrolled among their party; and though their
acquaintance was not yet of twenty-four hours’ standing, was at that
moment talking and chatting with all the familiarity of old and tried
friendship.
“Here come those precious rascals at last,” said he, breaking off the
conversation, as a train of at least half-a-dozen carriages rattled
down to the landing-place, and counts, countesses, tutors, barons,
children, dogs, governesses, portmanteaus, bags, boxes, and trunks were
tumbled out indiscriminately on the landing-place. “Heaven and earth!
if they have not _impedimenta_ enough for an army! and this is only
their light marching baggage either. All their heavy articles came on
board yesterday, and are stowed under hatches. I’ll be bound we draw an
additional foot of water for them. Hang the fellows! they are as bad as
Junot, they are carrying off the plunder of half the country.”
“Like the Swedes under Oxenstjerna,” said the Parson; “but what need
you care for that? The plunder—if it is plunder—comes from England, not
Sweden.”
“It will lumber up the whole cabin, whether it comes from the one or the
other,” said Birger; “we shall not have room to swing a cat.”
“We don’t want to swing a cat,” said the Parson; “that is a Russian
amusement rather than an English or a Swedish one, if all tales be
true; and you may depend upon it we shall fare all the better for their
presence: our skipper could never think of setting anything short of
turtle and venison before such very magnificent three-tailed bashaws.”
“Yes,” said Birger, “they are going to Petersburgh, too, where the
chances are, the bashaws will find some good opportunity of squaring
accounts with the skipper for any ill-treatment, before the steamer is
permitted to sail.”
All the while this conversation was going on, the illustrious passengers
were rapidly accomplishing the short passage from the shore to the
steamer, a whole flotilla of boats being employed in the service,
while the hurried click of the pauls, and the quick revolutions of the
windlass, as the chain-cable was hove short, showed that in the Captain’s
opinion, as well as that of the Mate, quite time enough had been wasted
already.
But the golden opportunity had been lost. English tides respect no man,
not even Russian ambassadors, and old Father Thames was yet to read them
a lesson on the text—
If you will not, when you may,
When you will, you shall have Nay.
While the vessel was riding to the ebb tide, as she had done all the
morning, a warp which had been laid out from her port quarter would
have canted her head well into the stream; and the tide, acting on her
starboard bow while the after-part was in comparatively still water,
would have winded her downwards, almost before her paddles were in
motion, or her rudder could be brought to act. But the turn of the tide
had reversed all this. The vessel had indeed swung to the flood, which by
this time was rattling up at the rate of five or six miles an hour, and
thus her bowsprit was looking the way she wanted to go; but a strong eddy
was now bubbling up under her starboard bow, and pressing it towards the
left bank, while a great lumbering Indiaman lay just ahead of her, and a
Hamburgh steamer, which had anchored a little higher up on her starboard
quarter, forbade all reversing of the engine and thus getting out of the
mess stern foremost.
The moment the anchor broke ground the helm was put hard a-port, and the
paddles were set in motion; but though from the tide alone the rudder had
some effect, the strength of the eddy was too much for her; round came
her head to port, as if she were going to take a leap at the embankment.
“Hard a-port!—hard a-starboard!—ease her!—stop her!—turn her a-head!”
were the contradictory orders bawled out almost simultaneously. If noise
and shouting could have got the steamer out of the scrape, there was no
lack of it; but all these cries, energetic as they were, produced no
effect whatever, beyond exciting a little suspicion in the mind of our
travellers (some of whom having been at sea before, knew the stem of a
ship from the stern) that the skipper was not altogether a “deacon in
his craft;” and thus giving a point to the Mate’s silent but expressive
shrug when the Parson had alluded to the shoals at the river’s mouth. At
last, an indescribable sensation of grating, and a simultaneous volley
of heterogeneous oaths, such as sailors shot their guns with on grand
occasions, announced the fact that she had taken the ground abaft.
This, however, as it turned out, was about the best thing that could
have happened, for it gave the skipper time to collect his senses; or,
what was more to the purpose, gave the Mate time to whisper in his ear;
and the rising tide was sure to float her again in ten minutes. By this
time a warp had been got out to a ship anchored upon the Surrey side,
an expedient which any sailor would have thought of before tripping
his anchor in the first instance. The end of it was passed round the
windlass and hove taut, and as the rising water slowly lifted the unlucky
vessel from her sludgy bed and a few turns brought a strain upon her,
she gradually slewed her head outwards. The steam was turned on, the
paddles went round; the black water began to fizz under her counter, as
if a million of bottles of stout had been poured into it—she was at last
a-weigh and fairly on her course, only about six hours after her proper
time.
“I tell you what,” said the Parson, as he dived down the companion to
inspect the submarine arrangements of the cabin, “I leave this vessel at
Christiansand, and I wish we were fairly out of her. This fellow knows no
more of sea-craft than a tailor. Kind Providence shield us, or we shall
come to grief yet!”
CHAPTER III.
THE SHIPWASH SAND.
“Our ship,
Which but three glasses since we gave out split,
Is tight and yare and bravely rigged, as when
We first put out to sea.”
_Tempest._
One by one the travellers crept down to the cabin. It was as
uncomfortable as cabins usually are, perhaps more so, as being more
lumbered and more crowded; and the ordinary space for locomotion had been
miserably curtailed by a large supplementary table, which the steward was
lashing athwart ship for the dinner accommodation of the supernumerary
passengers. These were standing about here and there, as helpless and
uncomfortable as people always are on first starting, and were regarding
one another with looks of suspicion and distrust, as people who start by
a public conveyance always do regard one another.
In this the English part of the community was prominently conspicuous.
Denizens of a free land, it would seem as if they considered it as their
bounden duty to be continually exhibiting their Magna Charta in the
eyes of foreigners, and to maintain their just rights to the very death
against all comers.
No rights, however, were invaded—there was no opportunity of asserting
the Magna Charta; all were equally shy and equally miserable; till, by
degrees, as the steamer crept slowly down the river against the tide,
they shook into their places, and the ladies began to smile, and the
ladies’ maids to look gracious.
The Parson was an old stager. Knowing full well the value of light and
air in the present crowded state of the cabin, he had very willingly
assented to the apologetic invitation of the steward, and had established
himself comfortably enough on the transom itself, upon which was spread
for his accommodation a horsehair mattress. There was no great deal to
spare in the height of his domicile, for it was as much as he could
conveniently manage to sit upright in it; but it was, at all events,
retired, airy, and not subject to be suddenly evacuated by its occupant
under the overpowering influence of a lee lurch or a weather roll.
Totally disregarding the bustle and confusion in the cabin below him, he
was occupied in arranging and beautifying his temporary home. The sill
of one window formed his travelling library, the books of which he had
been unpacking from his stores, and securing by a piece of spun yarn
from the disagreeable consequences of any sudden send of the ship in a
rolling sea. The next formed his toilet-table and workshop, exhibiting
his reels and fly-books, and the huge and well-known “material book,” the
replenishing of which had occupied so much of his attention. The third
was left empty, so as to be opened and shut at pleasure.
Stretched on his mattress, with a guide-book in his hand, and the map
of Norway and Sweden at his side, he looked from his high abode on the
turmoil of the cabin deck, with all the calmness and complacency with
which the gods of the Epicureans are said to regard the troubles and
distresses of mortals below.
And thus wore on the day. Dinner, tea, had been discussed—some little
portion of constraint and shyness had been rubbed off—small knots of men
were formed here and there, discussing nothings and making conversation.
Night sank down upon the steamer as she ploughed her way across the Nore,
and the last of the talkers rolled himself up in his bedclothes, and
tried, though for a long while in vain, to accustom himself to public
sleeping.
It was still dark—for the time was hardly three in the morning—when
the Parson—who, accustomed to all the vicissitudes of travel, had been
making the most of the hours of darkness, and had been for some time fast
asleep—was suddenly startled from his dreams by a furious concussion on
the rudder-case against which his head was pillowed. The vessel became
stationary, and the fresh breezey hissing of the water in her wake and
the tremulous motion everywhere suddenly ceased.
“By George, she’s hard and fast!” said the Captain; who, taking hint
from the comfortable appearance which the Parson had given to his own
berth, had occupied the same position on the starboard side, and was now
invading the Parson’s territories from abaft the rudder-case.
“What the devil is to be done now?”
“Nothing at all,” said the Parson; “it is no business of ours; and I am
sure it is not time to get up yet.”
“Well, but she has certainly struck on a sand.”
“I know that as well as you,” said the Parson; “but you can’t get her
off. Besides, there is not a bit of danger yet, at all events, for the
sea is as smooth as a mill-pond. There they go, reversing their engine:
much good that will do. If there was any truth in that bump I felt,
she is much too fast aground for that. And the tide falling too!”—he
continued, striking a lucifer and looking at his watch. “Yes, it is
falling now, it has turned this hour or more.”
By this time the hurried trampling and stamping on deck had roused up the
passengers, few of whom could comprehend what had happened, for there
was no appearance of danger, and the ship was as steady and firm as a
house. But there is nothing more startling or suggestive of alarm than
that rushing to and fro of men, so close to the ear, which sounds to the
uninitiated as if the very decks were breaking up.
“Is it houraccan storrm?” shouted Professor Rosenschall, a fat
greasy-looking Dane, whom Birger had been hoaxing and tormenting all
the day before, partly for fun, and partly because he considered it the
bounden duty of a true Swede to plague a Dane—paying off the Bloodbath by
instalments.
“Steward!” shouted the Professor, above all the din and confusion of the
cabin, “Steward, vinden er stærkere? is it houraccan storrm?”
“Yes, Professor, I am sorry to say it is,” said Birger, who had rolled
himself up in a couple of blankets under the table, upon which was
reposing the weight of the Professor’s learning. “It is what we call an
Irish hurricane—all up and down.”
“All up! O what will become of me—and down! O, my poor wife. Hvilken
skrækelig storrm,” he screamed out, as half-a-dozen men clapped on to the
tackle falls over his head, with the very innocent purpose of lowering
the quarter-boat, and began clattering and dashing down the coils of rope
upon the deck. “Troer de at der er fore paa Færde?—do you think there is
any danger?”
What with the Professor’s shouting, and what with the real uncertainty of
the case, and the natural desire that every one, even the most helpless,
has to see their peril and to do something for themselves, every
passenger was by this time astir, and the whole cabin was buzzing like a
swarm of bees.
The Parson’s idea of sleeping was altogether out of the question;
and, the Captain having gone on deck, he very soon followed him; for,
notwithstanding his assumed coolness, he was by no means so easy in his
mind as he would have his friends to understand. He had been at sea
before this, and was, at least, as well aware as they, that grounding out
of sight of land, is a very different thing from grounding in the Thames.
The scene on deck was desolate enough. The steamer had struck on the
Shipwash, a dangerous shoal on the Essex coast, distant about twenty
miles from land; and a single glance was sufficient to tell that there
was not a chance of getting her off for the next twelve hours, though the
Skipper was persisting in trying a variety of absurd expedients. The crew
were looking anxious—the passengers were looking frightened; while the
Skipper himself, who ought to have been keeping up every one’s spirits,
was looking more wretched and more frightened than any one.
The day was just breaking, but a fog was coming on, and the wind showed
every symptom of freshening. The vessel, indeed, had begun to bump, but
the tide leaving her, that motion left her also, and she began now to
lie over on her bilge. From some unfortunate list she had got in her
stowing (Birger declared it was the weight of the ambassador’s despatch
boxes), she fell over to windward instead of to leeward, thus leaving her
decks perfectly exposed to the run of the sea, if the wind should freshen
seriously.
When the Parson came on deck, the boats had just returned from sounding.
The Skipper had, indeed, endeavoured to lay out an anchor with them—an
object in which he might possibly have succeeded, had he tried it at
first and before there was any great rush of tide, for the steamer had
struck at the very turn of the flood; but he had wasted his time in
reversing his engines and in backing and taking in sails which there was
no wind to fill; and thus, before he had got his anchor lashed to the
boat, which, like all passage steamers’ boats, was utterly inadequate for
the work, the stream was strong enough to swamp boat, anchor, and all,
and it was fortunate indeed that no lives were lost.
It appeared from the soundings that the ship had not struck on the main
shoal, but on a sort of spit or ridge, the neck of a submarine peninsula
projecting from the S.W. corner of it. Almost under her bows was a deep
turnhole or bay in the sand about two cables across, communicating with
the open water, beyond which, right athwart her hawse, lay the main body
of the shoal, so that the beacon which marked its northern extremity,
and which was now beginning to show in the increasing light of the
morning, lay broad on her port bow, while the other end of the shoal
was well on her starboard beam; at half a cable length astern, and on
her port quarter and beam was the deep water with which the turnhole
communicated,—this being, in fact, the channel she ought to have kept.
It was perfectly evident that nothing could be done till the top of
the next tide, and whether anything could be done then was extremely
problematical with the wind rising and the sea getting up; experience
having already shown that there was not a boat in the steamer fit for
laying out an anchor.
However, for the present the water was smooth enough; they were for the
time perfectly safe and comfortable, lying, as they did, under the lee of
the shoal, patches of which were now beginning to show just awash; while
the seas were breaking heavily enough certainly, but a full half-mile
to windward of them. The passengers, seeing nothing to alarm them, and
feeling their appetites well sharpened by their early rising, began to
lose their fears and to be clamorous for breakfast; and the meal was
served with a promptness which, under the circumstances, was perfectly
astonishing.
Those who know nothing fear nothing, and the jokes which were flying
about and the general hilarity which pervaded the whole meeting, conveyed
anything rather than the idea of shipwrecked mariners; though, truth
to say, this feeling did not seem to be fully participated in by the
Skipper, who presided at what might very fairly be called the head of the
table, for it was many feet higher than the foot; he looked all the while
as if he was seated on a cushion stuffed with bramble bushes.
The Parson, by way, he said, of utilising his moments, was preparing for
fishing—calculating, and rightly too, that the whiting would congregate
under the lee of the stranded ship.
He had made his preparations with characteristic attention to his own
comfort and convenience. The dingy, which was hanging at the stern
davits, formed at once his seat and his fishing-basket; and as he had
eased off as much of the lee tackle fall as brought the boat to an even
keel, the taffrail itself afforded him a shelter from the wind, which was
now getting high enough to be unpleasant.
There he sat, hour after hour, busily and very profitably employed,
heeding the gradual advance and strengthening of the tide only so far as
its increasing current required the use of heavier leads.
The Captain and Birger had been trying to walk the sloping deck, a
pursuit of pedestrianism under difficulties, for it was very much as
if they had been trying to walk along the roof of a house. Time hangs
heavily on the hands of those who have nothing to do, and there was
nothing to do by the most active of sailors beyond hoisting the ensign
union downwards, and that might just as well have been left undone too,
for all the notice that was taken of it. Ship after ship passed by—the
foreign traders to windward, the English through the shorter but more
dangerous channel that lay between them and the main land. Many of them
were quite near enough for anxious passengers to make out the people in
them reconnoitring the position of the unfortunate _Walrus_ through their
telescopes. But if they did look on her, certainly they passed by on the
other side; it never seemed to enter into the heads of one of them to
afford assistance.
“Pleasant,” said Birger, “very. Is this the way your sailors help one
another in distress?”
“I am afraid so,” said the Captain.
“Gayer insects fluttering by
Ne’er droop the wing o’er those that die;
And English tars have pity shown
For every failure but their own.”
“You do not mean to say that they will not help us if there really is
danger?” said the Swede.
“Upon my word, I hope there will not be any real danger; for if you
expect any help from them, I can tell you that you will not get it.”
“Not get it!” said Birger, who did not at all seem to relish the prospect
before him.
“That you will not. Sink or swim, we sink or swim by our own exertions.
Those scoundrels could not help us without losing a whole tide up the
river, a whole day’s pay of the men, and so much per cent. on the cargo,
besides the chance of being forestalled in the market: do you think
they would do that to save the lives of half-a-hundred such as you and
me? Why, you have not learned your interest tables; you do not seem to
understand how much twenty per cent. in a year comes to for a day. A
precious deal more than our lives are worth, I can tell you.”
Birger looked graver still; drowning for a soldier was not a professional
death, and he did not relish the idea of it.
The Captain continued his words of comfort. “I was very nearly losing a
brother this way myself,” he said. “He was invalided from the coast of
Africa, and had taken his passage home in a merchant vessel. They had
met with a gale of wind off the Scillies; the ship had sprung a leak,
and when the gale had subsided to a gentle easterly breeze dead against
them, there were they within twenty miles of the Longships, water-logged,
with all their boats stove, and their bulwarks gone. Timber ships do not
sink very readily, and incessant pumping had kept them afloat, but it
was touch and go with that—their decks awash, and the seas rolling in at
one side and out at the other. While they were in this state, the whole
outward-bound fleet of English ships passed them, some almost within
hailing distance, and all without taking more notice of them than those
scoundrels are taking of us. They would, all hands, have gone to the
bottom together, in the very midst of their countrymen, if a French brig
had not picked them off and carried them into Falmouth. It was so near a
thing, that the vessel sank almost before the last boat had shoved off
from her side.
“Well,” said Birger, “if there is a selfish brute upon earth, it is an
English sailor.”
“Natural enough that you should say so, just at present,” said the
Captain; “though, as a Swede, you might have recollected the superstition
that prevails in your own country against helping a drowning man. But
the fact is, the fault lies not so much with the sailors as with the
insurance regulations at Lloyds’. Likely enough, every one of these
fellows has a desire to help us; but if they go one cable’s length from
their course to do so, or if they stay one half-hour by us when they
might have been making their way to their port, they vitiate their
insurance. Man is a selfish animal, no doubt—sea-going man as well
as shore-going man—and it is very possible that some of them would
rather see their neighbours perish than lose the first of the market;
but laws such as these render selfishness imperatively necessary to
self-preservation, and banish humanity from the maritime code.”
“I wish all Lloyds’ were on the Shipwash,” said Birger, “and had to wait
there till I picked them off.”
“Yes,” said the Captain; “or that the House of Commons were compelled to
take a winter’s voyage every year in some of these company’s vessels.
I think, then, they might possibly find out the advantage of certain
laws and certain officers to see them put in force, in order to prevent
their going to sea so wretchedly found. There is nothing like personal
experience for these legislators. This vessel has not a boat bigger than
a cockle-shell belonging to her. Did you not hear how nearly the Mate was
lost last night,—and he is the only real sailor in the ship—when they
were trying to lay out an anchor—a manœuvre which, I see, they have not
accomplished yet?”
“Hallo! this is serious,” said Birger, as a heavy sea struck the weather
paddle-box, and broke over them in spray: for the tide had been gradually
rising, without, as yet, raising the ship; and, as she lay over to
windward, the seas that now began to break upon her starboard bow and
side, deluged her from stem to stern.
“Upon my soul,” said the Captain, “I don’t like this, myself; and there
sits the Parson, fishing away, as quietly as if he were on the pier at
Boveysand. By Jove, Nero fiddling while Rome was burning, is a fool to
him! Why, Parson, don’t you think there is some danger in all this?”
“‘Er det noget Færde?’ as your friend the professor would say,” said the
Parson, laughing. “I do not think it improbable that the _Walrus_ will
leave her bones here, if you mean that.—Stop, I’ve got another bite!”
“Confound your bite! If she leaves her bones here, we shall leave ours
too; for she has not boats for the fourth of us, the devil take them! and
as for expecting help from these rascally colliers——”
“You may just as well fiddle to the dolphins,” said the Parson. “I know
that; but do you see that little cutter,—that fellow, I mean, on our
quarter, that has just tacked? and there beyond her is another, that is
now letting fly her jib-sheet. I have been watching those fellows all
the morning, beating out from Harwich. They are having a race, and a
beautiful race they make of it: you cannot tell yet which has the best of
it. If those cutters were going over to the Dutch coast, you may depend
upon it they would not make such short boards. There—look—the leading one
is in stays again. Those fellows are racing for us, and with our ensign
Union down, as we have it, we shall make a pretty good prize for the one
that gets first to us. Those two are pilot-boats. You may depend upon it,
we are not going to lay our bones here, whatever comes of the _Walrus_.”
The Parson’s anticipations were realised sooner than he expected, for a
long low life-boat, that nobody had seen till she was close alongside,
came up, carrying off the prize from both competitors—and preparations
were begun, which ought to have been completed hours before, for laying
out an anchor.
Before long, the cutters also had worked up and anchored on the lee edge
of the shoal, to the great relief of every one on board; for the seas
were by this time making such a breach over her, that no one could be
ignorant of the danger.
Suddenly, and without preparation, she righted, throwing half the
passengers off their legs, and very nearly precipitating the Parson into
the sea; who took that as a hint to leave his seat in the dingy. Soon
afterwards she began to bump, first lightly, and then more heavily, and
the paddles were set in motion. The windlass was manned and worked;
but the shifting sand afforded no good holding-ground for the anchor,
which had not been backed—nor, indeed, had any precautions been taken
whatever—and as soon as there was any strain upon it, it came home and
was perfectly useless.
The ship now was hanging a little abaft the chess-tree, on the very top
of the spit; but the stern was free, and the bows were actually in the
deep water of the turnhole, while at every bump she gained an inch or
two: just then, the anchor coming home, and the tide taking her under the
port bow, she ran up in the wind, and pointed for the very centre of the
shoal.
“Why the devil don’t you set your jib?” bellowed out the Captain, who had
begun to get excited. “Where the deuce is that know-nothing Skipper of
yours?”
“Upon my soul, sir, I do not know,” said the Mate, who was standing at
the wheel, and was looking very anxiously forward.
“Then why don’t you go forward and set it yourself? We shall be on the
main shoal in two minutes, if she floats.”
“I know it, sir,” said the Mate; “but I dare not leave my post. We shall
all have to answer for this; and if I am not where the Skipper has placed
me, he will throw the blame upon me.”
“Then, by George, I don’t care _that_ for your Skipper. Come along, boys,
we’ll run up the jib ourselves.”
And away he rushed, pushing and shouldering his way along the crowded
decks, among idlers, and horses, and carriages, followed by his own
party, and a good many of the foreigners also; till he emerged on the
forecastle, when, throwing down the jib and fore-staysail hallyards from
the bitts and clattering them on the deck, while the Parson went forward
to see all clear, he called out to the Russian servants, who, wet and
frightened, were cowering under the carriages—
“Here, you slaveys, come out of that—_clappez-vous sur ceci_—clap on
here, you rascals—_rousez-vous dehors de ces bulwarks_. What the devil is
Greek for ‘skulking?’”
Whether the Russians understood one word of the Captain’s French,
or whether they would have understood one word of it had they been
Frenchmen, may be doubted; but his actions were significant enough; and
the men, who only wanted to be told what to do, clapped on to the jib and
fore-staysail hallyards as well and as eagerly as if they had known what
was to be done with them; here and there, too, was seen a blue-jacket,
for the seamen had no wish to skulk, if there had been any one to command
them.
“Gib mig ropes enden!” shouted Professor Rosenschall, who had caught the
enthusiasm, and was panting after them, though a long way astern.
“Birger will do that for you,” said the Parson, laughing, but without
pausing for one moment from his work—“Birger! the Professor wants a
rope’s-end.”
“Vær saa artig!” said Birger, tendering him the signal hallyards,
the bight of which he had hitched round a spare capstan-bar on which
he was standing. For Birger, like most Swedish soldiers, had passed a
twelvemonth in a midshipman’s berth, where, whatever seamanship he had
picked up, he had, at all events, learned plenty of mischief.
“Away with you!” roared the Captain. “Up with the sails—both of them.”
“Skynda! Professor, Skynda!” echoed Birger, leaping off the capstan-bar
as he spoke, and thus causing the Professor to pitch headlong among the
trampling men.
“Up with it! up with it, cheerily! look there, she pays off already!”
as the two sails flew out; the jib, which was not confined by any stay,
bagging away to leeward and hanging there, but still drawing and doing
good service. “Up with it, boys—round she comes, like a top! Hurrah,
that’s elegant!” as a sea struck her full on the quarter, which, by her
paying off, had now become exposed to it. On it came, breaking over the
taffrail and deluging the idlers on the poop, but at the same time giving
her the final shove off the ridge. “Off she goes! Shout, boys, shout! and
wake up that Skipper, wherever he is!”
And amid the most discordant yells that ever proceeded from heterogeneous
voices—Danish, Dutch, Swedish, German, and Russ, above which, distinct
and ringing, rose the heart-stirring English cheer—the steamer, once more
under command of her rudder, buzzed, and dashed her way into the open
sea.
CHAPTER IV.
THE LANDFALL.
“Bewilderedly gazes
On the wild sea, the eagle
When he reaches the strand:
So is it with the man;
In the crowd he standeth
And hath but few friends there.”
_Hávamál._
“Nothing gives one so lively an idea of eternal, irresistible progress—of
steady, inexorable, unalterable fate, as the ceaseless grinding of these
enormous engines.” Thus moralised Birger, as, two days after the events
recorded in the last chapter, he stood with his brother officer, the
Captain, on the grating that gave air into the engine-room. “In joy or in
sorrow, in hope or in fear, on they go—grinding—grinding, never stopping,
never varying, never hurrying themselves:—the same quiet, irresistible
round over and over again: we go to bed—we leave them grinding; we get
up—there they are, grinding still; we are full of hope, and joy, and
expectancy, looking out for land and its pleasures—they go no faster;
they would go no faster if we went to grief and misery. If you or I
were to fall dead at this moment, the whole ship would be in an uproar,
every man of them all showing his interest, or his curiosity, one way or
other—but still would go on, through it all, that eternal, everlasting
grinding.”
“Everlasting it is,” said the Captain, who was not at all poetical,
and who was anxious to be at his journey’s end. “This steamer is the
very slowest top I have ever had the misfortune to sail in. By every
calculation we should have made the coast of Norway ages ago; I have
been on the look out for it ever since daylight; but six, seven, eight,
nine, and no coast yet. Breakfast over, and here are your everlasting
wheels of fate grinding away, and not one bit nearer land, as far as
I can see, than they were before. I’ll be hanged if the wind is not
getting northerly too,” he said, looking up, as the fore and aft foresail
over their head gave a flap, as if it would shake the canvas out of the
bolt-ropes. “I thought so. Look at them brailing up the mainsail! wind
and steam together, we never got seven knots out of this tub; I wonder
what we shall get now—and the sea getting up too?”
Several consecutive pitches, which set the horses kicking, and prostrated
one-half of the miserable, worn-out, dirty-looking deck passengers,
seemed fully to warrant the Captain’s grumbling assertion, and they
scrambled back to the poop; upon which most of the passengers were by
this time congregated, for the sun was shining out brightly, and the
wind, though there was plenty of it, was fresh and bracing.
They had evidently by this time opened the north of Scotland, for the
slow, heaving swell of the Northern Ocean was rolling in upon them; and
this, meeting the windwash knocked up by the last night’s south-easterly
breeze, was making a terrible commotion in the ship, and everything and
everybody belonging to it.
“Land! land!” shouted the Parson, who had climbed upon the weather
bulwarks, and was holding on by the vang to steady his footing. “Land, I
see it now; where could our eyes have been? There it is, like blue clouds
rising out of the water.”
There was a general move and a general crowding towards the spot to
which he was pointing, but just then the ship pitched bowsprit and bows
under, jerking the Parson off his legs; upsetting every passenger who had
nothing to hold on by, and submerging half-a-dozen men on the jib-boom,
who were occupied in stowing the now useless jib. They rose from their
involuntary bath puffing and blowing, and shaking the water from their
jackets, but continuing their work as if nothing had happened.
There, however, was the land, beyond a doubt. No Cape Flyaway, but
land—bold, decided, and substantial. Whether it was that people had
not looked for it in the right direction, or had not known what to look
for; or whether, as was most likely, a haze had hung over the morning
sea, which the sun had now risen high enough to dispel; whatever was the
cause, there stood the hitherto invisible land, speaking of hope and joy,
and quiet dinners, and clean beds, and creating a soul under the ribs of
sea-sickness.
Long, however, it was before they neared it,—hour after hour; and
Birger’s everlasting wheels went grinding on, and the mountains seemed no
higher and no plainer than they were when the Parson had first descried
them. But the day had become much more enjoyable, the wind had moderated,
and the swell was less felt, as the land began to afford some protection.
The Captain and his friend Birger had by this time established themselves
on the break of the poop, with their sketch-books in their hands,
nominally to sketch the outline of the land, really to caricature the
Russian magnates during their hours of marine weakness. While Monsieur
Simonet, one of the numerous tutors, a venturesome Frenchman, climbed
warily up the main shrouds to get a better view, creeping up step by
step, ascertaining the strength of each rattlin before he ventured his
weight upon it, and holding on to the shrouds like grim Death. Quietly
and warily stole after him the Mate, with a couple of stout foxes hitched
round his left arm.
“Faith,” said Birger, “they are going to make a spread-eagle of him.
Well, that is kind; it will prepare him for his new country; it is in
compliment to Russia, I suppose, that they turn him into the national
device.”
But the Mate had reckoned without his host. The Frenchman made a capital
fight for it, and in the energy of his resistance, entirely forgot his
precarious position; he kicked, he cuffed, he fought gallantly, and
finally succeeded in seizing his adversary’s cap, a particularly jaunty
affair with gold lace round it, in imitation of her Majesty’s navy, of
which the Mate was especially proud. This, the Frenchman swore by every
saint the Revolution had left in his calendar, he would heave overboard;
and before the Captain had completed the little sketch he was taking of
the transaction, a capitulation was entered into by the belligerents upon
the principle of the _statu quo_, and the discomfited Mate descended,
leaving his adversary to enjoy at once his position and his victory.
By this time sails, unseen before, had begun to dot the space which still
intervened between the steamer and the iron-bound coast before it, which
now rose stern and rugged, and desolately beautiful, clothed everywhere
with a sort of rifle-green, from the dark hues of the fir and juniper,
for none but the hardy evergreens could bear the severe blasts of even
its southern aspect; few and far between were these sails at first, and
insignificant did they seem under the abrupt and lofty mountains which
rose immediately out of the sea, without any beach or coast-line, or
low-land whatever; but, as they neared the land, the moving objects
assumed a more conspicuous place in the landscape.
There was the great heavy galliasse with pigs from Bremen or colonial
produce from Hamburg—a sort of parallelogram with the corners rounded,
such as one sees in the pictures of the old Dutch school two hundred
years ago—not an atom of alteration or improvement in its build since
the days of old Van Tromp; the same flat floor and light draft of
water—the same lumbering lee-boards—the same great, stiff, substantial,
square-rigged foremast, with a little fore and aft mizen, which looked
like an after-thought; she might be said to be harrowing the main instead
of ploughing it, according to our more familiar metaphor, with a great
white ridge of foam heaped up under her bows, and a broad, ragged wake
like that of a steamer.
And there was the Norwegian brig returning from Copenhagen with a cargo
of corn for Christiansand; rough and ill-found, nine times in ten not
boasting so much as a foretop-gallant sail, yet tight and seaworthy, and
far better than she looked; built after the model of a whale’s body,
full forward and lean aft, with a stern so narrow that she looked as if
she had been sailing through the Symplegades, and had got pinched in the
transit.
Then came a fleet of a dozen jagts from the north, the tainted breezes
advertising their fishy cargo, as they came along. These were the
originals of the English yacht, which unspellable word is merely the
Norwegian _jagt_, written as it is pronounced in the country, for Norway
is the only nation besides England that takes its pleasure on the deep
sea. With their single great unwieldy sails, their tea-tray-shaped hulls,
and towering sterns, they looked like a boy’s first essays in the art of
ship-building.
But Bergen furnishes a far more ship-shape description of craft—sharp
fore and aft vessels are the Bergeners, looking as if they had all been
built on the same lines, with little, low bulwarks, and knife-like
cutwaters, as if they were intended to cut through the seas rather than
to ride over them, sailing almost in the wind’s eye, and, when very
close hauled indeed, a point on the other side of it—at least, so their
skippers unanimously assert, and they ought to know best,—at all events,
ensuring a wet jacket to every one on board, be the weather as fine as it
may, from the time they leave the port to the time they return to it.
Then came, crowding all sail and looking as if they were rigged for
a regatta, with their butterfly summer gear and tapering spars, the
lobster smacks from Lyngör, and Osterisö, and Arendahl, and Hellesund:
and a regatta it was on a large scale, with the wide North Sea for a
race-course, omnivorous London for the goal, and its ever-fluctuating
markets for a prize. These were sharp, trim-looking vessels, admirably
handled, and not unworthy of a place in the lists of any Royal Yacht
Club for beauty or for speed; somewhat less sharp, perhaps, than the
Bergeners, but scarcely less weatherly or sitting less lightly on the
seas.
The near approach to the land, which had been for so many hours looked
for in vain, seemed to bring no great comfort to the unfortunate Skipper,
who kept fidgetting about the decks with a perplexed and anxious
countenance. Glasses were brought on deck, and rubbed and polished over
and over again, and directed in succession to every mountain peak that
showed itself, and every inlet that opened before them. Then, little
mysterious consultations were held between the Skipper and his First
Mate; then, one man was sent for, then another; then more whispering,
and more mystery, more shaking of the heads and examination of charts;
then an adjournment to the bridge, on which the Parson was then standing,
taking his survey of the craft in sight, and enjoying the sunshine.
At last, the whispering took a more objurgatory tone; more in the way
of a growl, with now and then a short, emphatic sentence of eternal
condemnation on somebody’s eyes, or blood, or other personalities,—as is
the custom of those who “go down to the sea in ships.”
The first distinct words which met the Parson’s ear, came from the lips
of the Skipper, pronounced in a sharp, acid, querulous sort of tone; such
as superiors sometimes indulge in, when they are fixing on the shoulders
of an inferior the blame they shrewdly suspect all the while, ought, if
justice had its due, to rest on their own.
“You are not worth your salt, sir,” he said; “you are not worth your
salt—you ought to be ashamed of wearing a blue jacket, you know-nothing,
lubberly ...” and so forth; expressions by no means unusual at sea,
certainly, but sounding somewhat misplaced in the present instance,
inasmuch as if there was any one in the whole ship not worth his salt,
the speaker certainly was the man, in his own proper person.
“Upon my soul, sir,” said the man addressed, “if I tried to tell you
anything about it, I should be only deceiving you. I know the coast about
Christiansand as well as any man. I have traded to that port for years,
and taken the old brig in and out twenty times; but the land before us is
all strange to me. I never saw those three hummocky hills before in my
life. This is not Christiansand.”
“Well, but if it is not, does Christiansand lie east or west of us—which
way am I to steer?”
The man raised his glass again, and took a long and anxious survey, but
apparently with no better result.
“Really, sir, I cannot say. I cannot make it out at all; there is not one
single sea-mark that I know.”
“Then what the devil did you ship for as a pilot, if you knew nothing
of your business?” Here followed another strong detachment of marine
expletives.
“I shipped as a pilot for Christiansand, sir; and, for the Sound, and for
Copenhagen; and can take the steamer into any one of them, if she drew
as much as a first-rate; but this place is neither one nor the other of
them, and I never called myself a coasting pilot.”
“Well,” said the Parson, “this seems to me sad waste of breath and
temper; if you are a couple of lost babes, why do you not ask your way?
There lies a pilot-boat, as you may see with your own eyes,” pointing to
a little cutter exhibiting in the bright sunshine a single dark cloth in
a very white mainsail, which, with her foresheet to windward, lay bobbing
about in the swell right ahead of them. “That is a pilot-boat, and I
suppose she knows the way, if you do not—why do you not hail her?”
The Skipper looked askance at the Parson, as if he meditated some not
very complimentary reply about minding one’s own business; for, conscious
of the estimation in which he was himself held by the fishing party, who
were in no way chary of their remarks, he regarded them with anything
but friendly feelings. But the advice was too obviously sound to be
neglected, and the Skipper was not by any means anxious that the magnates
on the poop should become acquainted with the fact that he was at sea in
more senses than one.
In a few minutes the steamer was alongside the little shrimp of a cutter,
taking the wind out of her sails by her huge unwieldy hull.
A short conversation passed between them, which as one-half was sworn
down the wind in very loud English, and the other half came struggling up
in broad Norske, was not attended with any very satisfactory results.
Birger offered his services.
“You may as well ask them what they will take us into Christiansand for,”
said the Skipper; “that will soon make them find their English.”
A few more unintelligible words were exchanged, and Birger burst out
laughing.
“They cannot do it,” he said: “they cannot take us into Christiansand:
not only they are not able, but they are not licensed to ply so far.”
“Why! where are we, then?” said the astonished Skipper.
“Off Arendahl!” said Birger.
“Arendahl!” broke in the Parson, “why, that is fifty miles to the
westward of your course.”
“Well, I cannot conceive how that can be,” said the Skipper. “Something
wrong, I am afraid, with the compasses. We ought not to be so far out; we
steered a straight course, and—”
“That did you not,” said Birger, “whatever else you did; the Captain and
I have been studying the theory of transcendental curves from your wake.”
“I can tell you how it is,” said the Parson; “you have steered your
course as you say, and have not allowed for the easterly set of the
current, and you imagine how this must have acted upon us under the
influence of these rolling swells which we have had on our port bow ever
since daylight, every one of which must have set us down a fathom or
two to leeward. Don’t you recollect that we lost three line-of-battle
ships coming home from the Baltic by this very blunder. Compasses!” he
continued, _sotto voce_, “a pretty lot of blunders are thrown on those
unfortunate compasses, in every court-martial. However,” he continued,
aloud, “there is no help for it,—thankful ought we to be it is no worse;
there is but one thing to be done now, and what that one thing is, you
know as well as I.”
This the Skipper did know. A close survey of the remaining coals took
place, and it was decided that notwithstanding the expenditure that took
place on the day on the Shipwash, there might, with economy, be enough
for six hours’ consumption, Birger inquiring innocently, “whether the
Skipper had not anything that would burn in his own private stores?”
The steamer’s course was accordingly altered nine or ten points, for
the coast from Arendahl to Christiansand trends southerly, and she had
actually overshot her mark, and gone to the northward as well as to the
eastward of her port, so that land which had hitherto lain before them,
was thus brought abaft the starboard beam.
To those who, like our fishermen, were not exactly making a passage,
but exploring the country, and to whom it was a matter of indifference
whether they dined at five or supped at eleven, the Skipper’s blunder was
anything but an annoyance. It afforded them an opportunity, not often
enjoyed, of seeing the outside coast of Norway; for in general, almost
all the coasting trade, and all the passenger traffic, is carried on
within the fringe of islands that guard the shores. An absolute failure
in the article of fuel, and a week or so of calm within a few miles of
their port, might have been a trial to their tempers; but there was no
such temptation to grumbling on the present occasion; and, besides, the
afternoon and evening were bright and warm, the wind had sunk to a calm,
and though the ever restless sea was heaving and setting, the swells had
become glassy, soft, and regular.
Cape after cape, island after island of that inhospitable coast was
passed, and not a sign of habitation, not a town, not a village, not even
a fisherman’s cottage, or a solitary wreath of smoke was to be seen. The
land seemed utterly uninhabited, and, as they drew out from the stream of
trade, the very sea seemed tenantless also.
The fact is, that the whole coast of Norway, and of Sweden also, is
fringed with islands, in some places two or three deep, which are
separated from the main and from each other by channels more or less
broad, but always deep. Of these islands, the outer range is seldom
inhabited at all, never on the seaward sides, which, exposed to the first
sweep of the southwester, are either bare, bold rocks, or else nourish on
their barren crags a scanty clothing of stunted fir or ragged juniper,
but afford neither food nor shelter, and where that necessary of life,
fresh water, is very rarely to be met with.
The whole of the coasting trade passes within this barrier, and the
houses and villages, of which there are many, lie hidden on the sheltered
shores of the numerous channels; so that, however well peopled the coast
may be—and in some places population is by no means scanty—neither house,
nor boat, nor ship, except the foreign trade as it approaches or leaves
the coast, is ever seen by the outside coaster.
The shades of evening were already falling, and that at midsummer in
Norway indicates a very late hour indeed, when the glimmer of a light
was seen through the scrubby firs of a cape-land island, occasioning a
general rush of expectant passengers to the bridge, for some had begun
to doubt the very possibility of discovering this continually retreating
port, and to class it with the fairy territories of Cloudland and Cape
Flyaway; while others, with more practical views and less poetical
imaginations, had been contemplating with anxiety the rapidly decreasing
coals in the bunkers. Both parties, poets and utilitarians alike, had
their fears set at rest when, on rounding the point, the long-lost
lighthouse of Christiansand hove in sight—tall, white, pillar-like,
looking shadowy and ghost-like, against the dark background behind it.
The poets might have thought of the guardian spirit of some ancient sea
king, permitted to watch over the safety of his former dwelling-place,
for Christiansand is renowned in story. To the utilitarians it might, and
probably did, suggest visions of fresh vegetables, and salmon, and cod,
and lobsters, for all of which that town is famous.
A bare, low, treeless slab of rock forms its site, a mere ledge, about
a quarter-of-a-mile long, and sufficiently low, and sufficiently in
advance of the higher islands, to form in itself a danger of no small
magnitude during the long winter nights. It maintains on its withered
wiry grass half-a-dozen sheep and a pig or two, the property of the
lighthouse-keeper, which being the first signs of life and vestiges
of habitation which had greeted the travellers during the afternoon’s
steaming, were regarded with an interest of which they were not
intrinsically deserving.
In a very few minutes, the heaving of the outside sea was exchanged
for the perfect calm and deep stillness of the harbour, with its
overhanging woods, its long dusky reaches, its quiet inlets, and
mysterious labyrinthine passages, among its dark, shadowy islands. These
became higher and more wooded as the steamer wound her way among them,
deepening the gloom, and bringing on more rapidly the evening darkness.
All, however, looked deserted and uninhabited, till suddenly, on
opening a point of land, high and wooded like all the rest, the town of
Christiansand lay close before them, dark and indistinct in the midnight
twilight, without the twinkle of a solitary lamp to enliven it, or to
indicate the low houses from the rocks which surrounded and were confused
with them.
“Hurrah!” said the Parson, as the plunge of the anchor and the rattle of
the chain cable broke the stillness of the night. “Some of us are not
born to be drowned, that is certain.”
CHAPTER V.
CHRISTIANSAND.
“Dark it is without,
And time for our going.”
_Skirnis Fär._
At the time the _Walrus_ dropped her anchor, all seemed as still and
lonely as if no sound had ever awakened the silence of the harbour. The
chain cable, as it rattled through the hawse-hole, had even a startling
effect, so solitary, so unusual was the sound. The place seemed as if
it had been uninhabited since creation; for though the town lay close
before it, the houses, low and lightless, looked like a collection of
fantastic rocks; but scarcely had she felt the strain of her cable, when
her stern swung into the middle of a group of boats, which seemed as
if they had risen from the depths of the sea, so sudden and unexpected
was their appearance, and crowds of earnest, business-like, trafficing
Norsemen were clambering up her sides at every practical point. Norway
has no inns, and Norway is said to be a place of universal hospitality,
where every one is delighted to receive the wandering guest—and so every
one is, and delighted to receive the wandering guest’s money also, with
two or three hundred per cent. profit on the outlay. The real fact is,
every house in Norway is an inn, to all intents and purposes, except the
license; and in places like Christiansand, every man is his own touter.
Whatever is the noise and confusion of a vessel arriving at a French or
Flemish port, on this occasion it was doubled, not only from the number
and assiduity of hospitable hosts, but also from the unusual quantity and
quality of the passengers. It was not every day that a Russian ambassador
graced with his august presence, and his distinguished suite, an obscure
trading town of Norway; and its citizens, inferior to no nation in the
world in the art of turning an honest penny, were in two moments as well
aware of the fact, and as fully determined to profit by it, as the Dutch
landlady, who, having charged our second George the value of ten pounds
sterling English for his two eggs and his bit of toast, informed him that
though eggs were plentiful in her country, kings were not.
The confusion which pervaded the _Walrus’s_ decks and cabins, the cries,
the calls, the screams that were flying about unheeded; the extraordinary
oaths that jostled one another, out of every language of Saxon, Russian,
or Scandinavian origin; the obtrusive civilities of the touters; the
officiousness of volunteering porters; the mistakes about luggage; the
anxieties, the rushings to and fro, in which everybody is seeking for
everybody, may easily be imagined; and none the less was the confusion of
tongues; that night had thrown her veil over this floating Babel of the
North.
But through it all the three friends sat on their carpet bags of
patience, smoking the cigar of peace, now and then making a joke among
themselves, as the steward’s lantern flashed upon some face of unusual
solicitude, but totally unconcerned amid the fluctuating hubbub that
surrounded them.
“Well,” said the Captain, “I have had enough of this fun, and am hungry
besides; I vote we go on shore. I suppose your man is here?”
The Parson got up, and, putting his head over the side, shouted in
a stentorian voice, through his hand, which he used as a speaking
trumpet—“Ullitz! Ullitz!”
“Hulloh!” returned a voice from the dark waters, in the unmistakably
English man-of-war’s fashion—“Hulloh!” repeated the voice.
“Shove alongside here, under the quarter,” said the Parson. “Who have you
got in the boat along with you? Tom Engelsk for one, I am sure.”
“Only Tom and Torkel; I thought that would be enough,” said a voice from
the waters below, in remarkably good English, in which the foreign
accent was scarcely perceptible.
“Quite enough,” said the Parson; “look out there!” as he hove the slack
of the quarter-boat’s after-tackle fall, which he had been making up into
coils as he was speaking. “Tell English Tom to shin up that, and come on
board: it is nothing for an English man-of-war’s man to do, and one of
you hold on by the rope.”
Tom, active as a cat, and delighted at being spoken of as an English
man-of-war’s man before so many English people, scrambled up the side and
stood before them, with his shallow tarpaulin hat in hand, as perfectly
an English sailor, so far as his habiliments were concerned, as if he had
dressed after the model of T. P. Cooke.
The man’s real name was Thorsen, and his birthplace the extreme wilds
of the Tellemark; but having served for five years on board an English
man-of-war, he had dropped his patronymic, and delighted in the name of
English Tom; by which, indeed, he was generally known.
“Tom,” said the Parson, “you see to this luggage; count all the parcels;
see that you have it all safe; pass it through the custom-house, and
let us see you and it to-morrow morning. And now, he who is for a good
supper, a smiling hostess, a capital bottle of wine, and clean sheets,
follow me.”
As he spoke, he dropped his carpet bag over the side which Ullitz caught,
and disappeared down the rope by which Tom had ascended, followed
implicitly by his two companions.
“Shove off, Ullitz,” said he, as the Captain sat himself down and poised
Tom’s oar in his hands, pointing it man-of-war fashion as Tom himself
would have done, and when Ullitz had got clear of the steamer, seconding
ably the sturdy strokes of Torkel. In a few moments the boat touched the
quay of the fish market, and the party sprang on shore with all the glee
that shore-going people feel when released from the thraldom of a crowded
vessel.
Ullitz and Torkel remained behind, in order to secure the boat in some
dark nook best known to themselves; for there were several idlers on the
fish-market quay, who, except for want of conveyance, would have been at
that moment unnecessarily adding to the crowd on board, and were not very
likely to be over-scrupulous about Torkel’s private property.
The three friends, in the meanwhile, in order to extricate themselves
from two or three groups of drunken men (drunkenness, the Parson
remarked, was the normal state of Norway, at that time of night), pressed
forward, and walked ankle-deep through the sandy desert, which, in
Christiansand, is called a street, the Captain stuffing the little black
pipe which, as was his wont, he carried in his waistcoat pocket.
“Well,” said Birger, “no one can appreciate a blessing until he has been
deprived of it. I declare, it is a luxury in itself to be able to go
where one pleases, after having been cribbed and cabined and confined
as we have been, and to plant one’s feet on the solid earth once more,
instead of balancing our steps on a dancing plank.”
“Pretty well, to call this solid earth,” said the Captain; “I should call
it decidedly marine.”
“Something like the Christiansanders themselves,” said Birger, “who, as
all the world knows, are neither fish nor flesh, nor good red-herring;
but I dare say Purgatory would be Paradise to those who arrived at it
from the other way. Well, what is the matter? what are you stopping
about?”
These last words were addressed to the Parson, who having been sent
forward on the previous summer to spy out this Land of Promise, had
volunteered to act as guide.
“If there is one thing more puzzling than another,” said he, “it is this
rectangular arrangement of streets. I wish those utilitarian Yankees, who
claim the invention, had it all to themselves. It is fit only for them.”
“The English of that is, you have lost your way,” said the Captain.
“No, not lost my way,” said the Parson, who piqued himself on his organ
of locality; “but the fact is, I cannot remember, in the dark, which of
all these rectangular crossings is the right one. I wish I could see
that great lump of a church they are so proud of. I say, Birger, knock up
some one, and ask ‘if Monsieur Tonson lodges there.’”
“Not I,” said Birger. “You are the guide; besides, they must be coming
ashore, some of them, from the steamer by this time; and, in good truth,
here are a couple of them.”
This couple, much to their relief, turned out to be Ullitz and Torkel,
who pointed out the road at once, but looked rather grave at the
Captain’s pipe, which was now sending forth a bright red glow through the
darkness, and occasionally illuminating a budding moustache which he was
cultivating on the strength of being a military man.
Had the acquaintance been of longer standing, they possibly would have
spoken out; as it was, they contented themselves with a muttered dialogue
in their own language, in which the Parson soon made out the words,
“Tobacco” and “Police,” both of which being modern inventions, bear
nearly the same name in every language in Europe.
“By the by, I had forgotten that,” said he. “Captain, I am sorry to put
your pipe out; but the fact is, you must not smoke.”
“Not smoke! why not?”
“For fear you should set fire to the town,” said the Parson,—“that is
all. You need not laugh; the law is very strict about it, I can tell you.”
The Captain did burst out laughing; and, in truth, where they were
standing, it seemed a ridiculous law enough, though it is pretty general
both in Norway and Sweden. The street was one of unusual width, being
one expanse of sand from side to side, and the houses, none of which
boasted a storey above the ground floor, seemed absurdly distant,—almost
indistinct in the darkness.
The Captain, however, obediently put his pipe into its receptacle,
and resumed his route, muttering something about Warner and the long
range—his estimate of the Norwegian legislative capacity being in no way
raised by the sight of certain small tubs of very dirty water standing by
the side of every house door, which the Parson informed him was another
precaution against fire.
“Whether there really is to be found any one, well authenticated instance
of a town being set on fire by a pipe of tobacco,” said Birger, “I will
not take it upon myself to say, nor whether legislating upon pipes and
leaving kitchen fires to take care of themselves, be not like guarding
the spigot and forgetting the bung; but the fires here, when they do
occur, are really awful. You talk in your country of twenty or thirty
houses as something; we burn a town at a time. Everything here is of
deal, every bit of this deal is painted, and in a season like this,
everything you meet with is as dry as tinder, and heated half-way to
the point of combustion already. Hark to that!” as a sharp, startling
crack sounded close by them; “that is the wood strained and expanded by
the roasting heat of a long summer’s day, yielding now to the change of
temperature; we shall have plenty of these towards morning. Light up but
one of these little bonfires of houses in a moderate breeze, and see
how every house in the town will be burning within half-an-hour. Six
months ago, the capital of my own province, Wenersborg, contained 10,000
inhabitants, and I believe now the church and the post-house are the only
two buildings left in it.”
Here Ullitz, who was leading, came to a dead halt before a substantial
porch containing wood enough to build a ship, from the open door of
which a bright light was streaming across the street. Taking off his
hat—every Norwegian is continually taking off his hat to everybody and
everything—he made a profound bow to the party in general, and with the
words, “Vær saa artig,” ushered them into the house.
The room into which they entered was long and low, the ceiling supported
by a mass of timbers like the decks of a ship; every part of it was
planked with bright deal,—floor, walls, and roof alike,—putting one
something in mind of the inside of a deal box. It was, however, well
furnished with birchen tables, birchen sofas chairs and cabinets (for
birch is a wood that takes a high polish), the whole having rather a
French look. The floor was uncarpeted, as is the case in almost all
Norwegian houses, for they have no carpet manufactory of their own, and
the duty upon English woollens is so enormous that it is impossible
to import them; but it was strewed with sprigs of green juniper, which
diffused a pleasant fragrance; and these, in token that the family were
keeping holiday, were spangled with the yellow heads of the _trollius
europæus_, which the pretty Marie, the daughter of the house, had been
gathering all the morning, and had scattered over them in honour of the
expected guests.
Neither Marie nor her mother could speak one word of English—few of their
women can—but their deeds spoke for them; for the hospitable board—and
in this case it was literally a board, placed upon trestles, and removed
when the supper was over—groaned under the weight of the good cheer.
There were fish, not only in every variety, but in every variety of
cookery; there was lobster-soup, and plok fiske, and whiting cakes, and
long strips of bright red salmon, highly dried in juniper smoke and
served up raw; enormous bowls of gröd,—a name which signifies everything
semi-liquid, from rye-stirabout to gooseberry-fool;—with cream, as if
the whole dairy was paraded at once,—some of it pure, some tinged with
crimson streaks, from the masses of cranberry jelly that floated about it.
Nor were the liquors forgotten, which, in Norway, at least, are
considered indispensable to qualify such delicacies. There was the corn
brandy of the country, diffusing round it a powerful flavour of aniseed,
without which no meal of any kind takes place; there, too, was French
brandy, freely partaken of, but so light both in colour and taste, that
it suggested ideas of a large qualification of water; there was English
beer, and a light sort of clarety wine, that was drunk in tumblers.
Madame Ullitz, indeed, presided over a marshalled array of tea-cups, of
which she was not a little proud, for it is not every house that can
boast of its tea equipage; but this was as an especial compliment to the
English strangers. The tea-cups and saucers might be Staffordshire,—they
had a most English look about them; but the tea was unquestionably of
native growth, being little else than a decoction of dried strawberry
leaves, not at all unpleasant, but by no means coming up to English ideas
of tea.
“Vær saa artig,” said the lady of the house, with an inviting smile and
a general bow, intimating that supper was ready; and the whole household
and guests of various degrees, including Torkel the hunter, and Jacob
the courier, and two or three stout serving-girls, and half-a-dozen
hangers-on of one sort or other, placed themselves round the table, as
indiscriminately as the viands upon it.
The house of Ullitz made a feast that day.
“Vær saa artig,” said Marie, handing to the Captain a plate heaped up
with brown, crisp, crackling whiting cakes.
The Captain did his best to look his thanks as he took the plate. “What
on earth do they all mean by that eternal ‘Vær saa artig?’” said he to
the Parson, aside. “I have heard nothing else ever since we dropped
our anchor. First, I thought it meant ‘Get out of the boat,’ or ‘Go up
the street,’ or ‘Come in-doors,’ or ‘Sit down to supper,’ or something
of that sort; but then those drunken porters on board were shoving and
elbowing one another about with the very same words in their mouths; and,
now I recollect, this was the very speech Birger made to the Professor on
the day of the wreck, when he gave him that slippery hitch.”
“In that case,” said the Parson, laughing, “‘vær saa artig’ must mean
two black eyes and a bloody nose, for that, as you know, is what the
Professor got by it. But the fact is, ‘Vær saa artig,’ with variations,
is the general passport throughout all Scandinavia. Some writers ascribe
a mystic force to the words, ‘Vackere lilla flycka’—pretty little girl;
and I am sure I am not going to deny the force of flattery. But among
the natives, certainly, no one ever thinks of telling you what they want
you to do. ‘Have another slice of beef?’ ‘Come in?’ ‘Take off your hat?’
‘Take a seat?’ or whatever it is; all that is dumb show, preceded by
the universal formula, ‘Vær saa artig,’ ‘Be so polite.’ All the rest is
understood.”
“Vær saa artig,” said Ullitz, unconsciously, from the other end of the
table, holding up a bottle of claret, from which he had just extracted
the cork.
“Jag har äran drikka er till,” replied the Parson, who had picked up
some of the formularies during his former visit. “There,” he said,
“that is another instance: an Englishman would have said, ‘Take a glass
of wine,’ in plain English. He holds me a bottle, and tells me to ‘be
polite.’ My belief is, that when Jack Ketch goes to hang a man in Norway,
he is not such a brute as to tell him to put his head into the halter; he
merely holds it up to him, and, with a bow, requests him ‘Att være saa
artig.’”
“Yes,” said Birger, breaking in, “that is very true; it used to be the
case; but the Storthing has abolished that piece of politeness, and
capital punishment along with it. The fact is, the Norwegians are so
virtuous now, as everybody knows, that they never want hanging.”
This sarcasm, which was spoken in a little louder tone than the
conversation which preceded it, threatened rather to interfere with
the harmony of the evening, which it probably would have done had the
language been generally understood. But the Parson acted as peace-maker.
“Now, Ullitz,” said he, not giving that worthy time to reply, “tell us
what arrangements you have been making for us. Shall we be able to start
to-morrow?”
“I have done everything according to the instructions transmitted to me,”
said Ullitz, speaking like a secretary of state, and with the solemnity
warranted by the importance of his subject. “There are two boats now
lying at the bridge quay, with their oars and sails in my porch, and we
can easily get another for the foreign gentleman” (so Ullitz designated
his Swedish fellow-countryman—a little trait of Norske nationality
at which Birger laughed heartily). “As for boat furniture, we have
everything you can possibly want, in the shop; you have but to choose.
And as for provisions, we may trust Madame Ullitz for that.”
“Yes,” said the Parson, “I know Madame Ullitz and her provision-baskets
of old.”
Madame smiled, and looked pleased; making a guess that something was said
about her, and that that something must be complimentary.
“Then, as for attendants, I made bold to detain this most excellent and
well-born Gothenburger, Herr Jacob Carlblom”—(with a polite bow to Mr.
Jacob, returned by a still more polite bow from that illustrious and
well-born individual). “Herr Jacob is a traveller of some celebrity by
sea and land”—(the Parson afterwards found out that he was a Gothenborg
smuggler)—“and would be happy to attend the gentlemen in the capacity of
courier, cook, interpreter, and commissary, for the remuneration of a
specie-daler per diem, with his food and travelling expenses.”
“Very well,” said the Parson; “I suppose we must have a cook, so we will
try your friend Mr. Jacob in our expedition up the Torjedahl, and see
how we like him. And what says Torkel? are we to have the benefit of his
experience?”
Torkel looked as if earth could afford no higher pleasure, for, in his
way, he was a mighty hunter—he was not only great at the Långref,[2] and
skilled in circumventing the Tjäder[3] in his lek, but he had followed
the Fjeld Ripa[4] to the very tops of the snowy mountains, had prepared
many a pitfall for the wolf and fox, and had been more than once in
personal conflict with the great Bruin himself.
“Torkel shall be my man, then,” said the Parson, who had a pretty good
eye to his own interest.
“And English Tom, who speaks the language so well, will be just the man
for the highborn Captain,” said Ullitz.
“Very good,” said the Parson, “so be it; and whenever we have to do with
lakes and sailing, Tom shall be our admiral, and shall put in practice
all the science he has learned in the British navy.”
“Tom is as proud of belonging to the English navy, as if it were the
Legion of Honour,” said Ullitz, whose father had belonged to the French
faction, and who was rather suspected of holding French politics himself.
“It _is_ the Legion of Honour,” said Birger, “and I give Mr. Tom great
credit for his sentiments. Well, you must look me out a man, too. This
will not be so very difficult, as I speak the language pretty well for a
foreigner.”
In fact, Birger had been practising the language a good deal already,
and not a little to the Captain’s envy, by making fierce love to the
daughter of the house; an amusement with which guardsmen, Swedish as well
as English, do occasionally beguile their leisure moments; and, to the
Captain’s infinite disgust, Marie did not seem to lend by any means an
unfavourable ear to his soft speeches.
“Oh,” said Ullitz, “we shall have no difficulty whatever in finding a
man; if there is anything these people love better than gain, it is
pleasure, and here we have both combined. My only difficulty lies in
making the selection. I have reckoned that each of the highborn gentlemen
will want a boatman besides his own man; but I have engaged these only
for the trip to Wigeland, as you will no doubt like to change them there
for men who are acquainted with the upper river; but you can keep them if
you like, they will be but too happy to go.”
“All right, then, we will start to-morrow afternoon, and get as far as
Oxea before we sleep. The morning, I suppose, must be devoted to hearing
Tom’s report from the Custom-house, making our selections for the trip,
arranging our heavy baggage that we are to leave here, and seeing that
our outfit is all right. I like to make a short journey the first day, in
order that if anything is forgotten, it may be sent back for.”
“Not at all a bad general maxim,” said the Captain: “and now to bed;
for the broad daylight is already putting out the blaze even of Madame
Ullitz’s candles.”
“With all my heart,” said the Parson, “it is high time;” and rising from
his seat and going round to where Madame Ullitz sat, he took her hand,
and bowing low, said, “Tak for mad”—thanks for the meal.
“Vel de bekomme,” said the lady,—well may it agree with you.
In this ceremony he was followed by the whole party, who, shortly after
separating, sought their respective sleeping-places.
The beds were queer concerns, certainly: beautifully clean, and fragrant
with all manner of wild herbs; but as unlike the English notion of a bed
(which in that country is always associated with ideas of a recumbent
position), as is well possible. A thick, straw mattress, shaped like
a wedge, occupied the upper half. Upon this were placed two enormous
pillows, fringed with lace. The rest of the bed was simply a feather-bed
placed on the ticking, and so much lower, that the sleeper takes his rest
almost in a sitting position. The whole, including the quilt, was stuffed
luxuriously, not with feathers, but with the very best eider-down; for
Madame Ullitz, in her maiden days, had been at least as celebrated a
beauty as her daughter was now, and unnumbered had been the offerings of
eider-down made by her hosts of admirers, who had braved wind and wave
to procure for her that most acceptable of all presents to a Norwegian
girl—at once the record of her past triumphs, and the glory of her future
home. The prudent traveller in Norwegian territories will always do
well, if he has the chance, to choose for his residence the house of a
_ci-devant_ beauty.
Little, however, did the travellers reck of mattress or feather-bed,
Madame Ullitz’s past conquests, or her daughter’s present bright eyes—a
sea-voyage, four or five restless nights, a long day’s work, and a
plentiful supper at the end of it, equalize all those things; and, though
the sun was shining brightly through the shutterless and curtainless
windows, five minutes had not elapsed before it was indifferent to them
whether they had sunk to rest on eider-down or poplar leaves; or whether
their beds had been strewed for them by the fair hands of the bright-eyed
Marie, or by those of the two lumps of girls who had assisted at the
grand supper.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TORJEDAHL.
“Foresight is needful
To the far traveller:
Each place seems home to him:
Least errs the cautious.”
_Hávamál._
“And now for work,” said the Parson, as, somewhat late on the following
morning they rose from a breakfast as substantial and plentiful as had
been the supper of the night before. The ordinary meals of a Norwegian
are, in fact, three good substantial dinners per diem, with their
proportionate quantity of strong drink: one at nine or ten, which they
call “Frökost”; one at two or three, which is termed “Middagsmad”; and
one in the evening, called “Afton.” But, whatever they call them, the
fare is precisely the same in all; the same preliminary glass of brandy,
the same very substantial hot joints, the same quantity of sweetmeats,
and, at Christiansand at all events, the same liberal supply of fish. Tea
and coffee are not seen at any of them, but generally form an excuse for
supernumerary meals an hour or so after the grand ones.
The strangers were not yet acclimated; they lounged over their morning’s
meal as if the recollections of their yesterday’s supper were yet green
in their memories. Not so the natives. No one would suppose that they had
supped at all—they ate as if they had been fasting for a week.
All things, however, come to an end,—even a Norwegian’s breakfast;
and the Parson stood in the porch receiving English Tom’s report from
the custom-house, and cataloguing the packages as they arrived. These
included two dogs; one a very handsome brindled bay retriever, called
“Grog,” belonging to the Captain; the other an extremely accomplished
poaching setter, his own friend and constant companion. These, wild with
joy at their newly regained liberty and restoration to their respective
masters, from whose society they had been separated during the whole
voyage, were grievously discomposing the economy of Madame Ullitz’s
well-ordered house.
A small assortment of necessaries was packed in deal covered baskets
or boxes,—for they looked as much like the one as the other. This
manufacture is peculiar to the country, and is equally cheap and
convenient. These, with the rods, guns, ammunition, and boat furniture,
including the sails which were to form tents on the occasion, together
with Madame Ullitz’s liberal supply of provisions (among which the rö
kovringer were not forgotten), were arranged in the porch, and one by one
were transferred by the boatmen to the bridge quay, where the boats were
lying. The weightier articles were consigned to the keeping of Ullitz,
and were lodged in his ample store rooms.
“Now, Captain,” said the Parson, as they stood on the bank of the noble
river, “do you take a spare boat and a couple of hands, and pull as far
as the first rapids; let Torkel be one of them, and he will show you the
place. There is on the left bank of the river, a sort of rude boat canal,
which is not always passable. If we can contrive to get through it, we
will sleep at Oxea to-night: but, if the boats require to be hauled over
land, we must be satisfied with that for one day’s work, return here to
sleep, and carry our things over land to-morrow morning. It will take
me a couple of hours, at the least, to fit these things, but I shall be
ready for you by the time you return. And, to tell you the truth,” he
added, in a whisper, “I wish you could take Birger with you. He is doing
nothing but laugh and joke; and he makes the men so idle, that I shall
get on twice as well without him. Set him to harl for salmon—anything, to
get rid of him. It will be of use, too; for if he meet with anything down
here we may be sure that Wigeland is alive with fish. You will see a reef
of rocks on the right bank, a quarter of a mile above the town: it is
not a bad throw—set him to work there.”
Birger was delighted at the idea, and, as the Parson would spare none of
the boats or boatmen, he took a small praam that belonged to one of the
men, and prepared to accompany the Captain on his expedition.
Birger certainly was no fisherman: he could but just throw a clumsy
fly, and had never caught a salmon in his life, or seen one, except at
table: but harling is a science open to the meanest capacity. It is the
manner in which cockney sportsmen catch their salmon in the Tweed, and
consists of traversing and re-traversing the width of the river, with a
rod and twenty yards of line hanging out of the stern of the boat. The
fly thus quarters the water backwards and forwards without any exertion
of the fisherman, and even the salmon that seizes it effectually hooks
itself before the rod can be taken in hand. On the Tweed, the fisherman
has actually nothing to do, but to pay his boatmen, who, by choosing
their own course, perform the very little science which this operation
requires. In the present case, Birger, having to manage his own boat,
was far more the artificer of his own fortune; but his success depended
on his skill, not as a fisherman, but as a boatman—an accomplishment in
which no Northman is deficient,—rather than on his science and dexterity
as a fisherman.
As soon as the exploring party had left, the Parson, with his lieutenant
and interpreter, Tom, and the remaining three boatmen, addressed himself
seriously to work. Every Norseman is a carpenter; indeed, every Norseman
may be set down as a Jack-of-all-trades; and under Tom’s interpretership
they very soon began to understand what was wanted.
Under the starboard gunnel of each boat, and close to the right-hand of
the sitter, were screwed two copper brackets for the gun, protected by
a short curtain of waterproof. On the opposite side was a sort of shelf
or ledge for the spare rods; and in the stern-sheets a locker for books,
reels, powder-flasks, odds and ends, and, above all, any little store of
brandy that they had,—an article which it was very dangerous indeed to
have loose in the boat.
Norwegian boats are built like whale boats, with both ends alike, which
is not altogether a convenient build for harling—a mode of fishing,
which, however much to be deprecated in known rivers, is very useful,
indeed almost indispensable, to explorers. To remedy this, a ring and
socket was fixed on each quarter of the boat, in order to receive the
butt of the rod, and to hold it in an upright position when the fishermen
should be otherwise engaged. Under the thwarts of each boat were
strapped an axe, a handbill, a hammer, and a bag of nails; and several
coils of birch rope were stowed forward. Birch rope, which is a Swedish
manufacture from the tough roots of the birch tree, is peculiarly adapted
to these purposes, since it has the property of floating on the water,
which hempen ropes have not.
Upon the principle of “business first and pleasure afterwards,” so long
as anything remained to be done, the Parson had scarcely raised his eyes
from his work, or thought of anything else; and so well and so ably had
he been seconded, that everything was completely fitted, provisions
brought down and stowed, and all ready for starting, a full half-hour
before the time specified. His friends were, however, still absent; and
thus, having nothing to do, he left the men to take care of the boats,
and lounged across the beautiful bridge that connects the town with the
opposite shore.
The bridge of Christiansand may well be called beautiful; not, indeed,
as a piece of architecture, for it is built, like almost everything in
the country, of wood, though with a solidity that would put to shame
many of our buildings of far more durable materials. Its beauty lies in
its situation, spanning as it does with its eleven broad flat arches,
the clear swift stream of the Torjedahl. The depth was such that ships
of some burthen were lying on each side of the bridge, the centre
compartment of which was moveable; but so clear was the water, that
the very foundations of the piers could be seen as the Parson looked
over the parapet; and among them a beautiful school of white trout, as
clearly defined as if they had been swimming in air, which, much to
his satisfaction, he discerned working their way up from the sea. This
sight was doubly satisfactory, for he had been ominously shaking his
head at the peculiar ultra-marine tint of the waters,—a sight in itself
abundantly beautiful, as any one who has seen the Rhone at Geneva can
testify, but far from welcome to the eyes of a fisherman, as indicating,
beyond a doubt, the presence of melted snow.
The Parson had reached the last arch, and was sitting on the parapet, on
the look-out for the returning boats; admiring in the meanwhile the quiet
little amphitheatre which forms the last reach of the Torjedahl after
its exit from its mountain gorge, and scanning the quaint, old-fashioned
town, with its dark-red wooden houses, overtopped by its heavy cathedral,
on the tower of which the Lion of Norway, and the Axe of St. Olaf, were
glittering in the sun; and occasionally peering into the gabled sheds of
its dockyard, from each of which peeped out the bows of a gun-boat,—that
formidable flotilla which, during the late wars, had hung on our Baltic
trade like a swarm of musquitos, perpetually dispersed by our cruisers,
and as perpetually re-united on some different and unexpected point.
Beyond this was the island citadel, a place of no strength, indeed, for
the strength of Norway does not lie in its fortifications, but a point of
considerable beauty in the eye of an artist. The whole of this picture
to seaward as well as to landward, was set in by a frame of miniature
mountains—not hills, nor anything like hills, but real fantastically
shaped mountains, with peaked heads, some of them showing their bare
rocks, with little splashes of mica slate sparkling like diamonds, but
most of them covered with dark fir to their very summits, only shooting
out occasionally a bare cliff, so arid and so perpendicular that no tree
could find root on it.
So intently was the Parson gazing on the scene, that it was some time
before he caught sight of Birger’s praam, which was rapidly approaching
the place where he was sitting, and some time longer before he made out
the very uncomfortable position in which his friend was placed. Birger,
dexterous enough in the management of a boat, even that most ticklish
of boats, the Norwegian praam—a dexterity which any one will appreciate
who has ever attempted the navigation of a Welsh coracle, or can picture
to himself what it is to be at sea in a washing-tub—had proved an apt
scholar in the science of harling; and the Captain, having seen him make
two or three traverses without upsetting his boat or entangling his
flies, had proceeded on his mission and left him to his own devices. The
boat was hardly out of sight when a heavy fish rose at the fly. Birger
seized his rod, as he had been directed, but in his agitation forgot
to secure his paddles, both of which dropped overboard, and, unseen
and unheeded, set out on an independent cruise of their own,—and thus
the salmon, of course, had it all his own way. It so happened that he
headed to seaward, and the light praam offering very little resistance,
and the stream, which was sweeping stilly and steadily at the rate of
three or four miles an hour, forwarding him on his way, there was every
probability of his reaching it.
No sooner had the Parson realised the true state of things, than he
rushed across the bridge for his boat; but the bridge was by no means a
short one, and the Parson was at the farthest end; and long before he
reached it, salmon, Birger, praam, and all had disappeared under one of
the centre arches.
The boatmen had, of course, lounged away from the quay, probably to the
nearest brandy shop; but the Parson sprang into a boat, cut the painter,
seized the paddles, and shoved off furiously into the stream.
Fortunately, this had been seen by the Captain, who was at that moment
returning; and he, though of course perfectly unaware what was the
matter, changed his course, and dashed through the nearest arch, in
pursuit.
By this time the praam was fairly at sea; but the boats were nearing her
fast, and the Captain, having the advantage of oars, passed the Parson’s
boat, and then, checking his speed, lest he should capsize the friend he
meant to aid, grappled the praam with his boat-hook, and, winding his
own boat at the same time, towed her quietly and steadily to a little
sandy beach. Upon this, both he and Birger landed. The latter, whose arms
were aching as only a salmon-fisher’s arms can ache, was glad enough to
transfer his rod to the Captain.
The Parson calling in vain for a gaff, which implement in the hurry had
been left in one of the other boats, threw himself into the water, which
there was not much over his knees. But the salmon, seeing his enemies on
every side, collected his energies afresh, as that gallant fish will do,
and rattled off fifty yards of line into the deep blue sea before the
Captain could turn him. He had, however, a practised hand to deal with.
Slowly and carefully did the Captain reel him up, guiding him to the spot
a little above where the Parson was standing as still and motionless as
the rocks around him. There was as yet a considerable current, arising
from the flow of the river, and the Captain, taking advantage of this,
let the fish tail down quietly and inch by inch, to where the Parson was
standing motionless and stooping so that his hands were already under
water. Slowly, and without effort, the fish came nearer and nearer, till
at last, gripping firmly with both hands the thin part just above the
insertion of the tail, the Parson, half-lifting the fish from the water,
dragged him to land, and, despite his struggles, threw him gasping on the
snow-white beach.
“Well done, Birger!” said the Captain, laying his rod against a rock, and
running down, steelyard in hand; “there is the first fish of the season,
and you are the prize-man.”
“Hurrah,” said Birger, admiring his own handiwork,—for the steelyard had
given a full two-and-twenty pounds,—“this is the first salmon I ever
caught in my life; and upon my word, when I had him, I thought I had got
hold of Loki himself.”
“And upon my word,” said the Parson, “it looked as if Loki had got hold
of you; I thought he was taking you off to his own realms. If we had
not come up, you would have been by this time half way to the Midgard
Serpent!”[5]
“Well,” said Birger, “it took all the Œsir together to land the
aboriginal salmon; and, I must say, Thor himself could not have handled
him better than you did.”
“What is your story?” said the Captain; “sit down there and tell it
us. You will lose no time,” he added—for Birger, having once tasted
blood, looked very much as if he wished to be at work again—“you will
lose no time, I tell you, for I must crimp this fish for our dinners.
Who can tell if we are to catch another to-day? Parson, lend me your
crimping-knife; I left mine in the boat.”
The Parson produced from his slip-pocket that formidable weapon,
called by our transatlantic brethren a bowie knife; and the Captain,
having first put the fish out of his misery, proceeded to prepare him
scientifically for the toasting-skewers.
“Now, Birger, for the story. So much I know, that it is something
about diabolical agency. Loki, I believe, is the Devil of Scandinavian
mythology.”
“Not exactly,” said Birger; “though we must admit that he and his
progeny, the Wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent, are the origin of
evil, and will eventually cause the destruction of the world. But Loki
really was one of the Œsir, or gods, and had sworn brotherhood with Odin
himself; and thus, though he often played them mischievous tricks, they
seem to have associated with him, as one is in the habit of doing with a
disreputable brother-officer—not exactly liking him, far less approving
of his ways, but still consorting with him, and permitting him to be a
participator of their exploits. At last, however, when he had gone so
far as to misguide poor blind Hodur, so as to make him kill Baldur, they
determined that this really was too bad. Baldur was a general favourite;
everything good or beautiful, either in this world or in Asgard, was
called after him; and the unanimous vote was, that Loki should be brought
to justice, and made to suffer for this. Loki, however, who rather
suspected that he had gone too far, himself, was no where to be found. He
had quitted Asgard in the form of a mist,—whence, I presume, we derive
the expression ‘to mizzle,’—and had betaken himself to the great fall
called Fränängars Foss, where he lived by catching salmon;—for Loki, it
is said, was the first inventor of nets.”
“I have not a doubt of it,” said the Captain. “I always did think that
those stake nets must have been invented by the Principle of Evil
himself.”
“Well, so it was, at all events,” said Birger. “Odin, however, one day,
while sitting upon his Throne of Air, Hlidsjälf, happened to fix his eye
upon him—I say eye, for you know Odin had but one, having left the other
in pledge at the Mimir Fountain. No sooner did he see him, than he called
to Heimdall, the celestial warder, to blow his horn, and summon the gods
to council at the Well of Urdar.
“Loki, perceiving that something was suspected, burnt his nets, and,
changing himself into a salmon, took refuge under the fall; so that,
when the gods arrived at Fränägngar, they found nothing but the ashes
of the nets. It so happened, however, that the shape of the meshes was
left perfect in the white ash to which it was burnt, and the god Kvasir,
who, I presume, must be the god who presides over the detective police of
Heaven, saw what had happened, and set the gods weaving nets after the
pattern of the ashes.[6]
“When all was ready, they dragged the river; but Loki placed his head
under a stone—as that clever fish, the salmon, will do,—and the net
slipped over his smooth, scaly back. The Œsir felt him shoot through, and
tried another cast, weighting the net with a spare heap of new shields,
which the Valkyrir had brought the day before from a battle-field, in
order to mend the roof of Valhalla. Loki, however, leaped the net this
time gallantly, and again took refuge under the foss.
“This time the gods dragged down stream; Thor wading in the river behind
the net. Thor did not mind wading; he was obliged to do that every day
that he went to council, for the bridge of Bifrost would not bear him. In
the meanwhile Vidar, the God of Silence, in the form of a seal, cruised
about at the river’s mouth.
“Loki had thought to go to sea and take refuge with his daughter,
Jörmungard the Serpent, but, in assuming the form of a salmon, he had
assumed also, of necessity, the natural antipathies and fears of the
fish. He turned at a sight so terrible to a salmon, and again sprang
over the net. But Thor was ready for him, and while he was in the air,
caught him in his hand, just above the insertion of the tail; and you
may observe that salmon have never yet recovered from that tremendous
squeeze, but are finer and thinner at the root of the tail than any fish
that swims.”
“Well,” said the Captain, “that is quite true; it is a fact that every
salmon-fisher knows; and he knows also that the root of the tail is the
only part of the salmon by which it is possible to hold him, and that
it _is_ possible to hold him by that the Parson showed you just now
practically. But it is very satisfactory to find out the reason of such
things, particularly when the reason is such a very good one. What did
the gods do with Mr. Loki when they had got him; crimp him, and eat him?”
“They could not kill him,” said Birger, “because of the oath of
brotherhood which Odin had one day incautiously sworn with him (I
presume, when they were both drunk); so they laid him on his back on
three pointed rocks in a cave, and bound him with three cords which they
afterwards transformed into iron bars; and there he will lie, shifting
himself, every now and then, from side to side, and producing what
mortals call earthquakes, until that day, known only to the Nornir, when
the twilight shall fall upon Asgard, and the conflagration of the world
is at hand.”
“Serve him right, too,” said the Captain; “I am delighted to hear that
the inventor of salmon-nets perished—like Perillus and other rascals—by
his own invention. I hope the gods will keep him purgatory, or whatever
they call it, as long as rivers run toward the sea. However, here is
our Loki (holding up, by the tail, the scored salmon), and, as we have
not been geese enough to swear brotherhood with him, he will do for our
dinner. What shall we do, in the meanwhile, to crimp him?”
“Make him fast to the boat, and tow him a-stern for ten minutes,” said
the Parson; “the water of the Torjedahl is cold enough to crimp a live
fish, let alone a dead one. And, I will tell you what: let Torkel go with
the praam for the other boats, and meet us on the left bank, just above
the bridge. I want to show you a view of our route to-day that is worth
seeing.”
So saying, he led the way up a steep, rugged path, just discernible among
the rocks of the rugged ridge which divides the amphitheatre in which
Christiansand is situated from the wild coasts of the Fjord; and, passing
through a sort of natural opening cut in the summit ridge, pointed to the
scene before them. “There,” said he, “what do you think of that?”
Birger was an artist; and, anxious as he was to begin his career as a
fisherman, his ever-ready sketchbook was drawn out of his pocket; nor
did he express a wish to move till the rugged foreground upon which they
stood, the luxuriant park-like middle distance, with its clumps of trees,
and dark-red houses, and neat English-looking church, and the background
of fir-clad mountains, range beyond range, and the deep narrow gorge
through which their journey lay, which the blue lake-like river seemed to
fill from side to side, were transferred to the paper.
A few minutes’ walk brought them to where the boats were waiting, with
the whole house of Ullitz, handmaidens and all, who had come to see them
off. Hand-shaking all round—the fishermen took their places—the boats
shoved off—Marie threw after them her kid slipper, for luck, (for that
custom is of Scandinavian origin)—English Tom gave three cheers, after
the manner of her Britannic Majesty’s navy—and the expedition started on
its voyage up the Torjedahl.
The Parson, who was anxious to reach the proposed encampment at Oxea,
while there was yet light to pitch the tents, would suffer no harling,
notwithstanding Birger’s remonstrances, until the first rapids had been
safely passed; and, indeed, with the exception of the single throw where
the Lieutenant had hooked his fish that morning, that part of the river
was scarcely worth the trouble.
The rapids, however, which had been surveyed beforehand by the Captain,
were passed, under his skilful pilotage, in much less time than had been
allotted for the operation, and then, with one consent, the flies were
thrown upon the water.
Above the rapids, the river forms what is technically called a “flat;”
a spot carefully to be sought out by the exploring fisherman, as the
likeliest to reward his search. A flat is where the water rolls on with
its acquired velocity and the pressure of that which is behind it, rather
than on account of any declivity in the bed through which it flows. In
the present instance, indeed, the bed of the river actually rose instead
of sinking, for the ridge of rocks which form the head of the rapids, had
retained the stones and loose earth washed down in the winter floods.
This gradually shallowed the whole river, spreading it out, at the same
time, like a lake, so as to fill the level of the valley from mountain
to mountain. These rose abruptly on either hand, in bare, inaccessible
cliffs, as if they had been forced asunder by some convulsion of Nature,
to make room for the rush of waters, and exhibited a bare splintered face
of rock.
At the end of an hour—for the Parson would allow no more—all fears were
at an end for that night’s supper; no other salmon, indeed, had risen,
but trout after trout had been handed into the boats, some of them, too,
of a very respectable size: even Birger had not been without his share of
success.
But the stream was strong, the day was waning, many miles intervened
between them and their camping-ground, the Parson was inexorable; so the
casting-lines were exchanged for harling-tackle, and the squadron formed
in order of sailing.
The difference between a common casting-line and the harling-tackle which
one rod in each boat should carry in every exploring expedition, consists
principally in the length of the gut. The harling line carries five or
six flies, in order to show, at once, as great a variety as possible of
size and colour, and is joined to the reel-line by a swivel, in order to
prevent it from kinking—while two, or, at the most, three, flies will be
found quite sufficient for casting.
The order of march was this:—Birger led, with his gun in his hand, ready
for a stray duck or teal, many of which would whistle over their heads,
as evening drew on. He was directed to keep, as near as possible, to the
middle of the stream; while, on either flank, and about twenty yards
behind him, came his two friends, with one rod in each boat for harling,
while, with the other, they whipped into the likely ripples. Shooting and
fishing, however, were made altogether a secondary condition to progress:
they might catch what they could, and shoot what they could, but the
rowers were to pull steadily forward.
And thus they opened reach after reach of the beautiful river, for the
most part pent in by inaccessible cliffs, on which the birch trees seemed
to grow on each other’s heads, and to support above them all a serrated
crest of spruce and fir. But, now and then, they would come to little
semicircular coombs, where the mountain wall would recede for a space,
leaving flats of twenty or thirty acres, which were carefully cultivated
to the very water’s brink, and planted at the roots of the mountains with
white poplar, the dried leaves of which were to serve for beds in the
summer and hay in the winter. Here would be dark-red wooden houses with
overhanging eaves, and tidy, compact, little farmsteadings, with their
granaries, and store-rooms, and cattle-sheds, all complete in themselves:
and they had need be, for they were completely isolated from the rest
of the world. There was no road, not even a footpath; no possibility of
ingress or egress, except that which the river afforded. The mountains,
except here and there, were inaccessible; and at every turn of the river,
seemed to beetle over it, shutting out each little amphitheatre from its
neighbour. The winter is the Torjedahler’s time of liberty: then it is
that their vehicles are put into requisition; then it is that their corn
and cattle, if they produce any beyond their own consumption, are brought
to market; for the river, which has hitherto been their boundary, forms
now their railroad and frost-constructed channel of communication.
The shadows were darkening on the clear river, and the arms of even
Norwegian rowers were beginning to ache, when the last point was rounded;
and the Parson’s joyous shout gave notice that their camping-ground was
at last reached; and at the welcome signal, the lines were reeled up with
alacrity, and the boats’ heads were directed to the shore.
The spot had been selected by him and Ullitz the year before, partly as
lying conveniently near to Mosse Eurd, their proposed head-quarters,
which it was considered expedient to reach before noon on the morrow,
in order to afford time for their men hutting themselves and foraging
out the resources of the place; but principally from its own beauty and
convenience.
So precious is level land by the banks of the river, that it is rare to
find any portion of it uncultivated of sufficient extent for such an
encampment as they required. But here, at the foot of a winter torrent,
whose dry bed gave access to the uplands in summer, and brought down
rocks and uprooted trees in the winter, was a rough plain, formed, no
doubt, originally from the debris brought down by the torrent, but now
covered with short turf and cranberry-bushes, with a few thick, bushy,
white poplars, the leaves of which had not yet been stripped for hay;
while here and there a graceful birch-tree formed a natural tent with its
weeping branches.
“Tom, bring the sails with you,” said the Captain, who had leaped ashore
to reconnoitre the ground; “we will have our tent under this rock.”
“Capital place!” said Birger; “and bring the axe with you, Tom, as well:
that fir will make a first-rate ridge-pole, and it blocks up the place
where it stands.”
The Captain, not accustomed yet to the trifling value put upon timber,
hesitated to chop up a very promising young tree,—which, indeed, was
unnecessarily large for the purpose, and which stood but very little in
the way, after all.
“Why,” said Birger, “the very best fir-tree that ever grew is not worth a
specie daler here; and as for that stick——” substituting the action for
the word, he struck deep into its side, and in a dozen strokes or so it
came crashing down among the under-stuff.
There was no lack of fuel: there never is in Norway, where outsides of
timber float down the rivers unheeded; and trees, uprooted by the winter
storms and land-slips, rot where they fall. Before half the things were
out of the boats, three or four fires were throwing round their cheerful
light, some for cooking, some for wantonness, for the evening was
anything but cold. Birger, however, who, as a Swedish soldier, had had a
good deal of experience in bivouacking,—an exercise to which they are all
regularly drilled,—set his own two men to gather and pile fuel enough to
last through the night; observing that they would all find it cold enough
before morning, when those scamps had burned up the fuel at hand.
The Captain and the Parson were occupied in collecting and weighing the
fish, and apportioning them and the other provisions among the men, while
Jacob, the courier, seated on a stone, apart, was plucking and preparing
half-a-dozen teal that Birger had shot during the passage. These, to the
Parson’s surprise, he deliberately cut in pieces, and consigned to the
great soup-kettle, along with a piece of salt-beef from the harness cask,
and various condiments which he made a great secret of.
It may be observed that in Norway fresh meat is seldom eaten, unless
it be on grand occasions, or by those who are well to do in the world.
October is called in the north the Slaughtering Month, and every family
there is occupied in salting, not only for winter, but for the rest of
the year. A harness cask, therefore,—that is to say, a small cask with a
moveable head, containing salt-beef or pork in pickle,—is a very common
thing to meet with, and in fact had formed the _pièce de resistance_ of
Madame Ullitz’s stores.
“Look here, Jacob, my man,” said the Captain; “I will show you a trick in
cookery that has never reached Gottenborg yet, nor London neither, for
that matter; it is worth a hogshead of your teal-soup.”
He called to Tom, who had been preparing under his superintendence
certain square sods of turf, and some long white skewers; which, in
the absence of arbutus—in Ireland considered indispensable on such
occasions,—he had been directed to cut from the juniper.
Birger’s salmon, the flakes of which had actually curled under the cold
of the waters, preserving all their curd between them, was cut into what
he technically termed fids; each one of these was spread open by the
skewers and fixed upon the turfs. These the Captain ranged round a great
heap of hot embers, which he had raked from the fire, and set English Tom
to turn as they required, basting them pretty freely with salt and water.
The remaining fish had been given to the men, by whom they were subjected
to a variety of culinary operations; one of which was making soup of
them; and the fires began to grow bright and cheery in the increasing
darkness, when Jacob paraded his kettle of teal-soup, and Tom set before
each of the fishermen a turf of toasted salmon.
In return, they received the men’s rations of brandy, the only part of
the provisions on which any limitation was affixed. This in Norway,
perhaps, was considered but a small modicum: it would have been, however,
quite enough to make twice the number of Englishmen roaring drunk.
The men collected round their fires, looking like so many gipsies;
provisions were dispatched in enormous quantities, pipes were lighted,
horns produced and filled with pure brandy, in which each man drank “du”
with his neighbour,—an ancient Scandinavian ceremony, which entitles
the drinkers henceforward to address one another in the second person
singular, and to consider themselves on terms of intimacy.
In the meanwhile, the principal personages of the expedition sat at
the door of their tent, for which the Captain received his due meed of
praise, he having brought the canvas. They tempered their brandy with a
little water, after the custom of their country, and they smoked somewhat
better tobacco than the Norwegians; but after their kind, they indulged
in very nearly the same relaxations as their attendants.
And thus fell the shades of night upon the first day of the expedition.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ENCAMPMENT MOSSE EURD.
“Our good house is there,
Though it be humble:
Each man is master at home.”
_Hávamál._
“Rouse out, Birger, my boy,” said the Captain; “recollect we have got
the Rapids of Oxea to pass before we get any breakfast, and that we have
our breakfast to catch into the bargain. Come, come,” continued he, as
Birger stretched himself on his Astrakan cloak, as if he was thinking of
another spell of sleep, “‘shake off dull sloth, and early rise,’ as Dr.
Watts says—see me rouse out those lazy hounds down there!” And that he
did, in good earnest, by firing off both barrels within a foot of their
ears; a salutation responded to by a chorus of yelping from the dogs, who
imagined, of course, that shooting was begun already.
This had the effect of speedily setting the whole party in motion; and
Jacob, who, with provident care, had prepared, over-night, a kettle of
coffee, raked together the embers of the still burning fires, presented
each with a full horn of it, a very welcome introduction to the day’s
labour; and then, as wood was plentiful, threw on some logs for a parting
blaze.
The river itself formed the fishermen’s washing-basin, and the boat’s
thwarts their toilet-tables. Bitter cold, indeed, was the water; whatever
the air may be, there is seldom much caloric to spare in the water till
autumn is pretty well advanced; but, at least, it had the effect of
thoroughly waking them, and causing them fully to appreciate the luxury
of the now blazing fires to dress by.
[Illustration: OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN.
p. 78.]
No one who has any regard for his health should think of going on
a fishing expedition, however short, without a complete change of
clothes,—one set for work, and one for dining and sleeping in. No man
has any business, indeed, on such an expedition at all, who is afraid of
water; but whether he is afraid or not, he will be sure to be wet, at one
time or other, during the day. This, while the limbs are in exercise and
the sun above the horizon, is all well enough; but let no man, however
hardy he may think himself, sleep habitually in wet clothes, or in
clothes hastily and imperfectly dried by the camp fire. The very bracing
of the nerves during the day, which prevents the fisherman from taking
injury by what would be called imprudence by his stay-at-home friends,
makes the relaxation and reaction during the night more complete; and
during that time he is exposed to a host of dangers which vanish before
the face of the sun. With all his precautions, no man gets up from his
night’s sleep in the open air without a little stiffness in the limbs for
the first minute or so, though it may vanish at the first plunge into
the water of his morning’s ablutions. But without these precautions, he
is not unlikely to cut short his own expedition by any one of a dozen
diseases which no amount of animal courage will enable him to bear up
against, and thus he will be defeating his own object. It is very well to
bear hardships cheerily when they are unavoidable—cheerfulness itself is
a preservative. But it is only very young sportsmen indeed, who will seek
out hardships for the pleasure of undergoing them.
Our fishermen were not young sportsmen, they were men of experience. The
Parson and the Captain had both of them learned their lesson in Ireland,
where people soon begin to understand what wet means; and Birger was a
Swedish soldier, and had learnt these matters professionally. Before
they started, they had settled the invariable rule of a complete dress
for dinner, under any circumstances whatever, which implied, of course,
as complete a dress in the morning: it is necessary almost to bind
oneself to some such vow, there are so many temptations to break it; in
Norway especially, where, though the summer days are hot—hotter by many
degrees than they are in England, and the evenings in the highest degree
enjoyable, the morning air is generally sharp and bracing, and the water
which comes down from the snowy ranges bitterly cold.
Jacob, in the meanwhile, whose toilet did not take very long, and who
rarely occupied himself in any work which did not especially belong to
his own department, had been parleying with a young fellow, who, roused
by the Captain’s gun, had pulled across in his boat from the opposite
side, while the rest of the men were occupied in preparing the boats and
re-arranging the articles that had been taken on shore the preceding
evening.
They came up together to where the Parson was standing by the fire,
busily engaged in exchanging his salmon casting-line for one better
adapted for trout.
“The young man says that the river is dangy,” said he; for though he
spoke English well enough, he has his own particular words, which it was
necessary to make out.
“Dingy,” said the Parson, without any very clear comprehension of what
was meant, but rather reverting in his mind to the azure transparency of
the waters; which, in truth, he would gladly have seen a little stained
by mud. “Well, that is a good job. But I fear he will find himself a
little mistaken.”
Jacob evidently had not conveyed his meaning: he looked round for Tom or
Torkel to assist him, but they were both in the boats, working busily
under the Captain’s orders; so Jacob tried his hand again.
“The young man says that there is a great deal of water in the river from
the snow. He says that boats are very often sunk at Oxea.”
“Humph!” said the Parson, who began to suspect something.
Here the young man himself broke in with a long story in Norske.
“He says,” interpreted Jacob, “only last week, one boat was upset, and
two men were drowned.”
“Aye? aye?” said the Parson; “what! sober men?”
Jacob did not see the inference, or would not. “This young man is a
river-pilot,” said he; “he will take you up for two mark each boat.”
“I tell you what it is, Mr. Jacob,” said the Parson; “I will teach you
a lesson. When you engaged as our courier, you meant to fleece us all
pretty handsomely. Well, I have nothing to say against this. As courier,
it is your undoubted privilege so to do. But remember this, it is equally
your duty, as courier, to prevent any one else from fleecing us. And
if I find you only once again failing in that respect, off you go at a
minute’s notice. Now send your friend home again.”
Without looking behind him, the Parson, who had now finished fitting his
flies, took his place in his own boat, and, directing Torkel to shove off
to the other bank, threw his line across the mouth of a small tributary
to the great river, which he had marked the year before as abounding with
trout. Jacob looked for a moment inclined to rebel, but no man was more
alive to his own interests than the ex-smuggler. He had engaged in the
trip, not like Tom and Torkel, from sheer love of sport and adventure,
but as a profitable speculation. So, pocketing the affront, much as
“ancient Pistol” did his leek, he crept down to Birger’s boat, which was
his place in the line of march, where he sat sulky, but utterly wasting
his sulkiness; for Birger, anxious to keep up his yesterday’s character
of a fisherman, was much too intent upon the—to him—difficult manœuvre of
keeping his flies clear of the oars, to observe whether he was pleased or
not.
The Captain took the inner line skirting the shore on the right bank, for
it had been agreed that the flat below the Oxea rapids should be well
tried, in hopes of getting some fresh fish for breakfast.
Though last in the field, he drew the first blood, hooking and, in a few
minutes, landing a small salmon, and thus securing a breakfast. And by
the time the boats came together again, the Parson had brought to bag a
very fair supply of fjeld öret, or brook trout, from the little streamlet
he had been trying. And now began the serious business of the day.
Notwithstanding Mr. Jacob’s information, the rapids of Oxea are
perfectly safe to sober men. It is impossible that an accident can happen
in them, except from carelessness; for the water, though swift, is
everywhere deep. The stream falls with some force over a slanting ledge
of smooth, slaty rock, some three or four hundred yards long or perhaps
more, and acquires in its slide considerable velocity; but the bottom
is smooth, and the surface nowhere broken by sunken rocks. The stream,
therefore, is a steady current, surging up against the numerous islands
which dot the river, as if they had been pieces of a ruined bridge. Each
of these was crested with its half-dozen or so of ash or birch, which
looked as if it was they that were in motion, and not the clear stream
that was racing past them.
The passage was a sheer trial of strength, requiring no great amount of
pilotage, or local experience, or even skill. The ropes were got out and
made fast to two or three thwarts, to take off the strain; the boats were
lightened of their living incumbrances—except so far as the steersmen
were concerned,—and were then tracked by main force one by one, every one
of the party lending a hand, except, indeed, Jacob, who considered it his
duty, having once said the rapids were dangerous, to act as if he thought
so, and who had, therefore, been despatched by land to the head of the
rapid, with orders to light the fires and get the breakfast ready, as
nothing else could be done with him.
The principal difficulty arose from the uncertainty of the footing among
the crags, and the gnarled ash-trees that every here and there shot
almost horizontally from between the fissures of the rock, dipping their
branches into the stream. These rendered it necessary, every now and
then, to make fast the boat to the tree itself, and then to float down a
line to it from some point above the obstacle, for the river fortunately
ran in a curve at that place. Thus, by giving a broad sheer into the
stream, while the rest of the party hauled upon the rope, the boat would
swing clear of the impediment.
But all this was very hard work, and, as the sun was now high in heaven,
very hot work; and, moreover, it had to be repeated three times before
all the boats were in safety. Fully as much justice was done to Jacob’s
breakfast as had been done to his supper on the preceding evening; and
most luxurious was the hour’s rest which succeeded it.
The remaining part of the voyage was easy: there was a sharp current,
no doubt, too sharp for anything to speak of to be done with the flies;
but it was all plain travelling, and, with an occasional help from the
ropes, before noon their destination had been reached. This was the foot
of a low fall, or something between a fall and a rapid, called “The Aal
Foss,” in the middle of which was a picturesque rocky island, covered
with trees, and on the left bank an equally picturesque peninsula, which
was destined to be the head-quarters of the expedition, and the basis of
subsequent operations.
“There,” said the Parson, fixing his rod in the stern-rings, and
springing on shore as the boat’s keel touched a sandy, slaty beach in the
isthmus of the peninsula—
“Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we marched on without impediment.
Here is the limit of my survey. Thus far have I borne the baton of
command; and I beg you to observe that we have reached the appointed spot
twenty minutes before the appointed time.” And he held out his watch in
proof of it. “I have, as you see, performed my promise; and thus I resign
the leadership of the expedition.”
“With universal thanks and approbation,” said the Captain; “and I propose
that now the leadership devolve upon Birger; he is the man of camps and
bivouacs, for he has experienced what we have only read about.”
“Well,” said Birger, “I will not affect modesty. Like others, I have
passed my degrees, and it would be a great shame if bearing his Majesty’s
commission, I did not understand what every soldier is taught.” Then,
suddenly recollecting that the Captain was a military man as well as
himself, he steered adroitly out of his scrape, continuing, as if his
concluding paragraph had been part of his original speech—“You have only
to wait for a war, Captain, and you will be in a situation to give us all
a lesson. No one understood these things better than your old Peninsula
men; but Sweden thinks her soldiers ought to learn their business before
we are called out to fight, and not afterwards.”
To pass the degrees—“gradar,” or rather “gradarne,” for no one ever
thinks of speaking of them without the definite article “ne,” as if there
were no other degrees in the world—is anything but a joke in Sweden.
Military service, so far, at least, as the Guards and the Indelta[7] are
concerned, is extremely popular. There is ample choice in candidates;
and very good care is taken that the officers shall be men who know
their business, and shall not be at a loss in what situation soever
they may be placed. The “gradar” consists of a series of lectures and
extremely strict examinations, in everything connected with the service,
both intellectual or physical, from the construction of an equilateral
triangle up to the sketch of a campaign, and from the musket drill to
a year of sea service. Passing out in seamanship is indispensable; for
Sweden, reversing our principle of hatching ducklings under hens, hatches
her young death-or-glory cornets and ensigns on board her ships. Properly
speaking, the Swedish navy has no midshipmen. The cadets, who fill pretty
numerously the midshipman’s berth, may possibly enter the navy, if they
are so inclined; but nine-tenths of them are candidates for commissions
in the army, and are thus learning a lesson which may be of use to them
hereafter, when they have troops of their own to embark or manage on
ship-board.
Birger had passed his degrees with credit, or he would not have been
selected as a travelling student; and his companions were now likely to
profit by this circumstance, for one of those degrees comprehends all
these mysteries of camping, and hunting, and cooking, and provisioning,
and, if scandal may be trusted, a sort of Spartan stealing, which goes
under the euphemism of “availing one’s self of the resources of the
country;” these little matters being taught by a three weeks’ actual
practice in the field every summer.
Birger was altogether in his element. “Now,” said he, “the first thing I
must do is to borrow all your boatmen, for I shall want every man I can
lay my hands upon; some for the camps, and some for cutting and drawing
fuel; I can find something to do for them all, and for more too if I had
them. And here, you Jacob, take a basket with you, and see what you can
forage out from the cottages and woods about, in the way of milk, bread,
butter, berries, and so forth; and hark you, Jacob, no brandy, if you
please; that is the first thing those scamps always put their hands upon.”
“You have not reckoned us,” said the Captain, “among your effective
strength; we shall not be of much use in foraging, as we cannot speak
Norske, but we have hands and heads too.”
“Do not forget how scantily the camp is provisioned,” said Birger; “we
have not had time or opportunity to catch or shoot anything since we left
Oxea, where, I am sure, we ate up most of our fresh fish. It will not do
to be drawing too largely from our supplies.”
“I have no objection, I am sure,” said the Parson; “but you must let us
have one boat, Birger; even if we are to fish this river from the shore,
there is half a mile of open space, certainly, between this and the great
falls of Wigeland; but best throws lie on the right bank, and we really
must have the power of crossing.”
“Well,” said Birger, “I cannot spare you Torkel, that is certain—he
is much too valuable; take your own boatman; you may halloo out ‘Kom
öfver elven,[8]’ if you want him, and happen to be on the wrong side;
and if he cannot hear you, say ‘Skynda paa mid baaten sáa skall du faa
drikspengar,’[9] and I will warrant he hears fast enough, deaf as he may
be to the first call. We must have one of the boats above this fall,”
he continued, musing; “and we may as well do it at once. We will set all
hands to launch it over this isthmus, before we do anything else, and
then you can use it for your passage-boat. And now for the camp. Tom,
Torkel, my own man Peter, my boatman and the Captain’s will be little
enough for what I have to do, though there are some good hands among
them, as I saw last night and this morning too at Oxea.”
“We must fish, then,” said the Captain; “for there is no use going about
after grouse, in this thick forest, without Torkel, or some one that
knows the place; we should be but wasting our time, poking about these
trees at hap-hazard.”
“And, I am half-afraid that we shall not do much in fishing either,” said
the Parson, as they got a sight of the upper reach of the river, which
lay calm and shining before them. “The sun is as bright as if Odin[10]
had got his other eye out of pledge, and were shining on us with both at
once.”
The Captain whistled a few bars of the Canadian Boat Song.
“Yes,” said the Parson, “it is very true, as you whistle, but, though
the sun be bright, and, though ‘there be not a breath the blue wave to
curl,’ we must try what we can do. It adds considerably to the interest
of fishing, when we know that our supper depends upon it.”
“If this were the old Erne,” said the Captain, “we might whistle for our
supper, in good earnest; but, it must be confessed, that the fish here
are very innocent; we may deceive one; it is not impossible; for, as Pat
Gallagher used to say, ‘there are fools everywhere.’ But—look here,” he
said, as he cast across the stream, “positively, you may see the shadow
of the line on the bottom, deep as the water is.”
“Let us cross,” said the Parson. “‘Gaa öfver elven,’ as Birger says,
for I see they have got the boat up: near the great fall there are some
strong streams that will defy the sun and the calm together.”
Thanks to the innocence of the salmon, which the Captain had hinted at,
their pot-fishing was not entirely without success: the upper part of
the reach, where the waters had not yet recovered their serenity after
undergoing the roar and fury of the great fall, did actually furnish
them with a graul or two; but the salmon that had arrived at years of
discretion were very much too cautious to be taken. They had never, it
is true, been fished for in their lives with anything more delicate than
a piece of whipcord and a bunch of lobworms, as big as a cricket-ball;
but, for all that, they were quite old enough to draw an inference, and
were perfectly aware that natural grasshoppers were not in the habit of
swimming about with lines tied to their noses.
Towards evening there sprang up a light air of wind, and the rises began
to be more frequent. The Captain, by making use of Birger’s prescribed
form of words, had got the boatman to land him on the rocky island which
divides the Aal Foss into two branches. There, concealed by a stubby fir,
not quite so high as himself, he was sending out twenty yards of line
that fell so lightly that it never seemed to touch the water at all.
There is no doubt that, of all the Erne fishermen, it was the Captain who
threw the longest and the lightest line, and well was the Captain aware
of that fact: but there is an axiom which “far and fine” fishers would do
well to bear in mind, and which, though apparently evident to the meanest
capacity, is very seldom borne in mind by any one; and that is, that it
is of very little use to fish “far and fine,” when the fish themselves
are lying, all the while, in the water close under your feet. This was
precisely the Captain’s position; the waters, divided by the rock on
which he was standing, were naturally deepest close to the rock itself,
and, as naturally, the best fish lay in the deepest water. The Captain
understood this well, but he could not deny himself his length of line,
and, therefore, contrived to fish the water close to him by raising his
arms, bringing the point of his rod over his right shoulder, and then
whisking his flies out for a fresh cast with a dextrous turn of the wrist
which no man in England but himself could have performed.
“I will tell you what,” said the Parson—who, not having met with much
success, had stuck up his rod, and had got himself ferried over to the
island—“it is not very likely that a fish of any size will rise this
evening, but if such a thing should happen I would not give much for your
rod.”
“I wish the biggest fish in the river——”
The sentence was never finished, for, at the word, the wish was granted;
and, if not the biggest fish in the river, certainly the biggest fish
they had yet seen, rose at the fly when it was not a foot from the rock.
The rod never stood a chance. Raised at a sharp angle over the Captain’s
shoulder, the whole strain came upon the top-piece, which, as he struck,
snapped like a flower-stalk, without effort or resistance; and away
rushed the fish forty or fifty yards up-stream with the top-piece, which
had run down upon the fly, bobbing against his nose.
The Captain did all that man could do. Carefully did he watch his fish,
anticipating every movement; instantly did he dip his rod, as the salmon
sprang madly into air—instantly did he recover it; promptly was the
line reeled in at the turn; tenderly was it given out at the rush; but
it was of no avail—the rod had lost its delicate spring; and, despite
the Captain’s care, every now and then the fish would get a stiff pull
against the stump, thus gradually enlarging the hold which the hook had
taken in the skin of the jaw, till, at last, just as the Parson, who had
been hoping against hope, was taking the cork off the point of his gaff
and clearing away the brambles to get a good standing place for using
it, the line came up slack; the hold had given way.
The Parson had the generosity to be silent about his warning that had
received so immediate a fulfilment.
“Well,” he said, “you have recovered your top; that is something, so many
miles from Bell Yard; and as for the fish, depend upon it that there are
more where he came from.”
The Captain mused a little. With the exception of Birger’s chance-medley,
they had not seen a full-grown salmon[11] since they had come upon
the river, and the loss was no light one. “I suppose,” he said,
interrogatively, “it would be hardly worth while to fetch another top
from the camp?”
“Not at all worth while,” said the Parson; “the wonder is, that you rose
one full-mouthed fish on such a day as this. You are not going to rise
another. Besides,” he added, “look at the sun! It is time for us to think
of cooking, rather than catching. Birger will be wondering what is become
of us.”
They were at no great distance from the camp, which, to their surprise,
they found tenanted by Jacob alone, who, having got over his morning
sulks, was busy in what he called a Långref, a miniature variety of which
is not altogether unknown to our Hampshire poachers; but Jacob’s was a
tremendous affair, more like what in sea-fishing is called a spillet or
bolter, consisting of three or four hundred yards of water cord, and half
as many hooks.
“Halloo,” said the Captain; “what has become of them all? Why, Jacob,
where is Lieutenant Birger?”
“He is gone with the men to make an offering to Nyssen,” said Jacob.
“Who the devil is Nyssen?” said the Captain.
Jacob looked distressed. It is not lucky to mention the mundane spirits
and those of hell in the same sentence; in fact, the less people
talk about either of them the better, so, at least, the Swedes think,
and therefore imprecate their curses by saying, “The Thousand take
you,” leaving it for your own conscience to determine whether they are
consigning you to saints or devils.
“There they are, you may see them yourself,” replied he, evading the
question, and pointing to a bare rounded rock which rose above the wooded
summits about a mile down the river.
The Parson’s telescope was in his hand in a moment; but all he could make
out was, that they put something on the ground which they left there,
and immediately entered the thick wood, which hid them from his sight.
Jacob could not, or at all events would not, satisfy their curiosity, and
they had nothing for it but to amuse themselves with admiring Birger’s
handy-work, till that individual on his return should make his own report
of himself.
And really the Lieutenant would have extorted praise from the head of the
Kong’s-öfver-commandant’s-Expedition himself, so well and so orderly was
the encampment made.
The sails were formed into three several tents, not very large ones,
certainly, and scarcely admitting of the inmates sitting upright, except
in the centre, but quite sufficient to shelter a man lying at full
length. At the back of these, where the ground rose a little, a neat
trench was cut, in order to carry off the drainings of any unforeseen
shower. These were the sleeping tents; and in front of them were spread
out a quantity of poplar leaves, which were eventually to form the beds,
and which were then pretty rapidly undergoing the process of desiccation
in the hot and bright sunshine which had hitherto been so unfriendly.
A birch trimmed in its weeping branches, and thickened above with a
few supplementary boughs of spruce-fir, was evidently arranged for the
dining-room, and several of the stores were gathered round its trunk
and thatched with fir-branches, while at some distance below, and not
far from the sandy beach, stood three or four neat green huts, built
with a framework of fir-poles, and thatched closely, both in roof and
walls, with the upper branches of the trees that had been cut down for
the frame. Not far from where Jacob was sitting over his långref, there
was an elaborate kitchen, built of rough stones against a natural rock,
with a cross-beam on the top to swing the kettle from, and beside it
rose a goodly pile of fuel, cut into lengths, and stacked into what is
called in the country fathoms, that is to say, square piles, six feet
long and three high. This had evidently been their last work, for the
axes and saws were still lying on the unfinished pile. By the river’s
bank at the edge of the peninsula was a curious erection, which Jacob
called the smoking-house. It was a pyramid constructed of outsides of
deals, hundreds of which, rejected from the saw-mills, were floating
about unheeded in the river, and drifting into every corner that was
sheltered from the current. This was by no means a place constructed for
the luxury of smoking tobacco, an amusement in which every individual of
the party indulged in every possible place and in all places alike. It
was erected for hanging up superfluous salmon which had previously been
slightly salted, in order, with the help of smoke from the green juniper,
to convert them into what in London is called “kipper.”
There was little use for it that evening, however, for the grauls brought
in by the fishermen would have been but scanty allowance, even for the
present supper, had they not been helped out by other provisions. But
Jacob had by no means been idle in his vocation. On a shelf of rock not
very far from the kitchen, and shaded by a friendly tree, stood gallons
of milk and piles of flad bröd, with a few raspberries, which were just
then ripening, and an actual little mountain of strawberries, for the
woods were carpetted with their bright green leaves and scarlet berries.
Jacob, as was his duty, rolled up his långref as quickly as such a
combination of tackle could be stowed away, and commenced preparing the
fish for dinner, while the fishermen changed their clothes, and hung them
to dry round a supplementary fire which had been lighted for the purpose.
CHAPTER VIII.
MAKING A NIGHT OF IT.
“Ale’s not so good
For the children of men
As people have boasted;
For less and less,
As more he drinketh,
Knows man himself.
The kern of forgetfulness
Sits on the drunken
And steals the man’s senses,—
By the bird’s pinions
Fettered I lay
In Gunlada’s dwelling.
Drunken I lay,
Lay thoroughly drunken,
With Fjalar the wise.
This is the best of drink,
That every one afterwards
Comes to his senses.”
_High Song of Odin the Old._
Many minutes had not expired, during which brief space the fishermen had
been luxuriating in their dry clothes, when the boats were seen working
their way back across the tail of the Aal Foss rapid, as they returned
with the party from the right bank, which, after bobbing about on the
ripples and cross currents, shot into their little harbour beneath the
encampment.
Birger came up the bank, half-laughing, yet looking as if he had been
doing something he was ashamed of.
“Where the deuce have you been, Birger?” said the Captain, as that worthy
threw himself on the turf under the birch-tree: “Jacob says you have been
sacrificing to Nyssen, whoever he is.”
“So I have,” said Birger; “but don’t speak so loud. I will tell you all
about it.”
“Not speak so loud,” said the Captain; “why not?”
“Well,” said Birger, rather hesitatingly, “Nyssen does not like to be
spoken of. That is to say, the men don’t exactly like to hear people
speaking of him, at least by name, if it is above the breath.”
“Come, come, Birger, be honest,” said the Parson.
“Well, if you must have it, I do not quite like it myself. I do not
believe in such things, of course; but there is no good in doing what
everybody thinks unlucky.”
“Well, well,” said the Captain, “but tell us what you have been about. I
am quite in the dark as yet about this mysterious gentleman or lady.”
“Why, the Nyss,” said Birger, sinking his voice at the word to a whisper,
“is a spirit of the air, just as the Neck (a similar whisper) is a spirit
of the water.”
“The very familiars of the Lady of Branksome,” said the Parson:—
It was the Spirit of the Flood,
And he spoke to the Spirit of the Fell.
“Very likely, but our spirits, like our people, are not indifferent to
the pleasures of eating and drinking; and therefore, whenever we start on
an expedition, we propitiate them with an offering.”
“And the offering consists of——?”
“What we like best ourselves, cakes and ale.”
“But what had you to do with it,” said the Captain; “I suppose you do not
believe in spirits?”
“The men asked leave to go, when they had done their work, and wanted me
to go with them, to that high rock you see down there,—for they always
choose out some bare and elevated locality, as best adapted to a spirit
of the air; and so—well, I went with them; don’t laugh at me.”
“That will I not,” said the Parson; “you could not have done a wiser
thing. Always fall in with men’s superstitions; there is nothing that
attaches them so much as humouring their little illegitimate beliefs; to
say nothing,” he added slily, “of believing a little in them yourself.”
“How is this offering made?” said the Captain: “what are the rites
belonging to the worship of a spirit of the air?”
“They are simple enough,” said Birger, “and not at all like those you
would see on the stage of London,—no blue fires or poetical incantations:
they consist in simply placing the cake on the most exposed pinnacle you
can find, pouring the ale into the nearest hollow that will hold it, and
then retreating in silence, and without looking behind you.”
“While some thirsty soul, after the manner of Bel in the Apocrypha, plays
Nyssen and accepts the offering,” said the Captain.
“What! eat Nyssen’s offering! Tom, what do you say to that?”—for the
men were still fidgetting about the fire,—“what do you say to that? The
Captain thinks that one of you will eat up Nyssen’s cake; what do you say
about it?”
“Well,” said Tom, “we have bold men in Norway, as all our histories will
tell you; but bold as we are, I do not think you will get a man in the
whole country to do that.”
“There was a young fellow once who did it in my country though,” said
Jacob, “and dearly he paid for it. The family used to place the yearly
gifts to Nyssen under the sails of their windmill every Christmas
Eve;—you Norwegians do not know what windmills are; you grind all your
corn by water, poor devils!”
Here Tom and Torkel, both Tellemarken men, broke in simultaneously; the
one swearing that, in the Tellemark, windmills were as plenty as fir
trees; the other vociferating, somewhat incongruously, that no nation
two degrees from actual barbarism could ever think of such a piece of
machinery at all.
Birger stilled their national animosities by wishing “The Thousand” would
take them all three, and their windmills into the bargain, and Jacob went
on with his story.
“The eldest son,” he said, “was a sad unbeliever; he had been a very good
boy as long as he had lived with his father and mother at Lerum, but
when he grew up he had gone to Copenhagen and got corrupted; for, as his
honour Lieutenant Birger knows, they are all sad infidels at Copenhagen.”
Here was likely to be another outbreak; for the Danes, though it is quite
true that a great many of them are not only sceptics in fairy mythology
but in religion also, are yet vehemently regretted by the Norwegians, who
were in no ways pleased with that act of the Congress of Vienna which
separated them from Denmark; a fact which our friend Jacob was perfectly
aware of.
Peace was again effected by a vigorous kick from his fellow-countrymen,
together with some observations respecting a donkey in a state of eternal
condemnation; and Jacob went on as if nothing particular had happened.
“Well,” said he, “the young man found that the best ale and sweetest
cake were always given to Nyssen, so he slipped out and gobbled them
up himself. During the whole year that followed that Christmas, no
great harm came of it, only there was always something wrong about the
windmill; now a sail blown away, now a cog broken; there was plenty
of grist, trade was lively enough, it was always something to do with
the wind, and, as far as that was concerned, nothing went right. Still
no one suspected the reason, till Christmas Eve came round again, and
another sweet cake and another bottle of strong ale were placed under
the mill for Nyssen. The night was as still and as quiet as this evening
is,—quieter if possible; there was not a breath of wind, and the snow
looked like a winding-sheet in the moonlight. Well, the young man slipped
out again; but scarcely had he stooped to pick up the bottle, when a
furious gust of wind arose, scattering the snow like flour out of a sack;
the sails flew round as if they were mad; it was said that a figure in
a pointed cap and a red jacket sat astride on the axle, and one of the
sails taking the young man on the side of the head, threw him as far as I
could fling a stone. He sank into the snow, which closed over him, and no
one knew what had become of him till the thaw came on. It was very late
that year, for the ground was not clear till Walpurgis’ Night, and then
they found him, and Nyssen’s broken bottle still in his hand. It was by
that they found out how it had happened. I would not be the man to touch
anything belonging to Nyssen.”
“Nor I neither,” chimed in the two Norsemen.
“Johnstone and Maxwell both agree for once,” said the Parson, laughing;
“and I will tell you another thing, neither would I. But now, Mr. Jacob,
that we have done everything that can be expected of us by the spirits
of the air, who, I hope, in common gratitude, will give us fishermen a
cloudy sky and a little bit of a breeze to-morrow, I must say I should
like to take my turn at the cakes and ale; so let us have whatever you
have got in your big pot there, and bring us a bucket of strawberries and
cream for dessert.”
The dinner was by no means so elaborate an affair as that of yesterday;
this was occasioned, in some measure, by their want of sport, but,
principally, because all had been far too much engaged in the necessary
business of the camp to think much of eating. The solids, such as they
were, that is to say, beef and pork, out of the harness cask, were
soon despatched, and the huge camp kettle, one of the old-fashioned
ante-Wellingtonian affairs, as big as a mortar, and nearly as heavy,
was sent down to the men, while the fishermen lounged at full length
on the turf, enjoying their rest over Jacob’s plentiful provision of
strawberries and cream.
Fénélon has, somewhere or other, a fable about a man who had the power
of procuring, “_pour son argent_,” as the good Bishop says, half-a-dozen
men’s appetites and digestions. The man does not seem, in the fable, to
have made a very good use of his extraordinary powers, or to have derived
any extraordinary pleasure from them. If he had only come out campaigning
in Norway, he might have had his five appetites for nothing, and been
much the better for them all.
Meanwhile, the lower table did not at all seem to be in want of an
appetite; the kettle was emptied, and whole heaps of flad-bröd, sour as
verdjuice, and pots of butter, such as no nose or stomach, out of Norway,
could tolerate, were fast disappearing beneath the unceasing attacks
of seven gluttonous Scandinavians—while, as the twilight darkened, and
diminished the restraint they might possibly have felt at the presence
of their superiors, the noise grew louder and louder. Jacob began some
interminable ballad about the sorrows and trials of little Kirstin, a
very beautiful lady, who went through all sorts of misfortunes, and did
not seem a “bit better than she should be;” but that goes for nothing
at all in Swedish song, and very little in Swedish life. This he sang,
chorus and all, to his own share. It seemed to affect the worthy man very
little, that he was almost his own audience; no one seemed to attend
him, but his song went on, stanza after stanza, uninterruptedly, forming
a sort of running accompaniment to the shouts and screams of “Gammle
Norgé,” “Wackere Lota, or, Kari,” which startled the echoes alternately,
according as love, or patriotism, was the prevailing sentiment.
At last, they began drinking healths—“Skaal Herr Carblom,” “Skaal for
the well-born singer;” for, like the old Spanish nobility, though they
addressed one another as Tom, Piersen, and so forth, they always gave the
interloper his full title.
“Jeg takker de,” said Jacob, solemnly, without, however, pausing for one
moment in his song.
“Little Kirstin, she came to the bridal hall,—
We will begin with the wooing,—
And a little page answered to her call,
My best beloved, I ne’er can forget you”—
Here broke in Tom, beating time to his music with a horn which he had
replenished to the very brim, and of which he was imparting the contents
very liberally to the turf round him—
“Wet your clay, Andy!
Out with the brandy!
We live in jolly way,—
Here’s to you, night or day!
Look at sister Kajsa Stina,
See her bottles bright and clear-ah!
Take the horn, good fellow! grin-ah!
Grin and swill and drink like me!”
Jacob’s voice was again audible—
“She tied her horse in the garden there:
We will begin with the wooing”—
“Skaal Thorsen! skaal Tom Engelsk! skaal for the British navy!”
“Rule, Britannia!” shouted Tom. Jacob went on—
“We will begin with the wooing:
She brushed and—”
Here a general chorus—
“To the brim, young men! fill it up! fill again!
Drain! drain, young men!—’tis to Norway you drain.
Your fathers have sown it,
Your fields they have grown it;
Then quaff it, young men! for he’ll be the strongest
Who drinks of it deepest and sits at it longest.”
Jacob’s voice became audible, like a symphony, between the verses—
“She brushed and combed her golden hair,”—
when again rose up the wild chorus, overwhelming it under the volume of
sound:
“To the brim, old men! fill it up! fill again!
Drain! drain, old men!—’tis to Norway you drain.
There’s health in the cup,—
Fill it up! fill it up!
And quaff it, old men! for he’ll live the longest
Who drinks of it deepest and likes it the strongest.”
“By the Harp of Bragi,” said Birger, “I’ll back old Jacob against the
field,—that fellow has such bottom!” for the honest toper’s voice came
again dreamily up the hill where they were sitting, during the pause that
followed this outburst.
“Little Kirstin then passed out from the door,—
We had best begin with the wooing:
She said, I shall hither come no more,—
My best beloved! I never will forget thee.
Forth she went to the garden there,—
We had best begin with the wooing:
She hung herself with her golden hair,—
My best beloved! I never can forget thee.”
“Skaal for Birger! skaal for the brave Lieutenant! skaal for the royal
guard!” shouted one, waxing more bold as the night drew on.
“Gammle Norgé!” screamed back an opponent, and immediately Torkel burst
out, with his fine bass voice, into the national song, drowning entirely
poor Jacob’s melancholy ditty, which never got much beyond the wooing
after all.
“The hardy Norseman’s house of yore
Was on the foaming wave,
And there he gathered bright renown—
The bravest of the brave.
O, ne’er should we forget our sires,
Wherever we may be;
For they did win a gallant name,
And ruled the stormy sea.
What though our hands be weaker now
Than they were wont to be
When boldly forth our fathers sailed
And conquered Normandy?
We still may sing their deeds of fame,
In thrilling harmony;
They won FOR US that gallant name,
Ruling the stormy sea!”—
Enthusiasm was at its height, as the full chorus thundered forth from all
the voices—
“Never will we forget our sires,
Wherever we may be;
They won for us that gallant name,
Ruling the stormy sea!”
Whether Jacob joined in it, or persevered in the sorrows of little
Kirstin, it is impossible to say; but the loud-ringing alto of Birger
came in tellingly from the house of the Nobles, accompanied by the
bass of his two friends. The compliment was taken at once, “Skaal for
the high-born Fishermen!” “Skaal for the noble gentlemen!” “Skaal for
Vict_ou_ria!” “Skaal for Carl Johann!” “Skaal for England!”
“Skaal for Sweden,” shouted Jacob at last.
“Gammle Norgé! Gammle Norgé! Sweden and Norway!—Sweden and Norway for
ever! Skaal! Skaal!”
“Upon my word,” said the Parson, “some one must have been shelling out in
good earnest. There goes something stronger than water to all that noise.”
“Well,” said Birger, “it is very true: they did their work this afternoon
like men, and then, instead of going and buying brandy, and making beasts
of themselves, they very properly sent Torkel as spokesman to me, and
asked my permission to get drunk, which, as they had behaved so well, of
course I granted them, and gave them five or six orts to buy brandy with.”
The Parson burst out laughing: “Well, Birger, it is very kind of you, to
save them from making beasts of themselves: rather a novel way of doing
it, though.”
“O, it is all right,” said Birger; “that is the way we always do in my
country, we get it over at once: they will be as sober as judges after
this—if we had not indulged them when they knew they had deserved it,
they would always have been hankering after brandy, and dropping off
drunk when they were most wanted: they will be as sober as judges after
this, I tell you,” he reiterated, observing a slight smile of incredulity
on the faces of both his companions.
“I do not feel quite so confident of their being as sober as judges
to-morrow, as I do about their being as drunk as pigs to-night,” said the
Captain; “though, to be sure, I do not know what judges are in Norway;
but it does seem to me that five or six orts[12] are rather a liberal
allowance, in a country where one can get roaring drunk for half-a-dozen
skillings.”
“That is just the very thing I do not want them to do,” said Birger.
“Whenever a Norseman gets roaring drunk, he is sure to kick up a row: it
is very much better that they should get beastly drunk at once; then they
go to sleep and sleep it off, and no one the wiser.”
“I should have thought, though,” said the Captain, “that you gave them
quite enough for that, and a good remainder for another day into the
bargain.”
“It is little you know of the Norwegian, then,” said Birger, “or, for the
matter of that, of the Swede either: he is not the man to make two bites
of a cherry, or to leave his brandy in the bottom of the keg. Besides,
they will consider themselves upon honour. They asked my leave to get
drunk on this particular night, and I gave them the money to do it with;
it would be absolute swindling, to get drunk with my money on any other
occasion.”
“Upon my word,” said the Captain, “this a terrible drawback to your
beautiful country. Our fellows in Ireland used to get drunk now and then,
to be sure, but they had always the grace to be ashamed of it. These
scoundrels do it in such a business-like way.”
“Your countryman, Laing, sets that down to the score of our virtues,”
said Birger. “He considers it much better to act upon principle, like our
people, than to yield to temptation, as your English and Irish sots do. I
must say, though, that he is not half so indulgent to us poor Swedes.”
“My countryman, Laing,” said the Parson, “though a very observant
traveller, is, also, a very extreme republican and a very prejudiced
writer. He gives us facts in monarchical Sweden, as well as in republican
Norway, and he gives them as he sees them, no doubt; but, he looks at the
two countries through glasses of different tints. Now, my idea is, that,
in point of drunkenness, there is not a pin to choose.”
“Yes, but there is, though,” said Birger. “The Norwegian is quarrelsome
in his cups; and you will seldom find that in any part of Sweden, unless
in Scånia, and the Scånians are half Danes yet. I had the precaution to
take away those gentlemen’s knives when I gave them the money for their
brandy (and, I must admit, they gave them up with very good grace),
or, the chances are, that we should have lost the services of that ass
Jacob, and given a job for the Landamptman to-morrow. Why, half the
party-coloured gentlemen in the castle at Christiania have earned their
iron decorations in some drunken brawl or other.”[13]
“Well, that may be,” said the Parson. “I have not experienced enough to
gainsay you; but you must admit that as far as simple drinking goes, the
two nations have the organ of drunkenness pretty equally developed.”
“I should think it must be a barrel organ, then,” said the Captain, “if
we are to judge by the quantity it contains.”
“Thank your stars it has got a good many stops in it. The Scandinavian
does not drink irregularly, like your people whom you can never reckon
upon for two days together. He has his days of solemn drunkenness—some of
them political, such as the coronation; or the king’s name day; or, here,
in Norway, the signing of their cursed constitution. Some of them, again,
are religious—such as Christmas, and Easter, and Whitsuntide: these are
days in which all Scandinavia gets drunk as one man. And there are a few
little domestic anniversaries besides—such as christenings and weddings;
but, this is all, except a chance affair, like this; so that, by a glance
at the calendar, and a little inquiry into a man’s private history, you
may always know when to find him sober, and fit for work.”
“Sober, meaning three or four glasses of brandy?” said the Parson.
“Yes,” said Birger. “He seldom goes beyond that, on ordinary days; and,
therefore, on festivals like this, I think him very well entitled to make
up for it.”
“I think, though,” said the Parson, “when I was in Sweden, last year, I
did see such things as stocks for drunkards, at some of the church doors.”
“Yes, you did, at all of them; but, you never saw any one in them. How is
a mayor to order a man into the stocks, for drunkenness, when the chances
are, that he was just as drunk himself on the very same occasion?”
“How do you account for this universal system of drinking spirits?” said
the Captain.
“It is easy enough to account for it,” said the Parson; for Birger rather
shirked the question. “Every landed proprietor has a right to a private
still; the duty is a farthing a gallon, carriage is difficult, and brandy
is much more portable than corn. Will not this account for some of it?
I do not happen to know what may be the return for Sweden; but, for
Norway, it is somewhat over five million gallons a-year, in a country
which does not grow nearly enough of corn to support itself; and this,
as the population does not come up to a million and a-half, gives three
and a-half gallons per Christian, to every man, woman, and child, in the
country.”
“Come, come,” said Birger, “if you go to statistics, look at home. Your
Mr. Hume moved, last session, for a return of all the men that had
been picked up, drunk, in the course of the preceding year; and, in
Glasgow alone, there were nearly fifteen thousand—that is to say, one
out of every twenty-two of the whole population. Do not talk to us of
drunkenness. Did you ever hear of the controversy between the pot and the
kettle?”
“The Scotch are no more our countrymen, than the Norwegians are yours,”
said the Parson; “and, if I recollect right, that very return gave no
more than one in every six hundred, picked up, drunk, in our Manchester;
and Manchester is not what we call a moral place, either.”[14]
“In that very place, Glasgow,” said the Captain, “where, for my sins, I
was quartered last year, I was actually taken up before the magistrates,
and fined five shillings, for what the hypocritical sinners call
‘whustling on the Saubboth,’ and it was only Saturday night, either—the
rascally Jews! They are fellows to
Compound for sins they are inclined to
By damning those they have no mind to.
The scoundrels couldn’t whistle a tune themselves on any day of the week,
‘were it their neck verse at Hairibee;’ they have no notion of music,
beyond the bagpipe and the Scotch fiddle.”
“Five shillings?” said the Parson, musingly; “that is just the sum they
fine people, in London, for being drunk and disorderly.”
“Then, in all human probability, the Captain made one individual item in
Mr. Hume’s fifteen thousand himself.”
“Very possibly,” said the Captain. “It was Saturday night, and I will not
say I might not have been a little screwed. When one is in Turkey one
must live as turkeys live.”
“Well,” said the Parson, “I believe all northern nations have a
natural turn for drunkenness, but laws and regulations may increase or
diminish the amount of it; and the laws of both these countries tend
most particularly to increase it. With you it is a regular case of
‘Drunkenness made easy.’ Besides, public opinion sets that way too. If
I were suspected of anything approaching to the state of our friends
down below, I never could face my parish again. Your parish priest might
be carried home and tucked into bed by a dozen of his faithful and
hard-headed parishioners on Saturday night, and if the thing did not come
round too often, would get up not a pin the worse on Sunday morning,
either in health or in reputation.”
“I think,” said the Captain, “public presents are a very fair test of
public propensities. In the snuffy days of the last century and the
beginning of this, every public character, from the Duke of Wellington
down to William Cobbett, had the freedoms of all sorts of things
given them in golden snuff-boxes. Now, look at your people. When your
king paid a visit to the University of Upsala, the most appropriate
present he could think of making to that learned body, was an ancient
drinking-horn,—of course, by way of encouraging the national tastes.
And when he made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Odin and Freya, the most
appropriate present which that learned body could make to him in their
turn, was another ancient drinking-horn, which had the additional value
of having once been the property of those heroic, but, if there is any
truth in Sagas, exceedingly drunken divinities.”
“Well, well,” said Birger, good-humouredly (and it must be said that his
was a case of good-humour under difficulties), “every nation has its own
national sins to answer for, and it is no use for me to deny that ours is
drunkenness. But what else can you expect from a people whose ideal of
the joys of heaven used to be fighting all day, and after a huge dinner
of boiled pork, getting beastly drunk upon beer? Gangler, in the prose
Edda, asks Har, ‘How do your Heroes pass their time in Valhalla when
they are not drinking?’ And Har replies, ‘Every day, as soon as they
have dressed themselves, they ride out into the court, and fight till
they cut each other in pieces. This is their pastime; but when meal-time
approaches, they return to drink in Valhalla.’ Or, if you will have the
same in verse, this is what the Vafthrudnis Mal says:—
The Einherjir all,
On Odin’s plain,
Hew daily each other
While chosen the slain are;
From the fray they then ride,
And drink ale with the Œsir.”
“After all,” said the Parson, “this is nothing more than a ghostly
tournament; and I have no doubt but that the haughty tournaments of the
middle ages, if deprived of their mediæval gilding, would be very like
the hewings, ale swillings, and pork banquetings of the Einherjir. I
hope, though, that they brewed good ale in Asgard.”
“I dare say,” said the Captain, “that, after their carousal, they wanted
a little sleep to fit them for the toils of the next day; I am sure I do,
and I vote we try what sort of couches Birger has prepared for us. Our
once merry friends below seem to be as fast asleep as swine now, and as
quiet. To tell you the truth, I am a little tired with our day’s work,
and we certainly have another good day’s work cut out for us to-morrow.”
“With all my heart,” said Birger, finishing off what, from its colour,
might have been a glass of water, but was not. As Odin says—
“No one will charge thee
With evil, if early
Thou goest to slumber.”
“Come along, then,” said the Captain, “turn in; and may the Nyss to whom
we have sacrificed send us to-morrow ‘a southerly wind and a cloudy sky.’”
There are several national songs in Norway. That which Torkel
sings is an ancient song, and has been adapted and arranged
as a chorus, by Hullah; but it is not that which is generally
known as “Gammle Norgé.” This, though eminently popular, is but
a modern composition. Its author is Bjerregaard, a Norse poet
of some eminence. It has been thus rendered into English by Mr.
Latham:—
Minstrel, awaken the harp from its slumbers!
Strike for old Norway, the land of the free!
High and heroic in soul-stirring numbers,
Clime of our fathers, we strike it for thee!
Old recollections
Awake our affections,—
They hallow the name of the land of our birth;
Each heart beats its loudest,
Each cheek glows its proudest,
For Norway the Ancient, the Throne of the Earth!
Spirit! look back on her far-flashing glory,
The far-flashing meteor that bursts on thy glance,
On chieftain and hero immortal in story,
They press to the battle like maids to the dance.
The blood flows before them,
The wave dashes o’er them,
They reap with the sword what they plough with the keel;
Enough that they leave
To the country that bore them
Bosoms to bleed for her freedom and weal.
The Shrine of the Northman, the Temple of Freedom,
Stands like a rock where the stormy wind breaks;
The tempests howl round it, but little he’ll heed them,—
Freely he thinks, and as freely he speaks.
The bird in its motion,
The wave in its ocean,
Scarcely can rival his liberty’s voice;
Yet he obeys,
With a willing devotion
Laws of his making and kings of his choice.
Land of the forest, the fell, and the fountain,—
Blest with the wealth of the field and the flood,—
Steady and truthful, the sons of thy mountain,
Pay the glad price of thy rights with their blood.
Ocean hath bound thee,
Freedom hath found thee,—
Flourish, old Norway, thy flag be unfurled!
Free as the breezes
And breakers around thee—
The pride of thy children, the Throne of the World!
CHAPTER IX.
THE HELL FALL.
“If thou hadst not been leading a life of sin—
The sun shines over Enen—
Thou wouldst have given me water thy bare hand within—
Under the linden green.
Now, this is the penance that on thee I lay:
Eight years in the wood shalt thou live from this day,
And no food shall pass thy lips between,
Save only the leaves of the linden green;
And no other drink shalt thou have at all,
Save the dew on the linden leaves so small;
And no other bed shall be pressed by thee,
Save only the roots of the linden tree.
When eight long years were gone and spent,
Jesus the Lord to Magdalene went—
Now shall Heaven’s mercy thee restore—
The sun shines over Enen—
Go, Magdalena, and sin no more
Under the linden green.”
_Svenska Folk-visor._
Whether the Spirits of the Flood and Fell considered themselves
complimented by the homage which had been paid to them, or whether things
would have turned out exactly the same had there been no offering at
all, is a mystery of mythology which we will not take upon ourselves to
determine. Certain it is, that when the next morning was ushered in with
a soft westerly breeze and a dull cloudy sky, interspersed with bright
transient gleams of joyous sunshine, such as salmon love, the Nyssar got
the credit of it all. Not that the Norwegians were at first aware of the
extent of their blessings, for the barbarians are all unversed in the
mysteries of fly-fishing, but they were not long in finding it out, from
the smiling looks and congratulatory expressions of their employers.
Englishmen might have felt dull and heavy after the consumption of such
enormous quantities of brandy: English heads might have ached, and
English hands might have felt shaky during the operation of getting
sober. Thor himself could not have risen from the challenge cup, set
before him by Loki Utgard, with more complete self-possession than did
Tom and Torkel, and the mighty Jacob. Sleep and drink had fled with the
shades of night, and it was a steady hand that served out the coffee that
morning.
The party had long separated to their respective pursuits, for the
impatience of the fishermen and the actual dearth of provisions in the
camp did not allow of idling.
Towards noon the breeze had entirely sunk, and the sun, having succeeded
in dispelling the clouds, was shining in its summer strength into the
confined valley, concentrating its rays from the encircling rocks upon
the channel of the river, and pouring them on the encampment as on the
focus of a burning-glass.
It was not, however, a depressing, moist, stewing heat; there was a
lightness and elasticity in the air unknown in southern climes, or if
known at all, known only on the higher Alps, and in the middle of the
summer. Men felt the heat, no doubt, and the thermometer indicated a high
degree of temperature; but there was nothing in it enervating, nothing
predisposing to slothfulness or inaction; on the contrary, the nerves
seemed braced under it, and the spirits buoyant. Work and exercise were a
pleasure, not a toil; and if the Parson did stretch himself out under the
shade of the great birch tree, it was the natural result of a well-spent
morning of downright hard work. Wielding a flail is a trifle compared to
wielding a salmon rod; and he and the Captain had, both of them, wielded
it that morning to some purpose, for the salmon had not been unmindful
of the soft breeze and the cloudy skies, but had risen to the fly with
appetites truly Norwegian.
Jacob and Torkel, with one of the boatmen in the distance, were up to
their eyes in salt and blood, cleaning, splitting, salting, and otherwise
preparing the spare fish for a three days’ sojourn in the smoking-house;
while three or four bright-looking fresh run salmon, selected from
the heap, and ready crimped for the kettle or toasting skewers, were
glittering from under the green and constantly-wetted branches, with
which they were protected from the heat of the day.
Birger, who was much more at home with his gun than with his fishing-rod,
had gone out that morning early, attended by his two men, in order to
reconnoitre the country, and see what its capabilities were; for the
Parson’s report had been confined to its excellencies as a fishing
station. The Captain was still on the river; every now and then distant
glimpses of his boat could be seen as he shifted from throw to throw, and
occasionally condescended even to harl the river, by way of resting his
arms. Such a fishing morning as they had enjoyed, is not often to be met
with, and the Captain would not take the hint which the cloudless sun had
been giving him for the last half-hour.
The Parson, whose rod was pitched in a neighbouring juniper, and whose
fly, a sober dark-green, as big as a bird, floated out faintly in the
expiring breeze, was stretched at full length on the turf, occupied, so
far as a tired man who is resting himself can be said to be occupied at
all, in watching the motions of a little red-headed woodpecker, that was
darting from branch to branch and from tree to tree, making the forest
ring again with its sharp succession of taps, as it drove the insects
out of their hiding-places beneath the outside bark. Taps they were,
no doubt, and given by the bird’s beak, too, but by no means like the
distinct and deliberate tap of the yellow woodpecker, every one of which
may be counted: so rapid were they, that they sounded more like the
scrooping of a branch torn violently from the tree, and so loud, that it
was difficult to conceive that such a sound could be caused by a bird
comparatively so diminutive.
The woodpecker, which seemed almost tame and by no means disconcerted
by the presence of strangers, pursued its occupation with the utmost
confidence, though quite within reach of the Parson’s rod.
“Take care,” said the Parson, as Torkel approached, “do not disturb it.”
“Disturb what?” said Torkel.
The Parson pointed to the woodpecker, which was not a dozen yards from
them. The bird paused a moment, and looked at them, but evinced no
symptoms of timidity.
“What, the Gertrude-bird?” said Torkel; “no one would disturb her while
working out her penance, poor thing! She knows that well enough; look
at her.” And, in truth, the bird did seem to know it, for another loud
rattle of taps formed an appropriate accompaniment to Torkel’s speech;
though Birger and the Captain at that moment came up, the one with his
last fish, the other with a couple of ducks, a tjäder, and two brace
of grouse, of one sort or another, which he had met with during his
morning’s exploration.
The Parson nodded to the Captain, congratulated Birger, but, ever ready
for a legend, turned round to Torkel.
“What do you mean by a Gertrude-bird, and what is her penance?” said he.
Birger smiled—not unbelievingly, though; for the legend is as well
known in Sweden as it is in Norway; and few people, in either of these
countries, who believe in anything at all, are altogether sceptical on
matters of popular superstition.
“That bird,” said Torkel, “or at least her ancestors, was once a woman;
and it is a good lesson that she reads us every time we see her. God
grant that we may all be the better for it,” he added, reverentially.
“One day she was kneading bread, in her trough, under the eaves of her
house, when our Lord passed by, leaning on St. Peter. She did not know
that it was the Lord and his Apostle, for they looked like two poor men,
who were travelling past her cottage door.”
“‘Give us of your dough, for the love of God,’ said the Lord Christ; ‘we
have come far across the fjeld, and have fasted long!’
“Gertrude pinched off a small piece for them, but on rolling it on her
trough to get it into shape, it grew and grew, and filled up the trough
completely. She looked at it in wonder. ‘No,’ said she, ‘that is more
than you want;’ so she pinched off a smaller piece, and rolled it out as
before; but the smaller piece filled up the trough, just as the other
had done, and Gertrude put it aside, too, and pinched a smaller bit
still. But the miracle was just the same; the smaller bit filled up the
trough as full as the largest-sized kneading that she had ever put in it.
“Gertrude’s heart was hardened still more; she put that aside too,
resolving, so soon as the strangers had left her, to divide all her dough
into little bits, and to roll it out into great loaves. ‘I cannot give
you any to-day,’ said she; ‘go on your journey, and the Lord prosper you,
but you must not stop at my house.’
“Then the Lord Christ was angry; and her eyes were opened, and she saw
whom she had forbidden to come into her house, and she fell down on her
knees; but the Lord said, ‘I gave you plenty, but that hardened your
heart, so plenty was not a blessing to you; I will try you now with the
blessing of poverty; you shall from henceforth seek your food day by day,
and always between the wood and the bark.[15] But forasmuch as I see your
penitence to be sincere, this shall not be for ever: as soon as your back
is entirely clothed in mourning this shall cease, for by that time you
will have learned to use your gifts rightly.’
“Gertrude flew from the presence of the Lord, for she was already a bird,
but her feathers were blackened already, from her mourning; and from that
time forward she and her descendants have, all the year round, sought
their food between the wood and the bark; but the feathers of their back
and wings get more mottled with black as they grow older; and when the
white is quite covered the Lord Christ takes them for his own again. No
Norwegian will ever hurt a Gertrude-bird, for she is always under the
Lord’s protection, though he is punishing her for the time.”
“Bravo, Torkel,” said the Parson. “I could not preach a better sermon
than that myself, or give you sounder theology.”
“You seem always on the look-out for a superstition,” said the Captain.
“So I am,” said the Parson. “There is nothing that displays the
character of a people so well as their national legends.”
“But do you not consider that in lending your countenance to them, and
looking as if you believed them, you are lending your countenance to
superstition itself?”
“Well,” said the Parson, “what would you have me do? laugh them out of
it, like Miss Martineau? And if I succeeded in that, which I should
not, what should I have done then? Why, opened a fallow for scepticism.
Superstition is the natural evidence of the Unseen in the minds of the
ignorant; to be superstitious, is to believe in a Being superior to
ourselves; and this is in itself the first step to spiritual advancement.
Inform the mind, teaching it to distinguish the true from the false, and
superstition—that is to say, the reverence for the unseen—brightens into
true religion. Take it away by force, or quench it by ridicule, and you
have an unoccupied corner of the soul for every bad passion to take root
in. Superstition is the religion of the ignorant.”
“Well, there is truth in that,” said the Captain. “When a boy becomes
a man, he will not play prison-base, or go a bird’s-nesting; but
prison-base and bird’s-nesting are no bad preparation for manly daring
and gallant enterprise.”
“Very true; and when the boy is capable of the latter he will leave off
his prison-base and bird’s-nesting without any trouble on your part.”
“There are good superstitions as well as bad,” said Birger. “To be afraid
of thinning down a noxious bird, like the magpie, as our people are,
because the devil has them under his protection, is a bad superstition.
It is a distrust in the power and providence of God; but, though it is
equally a superstition to imagine that one bird is more a favourite with
God than another, yet the boy who, in your country, in the ardour of his
first shooting expedition, turns aside his gun because
Cock-robins and kitty-wrens
Are God Almighty’s cocks and hens;
or, in our country, from the Gertrude-bird, because she is working
out the penance which Christ has imposed upon her, has, in so doing,
exercised self-denial, has acknowledged the existence of a God, and has
admitted the sanctity of His protection. Many a superstition has as good
a moral as a parable, and this is one of them.”
The approach of dinner at once scared away the Gertrude-bird, and put an
end to Birger’s moralising; and as they discussed the pink curdy salmon,
the produce of the morning’s sport, and revelled in the anticipation
of strawberry and raspberry jam, the fumes of which every now and then
were wafted to them from the kitchen, and in the certainty of roast game
and smoked fish for future consumption, they laid their plans for the
afternoon’s sport.
The sun was still shining in its strength and cloudlessness, and bade
fair so to shine for the rest of the day; and the breeze, which had been
for some time failing, had now sunk into a perfect calm. No salmon or
trout were to be caught by the usual means—that was clear enough. Jacob,
however, who had procured what might be called with great propriety a
kettle of fish, for he had borrowed from a neighbouring farm-house one
of the kettles in which they simmer their milk, and had got it full
of minnows and other small fry—proposed setting his långref. This was
unanimously assented to, for occupation is pleasing, and so is variety;
and eels, pike, and flounders, which were likely to be its produce, were
no bad additions to a larder less remarkable for the variety of its
provisions than for their abundance.
But the grand scheme was one proposed by the Captain, who had been
reconnoitring the higher parts of the river, and had discovered a very
likely place for a bright day, but one which could not be reached from
the shore, or by any of the ordinary means of propelling a boat. It was
a fall terminating, not as falls generally do, in a huge basin, but in a
shoot or rapid of considerable length, like a gigantic mill race, which,
after a straight but turbulent course of a couple of hundred yards, shot
all at once into the middle of a round and eddying pool. It was called
the Hell Fall, probably from its fury, for the word is Norske; but
possibly also, from Hela’s Fall, Hela being the Goddess of Darkness; and
well did the yawning chasm, through which the waters rushed, deserve that
name, overshadowed as it was by its black walls of rock. It was upon this
that the Captain had reckoned; whatever were the case with the rest of
the world, sunshine or storm must be alike to it, and to the tenants of
its gloomy recesses.
The Captain was confident the thing could be done, and the Parson was
as confident that if it could be done, and the fly introduced into the
numerous turn-holes round which the water boiled and bubbled, the rapid
would require neither cloud nor wind to make it practicable. And Birger,
who was a great man at contrivances, asseverated strongly that it should
be done.
The first job, however, was to set the långref, and that was a mode of
poaching with which they were all familiar. The långref, a line of two or
three hundred fathoms in length, with a snood and a hook at each fathom,
was baited from the minnow kettle, and coiled, so that the baited hooks
lay together on a board; and one end having been made fast to a stump
on the landing place, the boat was pulled diagonally down and across
the stream, and the line gradually paid out in such a manner that the
hooks were carried by the current, so as to hang free of the back line;
the other end, which came within a few yards of the farther bank, was
anchored by a heavy stone, backed by a smaller one, and the whole affair
left to fish for itself.
In the meanwhile, some of the men had been sent forward with ropes, and
with the boat-hooks and oars belonging to the expedition; for, though
boats are always procurable in a place where the river forms the usual
means of communication, their gear is not always to be relied on in cases
of difficulty.
The fishermen selected their short lake rods, as better adapted to the
work they were going about than the great two-handed salmon rods with
which they had been fishing that morning; and having fitted fresh casting
lines, which, in consideration of the work they were going about, were
of the strongest twisted gut they could find, they took the path up the
river.
“I wonder what are the proper flies of this river,” said the Captain. “In
Scotland every place has its own set of flies, and you are always told
that you will do nothing at all, unless you get the very colours and the
very flies peculiar to the river.”
“You seem to have done pretty well on this river, at all events,” said
Birger, “without any such information.”
“No information is to be despised,” said the Parson. “The oldest
fisherman will always find something to be learnt from men who have
passed their lives on a particular stream, and have studied it from their
boyhood. There is, however, only one general principle, and that will
always hold good. By this the experienced fisherman will never be at a
loss about suiting his fly to the water. Here is the Captain now; we
have had no consultation, and yet I will venture to say that we are both
fishing with flies of a similar character. What fly did you catch your
fish with, this morning, Captain?”
“I have been using my old Scotch flies,” said the Captain, “such as they
tie on the Tay and Spey,[16] and the largest of the sort I could find.”
“To be sure you did; and tell Birger why you did not use your Irish
flies.”
“They were too gaudy for the water,” said the Captain.
“That, Birger, will give you the principle,” said the Parson. “The
Captain has been very successful with flies belonging to another river;
now, look at mine, which I tied last night, while I was waiting till
you came home from sacrificing to Nyssen. Except in size, this is as
different as possible from the Captain’s; and yet its principle is
precisely the same; mine is a green silk body, black hackle, blackcock
wing, no tinsel, and nothing bright about it, except this single golden
pheasant topping for a tail. Now, the Tay flies are quite different to
look at; they are mostly brown or dun pig’s wool bodies, with natural
red or brown hackles and mallard wings; but the principle of both is the
same; they are sober, quiet flies, with no glitter or gaudiness about
them; and the Captain shall tell you what induced him to select such as
these.”
“I chose the largest fly I could find,” said the Captain; “because the
water here is very deep and strong; and as the salmon lies near the
bottom, I must have a large fly to attract his attention; but I must not
have a gaudy fly, because the water is so clear that the sparkle of the
tinsel would be more glittering than anything in nature; and the fish,
when he had risen and come near enough to distinguish it, would be very
apt to turn short.”
“You have it now, precisely,” said the Parson; “the depth of the water
regulates the size of the fly, and the clearness of the water its
colours. This rule, of course, is not without exceptions; if it were,
there would be no science in fishing. The sun, the wind, the season,
the state of the atmosphere must also be taken into consideration; for
instance, this rapid we are going to fish now, is the very same water we
have been fishing in below, and therefore just as clear, but it is rough,
and overhung by rocks and trees. I mean, therefore, to put on a gayer fly
than anything we have used hitherto. But here we are,” he said, as they
looked down upon the rush of waters, “and upon my word, an ugly place it
is.”
The Parson might well say that, for the waters were rushing below with
frightful rapidity. Above them was the fall, where the river, compressed
into a narrow fissure, shot through it like an enormous spout, into a
channel, wider certainly than the spout itself, but still very narrow;
while the perpendicular walls reminded the spectators of an artificial
lock right in the middle of the stream; at the very foot of the fall, was
a solid rock, on the back of which the waters heaped themselves up, and
found their way into the straight channel by rushing round it. In fact,
without this check, their rapidity would have been too great for anything
to swim in them; and as it was they looked anything but inviting.
“A very awkward place!” said the Parson! “and how do you mean to fish
this?”
“Come away a little from the roar of the waters,” said the Captain, “and
I will explain my plans. You see that flat ledge of rock below us, just
above the rush of the water; that spot we can reach by means of the rope.
Make it fast to that tree, Tom: you learned knotting in the English navy,
you know.”
Tom grinned, and did as he was told, and the Captain ascertained the
strength of his work practically, by climbing down the face of the rock,
and reconnoitring personally the ledge he had pointed out.
“Now,” said he, when he had returned, “we will get the boat as near as
we can to this rush of water, and then veer out a rope to her from this
rock: birch ropes will float, and the stream is quite sufficient to carry
it down. If we make the boat fast to this, we may command every inch of
the rapid, and you see yourself, how many turn-holes are made by the
points of the rock which project from either side. You may depend upon
it, every one of these contains a salmon, and the water is so troubled
and covered with foam, that not one of these fish will know or care
whether the sun is shining or not.”
“I think your reasoning is sound enough,” said the Parson; “but if the
boat capsizes, the best swimmer in Norway would be drowned, or knocked to
pieces against these rocky points.”
[Illustration: HELL FALL.
p. 119.]
“But what is to capsize the boat? I am not going to take young hands with
me; we all know our work; at all events, I mean to make the first trial
of my own plan myself, you have nothing to do but to stand on the rock,
and haul up the boat.”
The Parson looked at Birger.
“I do not think there is much danger,” said he; “and if the Captain will
manage the rod, I will see to the boat. Tom shall take the other oar.”
“Well,” said the Parson, “you have left me the safest job; but I do not
quite like to see you do it. However, I suppose you will; so here goes to
see that you run no more danger than is absolutely necessary.” So saying,
he eased himself down the rope to the flat rock, followed by Torkel and
Pierson, who had previously thrown down a coil of birch rope; while the
Captain, Birger, and Tom went down to the place below the rapid, where
the boat was moored to a stump of a tree that grew over the river.
The birch rope floated on the top of the racing water, and soon reached
the great turn-hole below the rapid, where the current was not so furious
but that the boat could easily be managed. After one or two misses,
Birger caught the end of it with his boat-hook, and, passing it round all
the thwarts, secured it to the aftermost one; placing an axe in the stern
sheets, in which the Captain had seated himself with his short lake-rod
in his hand, Tom sat amidships with the paddles, while Birger himself
stood forward with the boat-hook, to fend off from any point of rock that
the eddies might sheer the boat against.
When all was ready, he waved his cap—for no voice could be heard amid the
roar of water—and the Parson and his party began steadily hauling on the
rope. The boat entered the dark cleft, and, though her progress was very
slow, cut a feather through the water, as if she were racing over it.
Tom, by dipping one or other paddle, steered from side to side, as
he was bid; and the Captain threw his fly into the wreaths of foam
which gathered in the dark corners; for in the most furious of rapids,
there will always be spots of water perfectly stationary, where the
eddies, that have been turned off by projecting rocks, meet again the
main current; and, in those places, the salmon will invariably rest
themselves, accomplishing their passage, as it were, by stages.
From side to side swung the boat—now at rest, now hauled upon by the
line, according to the messages which Birger telegraphed with his cap;
but, for some time, without any result, except that of convincing the
Parson that the dangers he apprehended, were more in appearance than in
reality; so that they were beginning to think that their ingenuity would
be the sole reward of their pains. At length, there was a sudden tug at
the line, the water was far too agitated to permit the rise to be seen,
and the Captain’s rod bent like a bow.
“Haul up, a few fathoms,” said he, raising his rod so as to get his line,
as much as possible, out of the action of the water, which was forcing it
into a bight. “Now, steer across, Tom, to the opposite side. We must try
the strength of the tackle—‘Pull for the half,’ as we say in Ireland.”
The fish had not attempted to run, knowing that its best chance of safety
was in the hole in which it lay, but had sunk sulkily to the bottom.
No sooner, however, did the boat feel the current on her bow, than she
sheered across to the opposite side; and the Captain, stopping his line
from running out, drew the salmon by main force from its shelter, who,
feeling the strength of the current, for a moment attempted to stem it;
but soon, the Captain, adroitly dropping his hand, turned tail and raced
away, downward, with the combined velocity of the stream, and its own
efforts.
The Captain paused a moment, to make sure that the fish was in earnest,
and then cut the rope; and boat, fish, and all, came tumbling down the
rapid into the turn-hole below.
Once there, it became an ordinary trial of skill between man and
fish—such as always occurs whenever a salmon is hooked in rough water—and
that the Captain was well up to. It was impossible for it again to head
up the dangerous ground of the rapid, or to face the rush of the waters
with the strain of the line upon it; so it raced backwards and forwards,
and up and down in the deep pool, while Tom took advantage of every
turn to paddle his boat quietly into still water. At last, the Captain
succeeded in turning his fish under a projecting tree, upon which the
Parson, who, as soon as he had seen the turn matters were likely to take,
had shinned up the rope, and hurried to the scene of action, was standing
gaff in hand to receive it.
“Well done, all hands!” said the Captain, as the Parson freed his gaff
from the back fin of a twenty-pound salmon, and Birger hooked on to the
tree, and brought his boat to shore. “Well done, all hands! it was no
easy matter to invade such territories as that; but one wants a little
additional excitement after such a fishing morning as we have had.”
“I think we may set you down as _bene meritus de patriâ_,” said the
Parson; “it is just as well to have a fresh resource on a bright
afternoon like this; the time may come when we may want it.”
“Now, then, for another fish,” said the Captain; “Birger shall try his
hand at the rod this time.”
Birger would have excused himself on account of his want of skill, but
was very easily persuaded, and, thus they took turns, now securing a
fish, now cutting a line against an unseen rock, now losing one by
downright hard pulling, till, when the light began to fail, and the
dangers to grow more real from the darkness, they made fast their boat
to the stump, and returned victorious to the camp, having added three
or four fish to their store, and those the finest they had caught that
day.[17]
CHAPTER X.
DEPARTURE FROM TORJEDAHL.
“Og Trolde, Hexer, Nysser i hver Vraae.”
_Finn Magnussen._
And Witches, Trolls, and Nysses in each nook.
“Hallo! what is the matter now?” said the Captain, who had been out
with his gun that morning, and on his return caught sight of the Parson
sitting disconsolate on the river’s bank. By the waters of Torjedahl we
sat down and wept. “What has gone wrong?”
“Why, everything has gone wrong,” said the Parson peevishly; “look at my
line.”
“You do seem to have lost your casting line, certainly.”
“Yes, I have, and half my reel line beside.”
“Very tinkerish, I dare say, but do not grieve over it; put on a new one
and hold your tongue about it; no one saw you, and I promise not to tell.”
“How can you be so absurd?” said the Parson, “look at the river, and
tell me how we are to fish that; just look at those baulks of timber
floating all over it. I had on as fine a fish as ever I saw in my
life,—five-and-twenty pounds if he was an ounce, when down came these
logs, and one of them takes my reel line, with sixty yards out, and cuts
it right in the middle.”
“Well, that is provoking,” said the Captain, “enough to make a saint
swear, let alone a parson; but, hang it, man, it is only once in the way.
Come along, do not look behind you; I am in a hurry to be at it myself, I
came home on purpose, I was ashamed to waste so glorious a fishing day as
this in the fjeld.”
“That is just the thing that annoys me,” said the Parson; “it is, as you
say, a most lovely fishing day,—I never saw a more promising one; and I
have just heard that these logs will take three days floating by at the
very least, and while they are on the river I defy the best fisherman in
all England to land anything bigger than a graul.”
“Why,” said the Captain, “have the scoundrels been cutting a whole
forest?”
“This is what Torkel tells me,” said the Parson; “he says that in the
winter they cut their confounded firs, and when the snow is on the ground
they just square them, haul them down to the river or its tributaries,
where they leave them to take care of themselves, and when the ice melts
in the spring, down come the trees with it. But there are three or four
lakes, it seems, through which this river passes—that, by-the-by, is
the reason why it is so clear; and, as the baulks would be drifting all
manner of ways when they got into these lakes, and would get stranded on
the shores instead of going down the stream, they make what they call
a boom at or near the mouth of the river, that is to say, they chain
together a number of baulks, end-ways, and moor them in a bight across
the river, so that they catch everything that floats. Here they get hold
of the loose baulks, make them into rafts, and navigate them along the
lakes, launching them again into the river at the other end, and catching
them again at the next boom in the same way. They have, it seems, just
broken up the contents of one of these booms above us. It will take three
days to clear it out, and another day for the straggling pieces.”
“Whew!” said the Captain, “three blessed days taken from the sum of our
lives; what on earth is to be done?”
“Well,” said the Parson, “that is exactly what we must see about, for it
is quite certain that there is nothing to be done on the water. Before I
began grumbling I sent off Torkel to look for Birger—for we must hold a
council of war upon it. O! there is Birger,” said he, as they crossed the
little rise which forms the head of the Aal Foss and came in sight of the
camp and the river below it; “Torkel must have missed him.”
“Hallo!” said Birger, who was with Piersen in one of the boats, fishing
up with his boat-hook the back line of the långref, and apparently he had
made an awkward mess of it—“hallo there! get another boat and come and
help me, these baulks have played Old Scratch with the långref; it has
made a goodly catch, too, last night, as far as I can see, but we want
more help to get it in.”
The Parson had the discretion to keep his own counsel, but the fact
was, it was he who was the cause both of the abundant catch and of the
present trouble. The small eels had been plaguing them, for some nights
successively, by sucking off and nibbling to pieces baits which they
were too small to swallow, and thus preventing the larger fish from
getting at them. The Parson had seen this, and had set his wits to work
to circumvent them. By attaching corks to the back line, he had floated
the hooks above the reach of the eels, which he knew would never venture
far from the bottom, while pike, gös, id, perch, the larger eels, and
occasionally even trout, would take the floating bait more readily when
they found it in mid-water.
This would have done exceedingly well, had he looked at it early in the
morning; that, however, he had not exactly forgotten, but had neglected
to do. Time was precious, and he was unwilling to waste it on hauling
the långref. Jacob, whose business it was to haul it, had been sent down
to Christiansand on the preceding day, with two of the boatmen, for
supplies, and had not yet returned; and the Parson, holding his tongue
about his experiment, and proposing to himself the pleasure of hauling
the långref when the mid-day sun should be too hot for salmon-fishing,
had gone out early with his two-handed rod. In the meanwhile the baulks
had come down, and the very first of them, catching the centre of the
floating bight, had cut it in two, and had thus permitted the whole
of the Parson’s great catch of fish to entangle themselves at their
pleasure.
[Illustration: p. 124.]
It was these _disjecta membra_ that Birger was busying himself about;
the task was not an easy one; and if it were, the guardsman was not
altogether a proficient. But, even when the reinforcement arrived, there
was nothing to be done beyond lifting the whole tangle bodily into the
boat, releasing the fish from the hooks, and then, partly by patience,
partly by a liberal use of the knife, to get out the tangle on shore.
The further half gave them the most trouble to find; it had been moored
to a stone, and the back line had been strong enough to drag it some way
down the river before it broke. It was, however, at last discovered and
secured, and the catch was of sufficient magnitude to ensure a supply of
fish, notwithstanding the logs.
“Stop a minute,” said the Captain, as the boats’ heads were put up the
stream on their return; “we have not got all the långref yet, I am sure;
I see another fish; just pull across that ripple, Parson, a few yards
below the end of that stranded log. Yes, to be sure it is, and a salmon,
too, and as dead as Harry the Eighth. Steady there! hold water!” and he
made a rake for the line with his boat-hook. “Why, what have we got here?
it is much too fine for the långref. As I live, it is your own line. To
be sure; here it runs. Steady! Let me get a hold of it with my hand, it
may not be hitched in the wood firmly, and if it slips we shall lose it
entirely. That will do: all right. That must be the log that broke you;
it must have stranded here after coming down the Aal Foss, with the fish
still on it—and—hurrah! here is the fish all safe—and, I say, Parson,
remarkably fine fish it is, certainly! not quite twenty-five pounds,
though,”—holding up the fish by the tail, and measuring it against his
own leg; for his trousers were marked with inches, from the pocket-button
downwards,—a yard measure having been stitched on the seam. “You have not
such a thing as a steelyard, have you?”
The Parson, laughing—rather confusedly, though,—produced from his slip
pocket the required instrument.
“Ah! I thought so, ten pounds and a half; the biggest fish always do get
away, that is certain, especially if they are not caught again; it is a
thousand pities I put my eye on this one. I have spoilt your story?”
“Well, well,” said the Parson, “if you have spoilt my story, you have
made a good one for yourself, so take the other oar and let us pull for
the camp.”
“Birger,” said the Captain, when the boats had been made fast, and the
spoils left in the charge of Piersen, “Torkel has been telling the Parson
that we are to have three days of these logs. If the rascal speaks the
truth, what is to be done by us fishermen?”
“The rascal does speak the truth in this instance, I will be bound for
it,” said Birger; “he knows the river well, and besides, it is what they
do on every river in Norway that is deep enough to float a baulk.”
“What is to be done, then? there is no fishing on the river while this is
going on.”
“I will tell you what we can do,” said Birger; “two or three days
ago—that day when I returned to the camp so late—if you remember, I told
you that I had fallen in with a lonely lake in the course of my rambles.
There was a boat there belonging to a sœter in the neighbourhood, which
Piersen knew of, and I missed a beautiful chance at a flight of ducks.
However, that is neither here nor there; the people at the sœter told
me that the great lake-char was to be found there; so the next day I
sent Piersen, who understands laying lines if he does not understand
fly-fishing, to set some trimmers for them. I vote we shoot our way to
the lake, look at these lines, get another crack at the ducks, and make
our way to the Toftdahl (which, if the map is to be trusted, must be
somewhere within reach), fish there for a day, shoot our way back again,
and by that time the wooden flood will be over.”
“Bravo, Birger,” said the Captain, “a very promising plan, and here, in
good time, comes Commissary-General Jacob with the supplies. I see his
boat just over that point, entangled among a lump of logs. I vote we
take him with us; no man makes such coffee. I have not had a cup worth
drinking since you sent him down the river.”
“You cannot take the poor fellow a long march to-day,” said the
Parson, considerately, “he has just been pulling up the stream from
Christiansand.”
“He pull! is that all you know of Jacob? I will venture to say he has not
pulled a stroke since he started; look at the rascal, how he lolls at
his ease, with his legs over the hamper, while the men are half in the
water, struggling their way through the obstacles.”
“I see the scamp,” said the Parson; “upon my word, he puts me in mind of
what the nigger observed on landing in England; man work, horse work,
ox work, everything work, pig the only gentleman; Jacob is the only
gentleman in our expedition.”
“I admire that man,” said Birger; “that is the true practical philosophy,
never to do anything for yourself if you can get other people to do it
for you. But I think those fellows had better make haste about it. I have
known such a hitch of timber as that bridge the whole river, from side to
side, in ten minutes; they accumulate very rapidly when they once take
ground—ah! there goes the boat free; all right; but I certainly began to
tremble for my provisions.”
“Well, then, we will take gentleman Jacob,” said the Captain, “I cannot
give up my coffee.”
“I think so,” said Birger; “we will leave our three boatmen here in
charge of the camp; Tom, Torkel, and Piersen can carry the fishing-rods
and our knapsacks, which we must pack in light marching order. Jacob
shall provide for the kitchen, and we will each of us take a day’s
provisions in our havresacs, and our guns on our shoulders; the odds
are, we knock over grouse and wild fowl, by the way, enough to supply us
nobly. And even if we do not meet with sport, we shall at all events have
a pleasant pic-nicking trip, and see something of the country, while the
Parson, who is so fond of open air, may indulge himself with sleeping
under a tree, and contemplating the moon at his ease.”
Torkel, who had come up while they were watching Jacob’s progress,
and had learnt their plans, informed them of a sœter which lay nearly
in their proposed course, and in which he had himself often received
hospitality.
“Well, then,” said the Captain, “that will do for us, and we will leave
the Parson, if he prefers it,
“His hollow tree,
His crust of bread and liberty.”
“You may laugh,” said the Parson, “but the time will come when you will
find out certain disagreeables in a Norwegian dwelling, which may make
you think with less contempt on the hollow tree.”
“The Parson is of the same mind as the Douglas,” said the Captain, “he
likes better to hear the lark sing, than the mouse squeak.”
“I like clean heather better than dirty sheep-skin,” said the Parson.
“And musquitoes better than fleas,” added the Captain.
“Bother the musquitoes: I did not think of them.”[18]
“They will soon remind you,” said Birger, “if we happen to encamp near
standing water.” And he went on packing his knapsack to the tune of
“Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot,” which he whistled with considerable
taste and skill.[19]
Arrangements, such as these, are soon made; the three boatmen were
left in charge of the camp, with full permission to get as drunk as
they pleased; and, before Jacob had well stretched his legs, which had
been cramped in the boat, he was stretching them on the mountain-side,
marching a good way in the rear of the party, and grumbling as he marched.
The mountains, which, all the way from Christiansand, hem in the river,
so that not even a goat can travel along its banks, at Mosse Eurd and
Wigeland recede on both sides, forming a sort of basin; and here, in a
great measure, they lose their abrupt and perpendicular character. Close
by the water-side, there are a hundred, or two, of acres of inclosed
ground comparatively flat, and either arable or meadow; not by any means
in a ring fence, but spots cribbed here and there from the fjeld, which
looks more like a gentleman’s park than anything else, with these little
paddocks fenced out of it. The houses, too, are quite the picturesque
houses that gentlemen in England ornament their estates with, so that the
untidy plank fences seemed altogether out of character with the scenery.
What one would look for here, is the neat park palings of England, or its
trim quickset hedges.
Beyond this, the ground becomes more broken and wooded, but without
losing its parkish character; it is something like the forest grounds
of the South Downs in England, only broken into detached hills and
deep rises, with, occasionally, a bare ridge of rock forcing its way
through the short green turf. The forest was mostly birch, with a few
maples and sycamores, and, here and there, a fir; but every tree big
enough for a timber stick, had long ago been floated down to the boom at
Christiansand. The character of the whole scene was prettiness rather
than beauty. The mountains, however, were no lower than they had been
further down the river; it was as if their perpendicular sides had, in
some antediluvian age, given way, and that, in the course of centuries,
the fragments had become covered with trees and verdure.
Among these broken pieces of mountain it was extremely easy for the
traveller to lose his way; there was not the vestige of a path, that is
to say, a path leading to any place to which he could possibly want to
go. The grass was particularly good and sweet there, and sheep and cows
are intensely conservative in their idiosyncracy; so stoutly had they
kept up the principle of _stare super antiquas vias_, that the appearance
was as if the whole region was thickly inhabited and intersected with
foot-paths in every direction, while every animal that helps to make them
rings its own individual bell, and carries its own individual brand, but
pastures in uncontrolled liberty. A cow is a very good guide to a lost
man, for, if he has patience to wait till evening, she is sure to feed
her way to the sœter to be milked; but woe to the man who puts his trust
in bullocks or in sheep; they feed at ease, and roam at pleasure, till
the frosts and snows of approaching winter bring them home to the fold,
the stall, and the salting-tub.
Much of the shrubbery appearance of the scene is produced by the numerous
plants of the vaccinium tribe, the bright glossy leaves of which look
like myrtle; and the blue aconite, and the gentian, and the lily of the
valley, flowers which we seldom meet with in England, absolutely wild,
and the familiar leaves of the raspberry, and black currant, suggest
ideas of home, while the turf on which the traveller treads, looks as if
it had been mown by the gardener that very morning.
The course, though varied by quite as many ups and downs as there were
ins and outs, was, upon the whole, continually ascending; and, as the
higher regions were attained, and the facilities of transport diminished,
the tall stately fir began to assert its natural supremacy among the
northern sylva. Still, however, there was enough of birch, and even of
the softer woods, to diversify the foliage, and preserve the park-like
aspect. Heather, of which the Parson had anticipated making his couch,
there was none; but, on the other hand, there was no furze to irritate
the shins, or brambles to tear the clothes. The latter does grow in
Norway, and is much more prized for its fruit than either raspberry or
strawberry, but the former cannot stand the winters. Linnæus is said
to have sat for hours in delighted contemplation of an English field
of furze in full bloom, and the plant is generally seen in Swedish
conservatories to this day, or set out in pots as oranges and myrtles are
with us.
The mid-day sun had scattered the clouds of the morning, as, in truth,
it very generally does on a Norway summer day, and, shining down in
patches of brilliant light through the openings, added to the beauty of
the scene, and diminished in an equal proportion all regrets at leaving
the Torjedahl behind; for it was quite evident that, except in the Hell
Fall, or the pools, little or nothing could be done on so bright a day,
had the baulks been entirely out of the question.
It was an hour or two past noon when they arrived at the ridge which
divides the valley of the Torjedahl from that of the Aalfjer—not that
ridge is the proper expression, for the ground had, for some miles,
become so nearly level that, were it not for a little rill, whose line
of rushes had been for some time their guide, they would not have known
whether they were ascending or descending. The country still preserved
its character of beauty, but its features had gradually become more tame,
so that the inequalities which, in the beginning of their journey had
looked like fragments of mountains, were now rounded and regular, like so
many gigantic mole-hills.
Between two of these, the turf of which was green and unbroken to the
summit, and shorter and more velvety, if that were possible, than any
they had passed over, was the source of the rill, a black, boggy, rushy,
uninviting bit of ground, but covered with myrica bushes, which diffused
through the still air their peculiarly aromatic and refreshing scent;
in the centre of this was a deep still hole—it could be called nothing
else—it certainly was not a spring head, for there was not a bubble
of springing water; it was perfectly still and motionless, and looked
absolutely black in its clearness.
It was a welcome halt to all, for the sun was hot and the way was long.
The well-head was a noted haunt of the dwarfs or Trolls, indeed it was
said to penetrate to the centre of the earth, and to be the passage
through which they emerged to upper air.
This was the reason why, though everything around was scorching and
dropping in the withering heat, and though the unshaded sun fell full
upon the unprotected surface, the water was at all times very cold, and
yet in the hardest winter no ice ever formed upon it—its cold was that of
the well of Urdar which waters the roots of Yggdrassil, the tree of life;
no frost can bind these waters, neither can they be polluted with leaves
or sticks, for a dwarf sits continually on guard there, to keep open the
passage for his brethren.
“Well,” said Birger, “I can readily believe that these are the waters of
life, I never met with anything so refreshing, it beats all the brandy in
the universe.”
Jacob put in no protest to this heresy, but expressed a practical dissent
by applying his mouth to a private bottle and passing it to Tom.
The Captain was proceeding to wash his face and hands in the well-head,
but the men begged him not to pollute it; the rill below, they said, did
not so much signify.
The place had been noted by Birger for a halt, and right glad were they
all to disembarrass themselves of their respective loads, and to stretch
themselves in various attitudes of repose picturesque enough upon the
whole, under the great white poplars whose restless leaves fluttered over
head though no one could feel the breeze that stirred them, and shaded
the fairy precincts of the haunted well.
The Parson threw himself on his back upon the turf with his jacket,
waistcoat, and shirt-collar wide open, his arms extended, and his
neckerchief, which he had removed, spread over his face and bare neck
to keep off the musquitoes. He was not asleep exactly, nor, strictly
speaking, could it be said that he was awake; he was enjoying that quiet
dreamy sort of repose, that a man thoroughly appreciates after walking
for five or six hours on a burning hot summer’s day. His blood was still
galloping through his veins, and he was listening to the beat of his own
pulses.
“This is very delightful, very,” he said, in a drowsy drawling voice,
speaking rather to himself than to Torkel. “A very curious sound, one,
two, three, it sounds like distant hammers.”
“Oh, the Thousand!” said Torkel, “where are we lying?”
The Parson, when he threw himself down on the hill side, had been a
great deal too hot and tired to pay much attention to his couch, beyond
the evident fact that the turf was very green and inviting, and that
it contained no young juniper or other uncomfortable bedding: roused by
Torkel’s observation, he sat upright, and seeing nothing very remarkable
except a good rood of lilies of the valley at his feet, the scent of
which he had been unconsciously enjoying, and which did not look at all
terrible, stared at him. “Well,” said he, “what is the matter? where
should we be lying?”
“I do not know,” said Torkel, “that is, I do not know for certain; but
did you not say you heard hammers? Stay,” he said, looking as if he had
resolved to do some desperate deed—“yes, I will, I am determined,” and
he took a piece of clay that was sticking on his right boot, and having
patted it into the size of a half-crown, put it on his head and dashed
his hat on over it. Then shading his eyes with his hand, he looked
fixedly at the hill, as if he were trying to look through it. “No,” said
he, “I do not see anything, I hope and trust you are mistaken.”
“What can you be about?” said the Parson impatiently, “have you found a
brandy shop in the forest?”
“I thought it must be the Bjergfolk,” he said, “when you heard the
hammers. I never can hear them myself, because I was not born on a
Saturday, and I thought perhaps you might have been. It is a very round
hill too, just the sort of place they would choose, and they have not a
great deal of choice nowadays, there are so many bells in the churches,
and the Trolls cannot live within the sound of bells.”
“No?” said the Parson, “why not?”
“None of the spirits of the middle earth like bells,” said Torkel,
“neither Alfs, nor Nisses, nor Nechs, nor Trolls, they do not like to
think of man’s salvation. Bells call people to church, and that is where
neither Troll nor Alf may go. They are sometimes very spiteful about it,
too.”
“In the good old times, when it was Norway and Denmark, and we were not
tied to those hogs of Swedes as we are now” (sinking his voice, out of
respect to Birger, but by no means so much so that Birger could not
hear him), “they were building a church at Knud. They pitched upon a
highish mound near the river, on which to build it, because they wanted
the people to see their new church, little thinking that the mound was
the house of a Troll, and that on St. John’s eve, it would stand open
supported on real pillars. Well, the Troll, who must have been very young
and green, could not make out what they were going to do with his hill,
and he had no objection whatever to a house being built upon it, because
he reckoned upon a good supply of gröd and milk from the dairy. He could
have seen but very little of the world above the turf not to know a
church from a house. However, he had no suspicions, and the bells were
put up, and the Pröbst came to consecrate. The poor Troll could not bear
to see it, so he rushed out into the wide world, and left his goods and
his gold and his silver behind him.
“The next day a peasant going home from the consecration saw him weeping
and wringing his hands beyond the hearing of the bells, which was as near
as he could venture to come. And the Troll told him that he was obliged
to leave his country, and could never come back, and asked him to take a
letter to his friends.
“I suppose the man’s senses were rather muzzy yet—he could hardly have
had time to get sober so soon after the ceremony; but somehow or another
he did not see that the speaker was a Troll, but took him for some poor
fellow who had had a misfortune, and had killed some one, and fancied he
was afraid of the Landamptman, particularly as he had told him not to
give the letter to any one (indeed it had no direction), but to leave it
in the churchyard of the new church, where the owner would find it.
“One would naturally wish to befriend a poor fellow in such a strait; so
the man took the letter, put it into his pocket, and turned back.
“He had not gone far before he felt hungry, so he took out a bit of flad
bröd and some dried cod that he had put into his pocket. They were all
wet. He did not know how that could be; but he took out the letter for
fear it should be spoiled, and then found that there was wet oozing out
from under the seal. He wiped it; but the more he wiped it, the wetter
it was. At last, in rubbing, he broke the seal, and he was glad enough
to run for it then, for the water came roaring out of the letter like
the Wigelands Foss, and all he could do he could only just keep before
it till it had filled up the valley. And there it is to this day. I have
seen it myself—a large lake as big as our Forres Vand. The fact was, the
Troll had packed up a lake in the letter, and would have drowned church,
bells, and all, if he had only sealed it up a little more carefully.”
“Well,” said the Parson, “this beats our penny-post; we send queer things
by that ourselves, but I do not think anybody has ever yet thought of
sending a lake through the General Post Office.”
“Is there not some story about Hercules cleaning out the Admiralty, or
some such place, in a very similar way?” said the Captain.
“No,” said the Parson, “I never heard that the Admiralty has ever been
cleaned out at all since the days of Pepys. If ever it is done, though,
it must be in some such wholesale way as this—I do not know anything else
that will do it.”
“The hill-men are not such bad fellows, though,” said Tom, on whom all
this by-play about the Admiralty was quite lost, British seaman as he
was; “and, by the way, Torkel, I wish you would not call them by their
names, you know they do not like it, and may very well do us a mischief
before we get clear of this fjeld. Many people say that there is no
certainty of their being damned after all—our schoolmaster thinks they
certainly will not, for he says he cannot find anything about damning
Trolls in the Bible, and I am sure I hope it will not be found necessary
to damn them, for they often do us a good turn. There was a Huusbonde
in the Tellemark who had one of their hills on his farm that no one had
ever made any use of, and he made up his mind to speak to the Troll about
it. So he waited till St. John’s eve came round and the hill was open,
and then he went, and sure enough he found the Bjergman. He seemed a
good-humoured fellow enough, but he was not so rich as most of them; he
had only a very few copper vessels in his hill and hardly any silver.
“‘Herr Bjergman,’ said the Huusbonde, ‘you do not seem to be in a very
good case, neither am I, but I think we may make something of this hill
of yours between us—I say between us, for, you know, the top of the soil
belongs to me, just as the under soil belongs to you.’
“‘Aye, aye!’ said the Bjergman, ‘I should like that very well. What do
you propose?’
“‘Why, I propose to dig it up and sow it, and as we have both of us a
right to the ground, I think in common fairness we ought both of us to
labour at it, and then we will take the produce year and year about. The
first year I will have all that is above ground and you shall have all
below; and the next year we will change over, and then you shall have all
that is above and I will have all that is below.”
“‘Well,’ said the Troll, greatly pleased, ‘that is fair; I like dealing
with an honest man. When shall we begin?’
“‘Why, next spring, I think; suppose we say after Walpurgis night,[20] we
cannot get at the ground much before.’
“‘With all my heart,’ said the Bjergman—and so they did. They worked very
well together, but the Bjergman did twice as much work as his friend;
they always do when they are pleased; and they sowed oats and rye and
bear; and when harvest came the Huusbonde took that which was above
the ground, the grain and the straw which came to his share, while the
Bjergman was very well contented with his share of roots.
“‘When next Walpurgis night came round they dug up the ground again; and
this time the Bjergman was to have all that was above ground, so they
manured it well, and sowed turnips and carrots; and by and by, when the
harvest came, the Huusbonde had a fine heap of roots, and the Bjergman
was delighted with his share of greens. There never came any harm of
this that I know, each was pleased with his bargain, and the Huusbonde
came to be the richest man in the Tellemark. You know the family, Torkel,
old Nils of Bygland, it was his grandfather Lars, to whom it happened.”
“Well,” said Torkel, “it is quite true, then, I can testify, I only wish
I had a tenth part so many specie-dalers in the Trondhjem Bank as old
Nils has.”
“And our Norfolk squires,” said the Captain, “fancy it was their sagacity
that discovered the four-course system of agriculture! The Trolls were
before them, it seems.”
“The system seems to answer quite as well in Norway as ever it did in
England,” said the Parson, “If all that Tom tells us about Nils of
Bygland be true.”
“There is not a doubt of that,” said Torkel, “all Tellemarken knows Nils
of Bygland, and it is a great pity, when we were crossing the lake the
other day, that we did not stop at his house; he was never known to let a
stranger go to bed sober yet.”
“I should think he was seldom without company, then,” said Birger.
“It seems to have answered very well in this particular case,” said
Jacob, “but I do not think you can trust beings without souls, after all.
It is best just to make your offering to Nyssen, and to the Lady of the
Lake, and two or three others, and then to have nothing more to do with
them.”
“You certainly had better keep a sharp look-out,” said Torkel, “But
I think we Norwegians know how to handle them, and so do our gallant
friends the Danes. Did you ever hear how Kallendborg Church was built?”
The Englishmen, at all events, had not, and Torkel went on.
“Esberne Snorre was building that church, and his means began to run
short, when a Troll came up to him and offered to finish it off himself,
upon one condition, and that was, that if Snorre could not find out his
name he should forfeit his heart and his eyes.
“Snorre was very anxious to finish his church, and he consented, though
he was not without misgivings either; and the Troll set about his work
in earnest. Kallendborg Church is the finest church in the whole country,
and the roof of its nave was to stand on four pillars, for the Troll
drew out the plan himself. It was all finished except half a pillar, and
poor Snorre was in a great fright about his heart and his eyes, when one
evening as he came home late from the market at Roeskilde he heard a
Troll woman singing under a hill—
“Tie stille, barn min,
Imorgen kommer Fin
Fa’er din,
Og gi’er dig Esberne Snorre’s öine og hjerte at lege mid.”[21]
“Snorre said nothing; but the next morning out he goes to his church, and
there he meets the Troll bringing in the last half pillar.
“‘Good morning, my friend FIN,’ said he, ‘you have got a heavy weight to
carry.’
“The Troll stopped, looking at him fiercely, gnashed his teeth, stamped
on the ground for rage, flew off with the half pillar he was carrying;
and so Snorre built his church and kept his heart and eyes.”
“Do not believe a word of that,” said Jacob, “there is not a word
of truth in the story; and as for Esberne Snorre building a church,
everybody knows he was no better than he should be at any time of his
life.[22] He was not the man to build a church, much less to give his
eyes for it.”
“It is true,” said Torkel, “I have been at Kallendborg Church myself; and
have seen the half pillar with my own eyes. The roof of the nave stands
on three pillars and a half to this day.”
“More shame to the Kallendborgers, who never had religion enough to
finish it,” said Jacob, “nor ever will. Do you mean to deny that the
Devil carried off Esberne Snorre bodily? I think all the world knows that
pretty well.”
“That shows that he thought him worth the trouble of carrying,” said
Torkel, “he would never put himself out about carrying off you, because
he knows you will go to him of your own accord.”
“Come, come, Torkel,” said the Parson, “do not be personal, and take your
fingers off your knife handle; we cannot spare our cook yet, and you seem
to like Jacob’s gröd yourself, too, judging by the quantity you eat of
it; and now, Jacob, do not grind your teeth, but let us hear why you do
not believe Torkel’s story, which certainly is very circumstantial, not
to say probable.”
“Because every one knows that it was Lund Cathedral that was built by the
Trolls, at the desire of the blessed Saint Laurentius,” said Jacob; “it
was he who promised his eyes for it, and had them preserved by a miracle,
not by a trumpery trick. Esberne Snorre, indeed; or any Dane, for matter
of that! A set of infidels! It is only a Swede who would give his eyes
for the church.”
“I should like to know who Scånia belonged to at the time when Lund
Cathedral was built,” said Tom, “I do not think it was to the Swedes; and
I should like to know who took away its archbishopric when they did get
it, and made the great metropolis of all Scandinavia a trumpery little
bishopric under the see of Upsala?”
“And I should like to know,” said Torkel, “who made bishops ride upon
asses, and drink ‘du’ with the hangman. The Swedes give their eyes for
the church, indeed! That for the Swedes!” snapping his fingers, and
spitting on the ground.
This was a poser. Jacob was not only in the minority, but clearly wrong
in matter of fact. At the dissolution of the union of Kalmar, Scånia,
though situated in Sweden, was a Danish province, and its archbishop was,
as he always had been, the metropolitan.
At the present time it is quite true that Scånia is a Swedish province;
but this is a comparatively modern arrangement. In the days when the
cathedral was built, though geographically a portion of Sweden, it was
politically a province of Denmark; nor was it till its union with the
former state that its capital, Lund, was deprived of its ecclesiastical
primacy. And the treacherous conduct of Gustavus Vasa towards Canute,
Archbishop of Upsala, and Peter, Bishop of Westeras, and the contumelies
to which they were exposed, previous to their most unjust execution, are
a blot even in that blood-stained reign, which Geijer himself, with all
his ingenuity, cannot vindicate, and which the Norwegians, from whose
protection the bishops were lured, are continually throwing in the teeth
of their more powerful neighbours.
Birger himself was a little taken aback, not exactly liking that the weak
points in his country’s history should be thus exposed to strangers.
“Never mind them, Jacob,” said he, forcing a laugh, “they are only
Tellemarkers, and know no better. You and I shall see them, some of these
days, climbing the trees of Goth’s garden themselves.”[23]
This bit of national slang, which fortunately was lost on the Norwegians,
had the effect of soothing the ire of the sulky Jacob, who drew near to
his countryman with a happy feeling of partisanship.
“The sooner the better,” said he, bitterly.
CHAPTER XI.
THE MOUNTAIN MARCH.
“Onward amid the copse ’gan peep,
A narrow inlet still and deep,
Affording scarce such breadth of brim
As served the wild duck’s brood to swim;
Lost for a space through thickets veering,
But broader when again appearing,—
Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face
Could in the dark-blue mirror trace;
And farther as the hunter strayed,
Still broader sweep its channels made.”
_Lady of the Lake._
“How shall it be? Will you look your lay-lines to-day or to-morrow?”
said the Parson, who, though not a little amused at the tilting between
the rival champions, and by the manner in which Birger had suffered
himself to be drawn into the squabble, began to think it had gone quite
far enough for the future peace and unanimity of the expedition. “Come,
Jacob, shoulder your knapsack, and march like a sensible Swede.”
“There never was but one sensible Swede,” said Torkel, in a grumbling
aside, “and that was Queen Kerstin, when she jumped over the boundary,
and thanked God that Sweden could not jump after her.”[24]
Jacob had sense enough not to hear this laudatory remark on his late
sovereign’s discrimination, but, with his ordinary phlegm, resumed his
load and his place in the line of march.
“By the way,” said the Parson, as they resumed their journey, “what was
it, Torkel, that made you scrape the mud from your right foot and put it
on your head in that insane manner, just now?”
“I can answer that,” said Birger; “you know that the whole tribe of Alfs,
white, brown, and black, and the Trolls, and in fact the whole class
that go under the generic name of Bjerg-folk, or Hill-men, live under
the earth. To see them, therefore, on ordinary occasions, you must put
yourself—at least, typically—in a similar condition. That upon which
you have trod must cover your head; and you take it from the right foot
rather than the left, partly as being more lucky, and partly because the
left being a mark of disrespect, would incense the dwarfs, who would be
sure to make you pay for it sooner or later; in fact they are a dangerous
race to meddle with at all, they take offence so very easily. I believe,
however, this is the safest plan, for they are not aware, unless you
betray yourself, that the veil is removed from your sight. Did you never
hear the story of the Ferryman of Sund?”
The Englishman, of course, had not heard it, neither had any of the men,
for the legend is Danish and local; and though anything Danish is much
better known in Norway than stories or legends relating to Sweden, it so
happened that it was new to them all, and they closed up to listen to it.
“One evening, between the two lights,[25] a strange man came to the ferry
at Sund and engaged all the boats: no sooner had the bargain been made,
than they began to sink deeper and deeper into the water, as if some
heavy cargo had been put into them, though the astonished boatmen could
see nothing, and the boats looked quite empty.
“‘Shove off,’ said the stranger, ‘you have got quite load enough for one
trip;’ and so they had, for the gunwales were not a couple of inches from
the water, and the boats pulled so heavily, that it was as much as the
men could do to get to the Vandsyssel side; if the water had not been
wonderfully calm, they could not have done it at all—but it was calm;
and all under the wake of the moon it looked as if it was covered with a
network of silver filigree, to chain down the ripples.
“As soon as the boats touched the Vandsyssel shore, they began rising
in the water again, as if their freight had been taken out of them, and
then the stranger sent them back again; and so it went on throughout the
whole night, and very hard work the ferrymen had, bringing over cargoes
of emptiness.
“Then the day began to break, and the eastern sky to whiten; and just as
the coming sun shot up his seven lances to show the world that King Day
was at hand, the stranger, who had arranged all this, paid the ferrymen,
not counting the coins, but filling their hats with them with both hands,
as a boy shovels out his nuts.
“‘What had they been bringing over?’ asked one of them. ‘Cannot you be
quiet, and know when you are well off,’ said the stranger; ‘you need not
be afraid of the custom-house dues; they will have sharp eyes to see
anything contraband in what you have carried over last night; put your
money in your pockets and be thankful—you will not earn so much in the
next three years.’
“But in the mean while one of the ferrymen, a sharper fellow than his
neighbours, jumped on shore, and did just exactly what Torkel did just
now—put a piece of clay from the sole of his shoe on the crown of his
head. His eyes were opened at once; all the sandhills about Aalberg were
alive with little people, every one of them carrying on his back gold and
silver pots, and jugs, and vessels of every description—the whole place
looked like one gigantic anthill.
“‘O-ho,’ said he, ‘that’s what you are about; well, joy go with you, we
shall not be plagued with you any more on our side of the water; that’s
one good job, anyhow.’
“But it was not a good job for him; it is very possible to be too sharp
for one’s own good. All his gold money turned to yellow queens,[26]
and his silver money to chipped oyster-shells, and he never got rich,
or anything more than a poor ferryman of Sund, while his companions had
their hats full of ancient Danish gold and silver coins, and bought ships
of their own, and went trading to Holland and the free towns, and became
great men.”
“Upon my word, Torkel,” said the Parson, “you are too venturesome; it is
just as well that there were no Trolls to be seen just now at the well;
but you must not try it again, or you will never become a great man, or
command a ship—not that this would suit you very well, I suppose.”
“Torkel would undertake the command of the _Haabet_, just now, I’ll
engage, little as he knows about seamanship, if he could only get young
Svensen out of her,” said Mr Tom, with a knowing grin; to which innuendo,
whatever it might mean, Torkel playfully replied by kicking out behind at
him with one foot, after the manner of a donkey. He missed Tom, however,
to his and Piersen’s intense mirth; but what was the precise nature of
the joke, there was now no opportunity of explaining, as the descent had
become so steep that the assistance of the hand was necessary, in order
to keep their footing.
At a few hundred yards from the dwarf’s well, they had fallen in with a
little streamlet, running eastward, on a pretty rapid descent, even from
the first, but which now began to form a series of diminutive cascades,
leaping in so many spouts from rock to rock, while the ground, over which
it ran, seemed as if it was fast changing from the horizontal to the
perpendicular; indeed, had there not been plenty of rocks jutting out,
and a good crop of twisted and gnarled trunks and roots, many portions of
the journey might have been accomplished with more speed than pleasure.
The rapidity of the descent soon brought them to the bottom of a deep
hollow valley, far above the level of the sea, indeed, but low compared
with the abrupt heights that surrounded it. It was one of those singular
features in Norwegian scenery, a valley without an outlet; its bottom
occupied by a deep, black, still lake, whose only drain—if it had any
drain at all except the porous nature of the soil—was under the surface.
As the ground rose rapidly on every side, it did not answer to cut timber
which could never be carried, and the forest here was left in the wildest
state of desolation. Solid, substantial firs, of ancient growth, were the
predominant tree; but the soil was rich and the valley sheltered, and
there was a plentiful sprinkling of birch and wych-elm, interspersed with
a much rarer tree, the stubborn old oak himself.
Beneath this mingled canopy was a plentiful undergrowth of juniper, and
enormous ferns. There was a still, calm desolateness about the whole
scene, for many of the trees were dead, not by accident or disease,
but from pure old age, and stood where they had withered, or reclined
against the younger brethren of the forest, exhibiting their torn and
ragged bark, and stretching forth their bare and leafless arms: the very
rill—their lively and noisy companion hitherto—seemed to be sobered down,
and to partake here of the general sadness, as it soaked its still way
among the rushes and weeds that encumbered its course.
Where it ran, or rather crept, into the lake, a small marshy delta was
formed of the sand carried down in its course; and here was moored an
old crazy boat, half full of water, with a couple of old primitive oars;
the whole had a bleached and weather-stained appearance, well in keeping
with the general character of the scene. The boat belonged to a sœter
some three or four miles off, on the western slope of the mountains, and
was used occasionally by the inhabitants, when, at rare intervals, they
amused themselves by setting lay lines for the char, for which the lake
had a local celebrity. The sœter belonged to Piersen’s brother, and it
was he who had induced Birger to visit the spot.
Having baled out the boat with their mess tins, they pulled out into
the lake, which turned out to be very much larger than they expected to
find it. The spot where the boat was moored, and which indeed looked
like a small, deep, still tarn, was in fact only a bay, or inlet, and
the whole lake was a body with numerous arms, none of them very large in
themselves, but making a very large piece of water when taken together.
Of course it had a name; every rock, and stream, and splash of water in
Norway, has a name of one sort or other; but whatever it might have been,
it was unknown to the fishermen, and this dark pool was entered into
their diaries by the appropriate appellation of the “Lake of the Woods.”
Mountains surrounded it on every side, steep, abrupt, plunging into the
deep dark water, and wooded from base to summit with a dense black mass
of wood wherever tree could stand on rock. There was not beach or shore
of any kind; the mountain rose from the water itself, so steep as to be
scarcely accessible, and, in many places, not accessible at all. As for a
bird, Avernus itself could not be more destitute of them. Not a sound was
heard, except the splash of the cumbersome oar, and the creaking of the
rowlock, and that sounded so loud, and so out of place in the universal
stillness, that the rowers tried to dip them quietly, as if they feared
to awaken the desolate echoes.
“Ah,” said Birger, in a whisper, “this is just the place for the ‘Lady
of the Lake;’ I hope she will do us no harm for trespassing on her
territories.”
The men looked uneasy, and a little whispering went on between Tom and
Piersen, who were pulling, they resting on their oars the while, from
which the drops trickled off and dripped into the silent water. Tom
brightened up. “I do not think she will hurt us,” he said; “she had a
very fine cake from Piersen’s family last Christmas, and she will not
hurt any one while he is with us.”
“What a confounded set of gluttonous sprites you have in your country,”
said the Captain; “mercenary devils they are too.”
“Hush, hush, don’t abuse them, at all events while you are on their
territories. The fact is, the ‘Lady of the Lake’ is the easiest
propitiated of all the sprites: she is an epicure, too, and not a
glutton; she likes her cake good, but she does not care how small it is.
On Christmas Eve you pick a very small hole in the ice, and put a cake by
the side of it, only just big enough to go through it; and if you watch,
which is not a safe thing to do if you have any sins unconfessed,[27]
you may see, not the lady herself, for she is never seen, but her small
white hand and arm, as she takes the offering and draws it down through
the hole in the ice. Those see her best who are born on the eves of the
holiest festivals.”
“That is all nonsense,” said Jacob, “I never could see her at all, often
as I have looked, and I was born on Easter Eve.”
“Why you precious rascal,” said the Captain, “how could you expect it?
When were your sins shriven, I should like to know?”
The men were not by any means displeased at Jacob’s rebuff, who seemed
much more disconcerted by it than the occasion at all required; when
Birger took up the conversation. “There is danger in that,” said he, “not
that you should miss seeing the Lady, but that you should suffer for
your rashness. The fact is,” he continued, turning to his friends, “the
Lady of the Lake is the impersonation of the sudden squalls which fall
unexpectedly on open spaces of any kind in mountainous countries, and her
small white hand and arm are the dangerous little white breakers that
are stirred up by the gusts, which, though diminutive when compared with
the mighty rollers of the ocean, very often do draw men down, just as
the hand draws Torkel’s cake. There is a similar spirit for the rivers,
called the Black Horse, and another for the sea. This latter is called
King Tolf, and is represented as driving furiously across the Sound,
his chariot drawn by water-horses, and cutting right through any ship
or boat that may lie in his path. But they all signify the same thing,
in different situations to which their several attributes are very well
adapted.”
“And that thing is?”
“Death, by drowning.”
“Here are the corks,” broke in Piersen in very indifferent English; “we
shall have gjep for supper to-day, I see the floats bobbing.”
The corks which he had pointed out were, in reality, a string of
birch-bark floats, which on being examined, were found attached to lines
anchored in the very deepest spot of the whole lake; for the gjep, or
great lake char, unlike any of its congeners, and indeed unlike any
fresh-water fish whatever, except the common char, the eel, and the
fictitious mal,[28] is never found but in the deepest waters.
Birger, who was the hero of this fishing, caught the nearest float in the
crook of his gaff, and began hauling in—evidently there was something,
for at first the line twitched and twitched and was nearly jerked out
of his hand; but as he hauled on (and in good truth the line seemed as
long as if some one, as Paddy says, had cut off the other end of it), it
came lighter and lighter, and before he had got it in, a large ugly fish,
three or four pounds weight, with an enormous protuberant belly, lay
helpless on the surface.
“That’s the fellow,” said Piersen, pouncing on him,—but the fish made
little effort to get away; it was almost dead before he got hold of it.
The gjep, though classed as a char by the learned, is as little like the
bright crimson char of our own lakes or of the mountain lakes of Norway
as can well be imagined; never met with except in water of immense depth,
never found out of his hole, never caught except with a still and (so the
Swedes assert) a stinking bait, he bears the colours and character of
his local habitation, a sober dark olive brown back, a dark grey side
shot with purple, which turns black when the fish is dead; no red spots
or very minute ones, no splashes of red or anything red about it, except
one bright line along the edge of the fins. The most remarkable point
about it, its enormous belly, from which it derives its name, _Salvelinus
ventricosus_, is really no distinguishing mark at all, except of its
habitat. The fact is, drawn suddenly and against its will from the depths
of the lake, its air-bladder swells so enormously as to kill the fish,
and give it that peculiarly inelegant appearance.
Inelegant as it looks, and disagreeable as it is to catch, it is by far
the best eating of any Swedish fish, and, from its rarity, and from the
difficulty of catching it, bears, when it is to be had at all, which is
very seldom, by far the highest price of any fish in the market. In fact,
to eat it at all in perfection, a man must go after it; it will never
answer to catch it for amusement; but the men may easily be set to lay
lines for it while other sports are going forward.
Four or five of these highly prized fish were hauled in one after another
by Birger, who looked as proud of his exploit as if he had landed a
schoolmaster.[29] When the lines had been all coiled up and deposited in
the boat, Birger proposed visiting some rushes that he remembered, in
a hope of meeting with wild fowl; a hope in which he was disappointed,
not at all to the surprise of his brother fishermen, for the whole lake
looked so black and gloomy that no duck of ordinary taste would think of
pitching there; it was, however, an interesting voyage among the sad and
silent intricacies of the lake; but it so happened, that in returning
they took a turn short of their point and wandered into another deep and
narrow inlet, very like that from which they had started, but still not
the same.
So like was one spot to another that they had pulled some considerable
distance before the mistake was found out, and when it was, so much time
had been lost that they were unwilling to pull back.
“Piú noja un miglio in dietro che dieci in avanti,” said the Captain;
“let us pull on and see what luck will send us.”
Piersen, on being consulted, as best acquainted with the country, did not
seem to know a great deal about it, but imagined that if once on shore he
could cut into the right track; and the fishermen having taken a look at
their compasses, and the sun, and the wind, what little there was of it,
decided that at all events the adventure should be tried.
Hardly had this conclusion been arrived at, when the boat grounded on a
bed of spongy rushes, so like that from which they had embarked, that it
was with difficulty they could persuade themselves that it was not the
very same—there was the same little soaking rill, the same mossy, soppy
turf, and when they had gone on a little further, there was the same
leaping, sparkling brooklet, bounding from rock to rock, just like that
by which they had descended.
A good stiff pull it took them to reach the top, and then it was evident
enough that the spot they had attained was not the same as that from
which they had descended. There was no hill on the other side, properly
so called, but a wide smooth plain of light sand, shelving, certainly,
towards the east, but shelving so gradually, that the declivity was
scarcely perceptible; it was completely overshadowed by large massive
well-grown pines, not growing together closely but in patches (as is
generally the case both in Norway and Sweden), so as to leave grassy
glades and featherly copse-wood between the groups, but regularly and
evenly, as if they had all been planted at measured distances. The
branches formed a complete canopy over head, shutting out both air and
sunshine, and effectually destroying everything like verdure beneath: the
tall straight monotonous trunks with a purplish crimson tint on their
bark, effectually walled in the view on every side, and the whole ground
was carpeted with a slippery covering of dead pine-leaves.
“I hope this will not last long,” said the Captain, “the place is so dark
and the air so close and stifling, that it seems like walking through
turpentine vaults. However, our road lies this way, that is certain,”
putting his compass on the ground so that it could traverse easily, “and
at all events we must come to a water-course sooner or later.”
But they did not come to a water-course; whether there were none, the
sand being sufficiently permeable to sop up the rain, or whether they
were travelling on the rise between two parallel brooks, did not appear;
but mile after mile was skated and slid over with considerable fatigue
and exertion, and the same scene lay before them, and around them, and
above them. Tall clear branchless stems, with long vistas between them
opening and closing as they went on, vistas which led to nothing and
terminated in nothing but the same bare, branchless, dead-looking poles.
Their compasses and a slight declivity told them that they were not
travelling in a circle, and their reason enlightened them as to the fact
that everything except a circle must have an end; but after three hours’
very hard work and some dozen of tumbles a piece, that end seemed as far
off as ever.
The only variety was a dead tree, and the only apparent difference
between the living and the dead was, that in this case the straight
perpendicular lines were crossed by lines as straight, which were
diagonal; for the dead trees for the most part reclined against their
living neighbours, very much to the detriment of the latter. As for a
bird, it did not seem as if birds could live there; nor could they in the
close space beneath that dark-green canopy; but every now and then there
was a tantalizing whirr of wings, as a black-cock threw himself out from
the topmost branches, and, far above their heads, skimmed along in that
bright sunshine which could not penetrate to them. This is a favourite
haunt of the black-cock, for the pine-tops and their young buds are its
most welcome food, and often render its flesh absolutely uneatable from
the strong turpentiny flavour they impart to it.
At last, and after they had well-nigh begun to despair, the trees began
to be thinner. Here and there a patch of sky relieved the monotonous
black, here and there a sunbeam would struggle down; then a little
grass, weak and pale, would cast a shade of sickly green over the ashy
brown of the dead fir leaves, and afford a somewhat steadier footing; a
patch of birch was hailed with the joy with which one meets a welcome
friend; cattle paths, deceptive as they are, afforded at least a token
of civilization: and now the whort and the cranberry began to show
themselves, and the hospitable juniper too, the remembrancer of bright
crackling fires and aromatic floors, and—
“Oh, positively we must have a halt now, for the difficulties are over,”
said Birger, and, though he had plenty of tobacco in his havresac, out of
sheer sentiment he stuffed his pipe with the dead strippy bark of that
useful shrub, which is generally its mountain substitute.
A few minutes were sufficient for their rest; breathing the fresh air
again was in itself a luxury, and treading the firm elastic turf a
refreshment. As they went on, the landscape began to resume its park-like
character, glades to open, trees to feather down, gentians to embroider
the green with their blue flower work, and lilies of the valley to
perfume the air. They were as much lost as ever, but the country looked
so like the beautiful banks of the Torjedahl, that they could not but
think themselves at home.
“This will do,” said Torkel, at last, who apparently had recognised some
well-known landmark, “we shall soon find a night’s lodging now, and a
kind welcome into the bargain.”
The track into which he had struck, did not at first appear more inviting
than any of the numerous cattle-paths which they hitherto passed on their
way; but Torkel followed it with a confidence which, as it turned out,
was not misplaced; for it soon widened out into a broad green glade, at
the further end of which stood a sœter of no mean pretensions.
The portions of cultivated and inhabited land in Norway are almost always
mere strips, the immediate banks of rivers or of lakes—most of them are
actually bounded by the forest; and in no case is the wild unenclosed
country at any great distance from them. Every farm, therefore, has, as
a necessary portion of its establishment, its sœter, or mountain pasture,
to which every head of cattle is driven as soon as the grass has sprung,
in order to allow the meadows of the lower farms to be laid up for hay.
At these it is often a very difficult thing to get a mess of milk in the
summer, for almost all the cheese and butter of the kingdom is made at
the sœters. They are generally abundantly stocked with dairy furniture,
but, as they are abandoned in the winter, they seldom exhibit any great
amount of luxury. They consist generally of rude log-huts, of sufficient
solidity, no doubt, for these logs are whole trunks of pines roughly
squared and laid upon one another, morticed firmly at the corners, but
of very little comfort indeed, notwithstanding. They contain generally a
single room, a chimneyless fire-place, and a mud floor, in most places
sufficiently dirty, with a few sheds and pens surrounding the main hut.
The present sœter, however, was one of far greater pretensions, it
was built of sawn timber, and boasted of an upper floor, implying, of
necessity, a separation between human beings who could climb a ladder,
and cows and pigs who could not. This projected some two or three feet
on every side beyond the lower storey, forming at once a shade and a
shelter for the cattle, according as the weather required one or the
other, and, in its turn, was crowned with a low-pitched shingled roof,
whose eaves had another projection of two or three feet, so that, seen
end on end, it had the appearance of a gigantic mushroom standing on
its stalk. The dairymen had been men of taste as well as of leisure,
for the barge-boards which protected its gables were ingeniously carved
and painted with texts from Scripture, and the heavy corners of the
projecting upper storey terminated in pendants no less grotesque than
elaborate. There was one window in each gable and two in the side, the
sills of which had been planed and painted with some date, text, or
motto, like the barge-boards.
Round these sœters there are generally some patches of enclosed ground
where hay is made, or where the more tender of the herds or flocks are
protected, but here there seemed to be a complete farm; full forty
acres had been redeemed from the forest, and enclosed by the peculiar
fence of the country; which, except that it is straight, is in its
general appearance not unlike the snake fences of America. It is formed
by planting posts in the ground by pairs at small distances between
pair and pair, and then heaping a quantity of loose planks and stems,
and any other refuse timber which comes to hand, between them, the tops
being kept firm by a ligature of birch-bark or some such material. These
fences, when they begin to rot, which they do very soon, are the harbour
of all sorts of small vermin, and are, in fact, the great eye-sores of
Swedish scenery.
In the present instance, this was pre-eminently the case; not only the
fences, but everything else, was in a terrible state of disrepair—in
many places the posts were gone, in others the birch ropes had rotted
through, and the miscellaneous timber which had formed the fence was
lying about entwined with a spiry growth of creepers and brambles, a mass
of rottenness. The house itself was in a more promising state; it was
evident that it had been partially repaired and put in order, and that
very recently, for many of the timbers showed by their white gashes, the
recent marks of the axe, and the axe which had made them was lying across
the door sill.
Torkel lifted the latch—that was easy, for there was no bolt or lock to
prevent him—but the place was evidently uninhabited—he looked on Tom with
a face of disappointment.
“Faith!” said he, “this is too bad. Torgenson told me that the Soberud
party were to drive their cattle to the fjeld on Thursday last, and the
weather has been as fine as fine can be. Well! there is no trusting
people.”
“There is no trusting Torgenson’s daughter, at all events,” said Tom,
“for I suspect it was from her that you had the information; Lota is
much too pretty to be trusted further than you can see her; and I have
no doubt she made some excuse herself for not coming last Thursday. It
was natural enough too; of course she would not like to come to the sœter
before young Svensen sailed.”
“The Thousand take young Svensen, and you too!” said Torkel, turning
round as sharply as if Tom had bitten him in earnest, but catching a grin
upon the latter’s countenance which he had not time to dismiss, looked
very much as if he meditated making him pay for his ill-timed joke, when
a loud, clear voice was heard in the glade below, making the leafy arches
of the old forest ring with the ballad of master Olaf—
“Master Olaf rode forth ere the dawn of day,
And came where the elf folk were dancing away,
The dances so merry,
So merry in the green-wood.”
Torkel stopped to listen, and Tom laughed.
“The elf father put forth his white hand, and quoth he,
Master Olaf stand forth, dance a measure with me,
The dances so merry,
So merry in the green-wood.”
“Here they come at last,” said Tom; “pretty Lota is not half so false
as you thought her, Torkel. The _Haabet_ has sailed, I suppose,” added
he, in a stage whisper. Torkel, however was much too happy to pay the
smallest attention to his malicious insinuations, but took up the song
for himself. Whether Lota put any particular meaning on the words of it,
we will not take upon ourselves to say—
“And neither I will, and neither I may,
For to-morrow it is my own wedding-day,”
shouted he, at the full pitch of his voice, while the whole party took up
the chorus—
“The dances so merry,
So merry in the green-wood.”
By this time the approaching party had emerged from the forest, and came
along the glade in an irregular procession, putting one in mind of the
Nemorins and Estelles of ancient pastorals, and all the more so from
their picturesque costumes. The men wore certainly absurdly short round
jackets, but they had rows of silver buttons on them, and brown short
trousers worked with red tape, very high in the waistband, to match the
jacket, but coming down no further than the calf of the leg, which was
ornamented with bright blue stockings, with crimson clocks.
The women had all of them red kerchiefs on their heads, the ends of
which hung down their backs, and red or yellow bodices with great silver
brooches on them, and blue petticoats trimmed with red or yellow. Both
sexes adorn themselves with all the silver they can collect; the men’s
shirt buttons are sometimes as big as a walnut, and on gala days they
will wear three or four of them strung one under another.
All the party were loaded with the utensils necessary for following their
occupations in the fjeld; the women were carrying the pails, while the
men’s loads, which consisted of all sorts of heterogeneous articles, were
topped with the great iron kettles in which they simmer their milk, after
the Devonshire fashion, in order to collect the whole of the cream.
There were little carts, too, that is to say, baskets placed upon two
wheels and an axle, and drawn by little cream-coloured ponies; stout,
stubby little beasts, very high crested, and with black manes and
tails—the former hogged, the latter peculiarly full and flowing. A Swede
generally values his horse according to the quantity of hair on his tail.
These were loaded—it did not take much to load them—with meal for the
summer’s gröd, and strings of flad bröd, a few sheep skins, particularly
dirty, though in very close proximity to the provisions,—and now and then
the black kettle, which its owner was too lazy to carry. Then came the
goats and sheep, and the little cows following like dogs, now and then
stopping to take a bite, when the turf looked particularly sweet and
tempting—little fairy cows were they, much smaller than our Alderneys,
finer in the bone, and more active on their legs; they looked as if they
had a cross of the deer in them. They were all of one colour—probably
that of the original wild cattle—a sort of dirty cream colour,
approaching to dun, and almost black on the legs and muzzle.
The party was a combined one, and was bound eventually to several other
sœters besides this, but they had agreed to make their first night’s halt
in Torgenson’s pasture, and beside the regular herdsmen and dairymaids,
as many supernumeraries as can possibly find excuse for going, accompany
the first setting out of the expedition, which is always looked upon in
the light of a holiday and a merry-making.
And a holiday and a merry-making it seemed to be, judging by the shouts,
and screams, and laughter, and rude love-making that was going on among
the gentle shepherds and shepherdesses of the north; but, for all that,
there was a good deal of real work too. Sœter-life may be a life of
pleasure, but it certainly is anything but a life of ease.
The Soberud division, bestial as well as human, evidently seemed to
consider themselves quite at home; and the cows belonging to it, which
looked as if they recognised the old localities, roamed at liberty;
but the parties bound to the more distant mountains were occupied in
hobbling, and tethering, and knee-haltering their respective charges,
mindful of their morrow’s march and of the difficulty of collecting
cattle and even sheep, which, except that they keep together, are just as
bad, from among the intricacies of a strange forest. Some were forming
temporary pounds, by effecting rude repairs in the dilapidated fences,
chopping and hewing, for that purpose, great limbs of trees and trees
themselves, with as little concern as, in England, men might cut thistles.
Streams of blue smoke began now to steal up through the trees, and fires
began to glimmer in the evening twilight, while the girls brought in
pail after pail of fresh milk, and swung their kettles, gipsy fashion,
and, opening their packages, measured out, with careful and parsimonious
foresight, the rye-meal that was to thicken it into gröd. Meal is
precious in the mountains, though milk is not.
Whether the _Haabet_ had sailed, or what had become of poor Svensen, did
not transpire; but certain it was that the damsels from Soberud, after
looking in vain for their mistress, were obliged, that evening, to act
on their own discretion—and equally certain it was that the Parson,
whose knife had been inconsiderately lent to Torkel on the preceding
day, was obliged to eat his broiled gjep with two sticks, the knife and
the fortunate individual in whose pocket it was, being, for the time,
invisible.
CHAPTER XII.
THE HOMESTEAD.
“’Tis a homestead that scarce has an equal,
Plenteous in wood and corn-fields, with rich grassy meadow and moorland—
This won my father, long since, in wedding the farmer’s fair daughter;
Here, at length he grew old, like a summer’s eve calmly declining,
Here he spent the best years of his life, and dwelt like a king, amid
plenty.
Servants he had by the score—men servants to plough with the oxen,
And maids in the house besides, and children, the joy of their mother—
Thus sowing and reaping, in comfort, from season to season, abode he,
Envied by all around—but having the good will of all men.”—
_The Elk Hunters—Runeberg._
Sunrise found the whole bivouac in a stir; the habits of the Norwegian
are always early—at least in the summer time—and many of the parties had
to travel to the yet distant sœters and wilder uplands: cows are not very
fast travellers, and the load which a dairyman carries on his back when
he is bound to those fjelds, which are inaccessible to carts, is by no
means a light one: ponies sometimes carry the heavier loads, but this is
not often, as they are useless in the fjeld life, and in the summer are
generally wanted for posting, as well as for agricultural purposes; the
loads are generally carried by the men—sometimes by the women even,—and
the milk-kettle which crowns the pack is alone a weight which few would
like to carry far, even on level ground.
The white smoke was already curling about the trees in long thin columns,
and the girls were already bringing in their pails of new milk, a very
fair proportion of which would be consumed with the morning’s gröd, which
was already bubbling in the kettles.
Gröd, in high life, means all sorts of eatables that are semi-liquid;
but in the fjeld it is invariably made thus: the water is heated in the
great milk-kettle to a galloping boil, and its temperature is raised to
a still higher point by the addition of salt; meal, generally rye-meal,
is then thinly sprinkled into it, the great art being to separate the
particles, so as to prevent them from forming lumps. As soon as the
contents of the kettle are thick enough for the bubbles to make little
pops, the gröd is taken off the fire and served up with milk. When that
milk is fresh, no one need desire a better breakfast; but when, as is
generally the case, they mix it with milk that has been purposely kept
till it is curdled over with incipient corruption, in which state they
prefer it, it is as disgusting a mess as ever attained the dignity of a
popular dish.
In the present instance they were obliged to put up with fresh milk, no
other being procurable; and the fishermen, having grilled the remains of
their gjep (an especial delicacy), and added to it some of the contents
of their havresacs, sent a deputation, headed by Birger, to invite Miss
Lota and her hand-maidens to partake of their breakfast. This was a
proceeding which Torkel regarded with very questionable pleasure. He
was flattered, no doubt, at the attentions paid to his lady-love by the
fishermen, who could not speak Norske; but, at the same time, was rather
jealous of those of Birger, who could.
Lota, however, was in no way disconcerted; she came smiling and blushing,
indeed, but without any sort of affectation or bashfulness, and listened
graciously, and without laughing, to the blundering compliments paid her
by the Englishmen; and without any great amount of coquetry, considering
the rarity of guardsmen in the Tellemark, to the tender elegance of the
Swede. Torkel had very good reason to be proud of her, and none at all to
be jealous, particularly as the knapsacks were already packed up for the
march.
The fishermen were in no particular hurry: the track to Soberud was
perfectly known; even if the droves of cows and the flocks of sheep
that had come up it the day before had not already marked it very
sufficiently. The way was not long either, for it was but a day’s journey
to the herds; the breaking up of the bivouac was very picturesque; Lota
was very pretty, and Birger found her very entertaining. It is no wonder
that they lingered.
However, the shadows of the trees began to shorten. Party after party
came up with their merry “farvels;” the songs and the laughter, and the
tinkling of the bells, sounded fainter and fainter from under the arches
of the forest; and, last of all, the fishermen, reluctantly shouldering
their knapsacks, took their journey down the glade; with the exception of
Torkel, who, having something to adjust about his straps, was not exactly
ready, and in fact was not seen for a couple of hours afterwards. He did
not join them, indeed, till the party had made their first halt near the
banks of a mountain lake.
The halt was called somewhat sooner than usual, for the Captain, who,
with his gun in his hand and old Grog at his heels, was a little in
advance, and had first caught sight of the lake, had caught sight also of
an object floating quietly along in the middle of it, which his practised
eye at once assured him was that very rare and beautiful bird, the
northern diver.
He threw himself flat on the ground, an action in which he was implicitly
imitated by the rest of the party, who, though they had not seen the
bird, were quite aware that there was some good reason for the caution.
In truth, there are few birds more difficult to kill than the northern
diver; to the greatest watchfulness he unites the most wonderful
quickness of eye and motion, and, large as he is, he is fully able to
duck the flash, as it is called,—that is to say, to dive between the time
of seeing the flash and feeling the shot.
They retired a hundred yards or so and smoked the pipe of council, thus
giving Torkel the opportunity of coming up with them.
Torkel was well acquainted with the ground, as was natural, not only
because the lake was celebrated for ducks and the country round it for
tjäder, but also because it happened to lie on the mountain track between
his own home and Torgenson’s farm, a road which business (he did not
state of what nature) required him to travel very often.
His plan was founded on a well-known characteristic in the nature of
diving birds: during their dive they cannot breathe, and therefore on
rising to the surface for a moment or so, they cannot make any immediate
effort either to dive or to fly. He proposed, therefore, that the Captain
should conceal himself among the understuff, and that the rest, taking
different positions about the lake, which was not large, should break
twigs and slightly alarm the bird, who would naturally edge away toward
the point occupied by the Captain, and the object being a valuable prize,
an hour or so was not grudged, as there was plenty of time to spare. The
party having first reconnoitred their ground, marked the position to be
occupied by the Captain on the lee side of the lake, and ascertained
that the bird was still resting on the water, separated, taking a wide
circuit, lest they should alarm it prematurely.
The Captain, with his gun ready cocked, lay at full length on the top of
a little ledge of rock about six feet high, which sloped away from the
water, forming a sort of miniature cliff. It afforded very little cover
apparently—there was nothing between it and the water but a light fringe
of cranberry bushes—but the cover was perfect to a man in a recumbent
position, and the Captain being dressed entirely, cap and all, in Lowland
plaid, the most invisible colour in the world, looked, even if he had
been seen, like a piece of the rock on which he lay. This place had been
selected with forethought, for the bird is wonderfully suspicious, and
will not approach any strong cover at all.
For half an hour after the Captain had wormed himself to the edge of the
rock, the bird lay as still as if it had been asleep, which it certainly
was not; at the end of that time there was a quick turn of its neck, and
its eye was evidently glancing round the margin, but the body remained as
quiet and motionless as before; there was not a ripple on the water, and
it was only by observing the diminishing distance between it and a lily
leaf that happened to be lying on the surface, that even the practised
eye of the Captain could tell that it was in motion, and was nearing him
imperceptibly. There had been no sound, nor had the bird caught sight of
anything; but the Parson had come between it and the wind, and the light
air, that was not sufficient even to move the surface, had carried down
the scent.
The Parson had caught sight of the lily, as well as the Captain, and,
seeing the bird in motion, had halted, leaving it to the scent alone to
effect his purpose. But in a few minutes it was evident that the bird had
become stationary, having either drifted out of the stream of scent, or,
possibly, having imagined that it was now far enough from the suspected
shore.
A slight snapping of dry wood just broke the stillness; again that sharp,
anxious glance, and the imperceptible motion, was renewed; another
and another snap, and now the water seemed to rise against the bird’s
breast, and a slight wake to be left behind him,—but it was still that
same gliding motion, as if it were slipping through the water: at last,
when the distance was sufficiently great to secure against flying, a cap
was raised, and responded to by two or three hats at different places;
the bird had disappeared, while the calm, quiet water showed no trace
of anything having broken its surface. Half-a-dozen pair of eyes were
anxiously on the look-out, and long and long was it before the smallest
sign rewarded their vigilance. At last, and many hundred yards from the
point at which they had lost sight of it, a black spot was seen floating
on the water, as quietly and unconcernedly as if it had never been
disturbed. It was, however, a good way to the right of the line in which
they were endeavouring to drive it; the hats had disappeared, and for
ten minutes the lake was as quiet as if the eye of man had never rested
upon it. Then came again the glance, the move, the dive,—then an anxious
moment of watchfulness,—then a white puff of smoke and a stream of
hopping shot playing ducks and drakes across the water,—then the sharp,
ringing report, caught up and repeated by echo after echo,—and there
lay the bird, faintly stirring the surface, in the last struggles of
death,—and there was gallant old Grog, plunging into the lake, and making
the water foam before him in his eagerness. Four or five ducks, which had
hitherto been basking unseen among the stones, sprang into air; and a
flight of teal appeared suddenly whistling over the water, and, turning
closely and together as they came unawares within a dozen yards of the
Parson, received his right and left shots among them, and, with the loss
of three or four of their company, scattered hither and thither among the
trees.
“Hurrah, Grog!—bring him along, boy! bring him along!” shouted the
Captain; and on every side, instead of the quiet, gliding, creeping
figures, just peering about the understuff, were seen forms bounding and
tearing through the cover.
The prize was one which the Captain, a taxidermist and a veteran
collector, had long desired to possess, and great was the care with which
it was secured on the top of Jacob’s knapsack; it being entrusted to him,
as the most phlegmatic of the party and the least likely to be led away
by any excitement of sport,—for at last they had arrived into something
like shooting country: the character of the ground was more open and free
from timber than anything they had seen, and the understuff of whort and
cranberry was proportionally thicker and more luxuriant; it was ground
which a dog could quarter without any very great amount of difficulty,
particularly as it was absolutely free from brambles, and that furze was
unknown in those latitudes anywhere outside of a greenhouse.
It was more for the amusement of the thing, and for the sake of
ascertaining the resources of the country, that the party extended
themselves into a line and beat their way onwards, for it was too early
in the year for shooting anything but wild ducks. Game laws in Norway
exist, certainly, but are utterly disregarded; still the broods of
grouse were, as yet, too young to take care of themselves, and it would
have been sheer murdering the innocents to injure the grey hens, which,
into the bargain, are at this time not fit for eating. This proceeding
seemed very absurd to Torkel and to Tom, for a Norwegian has no idea of
preserving the game—in reality, he can eat and relish much that most
civilized people cannot; but, besides that, he is a selfish animal, and
the poor lean bird that he secures for himself in spring, is better than
the fine, fat, plump, autumnal one that he has left for his neighbour.
Hen after hen got up and tumbled away before the dogs, who were too well
broke to disturb her, had they even been deceived by her antics, but no
shot was fired to convert her pretence into reality. Now and then, it
must be confessed, when an old, selfish, solitary cock, as black as a
hat, and as glossy as a whole morning’s dressing could make him, whirred
off as if he cared for no one but himself and had not a wife or family in
the world, he paid the penalty of his selfishness, and fell fluttering on
the cranberries—deservedly, perhaps; at all events, he left no one behind
him to lament his fate, for the black-cock is a roving bird, and never
pairs: but no exclamations of Torkel’s could induce the English sportsmen
to sever the loves of the smaller description of grouse, and Birger,
though a Swede—for very shame—was obliged to imitate their forbearance.
But, every now and then, a blue Alpine hare was knocked over without
mercy; once an unlucky badger came to an untimely end, and, upon the
whole, the bags were getting quite as heavy as the men approved of, when
a light, graceful, elegant roe, for once in its life was caught napping,
though there had been noise enough, not only from shots, but from talking
also, along the whole line, to have awakened a far less watchful animal.
It sprang from a thicker piece of covering than common, which probably
had been the means of deluding it into staying, in the false hope that it
could possibly escape the keen scent of old Grog, whose flourishing tail
said as plainly as tail could speak (and dogs’ tails are very eloquent),
“look out, boys; I have got something here for you, this time, that is
worth having.”
Jacob was pretty well strung with hares, and remonstrated against the
additional load, which was finally slung around Torkel’s body like a
shoulder-belt, and he was dismissed at once with directions to follow the
path to Soberud, a place where he was well known, and to prepare, as well
as he could, for the reception of the party, and their provisioning.
Torkel undertook the mission readily enough, and went off gaily under a
load of game that would have been quite enough for a pony, casting back
a knowing look to Tom, who seemed perfectly to understand him, implying
that he had some project in his head by which he intended to astonish the
strangers.
The day wore on in this pleasant exercise—perhaps the halt for Middagsmad
might have been a long one, and the pipe after luxurious; in fact,
there is not so luxurious a couch in this sublunary world as a heap
of heather, and no sensation so luxuriously happy as that of basking,
half-tired, in the warm, pleasant sunshine, after a well-spent morning
of honest exercise, with our gun beside us, and our dogs half sleeping,
like ourselves, around us; but the sun was not a very great way from the
horizon when the party gained the first view of the village which was to
be their resting-place for the night.
The fjeld was not high, for it had been sloping away gradually to the
eastward ever since they left the high mountains which surround the Lake
of the Woods, but, as it almost always does, it terminated abruptly
in a sort of cliff, portions of which were precipitous, and the rest
extremely steep. The path which Torkel had taken, following the course
of a largish brook, had found an easy access to the valley, practicable
even for the carts of the country; but at the point at which they had
struck the valley, there was nothing for it but a stiff scramble down the
face of the hill, a proceeding which their loads rendered anything but
pleasant and easy. It was a beautiful scene that lay before them, and
perfectly different from anything they had seen before, though they had
been passing through scenery of wood and lake ever since they left the
Torjedahl.
In the present instance the broad, still lake, broad as it was, filled
up but half the amphitheatre of the wooded mountains. There was an ample
margin of cultivated land round it, fields rich with the promise of
autumn, and green quiet meadows; here and there a wooded spur shot out
from the frame of highlands, forming sometimes a cape or promontory in
the water, while, in return, narrow secluded valleys would wind back into
the recesses of the mountains, each with its own little brook and its
own secluded pastures. Besides the village, there were several detached
farmsteadings and scattered cottages, all looking trim and tidy and well
to do in the world, and through the middle of them ran a well-kept but
very winding road, with a broad margin of turf on each side. The fences
might have been a dissight a little nearer, for they were the post and
slab fence so common in the north, but, at the distance, they looked like
park paling; and the swing poles for opening the gates across the road,
formed a picturesque feature in the landscape.
Close by the lake-side was the church, a grey and weather-stained
building, which looked like one solid mass of timber, supporting on
its steeply-pitched and shingled roof, three round towers of different
heights, each surmounted with its cross. Dominating over the whole sat a
huge golden cock, which, newly gilded, glowed in the light of the setting
sun as if it were a supplementary sun itself. The houses of the village
were a good deal scattered, but, with the exception of the Præstgaard, or
parsonage, did not hold out any very magnificent hopes of accommodation
for the night.
This, however, was of little importance to men whose last night’s abode
had been the shelter of the thickest tree; and they proceeded, with very
contented minds, to descend the steep hill-side, in order to reach the
path they ought to have taken, which they now discovered, far below them,
winding along the edge of the cultivated ground.
“And now,” said the Captain, as they reached it and rallied their forces,
which had been a good deal scattered during the sharp descent, “where to
bestow ourselves for the night? I should like to sleep in a bed, if it
were only for the novelty of the thing; and here, in good time, comes
Torkel, who looks as if he had made himself pretty well at home already.”
Torkel, considerably smartened up—however he had contrived it—and
sporting a clean white shirt-front, like a pouter pigeon, with his
silver shirt buttons newly polished, came up the church path in close
conversation with a respectable, fatherly, well-to-do-in-the-world sort
of farmer, or huusbonde as he was called, in whom, as he introduced him
by the name of Torgensen, the fishermen recognized the father of the
pretty hostess of the sœter. Not one word of English could the good-man
speak, though he looked as like an honest rough-handed English farmer
as one man could look to another; but he wrung their hands, as if, like
Holger, he meant to test their manhood by their powers of endurance, and
smiled, and looked pleasant, which Torkel interpreted to mean that he
heartily desired to see the whole party under his hospitable roof that
night, and would be right glad to make them all drunk in honour of his
roof-tree. And poor Torkel looked so excessively happy, that it was easy
to see that, in spite of the _Haabet_ and her skipper, he had not only
sped in his wooing at the sœter, but had contrived to ingratiate himself
with the elders of the household.
A grand place was that homestead, which, hidden by a projecting point,
and occupying a secluded valley of its own, had hitherto escaped their
observation,—a good, snug, wealthy farm it really was, even as compared
to others in the country; but in Norway, so much cover is always wanted;
and building—at least timber building—is so cheap, that moderate-sized
farm-houses, with their appurtenances, are little villages; and the house
itself looks always larger than it is, as an habitation, because the
whole upper storey, frequently called the rigging loft, is invariably
used as a store-room for their provisions, and hides, and wool, and flax,
and apples, and sometimes corn, in the winter, and not unfrequently as a
ball-room, when they have eaten out sufficient space in it.
The house, like all the rest, a wooden building with a planked roof and
gabled ends, was unusually painted. Torgensen, in his youth, had himself
commanded the _Haabet_, and had traded in her for provisions and corn
along the coast of Scånia, and from it had imported Scånian fashions.
Instead of the deep, dull red, which harmonizes so well with the tints
of the country, he had painted his house in figures, blue, and yellow,
and white, and black, which had a singular, but, upon the whole, a
not unpleasant effect. Texts of Scripture in rough black letter, and
dates, and monograms of himself, and wife, and children, were written
under every window and every gable; and the barge-boards and ridge
timber-ends, were carved as elaborately and grotesquely as those of the
church.
There was but little delicacy in accepting Torgensen’s hospitality; his
house was large enough for a barrack, and its doors were as wide open as
those of an inn. A large room, that could not exactly be called kitchen,
hall, workshop, or dining-room, but served equally for any one of these
offices (and occasionally for a ball-room also, when the store-room
was too full to be used in that capacity), was open to all comers;
half-a-dozen boards, as thick almost as baulks of timber, and placed
upon trestles that might have supported the house, formed the principal
table; two great chairs, like thrones, elaborately carved, and looking
as if they required a steam-engine to move them, stood on a sort of
dais;—these are not uncommon pieces of furniture in old houses; they are
called grandfather and grandmother chairs, and are the seats of honour,
though very seldom occupied at all, unless the master and mistress of the
house are old enough to have lost their active habits. The more ordinary
seats were substantial benches, with or without backs, and three-legged
stools. Here and there was a great chest, a sort of expense magazine for
stowing away the wool, and the flax, and the skins, which were in process
of being converted into linen, wadmaal, or shoes, by the farm servants.
Over these a series of shelves, like an ancient buffet, containing pewter
drinking-vessels, large brass embossed plates with the bunch of grapes
from the promised land or the expulsion of Adam and Eve glittering upon
them in all the brightness of constant polish. Over these, again, were
slung a row of copper cauldrons and pots; and on the opposite side
a chest of drawers, carved and painted with grotesque figures, was
ornamented with heaps of blue and white dishes, and pewter dinner-plates,
and rows of brass candlesticks.
All this was beautifully clean and tidy, for the Norse men and women keep
all their cleanliness for their ships and houses, and waste none of it on
their persons.
A strong aromatic smell pervaded the whole room, from the fresh sprigs of
fir and juniper with which it was strewn every morning, as old English
halls were with rushes; it might indeed have well passed muster for
an English hall in the olden times, but for the absence of the great
gaping fire-place with its cozy chimney-corner and fire-side benches; the
place of all this was ill supplied by the pride of Torgensen’s heart,
which he pointed out before they had been in the room for five minutes,
and called his “pot-kakoluvne”—a great pyramidal heap of glazed tiles,
portraying Scripture subjects in Dutch costumes, and doing duty as a
stove. This being an importation from foreign parts was of course of
additional value; its pyramidal shape indicated Denmark as the country
of its manufacture, for in Sweden the corresponding piece of furniture
is cubical; and both are great improvements on the cast-iron stoves of
Norway, which get nearly red hot, dry and parch the skin, crack the
furniture, and fill the rooms with a description of gas, which, whatever
it may do to a native, ensures to the stranger a perpetual headache.
It is rare to find in Norway a farm, and consequently an establishment
of the size of Torgensen’s, though in Sweden it is common enough. The
Odal law, which enforces equal division of property among the children,
prevents any accumulation of territorial property, and will ultimately
reduce Norway to a population of agricultural peasants with a commercial
aristocracy. The homesteads of the old Norwegian nobility are deserted
and decaying, like their families, but Torgensen had been educated as a
merchant and shipowner, as elder sons frequently are, and having been
fortunate in his speculations, had been able to buy out his brothers, and
to keep up unimpaired the old hospitalities of his father’s mansion; and
thus fourteen or sixteen farm-servants, and as many girls, with, it must
be confessed, an indefinite number of children that had found themselves
by chance in the establishment without any fathers at all, sat daily
round that mass of timber which was called the meal-board (_mad borden_),
and supped their daily gröd and drank their daily brandy.
Although the head of so great an establishment, Frue[30] Kerstin—as
Madame Torgensen was usually called, though in truth she had no great
right to the title—did not consider herself exempt from household duties;
in fact she was but the principal housekeeper of the establishment, and
wore a bunch of keys big enough for an ordinary jail as a badge of this
distinction. It was not a very easy matter to catch her unprepared, for
frugality was by no means the order of the house; but this day was really
an exception to the general rule, and she saw with some dismay the party
which her husband was bringing home with him. Lota was at the sœter, and
with her were most of the young girls and, of course, their admirers.
There had been hay-making at the Præstgaard during the past week, and,
it being Saturday night, two-thirds of the remainder were dancing and
drinking there, and thus the party at the homestead being a small one,
the supper was none of the best. Good humour and real welcome, however,
supplied all deficiencies, which after all, were more in Frue Kerstin’s
imagination than in reality. The evening passed off admirably in songs
and conversation; Torkel was an evident favourite,—and indeed his manly
character, his ready stories and songs, his fine voice and constant and
cheerful good humour well entitled him to the distinction, to say nothing
of a broad strath in the higher Tellemark, and a lake, and a stream, and
a saw-mill, and a “hammer” as it was called, that is to say, a smelting
furnace for iron, to which, being the only son, he was undoubted heir, a
qualification which prudent parents are not apt to overlook; but he had
evidently risen in their esteem from the fact of his having brought such
popular characters as English gentlemen to the homestead, and from the
consideration with which those gentlemen treated him.
Torgensen might have been better pleased had more justice been done to
his brandy, which was real Cognac and admirable, and might have been a
little scandalized at the admixture of water, but his broad, jolly face
never lost that glow of good humour which made his guests feel they were
doing him a pleasure by drinking his brandy and eating his good cheer. A
lively conversation was kept up through Birger and Torkel till late at
night, and when the fishermen, having duly thanked their hostess, after
the customs of the country, retired to rest in the great square boxes of
fragrant poplar leaves, they sank into such a mass of eider down, that
told well for the _ci-devant_ attractions of the Lady Christina.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CHURCH.
“Mighty stands the cross of God,
Smiling homeward to the soul.”
_Almquist._
One reason why the fishermen were so anxious to reach Soberud was, that
the next day was Sunday, and they wanted a day of rest, and a church
to go to; and that was not to be met with, on the Torjedahl, nearer
than Christiansand itself. Hitherto their church had been a remarkably
tall fir-tree, which had, somehow or other, been overlooked by the
wood-cutters, and stood some little way within the forest. It had been
chosen on account of its fancied resemblance to a church spire, as it
towered above the rest of the foliage; and the lower branches having been
cut away, and the space round its trunk enclosed and decorated with green
boughs—as all Swedish churches used to be decorated on high days before a
royal ordinance was passed which forbade it,—and the ground strewed with
fresh juniper and marsh-marigolds—as church floors are to this day,—it
did make a very fair forest church for fine weather; and as all the party
could sing, more or less, the service was performed a good deal more
ecclesiastically than it is in some of our English cathedrals.
Norway is not in communion with England; indeed, strictly speaking,
neither Norway nor Denmark are churches at all,—they are merely
establishments. Sweden may, by some stretch of imagination and a little
implicit faith in its history, be considered a church, and is so
considered by the Bishop of London, who has authorised the Bishop of
Gothenborg to confirm for him. But though neither the Englishmen, nor
even the Swedes, considered themselves at liberty to communicate in the
church of Soberud, there was no reason whatever against their joining in
either the ottesång or the aftensång (morning or evening service), or
even against their being present at the högmässe, or communion itself.
The men, who had no very accurate ideas of theology, had joined in the
English service very readily, and, indeed, had taken a good deal of
pains in decorating the forest church, for both Tom and Torkel could
read English as well as they could speak it; and Jacob pretended to do
so. They were, however, all of them, extremely pleased at having the
opportunity of going to a consecrated church.
Perhaps one of the most remarkable features of the country is the respect
and reverence which all classes pay to their churches, combined with the
very little effect which religion has on their conduct. Norwegians will
face all sorts of weather, in order to be present at the högmässe of
Sunday. Large sums of money—that is to say, large in comparison with the
wealth of the parishes—are spent upon their churches, which are always
in perfect repair, and always most carefully swept, and trimmed with
rushes or green sprigs. A man would lose his character at once, and would
be shunned by his acquaintance as a hopeless reprobate, if he neglected
confirmation, or the Lord’s supper. Nothing, indeed, is more common than
to see, as an advertisement—“Wanted, a confirmed cook or housemaid;”
which advertisement in no ways relates to the capacities of the servant,
but simply to her age, it being taken for granted that a person of a
certain age must have been confirmed. Indeed, the legislature interferes
with this: few offices can be held by unconfirmed people, or by those
who are not communicants; and the legislature is only the interpreter of
public opinion. No man is at present molested for any religious opinions
he may please to hold; he simply loses his civil rights by seceding from
the national religion. In fact, Norway is the most complete illustration
of the establishment principle which exists in the world.
At the same time, education, as it is popularly called—that is to say,
secular instruction—is almost universal. No one ever meets with a
Norwegian unable to read and write. It may fairly be said that there is
no country in the world in which the standard of popular education is
so high, and the standard of popular morality so low,—where the respect
for religion is so very great, and the ignorance of religion so very
profound,—as it is in Norway. Sweden may be second in this paradox, but
Norway is by far the first.
It is not difficult to account for both these phenomena. Few countries
suffered more extensive church spoliation in the good old Reformation
times than Norway and Sweden; and when, after that convulsion, men began
to gather up the fragments, they had to choose between an ill-paid
clergy whose social position would be inferior to that of almost all
their parishioners, and a sufficiently paid clergy with enormous and
unmanageable parishes. They chose the latter, perhaps wisely, as more
likely to preserve the character and influence of the church till better
times should come. They, therefore, grouped the parishes into districts,
few of which were under ten or twelve miles long, and wide in proportion,
some very much larger, and one more than a hundred miles in length.
These districts are a collected group of parishes, whose churches are
still kept up under the name of Annexkyrker, and service is occasionally
performed in them, as a sort of protest of their right.
Over these districts they placed rectors (Pfarrherrer), whose revenue,
though not what we should call large in our country, is, nevertheless,
greater than that of most of their parishioners; they gave them good
parsonage houses (præstgaards), and, in almost every case, provided
a dowager house and farm for their widows. And, while they rendered
their position an object of competition, they provided that it should
be adequately filled, by establishing the most searching examinations
and the most careful provisions. The consequence of this is, that the
Norwegian clergy are almost invariably very superior people, and, in a
country where the election is absolutely free, they are very generally
chosen members of the Storthing; while, in Sweden, they form an integral
estate of the realm, and possess their own independent house of
parliament.
In a country where there is so much ceremonial, so much that speaks
to the understanding of the uneducated by speaking to their eye, it is
impossible but that the externals of religion should be respected—the
position of its ministers being such as is calculated to add to that
respect, and not, as is too frequently the case in Roman Catholic
countries, such as to diminish from it.
But, from the enormous size of the parishes, the externals are all that
can possibly come to the majority of the people. The Scandinavian Church,
learned as its individual ministers may be, is not the teacher of the
people, nor can it be—no man can teach over fifty miles of country.
Education, on the other hand, there is plenty of, such as it is; for,
not only do the frost-bound winters give plenty of opportunity, but the
Church is the establishment, and the laws of the land are such as to make
reading and writing necessary to all. At the same time, this education is
absolutely secular, it has nothing to do with the doctrines of religion,
and, consequently, nothing with the morals of the people, except to
increase their power of doing anything. Knowledge with them, as with all
others, is power: but, disjoined from religion, this is generally the
power of doing wrong. Whether this be, or be not, a correct solution
of the paradox, at all events, the fact remains, and it has never been
accounted for: Norway is pre-eminent in the education of its people, and
is also pre-eminent in the statistics of crime.
But this is not the external view of the case: the mere visitor in Norway
would speak of the very religious habits of the people. They certainly
are a people of religious habits, and will continue to be so as long
as the externals of religion are preserved with a magnificence and
ceremonial sufficient to keep up their reverence. But they are, merely, a
people of religious _habits_—they are not a people of religious feelings.
The marriage between faith and works with them has been “dissolved by Act
of Parliament, and neither their faith nor their works are the better for
it.”
Nothing of this, however, was visible on that Sunday morning, as the
Parson, when the hospitable and substantial breakfast of the farm-house
had at last come to an end, walked quietly and musingly along the broad
natural terrace which led to the church, and commanded a beautiful view
over the wide valley and its quiet lake.
The church was a good-sized building, with nave, and aisles, and
transepts, and chancel. It was handsome and striking, but very quaint
and singular; every part of it was of wood—not planks, but great solid
beams of absolute timber; centuries had passed over them, and there was
no perceptible decay,—they were merely weather-stained, and harmonised
in their colouring; and the whole edifice looked as if the day of
judgment would find it as firm and as eternal as the Church it was
built to represent. The whole was a confused collection of acute gables
and high-pointed roofs, covered with diamond-shaped pine shingles. The
windows were small, square-headed, and few in number, barely enough,
indeed, to give light to the interior, and in no way contributing to the
architectural beauty of the church. No Norwegian ever breathes more fresh
air than he can help, or thinks of opening his church windows; it is not
very often that he opens even the windows of his house.[31]
The sharp roofs, which are almost universal in the Norwegian churches,
though extremely ornamental, especially where, as in the present case,
they are shingled, are erected not for ornament but for use. It is
absolutely necessary, in a land where snow falls so abundantly, to have
such a slope that will not permit it to lodge in any quantities in a
building which is not inhabited and constantly cleared. Were the roof no
steeper than those of most of our English churches, the weight of lodged
snow would soon become sufficient to bear down any strength of timbers
they could put into it.
Although there was but little of ornament about the windows and
doors—those more ordinary objects of ecclesiastical decoration—this
evidently did not arise from want of respect or care for their church;
for every gable—and there were thirty or forty of them, great and
small—was decorated with elaborately-carved barge-boards, the ridge
timber of every one of them projected three or four feet beyond the
face of the building, and terminated in the head of some nondescript
animal, particularly ugly, but still the record and evidence of infinite
pains and labour. The chancel, the nave, and the belfry, constituted
three separate pyramids, rising one above the other, consisting of from
three to five stages each, and terminating in round towers, roofed with
short shingled spires, like so many extinguishers. Each of these carried
its huge cross, for neither Norwegian nor Swede is afraid of that holy
emblem; and high on the top of all was the typical cock—and if it did
not warn all sinners to repent, it certainly was not for want of being
seen, for its size was colossal, and in its new gilding it glittered in
the air for miles on every side. At the entrance of the churchyard, on
the side facing the lake, was a lych-gate, also of solid timber, with a
roof broad enough to shelter a whole funeral. The gate itself, which,
when shut, formed a stile, was shod with iron spikes, to prevent the pigs
from burrowing under. By the side of it was that satire upon Norway, the
evidence of Karl Johann’s fruitless attempts to stem the tide of national
habits—the stocks—of course unemployed—at least, so far as their legal
purpose went;—they formed, however, a very comfortable seat, upon which
Birger was balancing himself backwards and forwards, and trying to cross
one foot over the other. The other fishermen, as decent as they could
make themselves up for Sunday—which was rather dingy, after all, compared
with the bright colours of the peasants’ dresses—lounged about, watching
the assembling congregation.
It wanted some time to service, but there were scattered here and there
about the churchyard several parties, who had already been for some time
on the ground. Sunday as it was, they had brought with them their garden
tools, and their waterpots, and their baskets of plants, or papers of
seeds, and had tucked up their smart embroidered petticoats, or turned
back their shirt-sleeves, according to their sex, and were busily
employed about the graves.
These were not oblong mounds of turf, like the graves in our English
churchyards, but raised borders with iron edging, and were, for the most
part, pictures of neat and tidy gardening; wild flowers very often were
all that grew there, little blue gentianellas, or lilies of the valley,
such as might be met with anywhere in the open fjeld; more often than
all, that innocent little white trailer, the anthemis cotula, which they
call Balder’s eyebrow, and to which they attach a peculiar sanctity;
but, even if they were wild, they always bore the traces of care and
cultivation. Now and then a rose would be woven into the semblance of a
cradle, or an edging of convolvolus major, twining round its supports,
would form a pyramid or a canopy, with its fragile blue flowers already
fading, though so early in the day, perhaps an apt type of those who lay
below them.
In no place does the Norwegian appear to so great advantage as when
busied about the graves of his family; these are cared for by all who
cherish the memory of the dead, as their occupants would be were they
still on earth. Appointments are often made among distant members of
a family, and little parties are arranged to meet at the grave of a
common relative; the first object of all these is invariably to trim its
flowers. These are not sad or solemn meetings; they are rather joyful
reunions, much as if the families were visiting the house of their
relation, instead of his grave. They are not even dressed in mourning,
for their meetings are continued long after the time of mourning is
passed: it is a sort of sober festivity. Much of the good that exists in
the Norwegian character—their family affection, their patriotism, their
attachment to their native country throughout all their wanderings,—may
be traced to their graves.
Suddenly, the bells struck up, and every man removed his hat, bowing to
the church as if returning its salutation. Other people, besides the
funeral parties, now began to collect from different quarters; here and
there a stray cariole rattled up to the churchyard gate, and an old
grandmother or two was brought along in one of the queer-looking little
carts of the country; but the people of Norway are anything but vehicular
in their habits; indeed, except the main roads—and these are very few
indeed—the country is in no ways calculated for wheeled carriages.
Boats were a much more fashionable mode of progression; several of these
were already seen approaching from different quarters of the lake,
pulled by two or four oars, and containing a cargo of many-coloured
petticoats, which looked, in the distance, like bunches of variegated
tulips. Every Norwegian, man or woman, learns to row almost as soon as he
learns to walk, and every Norwegian knows something of the principles of
boat-building; and very elegant little craft, of the whale-boat build,
they frequently turn out.
“Hallo!” said Birger; “we are in luck. I knew it was Communion Sunday,
but we are to have a lot of christenings besides. Look at the little
white bundles in their chrism-cloths, and the elegant white satin bows.
I do believe they would none of them consider their children baptized
without those white bows.”
“Have you Christening Sundays, then?” said the Parson.
“Not always: in many places the clergy set their faces against them. But
the Norwegian is a gregarious animal: he dearly loves a set feast, and
hospitably considers the more the merrier. In these country-places you
will often find not only Communion Sundays, but Christening Sundays, and
Wedding Sundays, and—”
“And funeral Sundays?” suggested the Captain.
“And funeral Sundays—you need not laugh, I mean what I say; in the winter
we have a little frost here, hot as it is now,—and frost, compared to
which your English frost is but a summer’s day. They cannot very well
bury their dead in the winter, so they very frequently freeze them, and
keep them till the frost breaks up. Whenever that happens it is of course
necessary to bury immediately all that have died since the beginning
of the winter, and thus—though I suspect you asked that question in
pure joke—it really does happen, that besides gregarious communions,
christenings, and weddings, they have gregarious funerals also.”
The bells now began to “ring in,” and that portion of the congregation
who were not related to any of the little white bundles in satin bows, or
were not destined to be godfathers or godmothers to them, came stumbling
into the church, and arranging themselves as best they could on the
benches.
To those coming in from the blaze of day outside, the interior appeared
perfectly dark, so that the people were actually feeling for their
places. The little square windows looked like dots of light against the
black walls, but as the eye accustomed itself to the darkness, the scene
came out by degrees: the tracery of the chancel screen—the great crucifix
seen over it—the altar beyond, heavy with carving and gilding—the font
just within the screen—the pulpit just without it—then the congregation
themselves became visible—the men on one side of the nave, the women
on the other. It was high mass; for though the Scandinavian Church be
reformed, she still retains the ancient expressions.
The short hymn which begins the service had closed, and the priest in his
wide-sleeved surplice—mäss skjorta—was standing by the altar, while the
Candidatus marshalled in the porch a little procession of the christening
parties. When all was ready they entered the church, the congregation
singing, as they advanced towards the chancel, one of the numerous hymns
from the Bede Psalmer—to which little book, unpretending as it is, the
people owe nearly all the very small acquaintance with the doctrines of
their Church, which they possess.
In our service we recognise but two parties, the priest and the
people—the English choir being, theoretically, at all events, merely
the leaders of the people’s responses; whereas, in Scandinavia there
are three distinct divisions of the service—the prayers of the priest,
the responses of the choir, and the hymns of the people; which last are
collected and arranged for seasons and occasions, in their Bede Psalmer,
a book which, as they all sing more or less, most of them have at their
fingers’ ends.
While this was proceeding, the Candidatus threw open the richly-carved
doors of the chancel screen and admitted the christening party into the
choir, arranging them round the font which stood at its entrance. The
whole service was very like our own, except that, after the exhortation,
the priest proclaimed his own commission to baptize, in the words of the
three last verses in St. Matthew’s gospel, before reading the gospel from
St. Mark which is used in the English Church; and afterwards announced
the value of the Sacrament itself in the words of St. John—(chap. 3. v.
5, 6). Before the act of baptism, the priest laid his hand on the head
of each child, severally, and blessed it; then, after sprinkling it three
several times as he pronounced the name of each of the three Persons in
the Trinity, he stepped forward to the doors of the choir, and presented
the new Christian to the congregation, saying, “In the name of the Holy
Trinity, this child is now, through holy baptism, received as a member
of the Christian Church, and hath right given him to all the privileges
joined therewith: God give His grace, that he, all the days of his life,
may fulfil this his baptismal covenant.”
After a general thanksgiving for the new birth of the children, and a
general exhortation to the sponsors on the subject of their duties, the
congregation struck up another hymn from the Bede Psalmer, while the
children were carried round the altar, which does not stand, as in our
churches, close to the well, but has a passage left behind it, possibly
for this purpose, the sponsors depositing on it their offerings as they
passed.
In the meanwhile the priest, kneeling on the altar steps, was invested
by the Candidatus and Kyrke Sånger (precentor) with the mässe hacke,
a crimson velvet chasuble, embroidered in front with a gold glory
surrounding the Holy Name, and behind with a gold floriated cross. He
remained kneeling, while the Candidatus, paper in hand, went down the
nave, noting those who intended to present themselves at the communion,
in order to be certain that none should partake of it who had not
previously given their names to the priest for approbation, and attended
the early service of confession—called communions-skrift. This was not
so very difficult to do, though none of the congregation had left the
church; for each intended communicant wore something black or grey about
him, in memory of the Lord’s death. When this survey had been completed,
the priest rose, and facing the people, intoned the general thanksgiving,
and then turning again to the altar, made his confession alone, in the
name of his flock, the congregation itself being silent, though the
choir, at the occasional pauses, chanted the Kyrie Eleeson. He then
placed on the altar the “Oblaten Schalten,” or wafer basket, the silver
flagon, and lastly the chalice and patin, which were brought to him with
great ceremony, the Candidatus and Kyrke Sånger, who carried them, being
attended by the whole choir.
The outer doors of the church were then shut, and the Candidatus in his
black gown and cassock having taken his place on the lower step, the
priest chanted the Gloria in Excelsis, the choir taking it up after the
first sentence.
After the consecration, the communicants were arranged in four divisions;
the married men, and the married women, the single men and the single
women; these knelt in the centre, while the non-communicants stood
round them chanting softly the Agnus Dei, and bowing their heads as
the elements were administered to each communicant, which was done
individually, as with us.
There was then a general thanksgiving and a Hallelujah by the choir;
after which the priest dismissed the congregation with his benediction,
making the sign of the cross towards them in the air. This form, which
was universal throughout three kingdoms scarcely more than a hundred
years ago, has almost entirely disappeared from the Swedish Church,
disused rather than forbidden; but many of the old customs which in
Sweden have become obsolete, in Norway are religiously kept up. And
besides this, politics have something to do with the matter; there is
always a great affectation of Danish peculiarities, such as dressing the
church with green boughs on Whitsuntide, among those who are not over
well affected to Sweden. These and many similar ceremonials retained
in Norwegian churches are punishable by fine or deprivation; but the
people will have it so, and the priests are very willing to indulge
them,—members of Storthing and law-makers as many of them are.
As for theology, the people are profoundly ignorant of that, while the
priests themselves, who, nine out of ten, are learned divines,—thanks to
the severe examination at Christiania which generally weeds out one half
of the candidates every year,—are almost always politicians enough to
borrow their churchmanship from Denmark, are just as much Grundtvigites,
or Mynsterites, according as their bias is high or low, as if they lived
in Copenhagen itself.
After the conclusion of the service the fishermen were lounging
homewards, taking their time, and enjoying the weather, and the views,
and the sunshine, and the Sunday quiet, and upon the whole, though all
of then ardent sportsmen, by no means sorry for a day of regular rest,
when the Pfarrherr himself, accompanied by his Candidatus overtook them.
The Candidatus was a long, tall youth, fresh from college, conceited and
shy at the same time, who looked, as Birger afterwards observed, as if he
smelt of the midnight oil; but the Pfarrherr was a gentleman-like man,
with a broad, good-humoured, fresh-coloured face, looking more like an
English old-fashioned squire than anything else. He had been priest of
Soberud for many years, and being a regular anti-Swede, was very popular.
He had represented the district in several Storthings, and was likely to
do so in many more, though he did belong to the commercial party, which
in Norway, as in America, is aristocratic and tory, in opposition to the
country party, who in those nations are the radicals.
In addition to this, he was the probst, or rural dean, which was a
fortunate circumstance for him—for being an enthusiastic admirer of
Grundtvig, he was a great deal too much of a ritualist and antiquarian
for the continually receding Swedish Church, and, under other
circumstances, could hardly have failed in being brought up before the
Church Committee at Christiania, for his little peculiarities; though
it is a fact that most of the ecclesiastical members of Storthing, who
composed it, thought, felt, and, if they dared, would act, precisely as
he did.
He spoke English readily enough—indeed, English is to the educated
Norwegians what French is to us,—and, as a matter of course, invited the
fishermen to share the hospitalities of the præstgaard. This, however,
would have been a mortal offence to poor Torgenson, who, though he could
not speak to his guests one single word except through an interpreter,
would have been deeply scandalized, and, indeed, would have felt lowered
in the eyes of his countrymen, had they deserted him. The Parson,
however, being a professional man, was an exception, and Pfarrherr
Nordlingen carried him off in triumph, Torkel promising to bring over
his knapsack to the præstgaard.
The præstgaard was not so large and rambling a building as the hall,
but was infinitely more comfortable; highly-polished birchen furniture,
and well-stored bookcases, gave it an air of habitableness. The room
into which they entered was the summer parlour, whose French windows,
shaded by gauze curtains, were wide open, looking on a broad lawn and a
sparkling little stream beyond it; a good sprinkling of juniper twigs
took off, in a great measure, from the bare look of the carpetless floors
which always strikes an English eye. It is a great absurdity, in a
country which is not favourable for sheep, and whose woollen manufactures
seldom go higher than the wadmaal, that the duty upon English woollens
should be so absurdly high. But the fact is, the Storthing is so entirely
in the hands of the democratic, or country party, that anything beyond a
class legislation is hopeless. The idea is not that all the people should
have warm blankets, but that the democratic and agricultural majorities
should work up inferior wool. Weaving by hand is an agriculturist’s
winter work.
The Priestess Nordlingen, as she was called, a smiling, pretty-looking
woman, much younger than her husband, was occupied in laying the cloth
for aftonsmad, assisted by the dowager priestess, who lived now on the
other side of the little stream, but being on excellent terms with her
late husband’s successor, spent a good deal more of her time in her
old home than she did in her new one.[32] Servants they had, both of
them, in plenty, for the præster are among the richest in the land; but
no Norwegian wife is above acting as butler and housekeeper, and no
Norwegian damsel, fröken though she be, is above waiting at table. It
does not seem quite the thing to an English gentleman, to have the ladies
waiting upon him; but certainly in the Norwegian grammar, if they have
one, the masculine is more worthy than the feminine.
Forest life is pleasant, but a contrast is pleasant also, and the Parson,
as he lay back in a peculiarly easy chair, sipping leisurely the dram
which invariably precedes a Norwegian meal, and which, in the present
case, was true cognac of unquestionable genuineness and undeniable
antiquity, considered himself in very great luck indeed; in fact, much
as he admired the rude abundance of the hall, he infinitely preferred
the quiet elegances of the præstgaard. He made some such observation to
Nordlingen.
“Yes,” replied he, “the Reformation has injured the Church cruelly, as an
endowment, and has cut off five-sixths of its clergy; but we individual
præster have not much to complain of as regards ourselves.”
“You must have pretty severe duties, though.”
“Well, they are not severe, because they cannot be done. My parish was
originally six; these have been thrown together under one. If I had
half-a-dozen curates, the parish could not be visited, nor the annex
kyrker properly served; for in former times it supported six priests and
six deacons; so what one cannot do at all, one soon ceases to distress
one’s self about. The work is not done, cannot be done, and no one
expects it to be done. We have work enough—especially those who, like me,
are elevated to the Storthing,—but it is not ecclesiastical work.”
“Do you know,” said the Parson, “I wonder that, under such circumstances,
you have no dissenters in Norway; our Wesleyans arose from precisely the
same cause. The spoliation of our Church having diminished our number
of priests, and very seriously impaired the discipline which might, in
some measure, have kept the remainder to their work, the people in many
districts became heathens, much like your own people, in fact; and when
teachers rose up among them, men followed them not because they were
orthodox, but because they were the only teachers to be had. But you have
some sort of dissenters, too, have you not?”
“O, the Haugerites. Yes—they are not dissenters, either. Hauger held a
good many doctrines of that arch-heretic, Calvin: New Birth, as distinct
from Baptism; Predestination, Election, and so forth; but neither he
nor his followers separated from the Church. In truth, religion is at
too low an ebb among us for dissent; we have no more strength to throw
up dissenters, than an exhausted field has to throw up weeds. Hauger
succeeded, because he was not only a pious, but a practical man; he was
rich, too; he set up saw-mills and iron-works, and advanced the money;—it
is no wonder he set up a religious party. But they are going down now.”
“Ah, I understand—what we call in Ireland, soup Christians; and now
Hauger is dead, the spring has run dry?”
“No not at all—I do not mean to say that the practical turn of his mind
was not a recommendation to his theology; but though he preached and did
good, his good offices were not confined to his own followers; his sect
is subsiding because it has no distinctive tenets, any more than that of
your Wesleyans. You made a great blunder; by turning Wesley out of the
Church, you forced him to set up a Church government of his own; it is
that government, and not his doctrines, which keeps his followers in a
state of antagonism to a Church with which they have no real doctrinal
difference. We were not such fools with Hauger; he met with a little
persecution himself—for we Norwegians are not tolerant,—but we were wise
enough to leave his people alone, so they did not think it worth while to
differ, and in fact never did.”
“I think there may be another reason,” said the Parson: “with you a
sectarian loses his rights of citizenship, by the fact of his being a
sectarian.”
“Well, and why should he not? by leaving the national Church he makes
himself a foreigner; we do not persecute him any more than we persecute
any other foreigners, but we do not allow foreigners to legislate for
us, neither will we let him, or any man choose which of our national
institutions he will adhere to and which he will not—and our Church is
one of our national institutions;—we say to him, and to you alike—you
are strangers, both of you, you are both very welcome to stay here, and
to live under the protection of our laws; moreover, we are very ready to
naturalize either of you, and to receive you as citizens of our country
if you like, but choose for yourselves; you cannot be Norwegians and not
Norwegians at the same time. These are the laws, religious and political,
of Norway, take them or leave them, just as you like, but we cannot let
you divide them. Now where is the injustice of this?”
“I am sure I will not take upon myself to say,” said the Parson,
laughing; “supposing always, the State meddles with Church affairs at
all; and I, as an Englishman, have no right to find fault with you for
that. But what does your Church itself say to all this; you called
Calvin, just now, an arch-heretic, what do you say about his followers?
Besides, it strikes me that there is a little difference of opinion
between your friend Hauger and St. Paul, on the subject of female
preachers, to say nothing of his unordained preachers, which all of his
people were; but that I suppose does not greatly disturb you, as you
attach so little value to Apostolical Succession.”
This was a hard hit upon poor Nordlingen, who was a most patriotic
Norwegian, but yet, as a Grundtvigite, was painfully aware of the want of
divine commission in his Church. It was, however, a random shot of the
Parson’s, who, speaking of the Norwegian Church as it then was, certainly
was not aware that the reforms which Grundtvig and Mynster had effected
in Denmark, had already penetrated to a Church politically divided from
them. He took the opportunity of the bustle, caused by the servants
bringing in the aftonsmad, to turn the conversation to less dangerous
subjects, and occupied the rest of the evening, if not more profitably,
at least more to the amusement of the ladies of the family, in drawing
out the solemn Candidatus, who, fresh from his examinations, was brimful
of theology, which, when once cheated out of his shyness, he was spilling
over on every opportunity, and mixing, most absurdly, with the ordinary
subjects of conversation.
The Church of Norway—if Church it can be called—is in a very
anomalous state. Intensely Erastian, it is dominated over by
the Storthing, and swayed by the political feelings of the
country. These, which are called Norwegian and patriotic, are
really Danish. Norway has never been strong enough, or rich
enough, since the times of barbarism, to form an independent
nation of itself: feeling its weakness, it acquiesced readily
in the dominant position assumed by Denmark, during the Union
of Kalmar, which grated so much against the feeling of the
Swedes only because Sweden was conscious of its own innate
strength and real superiority. When that union was dissolved,
it left very bitter animosities between the two principal
nations, which was participated in by Norway, whose feeling was
with Denmark. These the lapse of time has mitigated, so far as
the Danes and Swedes are concerned. They have been renewed,
however, in Norway, by the forcible annexation of that country
to Sweden, by the Congress of Vienna, in compensation for the
loss of Finland; and thus the Norwegian Church, politically
allied to that of Sweden, is affected by that of Denmark.
The original Reformation in Denmark, which involved that of
Norway also, was exclusively a political movement; that of
Sweden was political also, but grander interests were connected
with it. Sweden was a country shaking off a foreign yoke, and
the Reformation succeeded because the Reformers were patriots
also. If reformation in religion is to be mixed with earthly
motives at all, it could not have had a grander alliance; but
the Reformation of Norway was a mere change of politics. It
was forced on by the Court against the will of both clergy
and people—the king, at that time, being nearly despotic. It
was not resisted; there was too little religion—Romanist, or
anything else—in the country for the people to feel any sort
of excitement in the matter. After the fall of Christiern,
a new religion was thought to be the most effectual mode of
depressing the remains of his party. A certain German, of the
name of Buggenhausen, was constituted the leading reformer;
and, in fact, the Church of Denmark was not reformed, but
destroyed, and Lutheranism imported in its place, and forced
upon the nation by an arbitrary sovereign. The consequences
were precisely similar to those which followed upon many of the
Reformations in Germany. The Church remained in form, but the
vital energy had gone from it. Many godly persons it had from
time to time in its communion, but fewer and fewer as the time
went on, and the traces it has still left of its vitality are
few in number.
“Towards the close of the last century,” says Hamilton, “the
progress of stupor was complete, and vital Christianity seemed
to have departed from the land; formalism was at its height,
and, oddly enough, bigotry appeared to accompany it. An attempt
at revival has been made during the present century, by Dr.
Mynster, now Bishop of Copenhagen, and by Grundtvig, who
may to a certain extent be considered as the leaders of the
high and low Church parties; Mynster taking his stand on the
doctrines connected with the Atonement; Grundtvig, on the faith
once delivered to the saints. There does not appear to be any
opposition between them, any more than there is opposition
in the doctrines upon which they take their respective stand
against Indifferentism and Rationalism; but this is the bent of
their minds and the direction of their teaching.”
Mynster says, in a letter to Oechlenschlager, “I design, God
willing, to open my mouth, and that in divers ways, certainly
first to try what echo will answer my voice; but it shall not
be quite in vain, for I know that I am among the called, and I
muse day and night in watching and praying that I may be also
among the chosen.”
“This object,” says Hamilton (_Sixteen Months in the Danish
Isles_), “he speedily obtained; and from that time till the
present, there has been no cessation of that gentle, but loud
and solemn voice, persuading men everywhere to repent. In
speaking and writing, Christ crucified has been the beginning
and end, the first and the last.”
Grundtvig, who, like our Keble, was a poet before he was a
preacher, and who has taught by his poems, no less than by his
sermons ever since he brought the great powers of his mind to
bear against Rationalism, some few years after Dr. Mynster
began to be celebrated. “It seemed to him a sin,” he said,
“that he should be taken up with Mythology, while the pastors
of God’s flock were neglecting their duty;” so he stepped
forward, asserting the Faith against human might and reason.
His leading text, upon which all his preaching hinges, is the
Faith once delivered to the saints,—pure and complete from the
beginning, and incapable of change. “Every change,” he argues,
“is a corruption, and the office of the Church is simply to
restore, either by supplying or by lopping off what has been
superadded to the original Revelation, and to preserve the
faith in its purity.” His style of teaching, therefore, is
necessarily traditional. Grundtvig, himself a most powerful
preacher, has naturally a somewhat exaggerated idea of the
importance of preaching, as opposed to reading. Preaching, he
calls the living word. There is a curious mixture of truth and
fallacy in his idea of never putting the Bible into the hands
of an unconverted person, because there is no hope that such a
person can understand it. “It was written for the Church,” he
says truly; and he infers from this, that it must be expounded
orally by a Churchman, because “faith cometh by hearing:” and
from this text he argues, that the Spirit of God does not
instruct in the reading of the Word. Grundtvig, from the first,
has been the most uncompromising opponent of Rationalism,
and his line of argument much more telling and difficult
to withstand than that of his fellow-worker, Mynster; and,
accordingly, though now popular, he has not passed through his
course without getting into difficulties of a personal nature,
from the opposition of the Rationalist party. He resigned his
living at one time, and for many years was not a pastor of the
Danish National Church at all.
These great leaders have their followers and their respective
schools; but it is much to be feared that the revival which
they have produced is merely the effect of their own personal
influence and talent, for there is nothing in the system of
the Danish Church which can perpetuate it,—that this Church,
itself severed from the universal Church of Christ, has no
inherent vitality,—and that, as the influence and name of even
Calvin could not prevent even his own Geneva from becoming
Unitarian when other teachers had arisen and his memory had
faded from the recollections of his people, so the teaching of
Grundtvig and Mynster is but a temporary revival of Evangelical
teaching,—the produce of the individual, not of the Church.
The Swedish Church, as distinguished from the Danish and
Norwegian, has far more pretensions to Churchmanship than
either of these, though it may have lost more of the externals
and ceremonial. Its Apostolic Succession has been doubted, and
certainly the question is not entirely clear. At the time of
the Reformation, Matthias, Bishop of Strengnäs, and Vincent,
Bishop of Skara, had been beheaded by Christiern; and on the
other side, Canute, the Archbishop, and Peter, Bishop of
Westeras, had been beheaded by his rival, Gustavus,—so that,
at the final Diet of Westeras, at which the Reformation was
determined upon, Sweden could muster but four bishops, of whom
it is said that Bishop Brask only had been duly consecrated;
two others, Haraldsen and Sommar, were only bishops elect.
The results of that Diet caused Brask to go into voluntary
exile, and as all communion with Rome was thereby broken
off, the question of the Succession hinges on the fact, that
Gustavus had previously sent the fourth Bishop, Magnussen,
elect of Skara, to be consecrated at Rome. This fact, which is
distinctly affirmed by Gejer, has been questioned, though on no
very good grounds.
The weakness of the Swedish Church, however, does not lie
here, but in its peculiar connection with the State, which
is perpetually involving it in secular politics, and as
perpetually taking from its spiritual character. This defect
existed before the Reformation just as it does now, and then,
as now, formed its element of weakness: then, the bishops were
treated with by contending sovereigns as the most influential
barons—now, they are tampered with as the most influential
politicians. Sweden is governed by a king and four houses
of parliament—the Nobles, the Clergy, the Burghers, and the
Peasants; and a bill passing any three of these houses becomes
the law of the land. But, though the houses are of equal
authority, the value of individual votes must vary inversely as
the numbers of which those houses are composed: for instance,
the house of the Nobles contains about 1500 members, and the
house of the Clergy 80; the value of any single ecclesiastic’s
vote is, therefore, eighteen times greater than that of any
nobleman’s vote. The effect of this has been precisely the same
as the more arbitrary nature of the Norwegian Reformation: the
Church of Sweden has become—first political, then worldly,
then Erastian; and, at the same time, the enormous size of
the parishes operates precisely as it does in Norway,—the
majority of the people are estranged from their Church through
sheer ignorance of its doctrines,—the prescribed forms of
Confirmation, Communion, and so forth, being gone through as
essentials rather of civil promotion than of eternal Salvation.
It is not a matter of surprise, therefore, that, year after
year, the Swedish Church is losing some portion of her
Churchmanship, and degenerating more and more every day into a
mere establishment. At this point it would have arrived long
ago, had it not been for Archbishop Wallin, who, not only a
sound divine, which most of the educated clergy are, but by far
the greatest poet modern Sweden has produced, has embodied the
doctrines of the Church in a series of hymns, which now form
part of the Church service, under the name of “Bede Psalmer.”
Sweden is a musical nation, and these hymns are extremely
popular. So far as the author can find out, they are the only
means by which ninety-nine Swedes out of every hundred have any
knowledge whatever of the Christian doctrine, or in any way
differ from their Heathen ancestors—the worshippers of Odin and
the mythology of Asgard.
As a specimen of Wallin’s poetry, we will take his hymn on the
Creation—a paraphrase of the 104th Psalm,—perhaps as fine a
specimen of rhythmic illustration as any that exists. We give
it from Howitt’s translation:—
“Sing, my soul,
The Eternal’s praise,—
Infinite!
Omnipotent!
God of all worlds!
In glorious light, all star-bestrewed,
Thou dost Thy majesty invest,—
The Heaven of heavens is Thine abode,
And worlds revolve at Thy behest.
Infinite!
Omnipotent!
God of all worlds!
Thy chariot on the winds doth go;
The thunder follows Thy career;
Flowers are Thy ministers below,
And storms Thy messengers of fear.
Infinite!
Omnipotent!
O Thou, our God!
“The earth sang not Thy peerless might
Amid the heavenly hosts of old,—
Thou spakest, and from empty night
She issued forth, and on her flight
Of countless ages proudly rolled,—
Darkness wrapped her, and the ocean
Wildly weltering on her lay;
Thou spakest, and, with glad devotion,
Up she rose with queenly motion,
And pursued her radiant way.
“High soared the mountains,
Glittering and steep,—
Forth burst the fountains,
And through the air flashing—
From rock to rock dashing—
’Mid the wild tempest crashing—
Took their dread leap.
“Then opened out the quiet dale,
With all its grass and flowers;
Then gushed the spring, so clear and pale,
Beneath the forest bowers;
Then ran the brooks from moorlands brown,
Along the verdant lea,
And the fleet fowls of heaven shot down
Into a leafy sea;—
’Mid the wild herd’s rejoicing throng,
The nightingales accord—
All nature raised its matin song,
And praised Thee—Nature’s Lord:
O Thou, who wast, and art, and e’er shall be!
Eternal One! all earth adoring stands,
And through the works of Thy Almighty Hands
Feels grace and wisdom infinite in Thee!
“And answer gives the sea,—
The fathomless ocean—
The waste without end—
Where, in ceaseless commotion,
Winds and billows contend;—
Where myriads that live without count, without name—
Crawling or swimming in strange meander—
Fill the deep as it were with a quivering flame;
Where the heavy whale doth wander
Through the dumb night’s hidden reign,
And man unwearied with earth’s wide strife
Still hunts around death’s grim domain—
The over-flood of life.
“To Thee! to Thee! Thou Sire of all,
Our prayers in faith ascend,—
All things that breathe, both great and small,
On Thee alone depend.
Thy bounteous hand Thou dost unclose,
And happiness unstinted flows
In streams that know no end.”
CHAPTER XIV.
BREAKING UP THE ENCAMPMENT.
“To-day shall be spent in drinking,—
We need not spare the ale,—
And we will set sail on the morrow,
Nor will our good luck fail.”
_Svenska Folk-visor._
The whole party found their quarters in the Soberud valley so extremely
comfortable, and the game so very abundant, that they were readily
induced to prolong their stay; and the Parson struck up quite a
friendship with the worthy Pfarrherr, and talked theology with the
Candidatus. Torkel, who had had long, and, apparently, very interesting
conversations with old Torgenson, the import of which did not transpire,
had asked a temporary leave of absence, which was readily granted—the
Parson having, no doubt, his own suspicions from what he saw at the
sœter, but prudently holding his tongue about them. Indeed, he was no
loser; for Torkel’s place, in every respect, except as an interpreter,
was amply supplied by Karl Torgenson, who, having served his time of
drill, had been just discharged from the corvette _Freya_, and had
arrived, somewhat unexpectedly, on the Sunday evening. Karl spoke a
little English, though not enough for conversation; but, on the other
hand, he was as good a sportsman as Torkel himself, and much better
acquainted with the localities of his own home.
Under his guidance, the Parson’s flies lured many a trout from the blue
waters of the lake; but the best fish—such fish, indeed, as he had never
before seen—were caught by a discovery of his own.
The lake lying in a broad valley, many of its shores were shelving
and sandy, or slightly muddy, instead of plumping down in rocky
sublacustrine precipices, and all these shallows were fringed with
weeds. Coming home late in the evening, he saw a number of children in
the water, ladling out, with tins and buckets, and vessels of every
description, hundreds and thousands of little white glittering fish,
which were feeding on the weed. These were the young of the fresh-water
herring, which, whenever they can get them, which is not often, the
Norwegians make into soup. The full-grown fish are not taken till later
in the year, and this is never done except by nets, for they will rise at
no bait of any kind big enough to put on a hook.
The Parson was looking at the little glittering things as they sparkled
in the moonlight,—and no fish is so brilliantly white as the fresh-water
herring,—when, amid the shouts and screams of the children, a huge
trout was tumbled on shore out of one of the buckets. “O! by George!”
said the Parson to Karl Torgenson, who smiled as if he understood every
word, “that is worth noting; that fellow came to make his supper off the
herrings, and having ventured in too far, has got entangled in the weeds.
There will be some of his great relations come to supper, also, for
certain. Let us try.”
A light fly-rod, such as the Parson carried, was not the weapon best
adapted for the purpose; but he forthwith unlooped his casting-line, and
taking a trace out of his fly-book—for he was never without trolling
materials—fitted one of the little glittering gwineads on the litch; and
wading quite as deep as was prudent, and a good deal deeper than was
pleasant, considering the time of night and the coldness of Norwegian
waters, he cast beyond the edge of the weeds; the bait had hardly began
to spin, when a fish took him, such as required all his skill to master
with his fly-rod, and long and arduous was the struggle before he
succeeded in leading him captive through an opening in the weeds, and
drawing him quietly into shoal water.
The fact was, that the whole coast, like that of France during the
late war, was in a state of strict blockade; the little gwineads, like
the chasse-marées, were dodging about in-shore, while the great trout,
unable, from their draught of water, to pursue them into the shallows,
were grimly cruising about and snapping up any adventurous little
youngster that showed his nose outside. The fly-rod was too feeble to
do much execution that evening, for it took half an hour to master a
fish with it; but the discovery was not lost on the Parson, and the next
evening saw him with a twenty-two foot cane trolling-rod, commanding, at
easy cast, the whole fishable water, and supplying the præstgaard, as
well as the hall, with such trout as they had never dreamt of.
The Captain and Birger were no less assiduous in their own particular
calling, and from the quantity of game, including deer, which they
brought in, might very fairly be said to have paid for their keep. The
fjeld of Soberud was much more open, and better adapted for game, than
the valley of the Torjedahl and its surrounding mountains, and also, as
there were fewer thick trees, better adapted for getting at it.
Pleasant as all this was, time wore on, and it became necessary for the
party to resume their knapsacks and retrace their steps, Torgensen having
first exacted a promise that they would visit Soberud once more before
their departure. “Perhaps,” said he, mysteriously, “I may have occasion
to muster all the friends of my house before the winter comes on, and
whenever that occasion happens, I hope the present party will honour my
roof-tree.”
Tom, who interpreted this speech, could not conceive what it alluded
to, though it seemed to make him very merry; but the mystery, if ever
there was one, was soon explained by Lota’s blushes, when the Captain,
on seeing her and the missing Torkel together, as the party arrived at
the Aalfjer sœter that evening, shook his head at them with a knowing
smile. In fact, Torkel had made such excellent use of his time, that
while the party were occupied with the fish and game of the Soberud
valley, he had contrived to settle, and definitely arrange, with the full
approbation of Torgensen, that his marriage should take place in the
autumn. No Norwegian ever thinks of marrying till the work-day summer is
past; besides, Torkel was making a very good thing of it with his present
employers, and if he were not, it is not altogether certain that even
Lota’s attractions would have been sufficient to draw him away from the
sports in which he was engaged. Apparently, he did not find those things
which he had to settle with Lota herself, so easy of arrangement as those
which had been the subject of his discussions with her father; for though
the first Sunday evening was quite long enough to settle everything with
him, it took him three or four whole days at the sœter to arrange matters
with her; indeed, there the party found him when they encamped there on
their return, and, notwithstanding this, he had so much more to say on
the last morning, that the fishermen had arrived for some hours at their
old encampment on the Torjedahl, and had had time entirely to change the
whole plan of the campaign before they saw anything of him.
During their absence the post had arrived, bringing letters for them
all; these Ullitz had forwarded, and their first occupation, while their
attendants were preparing the supper and exchanging news with those who
had been left behind, was to read their respective letters. Birger had a
whole heap—which he did not deserve—from a host of relations and friends,
whom, in his ardour for sport, he had grievously neglected; all of
these he postponed for a great, square, official looking document, with
“Kongs ofwer Commandant’s Expedition” written in the corner: this he did
deserve, for it contained, along with an acknowledgement for his valuable
portfolio of military drawings, an extension of leave, which the dutiful
lieutenant had asked for on the plea so well known in the British army,
“family arrangements.”
“Hurrah,” said the Captain, “here’s a letter from Moodie; he wants us
to meet him at Gotheborg, where he is bringing down a cargo of elks and
reindeer, and Northern wild beasts, for the Zoological Gardens; and then
we are to go back with him, he says, to some place which I can neither
spell nor pronounce, where, the chances are, we shall get a crack at a
bear.”
“You have always had a weakness that way,” said the Parson, “I believe
getting a crack at a bear, as you call it, was your principal reason for
coming here at all.”
“Well, but Moodie says there is capital fishing on the Gotha; the salmo
ferox, my boy! what do you think of that? and you know the fish are
beginning to run small here, there was not a full-mouthed salmon caught
the last day we fished here, nothing but miserable grauls.”
“Grauls give very pretty sport, though, and as for the salmo ferox, it is
nothing but an ill-conditioned, over-grown trout, that has got a cross of
the pike in it, and consequently will take nothing but the spinning bait.
But I must say I should like to see old Moodie again.”
“Will you go then?”
“Ask Birger.”
“Hey! what?” said Birger, looking up from his letters, which, after all,
seemed to be more interesting than he had expected. “Moodie? ah! yes!
that’s the fellow my friend Bjornstjerna mentions; a terrible fellow
he says, a very Hercules against the wild beasts—there is never a skal
without him; Bjornstjerna says he had rather have him than a hundred men,
any day.”
“And who is Bjornstjerna?”
“One of the Ofwer Jagmästerer, the officers, that is, whose business it
is to call out the peasantry to keep down the wild beasts; he is very
good authority on such matters, and I vote we accept your friend Moodie’s
invitation, it is much the best chance we have of seeing sport.”
The Captain looked a little puzzled; he was anxious enough to go, but the
invitation had been to him and the Parson, and of course had not included
Birger, whose existence was necessarily unknown to Moodie; in fact, the
Captain had not thought of that difficulty. Birger, who had spent a
good part of his leave in England, where he had some friends, burst out
laughing.
“Ah, that is just your English way, you think you cannot take me, because
your friend has not sent me a written invitation in due form—that is
not the way we go on here; my friend’s friend is my friend, and if
your countryman has not learnt that in the four years during which,
Bjornstjerna tells me, he has been living in the country, it is high time
he should learn. When does he drive his flocks and herds to Gotheborg?”
“Why, if we would meet him, we must start directly, for he comes next
week.”
“Well, why not start directly? come Parson! one river is as good as
another.”
“Scarcely that,” said the Parson, laughing; “but I do want to see how
Moodie carries on the war in your barbarous country; so let us go—Tom,”
raising his voice so as to be heard from below, “when does the next
steamer sail for Valö?”
“The day after to-morrow, at day-break,” said Tom, whose head was a
perfect register of naval events.
“That will never do,” said the Parson, who contemplated a farewell visit
to the Torjedahl salmon.
“Not do!” said Birger, “why it is the very thing. Strike the tents
to-morrow, early,—down the river without stopping at Christiansand
Bridge,—run alongside the steamer, take our berths,—stow our goods,—and
then we shall have half the day to land and visit our stores at Ullitz’s,
kiss Marie, and make what changes we want in the baggage department. I
must take my uniform for Gotheborg; we are not ashamed of our uniform in
our country,” he added, significantly nodding at the Captain, who, like
most English soldiers, was rather addicted to mufti; “and you too will
want more baggage, now that you are going into a civilized country.”
“Do not let Torkel hear you say that. He considers Christiansand the
emporium of fashion and the centre of civilization. By-the-bye, what are
we to do with our men? I will not leave Torkel behind,—I have quite an
affection for the fellow.”
“Leave Torkel behind!” said Birger; “why should you? you do not think
the Swedes will eat him, do you? I mean to take Piersen myself; these
Norwegians, rascals as they are, all of them, are a great deal smarter
and handier in forest work than our Swedes; their education fits them for
Jacks-of-all-trades; they get kicked out of doors, with a pack on their
back, at ten years of age, to earn their livelihood, and learn smartness
and knowledge of the world,—and they do learn it, and precious scoundrels
they grow up:—however, they answer our purpose, for they can turn their
hands to anything.”
At that moment Torkel came up, looking a little confused and ashamed of
himself, and not the less so that the Parson asked significantly for the
latest news from the sœter of Aalfjer.
His love, however, did not prevent him from being wild to go, as soon
as he heard of the change of plans—a sentiment in which the rest fully
participated; indeed there was not a dissentient voice in the camp,
except that of the boatmen, who were to be discharged at Christiansand,
and whose fun was thus prematurely cut short. A small pecuniary
gratification set matters right in that quarter also, and when the
evening closed on the last day of the encampment, the hopes and eager
anticipations of a brilliant future had already effaced all regrets for a
happy past.
The sun was hardly above the horizon, when the whole camp was astir,
and active preparations for departure were begun. These did not occupy
any very great deal of time; they had not come up the river in very
heavy marching order, and there were a good many hands at the work. The
principal part of it was securing the smoked salmon, of which they had
now a very fair cargo. This is a very acceptable present everywhere;
for though salmon are plenty in Norway, the means of catching them are
very imperfectly understood. There was also a goodly array of forest
preserves, which, being too heavy for transport, and subject to a heavy
duty into the bargain from jealous Sweden, were destined to swell the
ample stores of Madame Ullitz.
While all this was going on, the Parson, rod in hand, took a melancholy
farewell of his favourite throws, in the course of which he caught two
fish—both grauls, though, as the Captain took care to remark. By ten
o’clock everything was ready, and the boats shoved off on their downward
voyage.
“Well, certainly it is much pleasanter to go with the stream than against
it, in all the affairs of this life,” said the Captain, as the boats
closed again, after racing down the upper rapids which had cost them so
much time and so much trouble to ascend. “Here we have undone in half an
hour and at our ease, what it took us half a day to do, and with harder
work than I wish to meet with very often.”
“Not an uncommon thing in this wicked world of ours,” said the Parson.
“_Facilis descensus_;—you know the rest. However, that which is pleasant
is not always safe,—so look out. Here we are, at the head of the Oxea
rapid, and a touch of these rocks, going down stream, you will find a
very different thing from a touch going up. Give way, boys! let me have
good steerage-way through the water.”
And he dashed into the very midst of the racing current—rocks, trees, and
banks flying past him, till, before they seemed to be well in it, the
three boats were floating side by side in the broad flat below, at the
lower end of which the encampment had been made on the first night of the
expedition. A short halt here, which they made, more for the pot than for
sport, secured them a good catch of trout and a graul or two; and their
rapid course down the deep, full-flowing stream was resumed, leisurely
indeed—but so swift was the current under the deceitful show of its calm
and quiet surface, that notwithstanding a little difficulty at the lower
rapids, where there was not water enough in the boat canal to float them,
the sun was still high when they rounded the dockyard point, and opened
the harbour of Christiansand.
“Hullo, Tom, where is the steamer?”
Tom rubbed his eyes, for he could not believe them, but no amount of
rubbing will produce a vision of that which is not, and the fact became
indisputable as they pulled on—there was no steamer in the harbour.
The Parson, who after all, had left very unwillingly, and rather in
compliance with the wishes of his companions than in accordance with his
own fancy or judgment, began to feel sulky; the Captain, who had proposed
the change, began to feel anxious, and to labour under the weight of his
responsibility; and even Birger, who had nothing to reproach himself for,
was not entirely at his ease.
Things however, were not so bad as they had anticipated; there was no
steamer certainly, but Ullitz, who was lounging on the quay—where indeed
the good man spent the greater part of his summer hours, looking out for
travellers and seeking whom he might entertain, and who certainly did
not approve of a change of plans which deprived him of a very profitable
commissariat,—informed them that the day had been changed, and that the
steamer would not arrive till the following evening, nor sail till the
day after.
“Never mind,” said Birger, “let us have one good supper, and one
comfortable night’s rest more than we expected; I will be bound we strike
out something for to-morrow, and after all we shall lose nothing, we may
as well be at Christiansand as at Gotheborg.”
Ullitz did not say, but looked as if he thought they had much better.
“The sea is as calm as glass,” said Torkel to Tom. “Would not this do for
eider duck-hunting.”
“It is a great pity that Fröken Lota has to make up her stores of eider
down now,” said Tom, “and she to be married in the autumn.”
Torkel could afford to laugh, for he knew very well—indeed, none had
cause to know it better, he having supplied a good half of them—the
extent of Miss Lota’s eider stores. All this was an aside, and Tom
resumed aloud, “To be sure, there could not be better weather, we shall
not have ripple out in the haaf[33] any more than in the fjord; and
besides, we can take some cod-lines, and when we have killed or driven
off the ducks we can fill our boats with rock cod.”
“What is all that?” said the Captain.
Tom explained.
“Upon my word I think it will do very well; what say you, Birger?”
“Nothing better, I have never been duck-hunting myself, but they say it
is capital fun; there are three or four fellows of ‘ours’ who always get
leave in the duck season, and pass a month or two on the islands of the
Baltic; they say it is first-rate sport—I vote we go.”
And so it was settled, and the details of the expedition were arranged as
they walked up those sandy deserts of streets which they had traversed on
the first night of their landing.
Marie received them with smiles, and when she learnt the object of their
sport, so worked on the Captain’s susceptible heart, that he vowed she
should have every feather that fell to his gun. The Parson was rather
affected to Lota, but Torkel, who had been a little stung by Tom’s joke,
magnanimously transferred the offer to Marie, who, “poor thing, might
perhaps want the down, and Lota would not know what to do with it, she
had a great deal more than she could make up already;” which, considering
his own fame as a hunter, as well as that of young Svensen, between whom
Miss Lota had been coquetting (so Tom averred) till she ought to have
been ashamed of herself, was not unlikely to be literally true.
It must be remarked that this is the sporting way of collecting
eider down. The business way is robbing the nests, which is
done in spring, and is very slow work—though sufficiently
dangerous.
CHAPTER XV.
EIDER DUCK HUNTING.
“For now in our trim boats of Norroway deal
We must dance on the waves with the porpoise and seal;—
The breeze it shall pipe, so it pipe not too high,
And the gull be our songstress whene’er she flits by;—
We’ll sing while we bait, and we’ll sing while we haul,
For the deeps of the Haaf have enough for us all.”
_Norway Fishing Song._
The dawn was yet grey upon the mountains, and the light steaming mist
was still resting on the glassy surface of the harbour, when the three
boats slipped off noiselessly from the dockyard point. The fishing rods,
now useless, had been landed, and the guns and rifles had taken their
places, while the after-lockers were stored with cod lines and their
gear, to say nothing of the långref that had done such good service at
Mosse Eurd, and which was now converted into a spillet. The boats were
well provisioned—that is almost an invariable rule in Norway, so far as
quantity goes, but on this occasion, they were provisioned with all the
delicacies the fair Marie could lay her hands upon; nay, so interested
was she in the subject, that she came down with the party, in the grey
of the morning, to superintend the packing herself; and, after carrying
on a lively conversation with Birger, on the road, endeavoured, in vain,
to make the Captain understand something or other; her anxiety to convey
her meaning brought her cheek very much closer to his lips than perhaps
she intended—how close it was impossible to say, for the morning light
was still very faint,—in all probability, Birger might have come in for a
share of the secret, whatever it was, but he was rude enough to burst out
laughing, and to add something in Swedish, about bribery and corruption,
which put the young lady to immediate flight.
“You need not look so conceited,” said he, (possibly the grapes were
sour); “it was not you, it was the eider down she was thinking of.”
No one knows what silence is, who has not been in the North—what we
call silence, is a perpetual recurrence of a thousand familiar sounds,
so familiar that the ear does not notice them; the chirp of hundreds of
birds, and millions of insects go to make up English silence;—perhaps
within the Arctic circle it may be deeper than that which, at that early
hour, brooded over the harbour of Christiansand; but even that was a
silence which made itself to be felt; and the regular and steady roll of
the oars in the rowlocks, as the boats shot out into the fjord, fairly
echoed among the cliffs like grumbling thunder. Nothing could be more
calm and unbroken than the water, which seemed to be hot, for a slight
steam kept slowly rising from the whole surface, and hung upon it like a
veil which now began to whiten in the increasing light; every here and
there a seal would put up his head, like a black oily bead, take a steady
view of the boats, and then dip under, without a ripple to show where the
surface had been broken.
“Oars!” said the Captain, in a whisper, as one of these sheep of Proteus
evinced a little more indiscreet curiosity than his neighbours, and as
his boat, which had been leading, lost her way, he rose quietly, and his
rifle thundered through the still air of the morning, as if it had been
a six-pounder, while its echoes were caught and repeated, crack after
crack, by a dozen sharp cliffs and wooded islands.
The surface was sufficiently disturbed this time—for the Captain’s rifle
seldom spoke in vain,—and the seal was struggling in the agonies of
death; the men stretched out on their oars as if they were racing, but
before the boat could reach the spot, all was quiet again, and a slight
red stain in the water was all that remained to tell of the Captain’s
accuracy of aim. The Captain gazed on the deep blue below.
“It is of no use,” said the Parson, “they always sink, and it is a great
shame to be firing at that which you cannot get when you have killed it.”
“You used to shoot them, yourself, in Sligo Bay.”
“Yes, I did, but there was a tide there, and we shot them at high water,
and picked them up when the sands were bare—even then, though, we lost
a good many, but here there is not a chance; that fellow is food for
lobsters.”
“Well, I hope the cockneys will profit by it when the next batch goes to
the London market,” said the Captain, loading his rifle, “but have we no
tide here?”
“We have no sands that we can make available; but a tide there is, though
a faint one. Did you ever hear how there came to be a tide in Norway—for
originally there certainly was nothing of the kind? Thor was on a visit
to Loki Uttgard, who, in all love, challenged him to drink his great horn
out, and to turn it over to show there were no heeltaps, as is the custom
in Norway. Thor had never been conquered yet in drinking, or in anything
else; in fact, he had the hardest head, inside and out, of any god in
Norway. He drank, and he drank, but there was no bottom to be found to
the horn, and Thor put it down with shame, and acknowledged himself
at last vanquished; but the Uttgarders, who were all giants of a very
ferocious stamp, stood round, in speechless admiration. Loki had made a
communication between the bottom of the horn and the sea itself, and what
Thor had drunk was the ebb.”
“H’m! Hence the fine of a glass of salt and water,” said the Captain, “I
have often inflicted it, but I never knew the high authority I had for so
doing. Come, boys, give way for the Haaf.”
But before so doing they had to stop at a shoal, well known to Tom,
who now began to take the command, while Torkel sank into comparative
insignificance. It was necessary to lay in a supply of cod-bait, which
was not to be had in deep water. This was a species of large limpet, that
clung to the rocks by thousands, and was dislodged by the boat-hooks,
and stowed away in the balers. At length the swell of the open sea made
itself to be felt, for ever heaving and setting and rolling along in vast
mountains, and flashing in spray against the black rocks, though the
surface was as glassy and unbroken as that of the harbour. The whole
swell of the North Sea, and of the Atlantic beyond it heaves against
these coasts, and is never quiet in the calmest weather. The sun, which
had now risen, gleamed against the white tower of the light-house, and
flashed back in blinding rays from its lantern, as the boats pulled past
it into the Haaf.
They had now formed line abreast, at five or six hundred yards distance,
and were pulling leisurely along, keeping a bright look out on every
side. Calm as it was, the swells were quite heavy enough to conceal the
boats entirely from each other as, from time to time, the huge mountains
rolled between them.
They had proceeded in this manner for about half an hour, without seeing
anything, except gulls and cormorants—which latter, sitting in the
water, and rising and falling on the swells, had more than once deceived
them,—when, suddenly, Birger, who was on the extreme right, pointed with
his hand to the westward of their course: all eyes were turned in that
direction, and the line wheeled on Birger, as a pivot, when a dozen
or so, of black spots were seen on the side of the swell, in the rare
intervals when the boats and they were both rising.
The centre boat, which was the Parson’s, pulled right on the objects,
while the flankers having increased their distance to half a mile, pulled
on some hundred yards in advance of her.
Onward as they came, the black spots grew larger and larger, and the
distinct outlines of the ducks began to be distinguishable; still they
sat on the water, rising and falling to the swell as unconcernedly as
ever.
The flanking boats were already ahead of them, and the Parson, with his
long gun in his hand, had begun to calculate his distance—which, out
at sea, is particularly deceptive,—when, with one accord, the dozen
tails began to wriggle, and at once the whole flock were under water,
disappearing simultaneously, and as if by signal.
[Illustration: EIDER DUCK SHOOTING.]
The men, who, much to the Parson’s impatience, had been pulling very
leisurely indeed, now stretched out with all their might, and as they
shot across the spot lately occupied by the ducks, marked the chain
of air-bubbles, which tended out to seaward. A signal conveyed this
information to the Captain’s boat, which pulled into the line to
intercept them; Birger, who was thus thrown out, closing in with all his
might, and the Parson following up the track—each stood up as well as
he could in the roll of the sea, and looked out with all his eyes. Six,
eight, ten minutes elapsed, and nothing to be seen: it was impossible
that the birds could be under so long. At last, far to the rear of even
Birger’s boat, twelve black spots were seen rising and falling on the
swell as unconcernedly as they were at first. The ducks had headed back
under water, and the boats had pulled over them.
The same manœuvre was repeated, and with the same result; the centre boat
approached almost within firing distance, when the twelve tails again
wriggled simultaneously, and the twelve bodies went under at once. This
time, however, they rose within shot of Birger’s boat, but before he
could get his gun to bear on them, they were under again.
This was precisely what was wanted; the only chance of getting a shot,
at this season of the year, is to make the birds dive till they are
exhausted: they are said not to duck the flash like the divers—perhaps
they do not, but, at all events, they are generally under water long
before the quickest gunner can get a shot at them, and that, practically,
comes to the same thing.
The dive this time was a short one, though it carried them out of shot,
for the Captain, catching the line of their chain, had pulled on their
track, and headed them back to his friends. This time they rose among
the boats, and one or two attempted a heavy lumbering flight, which was
speedily put a stop to by the fowling-pieces. The rest dispersed, diving
each his own way, and pursued by the boats independently.
The object of approaching in a crescent, is to prevent the birds from
doing this before they are too much exhausted to dive far. A separated
flock can seldom be marked, inasmuch as it is more difficult to
catch sight of one black spot than a dozen; and besides, under such
circumstances, the boats can no longer act in concert. If a flock
disperses early in the chase, the chances are that not above one or two
birds will be secured; if kept pretty well together, not above as many
will escape.
It is a singular thing that eider ducks should be so unwilling to take
the wing in summer, for, though they rise heavily, they are by no means
bad flyers; but so long as they have breath to dive, nothing will get
them into the air; and this peculiarity, which in ordinary weather is
their preservation, during the calms is their destruction.
The chase was now an ordinary affair, very like rat hunting: the
birds, confused and dispersed, kept poking their heads up in all sorts
of unexpected directions, and, as their dives were now short, one or
other of the quick and experienced eyes was sure to detect them. As for
missing, when they were once within shot, it was impossible to miss a
bird nearly as big as a goose, and almost as heavy on the wing. Ten
out of the twelve were bagged, and two only were unaccounted for, they
having slipped away during the heat of the chase. The boats then formed
line-of-battle again, and cruised on in search of other adventures.
Various little episodes occurred, in which one or two rare sea-gulls and
other birds were brought down, as they hovered round the boats or crossed
their course. Most gulls, indeed, evince a great deal of curiosity in
their disposition, and a very dangerous quality this sometimes proves;
but in this case the murders were committed exclusively for the sake
of Science (who, by the way, must be a very cruel goddess), for the
fishermen were a great deal too much of sportsmen to indulge in the
vulgar gull-murder without object, which is called sport by maritime
cockneys. Three or four other flocks of eider duck were sighted, and
chased with various success; some, taking the alarm in time, contrived
to dive and swim ahead of the boats, so as to elude them altogether;
some, startled by too rapid approach, dived before they had time to draw
together, and, breaking their order, appeared so many scattered black
spots in different directions, most of which were necessarily lost while
pursuing the others. But these mishaps were not of frequent occurrence,
and a good heap of great ugly birds had already been collected, when,
about noon, a light cat’s-paw ruffled the surface, frosting it over with
little wavelets. At the time when this occurred it was quite unexpected;
the boats were following a chain of bubbles, and all available eyes being
fixed on them, no one was looking out into the offing.
In a moment the trace was lost; the birds might have risen, but the eye
could no longer mark the clear, well-defined, black dot. Ten minutes
afterwards all was calm again, but the flock were already safe.
“It is all over for to-day,” said Tom, looking anxiously into the offing,
where a narrow line of darker blue had already begun to mark the hitherto
undistinguishable boundary of sea and sky; “here comes the breeze
already.”
And slowly but surely the line crept down, first widening, then throwing
out ramifications before it; and then the sleepy surface of the sea
seemed to shudder, as if touched by a cold breath; little wavelets
began to ripple on the backs of the long swells,—then light airs fanned
the boats uncertainly, and, at last, a steady breeze set in from the
southward and westward.
“Up stick, for the cod ground!” said Tom; “we are only wasting time
here.” And in a couple of minutes the three boats were running away to
the eastward, under their English lugs, which, having hitherto served as
tents, were now for the first time applied to their legitimate use.
The end of the chase had left them five or six miles to westward of
the fjord’s mouth, and as far to seaward, while the fishing-ground was
a sunken island or shoal, a couple of miles or so from the lighthouse
near the outer range of islands;—it is called a shoal, and possibly, for
Norway, it is a shoal; but there is not less than twenty fathoms on any
part of it.
The boats were slipping along through the smooth water, as if they were
going up and down the hills of an undulating road; the breeze, though
very light, was steady, and already the features of the outer islands
were growing distinct; and Tom was looking out for the bearings of the
shoal.
“This is all very well,” said the Captain, steering his boat close to
that of the Parson, “but I have had no breakfast.”
“Then why don’t you set about it; I am sure Marie has not forgotten you.”
“Oh! I will not stand that; why should we make a toil of pleasure? I mean
to have a regular breakfast, and a pot of hot coffee—why not? we have the
whole day before us.”
“Well, I do not mind; hail Birger—there is a dissolute island, as Jacob
calls it, before us; we will boil your pot there.”
Birger was always ready for his grub, or, indeed, for anything else that
was proposed; and the boats were made fast to some rocky prominences on
the lea of the island, with a boat-keeper in each, to prevent them from
grinding one another to pieces.
Strange to say, many of these islets, which are mere rocks, contain fresh
water, some of them in pools in the rocks, but many in regular springs,
and in this particular case a very respectable little streamlet trickled
down a crevice of the rock.
Every beach, rock, and islet on the Norwegian coast is fringed with
a layer of drift-wood, in pieces of every size, from the great baulk
which in England would be worth five or six pounds down to the smallest
splinters. The reason of this is, that each river is continually
floating down its yearly freight of pines to the sea; these are caught
by a boom at the mouth,—that is to say, by a floating chain of squared
pine-stems,—but many dip under this and escape, many escape when it is
opened to let boats pass, and occasionally a freshet breaks a link or
draws a staple, in which case the whole boom-full of timber floats out to
sea at once. All this is irrecoverably lost, for it is illegal to pick
up timber floating; and a very necessary law this is, or the booms would
find themselves broken much oftener than they are. Nevertheless, the
quantity of timber lost annually in that way would pretty nearly supply
all the wants of all the English dockyards put together. But “it is an
ill wind that blows nobody any good;”—the wanderer on the sea coast need
never be without a fire to warm himself by.
“I like this,” said the Captain, as he lay on his back looking up to
the sky, watching the blue smoke as it came in wreaths above his head.
“I should like to be a Robinson Crusoe now, with a desolate island of my
own, like this, where the foot of man has never trod, and—Holloa! What
the devil have we got now?” he said, jumping up;—“how came these little
animals here?”
The little animals referred to were half a dozen children, with rakes and
hay-forks in their hands, who, attracted by the smoke and possibly by the
smell of the fried ham, were peering over the edge of the cliff like so
many sea-gulls.
“These are the savages, Mr. Crusoe,” said the Parson, quietly; “but it
really is a curious thing, so let us climb up the cliff and see what they
are about.”
The cliff was not difficult to scale, for the edges of the rocks were
like steps; and at the top a very unexpected scene met their eye: a
regular hay-field, with the hay in cocks, and five or six men and women
at work at it; they were carrying their cocks on a sort of handbier down
to their boats,—great, broad, heavy affairs these were, borrowed from the
horse-ferry,—and upon these they were building hay-stacks, intending to
take them in tow of their whale-boats, during the calm, and to bring them
to the main land.
The form of the island was a sort of cup, of which the cliffs round the
edge were the highest parts, and the centre, from having no drain, had
formed a fresh-water lake with a spongy, mossy border,—and this it was
which supplied the streamlet. The outer rim was bare rock, but between
these two extremes there was a boggy, black ring of vegetable mould,
which produced in great abundance a coarse, rank, wiry grass, which the
people were storing up for the winter, in order to deceive the poor
beasts into the idea that they were eating hay. Poor as it was, they had
come out a dozen miles to sea to get it: their boats, four in number,
including the floating hay-stack, lay snugly in a little bay or inlet,
on the shoreward side, where the water was comparatively quiet. They
had evidently taken up their quarters on the island, and established a
regular bivouac till the work should be finished, for there was a cooking
place built up with stones, and two or three of the girls were spreading
out to dry, in the hot sun, the clothes they had been washing in the lake.
“Who would have expected such a marine pastoral,” said Birger.
“Här Necken sin harssa in glasborgen slaar,
Och Haafsfruar kamma sitt grönskende haar,
Och bleka den skinande drägten.”[34]
“Heaven forefend,” said the Parson, hastily, “we are mad enough, some of
us already; and Torkel is in love, which is worse; we do not want to see
Haafsfruer. Remember Duke Magnus.”
“It was not the Haafsfru that took away the senses of Duke Magnus,” said
Torkel, “it was the curse of good Bishop Brask, that rested on the family
of Gustavus from the day when he killed the two bishops and deceived our
Bishop of Trondhjem, who had given them sanctuary; the whole royal family
of Sweden have been crazy, more or less ever since, till they turned them
all out and put our good father Karl Johann in their place.”
Birger shook his head sadly; he was too highly born himself, and too
aristocratic, not to feel a little shame at the idea of a French common
soldier superseding the old family of Vasa, sprung, like himself, from
Jarl Birger; but, for all that, he could not help admiring the worthy old
king who, by his downright honesty and sincerity and his strict sense of
duty, had painfully worked his way against all prejudices of rank and
nationality, and had wound himself into the affections of the people who
had chosen him. Still he had a kindly feeling for the old and glorious
race, and though he could neither deny the fact of the sacrilege and
breach of faith of Gustavus Vasa,—to which all the Norwegians, and many
of the Swedes also, attribute the hereditary madness of his family,—nor
indeed, the fact of the insanity itself, which was notorious in Eric his
successor, in Charles XII., and Gustavus IV., as well as the present
exiled representative of the family, yet he did not above half like
Torkel’s allusion to it. The Duke Magnus, whom they were speaking of, was
the youngest son of Gustavus Vasa, and was the first in whom the symptoms
of that disease about to be hereditary, had manifested themselves.
The Parson, rather sympathising in his discomfiture, gave a turn to the
subject by quoting the Swedish version of the Duke’s madness, to which he
had himself alluded; for the Swedes ascribe it to the love of a mermaid,
the sight of whom is invariably unlucky and is generally supposed to
produce insanity.
“Duke Magnus! Duke Magnus! bethink thee well,—
Answer me not so haughtily;
For if thou wilt not plight thee to me,
Thou shalt ever crazy be.
Duke Magnus! Duke Magnus! plight thee to me,
I pray you still so freely,—
Say me not nay, but yes, yes!”
“There is no harm in _these_ mermaids,” said Tom, “for they are as good
and hard-working a set of girls as any in Christiansand, but I trust we
shall never meet with the real ones; at least, not just before a voyage.”
“Why not,” said the Captain, “my principal reason for coming here was the
chance of seeing a mermaid in the only country in which they are still to
be met with. Have you never seen one yourself, Tom?”
“No, and God grant I never may; they are not seen so often now-a-days as
they used to be, that is truth. If they are to be seen at all,” he said,
after a pause, “I must say this is just the time and the weather for
them; a calm, still, sunny day, with a mist on the water; through this
they used often and often to be seen in old times, combing their hair,
or driving their milk-white cattle to feed on the rock weed; sometimes,
though not so often, they are seen at night, coming and shivering round
the fishermen’s fires, and trying to entice away the young men and to get
them to go with them to their deep sea-caves; and those that they carry
off are never seen again in the upper world.[35] But mermaids are never
seen except in a still that comes before a storm, and no one ever catches
a fish for the first voyage after they have seen them.”
“It is just the same with the Skogsfrue,” (the Lady of the Forest,) said
Torkel; “she is just as unlucky for us hunters, and when she can get any
young men to go with her, she never lets them come back again. I have
fancied more than once that I have seen her through the smoke of my fire
in the wild fjeld, but she was not likely to catch me.”[36]
“Ah! there spoke the bridegroom elect,” said Tom, “but I am not so sure
of that either: I think, Torkel, I could tell Fröken Lota more than you
would like her to hear.”
“If you do, Tom, you deserve to be ducked,” said the Captain, “and I will
help to duck you with my own hands.”
“He may tell what he likes, and what he can,” said Torkel; “but it is
quite true about the ill-luck in hunting and fishing, which follow the
sight of the Skogsfruer and Haafsfruer both.”
“Well, we will prove that, after Middagsmad, and there, in good time,
goes Jacob’s shot, to let us know that all is ready.”
The afternoon was spent in a lazy, lounging way; the shoal, if shoal it
can be called, where the bottom was evidently jagged rock and the depth
never less than twenty fathoms, lay just off the island where they were,
and the boats had but to pull out a cable’s length to be in the very best
of the ground; but it is not a very exciting amusement to be continually
hauling in little fish about the size of whiting, as fast as the lines
could run down. It did not take long to half fill the boats with that
staple of Norwegian life, rock cod: the hands of the fishermen, hardened
with forest work as they were, and tanned with the sun, were scarcely
calculated to stand the salt water and the constant friction; the
pleasure soon became a toil, and one by one the boats sought the shore of
the island.
The mermaids were soon characteristically employed in splitting and
laying out in the hot sun the baby cod, which proved a very acceptable
present; for this little fish, which swarms in every Norwegian fjord, is
among the poorer families, the principal winter store, and in nine cases
out of ten the only sea stock besides rö kovringer (or rye biscuits)
which a vessel carries. A present, in the strict sense of the word,
it could hardly be called, for Tom fairly sold his fish, and gravely
bargained for them with the young ladies, at so many kisses the hundred,
excluding Torkel from all competition, much to his disgust, by explaining
to them that as an engaged man he was entirely shut out from the market.
The Parson and Birger were in the meanwhile seated in a niche of the
rock which formed a natural chaise-longue, sedately smoking their pipes
and watching the picturesque-looking galliasses, which had endeavoured
to work out against the mid-day’s spurt of breeze that had by this time
entirely died away, and which now, with their great sails hanging idly,
like so many curtains from their yards and gaffs, seemed, as well as the
fishermen, to be basking and enjoying themselves in the evening sun.
There was no sort of hurry to return. Christiansand had few attractions,
and excepting Marie (and no one besides Birger could profit by that),
Ullitz’s house had still fewer. The luggage was all packed, and probably
by this time on board, their places taken, and their passage paid. Their
intention was, not to land again but to go along side at once. In the
meanwhile, a little tired with their morning’s work, they watched with
half-closed eyes the beautiful and peaceful sunset and the glorious
rising of the round full moon that threw a path of light across the
glassy waters.
“How beautiful!” said the Parson, who had just opened his eyes.
“Yes, that is the work of the Ljus Alfar—Lys Alfir they call them
here,—the Elves of Light. All elves work in metals, and these make a
silver filagree so fine that it can only be seen by moonlight on a
background of water. It is the floor of their ball-room, and if we were
either of us good enough, which it seems we are not, we should see
the little fairy beings dancing on it. When they are tired, they will
go to sleep under the leaves of the limes, which tree belongs to them
especially; the little spots of light which you see in its foliage on a
moonshiny night are their bright eyes, which they have not yet closed in
sleep.”
“Really,” said the Parson, “Prospero’s Isle ought to have been placed
on the coasts of Norway; it would seem that the more scarce the visible
inhabitants, the more numerous the invisible.”
“O, yes, nature, nature abhors a vacuum, and these Alfar are by far the
most numerous of all the supernatural beings. The White Elves, or Elves
of Light, are seldom found out of Norway and Sweden, but the Brown Elf
you have in Scotland as well. He works in metals of all sorts, though he
delights most in silver and gold. It is the Brown Elf that is the fitful
capricious being, which gives their meaning to the words elf and elvish:
these are the creatures which pinch untidy maids, and drink up the milk,
and light up their evening candles as Wills’-o’-the-Wisp, and lead men
into bogs and marshes. When seen, they are dressed in brown jackets with
crimson binding, and wear brown caps on their heads, whereas the Ljus
Alfar wear always the helmet of the foxglove, and are dressed in white.
It is the Black Elves that are malicious, though they often do good
service to men; they, too, work in metals, but it is generally in iron
and copper; they make arms and armour too, and sometimes filagree work,
like the Ljus Alfar, but theirs is always black.”
“Berlin iron?” suggested the Parson.
“Perhaps so; at all events the chain armour that they make is a most
valuable present, for, though no heavier than filagree-work, or, as you
say, Berlin iron, it will turn a sword or a shot.”
“The disposition of the elf, then, varies with its colour.”
“Yes, but one characteristic runs through all—all are capricious. All
may benefit you, some may hurt you, but none can be reckoned upon, and
that peculiarity, together with their universal horror of daylight,
gives a key to their allegorical origin.[37] These elves, or dwarfs, are
the incarnation of mining speculations, a very general form of gambling
both in Norway and Sweden. Mines are proverbially capricious; it is
impossible to tell how they may turn out. Occasionally these spirits are
beneficent in the highest degree, and their _protégés_ become suddenly
rich, but this is never to be relied on; the best are capricious, and the
greater number are tricksy; while some—though even these are now and then
capricious benefactors—are positively wicked and malicious. There, now
you have my theory of the alfs and alfheim.
“And there is another allegory about them, with a good Christian moral
to it,” continued Birger, after a pause spent in cherishing the fading
embers of his pipe; “these alfs are not baptised and have no part in
salvation, but they are capable of baptism under certain circumstances;
they are always anxious for it for themselves in their good moments,
but invariably so for their children, though those instances in which
they succeed are rare. The Icelandic family of Gudmund are cursed
with a disease peculiar to their race, which originated—so the family
tradition goes—in the curse of an alf frue, whom one of their ancestors
had deceived in this particular. Andreas Gudmund had a child by an alf
frue: at her earnest request, he promised that it should be taken in the
church; and when the child was old enough, she duly brought it to the
churchyard wall, which was as far as she might go herself, for no alf
may enter consecrated ground. The sound of the bells was torture to her,
but she bore it, and laid her child on the wall, with a golden cup as
an offering. But Gudmund, fearing the censures of the Church and the
reproaches of his friends, would not fulfil his promise. The alf frue
waited and waited, but the service was over, and the parting bells began
to ring again. So she snatched up the child and vanished into her hill,
and neither she nor it were ever seen again under the light of day. But
from that time forward, the right hand of every Gudmund is leprous, in
token that their ancestor was forsworn.
“Now all this must be allegory; what should you say was the meaning
of the spirits of the mine being capable of salvation, and being
occasionally, though rarely, seen admitted into the Church?”
“I suppose,” said the Parson, “it must be that wealth, though a
temptation to evil, may be used in God’s service, and that it
occasionally, though rarely, is so used. ‘Make to yourselves friends of
the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you
into everlasting habitations.’”
“I think we may as well top our booms,” said the Captain, whose cigar
was finished; “the people will be all asleep on board the steamer, and,
besides—”
“Besides what?”
“Why we promised to let Marie have the eider down, and Ullitz’s people
will be in bed, too. You know we sail at daybreak?”
“O-ho, that’s the business is it? Well, then, call the men together, and
see that they leave nothing behind them.”
That was soon done, for nothing had been landed beyond the cooking and
dining apparatus, and the boats dashed along the still fjord, leaving
behind them three rippling lines of sparkling light, as if the Ljus Alfar
were dancing in their wakes.
In little more than an hour they were alongside the steamer, where their
whole travelling paraphernalia had been stowed in their respective
berths. Of these, the Parson and Birger, tired with their long day’s
work, were very shortly the occupants; the Captain, more energetic,
collected the ducks, and, accompanied by Tom and Torkel, landed at the
wharf; but what Marie said, on receiving so large an accession to her
stores, and what the Captain said to her, and how he contrived to say
it, are points upon which history is silent. Certain it is, that when the
Parson awoke from his first sleep, which was not till the steamer began
to tumble about on the swell outside, the Captain was snoring loudly in
the next berth, while the three attendants were equally fast asleep on
the cabin deck.
While this book was in the press, the author met with “Lloyd’s
Scandinavian Adventures,” in which there is not only a
description, but a print of eider duck shooting _under sail_.
It would be presumptuous in him to go against the experience of
a sportsman who has resided in these countries for more years
than the author has months. Possibly in the north, where the
birds are less hunted, they may be less cautious, and may allow
a boat to approach them in a breeze. The author can, however,
write only from personal experience. The foregoing chapter, so
far as the facts are concerned, is merely a transcript from
his journal; and as far as his own experience goes, he would
say, that the setting in of a breeze sufficient to enable the
lightest boat to carry sail, would utterly preclude all chance
of success in eider duck hunting.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE COASTING VOYAGE.
“Now launched once more, the inland sea
They furrow with fair augury.
“So brilliant was the landward view,
The ocean so serene;
Each puny wave in diamonds rolled
O’er the calm deep, where hues of gold
With azure strove, and green.
The hill, the vale, the tree, the tower,
Glowed with the tints of evening hour,
The beach was silver sheen.
“The wind breathed soft as lover’s sigh,
And, oft renewed, seemed oft to die,
With breathless pause between.
“O, who with speech of war and woes
Would wish to break the soft repose
Of such enchanting scene.”
_Lord of the Isles._
If an Englishman can ever enter into the feelings of a Neapolitan, and
in any way connect the ideas of the _dolce far niente_ with those of
enjoyment, if he can ever bend that active, energetic mind of his, and
that restless and industrious Anglo-Saxon body, to realize the faintest
conception of the “paradise of rest,” in which the Buddhist places the
sum of his felicity, it will be on board ship, after breakfast, on a
calm, warm forenoon, and beyond the influence of the Post Office.
[Illustration: SCENE ON THE SOUTH COAST OF NORWAY.
p. 220.]
That these words actually passed through the lips of the Captain, and
escaped, what Homer calls, the protection of his teeth, we will not take
upon ourselves to affirm—as indolently he reclined on the paddle-box of
the _Gefjon_ steamer, with his eyes shut, his muscles relaxed, his arms
and legs sprawling about in all directions, while the indolent smoke of
his cigar, that from time to time floated out lazily from between his
lips, afforded the only sign of life about him; he seemed as if he was
totally incapable of making any such exertion—but certainly, these ideas
passed through his mind, and pictured themselves on the light grey clouds
that proceeded from his mouth.
Breakfast, so far as the English portion of the guests was concerned, had
long been over, and though some hardy Norseman or persevering Swede was
still lingering over the scenes of his departed joys, and dallying with
tempting morsels of raw smoked salmon, or appetizing _caviare_, the first
great act of Northern daily life might be looked upon as completed.
“You an artist,” said Birger, whose sketching tablet was already slung
round his neck, and who was looking round him from the bridge, unable to
choose, in such a panorama of beauty, which of all the lovely views he
should attempt to transfer to his paper—“You an artist, and asleep among
scenes like these? you are not worthy of them; as if you could not smoke
your cigar while the rain was falling, and sleep in the night-time.”
“I was not asleep,” said the Captain, lazily, “I was thinking.”
“Thinking,” said Birger, “look round you, and you may think that you are
in fairy land, if fairy land, itself, has anything half so lovely. Look
at that beautiful lake, which we are just opening, on the north—see how
those wooded capes partly intercept the view, with their soft outline of
birch, and that long reach of blue water dancing in the sunlight, and
that little island, a single spot of shade, with its three picturesque
fir trees, and that dark red rock that overhangs it, with its iron stains
of brown and yellow starting up from among the bright green foliage; and
look how the ash fringes the edge of that precipice: get up, and if you
are too lazy to work, at least admire.”
Really, the scene was a scene of fairy land, such as, in our most
poetical of moments, we picture fairy land to be. The steamer’s course
lay among the groups of islands that fringe the southern shore of Norway,
and these, in that portion of the chain, at least, which lies between
Hellesund and Lyngör, are, for the most part, bold rocks, clothed with
every variety of foliage which Norway produces, and, being sheltered
from the sweep of the sea breezes by the outer chain exhibit that
foliage in its fullest perfection. The idea usually connected in our
minds with Norwegian scenery, is that of wild and desolate grandeur; and
fully is that idea realized in the mountains of the Hardanger and the
Alpine deserts of the Fille Fjeld—wild, rugged, treeless scenes of utter
desolation, almost beyond the limits of vegetable life. But it is far
otherwise with the coasts—nowhere is seen a colouring half so vivid as
among the sheltered islets of the southern shores; the turf with which
their glades are clothed is more brilliantly green than anything that we
have in England, where the grass is invariably interspersed with weeds.
Take a square yard of any English turf whatever, and you will find in it,
from ten to twenty different sorts of plants, all of which are, more or
less, glaucous in their colouring, and these, though at a little distance
undistinguishable in their forms, yet, blend their hues with the emerald
green of the grass, and present what, side by side with Norwegian turf,
would be but a soiled and faded picture. The foliage, too, is far more
bright and luxuriant than anything in England, even in the interior of
the country, but as different from our wind-worn and frost-nipt sea-side
greenery as can well be conceived.
There is no such thing as early spring in those latitudes, or those warm,
sunny, deceitful days, which tempt forth the young bud and leaflet, only
to be pinched and shrivelled by the April frosts. Week after week does
stern winter bind up all nature in its iron fetters; all is still, and
cold, and dead; and though the sun rises higher and higher, he seems to
shine without power; and though the days lengthen, and the empire of
night be invaded, winter still holds on, and the snows look even whiter
in the stronger light—the Norway of April, is but the Norway of December:
more bright and more chilly—When all at once, and without preparation,
the scene is changed—the snows are gone, the ice is broken, the leaves
are already green, and the country is in the garb of full-blown summer.
Spring is a season unknown in Norway.
The consequence of this is, that the leaf, which has not begun to spring
at all till the frost is thoroughly out of the ground and the air free
from chill, is never blackened, or nipped, or dwarfed in its proportions,
as it is in England, and therefore preserves, through the short summer, a
greenness and depth of colouring which with us is unknown.
“There is a beautiful legend about this,” said Birger, as he pointed out
this peculiarity, “I do not believe in it myself, altogether,” added he,
smiling, as the recollection of the Tellemarken legends and the sacrifice
to Nyssen came across his mind; “I will not vouch, myself, for more than
the allegory, but if we may trust to the fires of Walpurgis Night, my
countrymen believe it implicitly: ‘Iduna, the goddess of youth, is among
the Æsir, the guardian of the apples of immortality—gods, like men,
are subject to decay; but whenever they feel any symptoms of it, they
renovate their existence by the apples of Iduna. The possession of these
apples was, as might be supposed, earnestly coveted by the Hrimthursar,
or Frost Giants, whose territories, called Uttgard, surrounded on every
side the sea that encompasses the earth. Time was when the earth enjoyed
a perpetual spring, but Loki, who had not then forfeited his place
among the gods, attacking, one day, the giant Thjassi, the chief of the
Hrimthursar, whom he had taken for an eagle, found his hands frozen to
his plumage.
“‘Thjassi demanded as the price of his liberty that Iduna should be
betrayed into his hands: this Loki agreed to do, and notwithstanding some
secret misgivings, contrived to perform his promise; and thus it was that
the goddess of youth, seduced beyond the influence of Asgard, was seized
upon by the eagle giant and imprisoned in his castle among the rocks of
eternal frost.
“‘The gods, who had lost their renovating principle, were growing grey
and wrinkled; the might of the Thunderer was paralysed, and the wisdom of
Odin himself, the father of gods and men, was waning; the whole world was
pining for want of that principle of life which continually restored the
inevitable decay of nature; Loki himself felt the universal loss which
the world had sustained, and being as yet not entirely lost to shame or
callous to rebuke, set himself in earnest to effect the deliverance of
Iduna.
“‘This—having borrowed from Freya her falcon plumage—he managed to
effect, and was bringing back the goddess to Asgard, under the guise
of a swallow, the bird of spring, when the eagle wings of Thjassi, who
was rushing in pursuit, darkened the air and blotted out half the sky.
The gods lighted fires round all the walls of Asgard to scare away the
pursuer, who fell exhausted in the flames and perished under their
vengeance.
“‘But Skadi, his daughter, determined to revenge her father’s death,
declared war on Asgard, and carried it on with such success that the gods
were fain to come to a compromise with her, and she consented to peace on
condition that she should take for her husband any one of the gods she
should choose, and should be admitted into Asgard as an equal. From that
time forward the earth has felt the influence of the Hrimthursar for a
portion of the year; but their power is at an end[38] on the anniversary
of that day, when Iduna is delivered from her captivity; and men kindle
their fires on Walpurgis Night, the 30th of April, in memory of those
which, kindled on the walls of Asgard, had baffled and destroyed the
chief of the Hrimthursar.’”[39]
“Ah! by the way, I saw them building up a great bonfire as we rounded
that point of land, coming out of Hellesund,” said the Captain; “there
was a heap a dozen feet high, and they had put a whole boat upon the top
of it.”
“Well, but this is not Walpurgis Night,” said the Parson; “this is St.
John’s Eve.”
“We do not know much about St. John’s Eve in these parts,” said
Birger, laughing. “I am afraid our legends are a good deal more Pagan
than Christian. That which you saw was the ‘Bale-Fire,’ by which our
people commemorate the death of Baldur, and the boat was his ship, the
_Hringhorn_. You will see plenty more of them when the night draws
on;—every town and every village, and almost every hut will have its
bale-fire, and many of them its boat too. It is a singular thing that
Pagan legends should have so much more hold on the minds of the people
than anything derived from their Christian history, but so it is.”
“Not at all singular,” said the Parson; “properly speaking, Norway was
never converted; it was conquered by a Christian faction, and again
it was conquered by a court party. The people succumbed to force; but
in their thoughts and feelings—and therefore in their manners and
customs—they were what they had been in the days of the sea-kings; and
now their minds naturally revert to the time when their country was most
powerful.”
“I will give you a Christian legend, then,” said Captain Hjelmar, the
Swedish commander of the steamer, who had been for some time talking with
Birger on the bridge, and now came forward with his hat in his hand,
after the manner of his country, and told his tale, very fluently, in
a queer sort of French. This was also after the manner of his country,
for, though that language is abominated in Norway, in Sweden it is
much affected by those who would wish it to be supposed that they are
_habitués_ of the court; and thus it was that though—as it afterwards
turned out—Captain Hjelmar could speak remarkably good English, he
preferred addressing Englishmen in remarkably bad French, in order to
show his court breeding.
“You see that tall rock,” said he, “that looks so black and distant, in
front of that green island?—that rock really is one of the Hrimthursar of
whom Lieutenant Birger has been telling you; and when St. Olaf came to
convert the Norwegians, the giant, who had been bribed by Hakon the Jarl,
at the price of his young son Erling, whom he sacrificed to him, waded
into the sea, and put forth his hand to stay the ship, that the saint
should not approach the shore: but the saint served a higher Power than
the gods of Asgard, and even as he stood, the giant froze into stone; and
there he stands to this day, as you see him, with one arm advanced,—and
there he will stand till the day of Ragnarök, except that once in a
hundred years, on Christmas Eve, he is restored to life, in order to
declare to the Hrimthursar that on that day their power was broken for
ever.”
“Well done, St. Olaf,” said the Captain; “I thought that all his
conversions were effected by the weight of his battle-axe.”
“Why, you Englishmen acknowledge him as a saint as well as we,” said
Captain Hjelmar. “Have you not, in your great City of London, a church
dedicated to him? and is there not also a place called Cripplegate?”
“There certainly are such places,” said the Parson, “but what they have
to do with one another, or with Norway, is more than I can see.”
“There was a man in Walland, so great a cripple that he was obliged to
go on his hands and knees, and it was revealed to him that if he should
go to St. Olaf’s Church, in London, he should be healed. How he got
there, I cannot tell you; but he did, and he was crawling along, and the
boys were laughing at him, as he asked them which was St. Olaf’s Church,
when a man, dressed in blue and carrying an axe on his shoulder, said,
‘Come with me, for I have become a countryman of yours.’ So he took up
the cripple and carried him through the streets, and placed him on the
steps of the church. Much difficulty had the poor man to crawl up the
steps; but when he arrived at the top he rose up straight and whole, and
walked to the altar to give thanks; but the man with the battle-axe had
vanished, and was never seen more; and the people thought it was the
blessed St. Olaf himself, and they called the place where the cripple was
found ‘Cripplegate,’ and so they tell me it is called to this day.”[40]
“Faith! I can answer for that part of the story myself,” said the
Captain; “the place is called Cripplegate, sure enough, but I am afraid
St. Olaf has long since ceased to frequent it, for we have not heard of
any miracles done lately in those parts. But what is your story about the
‘bale-fires,’ Birger, for I see another in process of erection on that
cape?—that looks like a remarkably good boat they are going to burn in
it.”
“That legend, like most of those from the Eddas, is purely allegorical,
and, unlike most of them, is very intelligible. Baldur, among the Æsir,
is the Principle of Good, and everything that is bright, or beautiful,
or innocent, is dedicated to him, and among other things, that part of
the year which begins at Walpurgis Night, when the reign of the frost
ceases, and ends at this day, the summer’s solstice—that is to say, the
whole of that time in which light and warmth are getting the mastery over
cold and darkness. These commemorate the happy days of Asgard, before
the Principle of Evil had crept in; and had they only continued, the
whole world would have been by this time glowing in perpetual light, and
spring, and happiness.
“But Loki himself, one of the twelve of the principal Æsir, became
envious of this, and was jealous that all the good in the world should be
ascribed to Baldur; so he resolved to kill him. This the Nornir revealed
to Baldur in a vision, and the goddess Freya took an oath of everything
that walked on the earth, or swam the waters, or flew in the air, or
grew from the ground, or was under it, that they would not hurt Baldur;
and then the gods would laugh at the revelation of the Nornir, and would
shoot at Baldur with stones, and masses of iron, and thrust at him with
their spears, and cut at him with their swords and axes; but they all
passed him by for the oath’s sake, which all nature had given.
“So Loki said to the mistletoe, ‘Thou dost neither run, nor fly, nor
swim, nor grow from the ground, nor lie under it; there is no oath for
thee.’ So he gathered the stem of the mistletoe, and placed it in the
hand of Hodur, the god of Blindness, and said, ‘shoot, like the other
gods, and I will direct thy hand:’ and he shot, and Baldur fell dead in
the midst of the gods, and innocence departed from the earth; and then
the days which had hitherto been getting brighter and brighter, so that
darkness had began to fly from the face of the earth, now began to close
in again, and darkness began to increase.
“In vain did Hermod, the brother of Baldur,[41] undertake the journey
to the realms of Hela. So much was accorded, that if all nature would
agree to mourn for the death of Baldur, he should be restored to earth;
but though everything did so, as the Edda has it, ‘Men and animals, and
earth, and stones, and trees, and all metals, even as thou hast seen
everything weep when it comes forth from the frost into the warm air, yet
the giantess, Thaukt, who it is said was but Loki in disguise, refused to
weep.’
“‘Neither in life, nor yet in death,
Gave he me gladness.
Let Hell keep her prey!’
and Hell will keep her prey, as the Norna revealed to Odin, till the day
of restitution of all things; and then, when the new sun shall enlighten
the new earth, Baldur, restored from Hell, and Hodur, no longer blind,
shall reign for ever and ever.[42]
“But in the mean time it was necessary to prepare the funeral pyre of
the god: his body was placed in his ship, the _Hringhorn_, and the pile
was built round it, and his wife, Nanna, and his dwarf, Litur, and his
father’s magic ring, Dropsnir, and his horse, and all his accoutrements,
were placed on it, and amid a weeping concourse of gods and men, and
Hrimthursar, and dwarfs, and witches, the fire was placed to it, and all
nature mourned the departure of innocence.
“And in memory of this, so soon as the days cease to lengthen, and nature
feels the loss of its original innocence, and darkness begins to threaten
the earth, men kindle their fires in memory of the death of Baldur.”[43]
“Hallo! the Thousand take you! look where you are steering,” shouted out
Hjelmar, in Swedish, to the helmsman, “are you going to run down the
island?” And in truth it did seem something like it, for the branches of
the overhanging trees rattled against the fore-topsail-yard, bringing
down a shower of leaves and twigs; and a projecting ash so nearly brushed
the paddle-box on which they were sitting, that the Parson broke off a
branch as they passed.
“Confound those fellows! they know the water is deep here, and think they
cannot shave the point too closely, I suspect they wanted to astonish
the passengers, and did not see me among them.”
The point which they had rounded was just to the east, from off Osterisö,
at which place they had just touched; and immediately afterwards they
plunged into a deep, dark chasm of a passage between the two islands,
which looked as if they had been split asunder by some sudden convulsion
of nature, so evidently the projections and indentations of the opposite
walls of rock seemed to fit into each other; while far overhead the trees
looked as if they were overarching the chasm, and shutting out the light
of day from its recesses. The churning sound of the paddles, and the
hissing of the sea beneath their stroke sounded unnaturally loud, and
the two little pop-guns which the _Gefjon_ carried on her forecastle and
took that opportunity for discharging, rolled and echoed like a peal of
thunder.
“There!” said Captain Hjelmar, as the steamer pushed her way into
daylight, and opened out a wide expanse no less beautiful than those
they had been passing through all the morning; “there lies the strength
of our coast; the Norwegian navy consists principally of gun-boats, and
these dodge in and out among these islets, just as difficult to catch as
rabbits in a warren; the great lumbering cruiser of the enemy watches
in vain on the outside, like a terrier at the rabbit’s hole, while the
rabbit, meanwhile, has passed out by a back door, and is taking his
pleasure elsewhere.[44]
“In the days of the last war, I was a cadet on board the _Najaden_
frigate, the commodore on these coasts: I used to be lent to the
gun-boats, and capital fun we had with your merchantmen; pretty
profitable fun too, for we brought them in by dozens. There were your big
cruisers, every now and then getting a crack at us, and picking off here
and there a clumsy fellow who let himself get caught outside, but never
doing us much harm. It was glorious fun, certainly,—at first, I must say,
I did not like firing at the old English flag, that so many of our people
had sailed under, but after exchanging a few shots, and seeing a few of
one’s people knocked over, one soon learns to forget all that; and I
blazed away at the old red rag after a bit, just as readily as I would at
a rascally Russ.
“Your Captain Stuart put an end to all that, though, for one while; and
before we had recovered from the drubbing he gave us, there was peace
again, and no revenge to be had for it. I was not sorry for the peace,
though; it is not natural to be fighting the English.”
“Aye,” said the Parson, “I have heard something about Captain Stuart, of
the _Dictator_; he got some credit for his services in these waters.”
“And well he deserved it,” said Hjelmar; “he was a thorough sailor, he
knew what his ship could do, and he made her do it. As for fighting,
anybody will fight; but to run such a chase as he did, requiring skill,
and science, and nerve, and firmness, as well as brute courage, which
every man has, and most beasts besides, is what very few men would have
moral courage to attempt, or seamanship enough to bring to a successful
termination.
“We used to laugh at the old _Dictator_; if a corvette could not catch
our gun-boats, it was not very likely a line-of-battle ship would do
the trick; for this water, for all it is so deep and looks so open, is
studded all over with pointed rocks at a fathom or so under the surface;
and some of these, not a yard square at the top, any one of which would
bring up a gun brig, let alone a liner. Well, there was the _Dictator_
cruising about and doing nothing, as we thought; we did not know that
he was improving his charts, and getting bearings and soundings; still
less did we suspect that one of his quartermasters had been the mate of
a coasting jagt, and knew the coast as well as we did. I have met the
fellow since; he got a boatswain’s rating for his services, and I think
he should have got something better.
“At that time I was on board the frigate. Old Hulm, our commodore,
said I was too wild to be trusted with a separate command, and one
morning we were dodging about where we are now, with a steady breeze
from the westward that looked as if it would stand. There were the old
_Dictator’s_ mast-heads, just where we had seen them twenty times before,
over the trees of Laxö,—that is, the island we are just opening, where
those salmon nets are hanging up to dry.
“‘By the keel of _Skidbladner_, that sailed over dry land,’ says Hulm,
‘what is the fellow at now?’ as we opened the point of the island, and
the line-of-battle ship, that had been lying with her main-topsail
aback, squared away her yards and dashed in after us. ‘O, by Thor and by
Mjölner! if that is your fun I will see what Norwegian rocks are made of.
Keep her away a couple of points, quartermaster; and Mr. Sinklar (to the
first lieutenant), turn the hands up.’ By this time we were running away
dead before it; the enemy, who was all ready, had her studding-sails set
on both sides,—it was beautiful to see how smartly they went up, it was
like a bird unfolding her wings. ‘That’s a fine fellow,’ said Hulm; ‘it’s
a pity, too, to sink him, but we must, so here goes.’
“Old Hulm, who was full of fight, all this time dodged along under plain
sail, just as if he did not care for _that_ the big fellow, and it is my
opinion he would not have set his studding-sails had the distance been
less. You see that green point just on the port bow, that one with the
black stone lying off it:—by the way, I do not see why we should not run
the very course ourselves. I have a passenger to Lyngör, and we may just
as well go that course as any other. Starboard your helm, my man! that
will do! meet her! keep her as she goes.
“There, now, you begin to see that there is an opening to the eastward
and northward of that point. As soon as we brought it abeam, down went
our helm, and everything was braced as sharp up as it would draw; for the
channel winds, as you see, to the southward of east. We thought to bother
her, but those fifties on two decks are so short, they come round like
tops. We were running free again to the eastward, outside the channel.
When she came abreast of the opening, in came her studding-sails all at
once, and there were her sails standing like boards, and her yards braced
up as sharp as ours had been, and so much had he gained upon us, that
as her port broadside came to bear, three or four shots, just to try
the distance, came across the end of the island after us, skipping and
dancing over the seas.
“‘We must get Mjölner to speak to them,’ said old Hulm, rubbing his
hands and looking delighted. ‘I think she will pitch her shot home now.’
Mjölner was a long French eighteen, a very handsome brass gun, ornamented
with _fleurs-de-lis_, and all sorts of jigmarees; the private property
of the captain. Where he had picked it up, no one knew;—people said it
had been the Long Tom of a French pirate. Old Hulm had called it Mjölner,
which I suppose you know is the name of Thor’s hammer; he was as fond of
it as he was of his wife, and always kept it on the quarter-deck, under a
tarpaulin, which he never took off except on Sundays.
“It took some time to train the gun aft, and by this time the
line-of-battle ship had cleared the channel, and was putting up her helm
to follow us. The old skipper laid his pet gun himself, and squinted, and
squinted over her breech, and elevated, and depressed, and trained to the
right, and trained to the left, till we thought he never meant to twitch
the lanyard at all. Crack went Mjölner. By this time we had pretty nearly
got the line-of-battle ship’s three masts in one, and the shot striking
just under the fore top-mast cross-trees, cut the topsail tie and the jib
halyards at once; down rattled the yard, snapping the fore top gallant
sheets, out flew the top gallant sail, and away went the jib dragging
under her fore-foot; and up flew the ship herself into the wind again,
letting drive her broadside at us, as if she had done it on purpose.
“The old skipper sent his steward for some bottles of true Cognac, and
gave the men a tot all round, to drink Mjölner’s health.
“The enemy had brailed up her driver, and braced by her after-sails, and
got before the wind again in no time; and was not much longer in bending
on a new tie and splicing her halyards; but we had got pretty well out of
range now, and were bobbing in and out among a cluster of rocks as thick
as porpoises. We had a man at the flying jib-boom as a look-out, and a
couple more on the spritsail yardarms (for our ships had not whiskers in
those days), and it was nothing but ‘Breakers ahead!’ ‘Rock on the port
bow!’ ‘A reef to starboard!’ for the next quarter of an hour or twenty
minutes, enough to make one’s hair stand on end. A-ha! thought I, when
the last of them showed clear on the quarter, this is the skipper’s trap;
here’s where the old _Dictator_ is going to lay her bones! But she did
not. She dodged through every one of them every bit as well as we had
done, and there certainly was no doubt but that the distance between us
was a good deal decreased. These tubs of fifties sail like a haystack on
a wind, but before it they go like _Skidbladner_ herself.
“Old Hulm began to look grave; he had never dreamt of her following him
within the islands like that, and he began to ‘smell a rat.’ The frigate
had been caught on her very worst point of sailing. We might easily have
worked to windward at first, but now she had got us fairly under her lee,
and if we tried to tack under her guns, she would have stripped us of
every rag of canvas we could show. Mjölner came into play again, as well
as the stern chasers on the main deck, and to good purpose, too; but, on
the other hand, the English shot were flying like peas about us—and they
did not always fall short, either. Now and then there was a rope shot
away, or a man knocked over, or a gun capsized,—for, at that distance,
every shot that hit us pitched in upon the deck and trundled forwards,
hopping here and there off the bulwarks without going through them, like
so many billiard balls.
“‘I will tell you what,’ says Hulm, ‘I will shove her through the Lyngör
Channel, there is a rock in the middle that it will be as much as we can
do to shave ourselves, and if we do get past it, the chances are, that it
will bring up the liner; it is a desperate chance, but we must try it,
and if the Englishman does get through after us (which she will not), we
will reach out into the offing as close to the wind as we can lie. Port
your helm at once, Mr. Sinklar—drop your main course, and haul out the
driver.’
“Up she came to the wind again, but the main-sail, which had been clewed
up while we were running, had got a shot through it, exactly where the
bunt-line gathered it into a bundle. The shot had gone through fold after
fold of the canvas, cutting the foot-rope also, and before the tack
was well hauled down, the sail had split from top to bottom; and then,
just as she drew in under cover of the land, the mizen top-mast came
clattering about our ears.
“It was all up for beating to windward, unless we could shift our
top-mast in time, and this the enemy was too close upon us to allow us
do; everything lay on the rock bringing her up, and as I looked over the
side as we passed, the rugged points looked so close to our own bends,
that I thought they must have gone through; and the liner drew more water
than we did.
“All eyes were turned on the English ship, at least, on her sails, for a
point of land concealed her hull, and prevented our firing; every moment
we expected to see her sheets let fly;—not a bit of it,—on she came as
steadily as ever.
“Just at the village of Lyngör the channel turns at right angles, and
the islands that form it, being high, took the wind out of our courses;
while we had been running it had drawn a little to the southward of
west,—which, as we had been off the wind all day, we had not taken notice
of—as we turned the angle it headed us. Whether, under any circumstances,
we could have fetched clear of the northern cape is doubtful; without
our mizen top-sail it was impossible, for as the courses were becalmed,
we really carried nothing but head sail that would draw; and in fact, we
could scarcely look up for the cape, much less weather it.
“Down with the anchor! out boats, to lay out a warp to spring her! we
will fight it out here!’ said old Hulm. But the Englishman had seen us
over the land from his mast-heads, and anchored by the stern, clewing up
or letting fly everything, and passing out his cable from his stern-port,
so as to check her way by degrees; when she came into sight round the
point, at not a cable’s length from us, she had a cluster of men on her
bowsprit with a hawser. On she came, as if she was going to leap over
the town, and dropped her men on the houses, who, sliding down by the
dolphin-striker, leaped on shore and made fast with her hawser forward,
while her anchor brought her up abaft. And there she lay, as steady as
a land battery, and opened her fire. The first broadside, loaded with
grape, came rattling among the boats that were laying out the warp; what
became of them I never heard; but the warp lay slack, and the current
drifted us end-on to the line-of-battle ship’s broadside, and I felt our
decks crumbling and splintering under me as her shot tore them up.
“The next thing after that that I recollect, is a great rough hand
pulling me out of the water by my collar, and a kindly English voice
asking me if I was hurt. The smoke was still lying on the water, and
hanging in little clouds upon the trees; but all that was to be seen of
the old _Najaden_, was the main and fore-top gallant and royal masts,
which, with their sails set, were still above water, and the blue and
yellow pennant over all. We had gone down with our colours flying,
and Captain Stuart would not have the pennant struck,—‘we had fought
gallantly for it,’ he said, ‘and we should keep it still.’
“Poor old Hulm, he was a fine fellow: there now! that is the very spot of
the action,” for by this time they had opened the point of Lyngör, and
had come in sight of the beautiful little village. “Do you see that iron
pillar on the point? that is Captain Hulm’s monument.”
“He went down with his ship, then?”
“No, he did not; how he was saved I do not remember, but he was saved,
and rewarded too for his standing up to the line-of-battle ship; for
Father Karl is an old soldier, and knows that a man often deserves as
much praise for being beat as for beating. The old fellow lived to a
good old age; that was his house, that white fronted one on the hill, for
Lyngör was his native place. It is not two years ago that he was capsized
in his little schooner and drowned. There’s his monument, any how; and
I always salute it, whenever I pass this way:” and as they came abreast
of the point, the _Gefjon’s_ swallow-tailed ensign dipped from her peak,
and her little pop-guns again testified their respect to the old sailor’s
memory.
CHAPTER XVII.
GOTHEBORG.
“A cautious guest,
When he comes to his hostel,
Speaketh but little;
With his ears he listeneth,
With his eyes he looketh,—
Thus the wise learneth.
“No better burthen
Bears a man on his journey
Than observation:—
No worse provision
Bears a man on his journey
Than frequent drunkenness.”
_High Song of Odin the Old._
Early rising is not pleasant at sea. Captain Basil Hall may talk of the
joyous morning watch if he likes,—but there is nothing joyous in washing
decks, and that is what most ships are occupied with at that hour. The
Parson did not make his appearance on deck till after breakfast, and he
was the first of the party.
The steamer was now approaching the end of her voyage, for the land,
closing on both sides, showed the estuary of the Gotha. Most of the
party were not sorry for the conclusion of the voyage, enjoyable as the
earlier part of it had been; for the steamer,—after coasting all the way
to Christiania, where the party had supplied themselves with carioles
for their land journey, which, with their wheels unshipped, were stowed
away snugly forward,—had taken her course, southward, over the tumbling
Skagarack—a part of the world notorious for sea-sickness.
All the morning long, preparations had been going forward for making a
creditable appearance on arriving in port, and the discomforts of the
early-risers had been considerably increased by a very liberal use of
the holy-stone,—an amusement which, as the men were still employed in
blacking the rigging, gave promise of an early repetition.
Slung from a block at the mainmast head was a small triangular stage,
made of three battens, on which sat a very dirty individual with a pot
of slush before him and a tarring-brush in his hand, with which he was
polishing off his morning’s work on the shining mast.
Seated on the bitts below was a sturdy Norwegian, who, as if disdaining
the compromise usually adopted by the coasting inhabitants, appeared in
the caricature of a full-dressed Tellemarker, with a strip of jacket like
a child’s spencer, of orange tawny wadmaal, great loose blue trousers
with a waistband over his shoulder blades, crimson braces, and two
strings of silver bullets dependent from the collars of a very dirty
shirt. He was caressing a particularly ugly dog, which he called Garm,—an
appellation which proved him to be what in England would be called a
fast man; it is much as if an English young gentleman were to call his
dog Satan. He was haranguing, of course, on the vast superiority of
Norway to Sweden, and the infinite degradation which the former country
had received from the union of the crowns,—that being not only the most
favourite topic of Norwegian declamation, but, in the present instance,
at all events, the most injudicious and unsuitable subject in which to
exhibit before so mixed an audience.
They behaved, however, exceedingly well, and rather trotted him out, much
to the disgust of Torkel, who had sense enough to perceive what was going
on, and would have infinitely preferred their beating him: after vainly
endeavouring to draw his countrymen away, he had walked forward, and was
looking moodily over the bows.
“As for the Swedes,” said our judicious friend, “they are nothing better
than swindlers. I have, for my sins, to go to Gotheborg every year, to
lay in stores for the winter, and I am sure to be cheated. We don’t let
Jews land on our shores, and I must go to Gotheborg to find them.”
“Well, but we have no Jews either.” said a bye-stander; “they do not come
to us, they go to the Free Towns.”
“You are all Jews; the real Jews don’t go to you, that is very true, but
it is because they know that the Gotheborgers are hogs, and their law
does not allow them to have anything to do with unclean animals. Yes, you
are all swine together. Why, I tell you a Norwegian dog would not touch
anything Swedish. Come here, Garm!”—and he pulled out of his pocket a bit
of ham, evidently filched from the breakfast table.
Here the Parson thought he detected a glance of intelligence between
Captain Hjelmar and the man at the mast-head, who, much amused, had left
off his work to listen.
“Come here, Garm!”—placing the tempting morsel on the deck.
The dog wagged his tail, evidently preparing to seize it.
“Svenske!” said the man. The dog, who had been well trained in this
common trick, turned up his nose with apparent disgust, and refused the
meat.
“There!” said he, “I defy any Swede among you all to make a true
Norwegian dog eat a bit of it. Garm knows what you all are, don’t you,
Garm?”
Just then, by the merest accident in the world, the slush-kettle got
unhitched from the stage above his head, and came tumbling over on the
deck, and in its descent, taking the unfortunate Norwegian on the nape of
his neck as he was leaning forward to caress his dog, pitched the whole
of its contents between his jacket collar and his back.
Captain Hjelmar rated the man severely for his carelessness in spoiling
his decks, and, ordering him off the stage, directed the boatswain to put
his name into the black list. The man, however, did not seem much cast
down about it, but slid down the greasy mast with a broad grin on his
countenance, while the Norwegians carried their discomfited companion
forward to purify him; and Garm, profiting by the confusion, proved a
traitor to his country, by not only swallowing down the Swedish ham, but
also by licking up as much as he could of the Swedish slush that had
poured from the head and shoulders of his master on the Swedish deck.
The coast of Sweden and the banks of the Gotha below the town, offer a
striking contrast to the lovely scenery they had left. There are the
rocks and the fringing islets, as in Norway, but here they are all flat,
and most of them absolutely bare. The coasts, too, where they could be
seen, exhibited ledges of rock and wastes of sand, with just enough
cultivation to make the desolateness painful, by connecting it with the
idea of people living there. Eider ducks would dive before them, and
wild-fowl in little knots would cross their course, and hoopers would go
trumpeting over their heads, with their white wings reflecting the sun
like silver, and dippers of all sorts would play at hide-and-seek with
the waves, and seals would put up their bullet-heads to gaze at them as
they passed. The water is always beautiful when the sun shines directly
upon it; but the eye must not range so far as the shore, for no sunshine
could gild that.
There was a good deal of life, and traffic too, upon the waters, for
Gotheborg, the nearest port to the Free Towns and to all foreign
trade whatever, as well as the outlet of the river navigation, may be
considered the Liverpool of Sweden.
As they proceeded the scenery slightly improved: the right bank began to
be dotted with houses and small villages, wretched enough compared with
the picturesque places on the other end of the Skaggerack, but at all
events showing signs of life. At length they became continuous, and at a
couple of miles distance, the three churches of Gotheborg, with the close
cluster of houses, came into view. The anchor was dropped opposite to the
fishing suburb of Gammle Hafvet, and a shore-going steamer came alongside
to receive the passengers; which steamer, much to the fishermen’s
delight, contained their old friend Moodie, who, on hearing that the
Norway packet had been signalized, had gone to meet her on the chance of
seeing them.
Moodie was a singular character,—a cadet of good family, and brought
up to no profession; he had been from his childhood passionately fond
of field sports, in all of which he excelled. At an early age he had
become his own master, with a good education, some usage of the world, a
handsome person, a peculiarly active frame and sound constitution, and
two hundred a year, _pour tout potage_. Rightly judging that England
afforded no fitting scope for his peculiar talents, without the imminent
danger of a committal for poaching, he had expatriated himself to
Ireland; which country, he had, in a sporting point of view, thoroughly
studied, and made himself completely master of its resources; he knew
when every river in the whole island came into season and went out, and
the best and cheapest way of transferring self and encumbrances from
one point to another. He knew the times at which the woodcocks and the
snipes would arrive, and the out-of-the-way places at which they may be
safely shot; he could give a catalogue _raisonnée_ of all the wayside
public-houses in sporting localities, and was hand-in-glove with half
the disreputable squireens of Ireland. Certainly, he bagged more grouse
annually than many a man who pays a rent of five or six hundred a year
for the privilege of supplying the London markets.
It was on the Erne that the fishermen had met him, and Moodie being an
extremely well-informed and gentleman-like man, besides being a thorough
sportsman, they had struck up with him what might be called an intimate
acquaintance, which, now that they met as Englishmen on a foreign land,
might be considered an intimate friendship.
It was the railroads, and the consequent invasion of the cockneys,
which had expatriated Moodie from his adopted country; people began
to preserve, too, and to let their fishing and shooting-grounds; even
the Erne was not what it had been, and Moodie, whose whole belongings,
besides his live stock in the shape of dogs, were contained in two
portmanteaus and as many gun-cases, packed them, and one morning found
himself standing on the quay of Gotheborg.
If, instead of the coast of Sweden, it had been the coast of the Cannibal
Islands, Moodie would soon have found himself at home; but here he had
letters of introduction, and Karl Johann, who had a high opinion of the
English, was very anxious to get an infusion of English blood among
his Swedes. Moodie’s peculiar talents, too, which in England might have
consigned him to the county jail, in Sweden found their legitimate
outlet; he soon found a beautiful little country house on the banks of
the Gotha; had no difficulty in renting the exclusive right of fishing
for some miles above and below it; paid the rent and all expenses of
boats and boatmen, and put a handsome sum into his pocket besides, by
supplying Gotheborg with lake salmon (salmo ferox). He then got the
rangership of a royal forest, by which he kept his numerous hangers-on in
what he called butcher’s meat, and traded with the Zoological Gardens and
private collections in the wild beasts and birds of the country, by means
of which traffic, he had furnished himself with the choicest collection
of sporting fire-arms and fishing tackle to be found in the north.
Besides which, Moodie had become a public character. Sweden has its wild
beasts as well as its ordinary game,—he who destroys a wolf or a bear is
a public benefactor, and Moodie had a peculiar talent for tracking them.
Every farmer within a hundred miles of Gäddebäck would pull off his hat
to him; but that is not saying much, for a Swede is always pulling off
his hat, and if he had nothing else to pull it off to he would be making
his salaams to the cows and sheep.
It was not a great deal of Gotheborg the fishermen saw that evening;
their experience of the country was confined to a march by the shortest
road from the landing place to Todd’s Hotel, and their subsequent view
to a sort of Dutch interior, of which pipes, tobacco, bottles, glasses,
juniper beer of native manufacture, and thin vinous importations from
Bordeaux, made up the accessories; but the fishermen had much to inquire
after, and Moodie had much to tell.
Breakfast, always a luxurious meal in the north, at least, in summer
time, on account of the quantities of berries and the abundant supply of
cream, brought a visitor,—a young artillery officer, a friend of Birger,
by name Dahlgren, and by rank Count, who had his quarters in the inn,—for
the Swedish officers have no mess like ours, but lodge permanently in the
hotels, paying a fixed sum per week, and dining at the _table d’hôte_.
Like Birger, he was a painter, but whereas the guardsman exercised his
art simply as an amateur, or at most, in the public service of his
country, his friend, Count as he was, exercised his as a profession, and
as a means of eking out his scanty pay.
There would be a grand review that afternoon, he said, and it would
be well worth seeing, for Gotheborg is the great artillery station of
Sweden, and the Commander-in-Chief, with his staff, who were on a tour
of inspection, had arrived by the canal steamer from the new fortress of
Wanås, on the Wetter.
This piece of information, which the artilleryman detailed with great
glee, was received by Birger with a wry countenance, as certain to detain
him within doors as long as the General remained at Gotheborg,—for it
will be remembered he was at that very time unable to join his regiment
on account of _pressing family affairs_.
This did not affect the others, so, leaving their friend to amuse himself
as best he might, by improving his sketches or watching the magpies from
the window, they started, under the pilotage of their new ally, for a
tour of observation.
Whatever else Gotheborg is famous for, certainly the most remarkable
thing in it is its flocks of magpies,—birds which, in our country, are
extremely wild, and by no means fond of town life. Gregarious, in the
proper sense of the term, they are not, but they are as numerous as
sparrows in London, very nearly as tame, and much more impudent. This
by no means arises from any affection which the inhabitants have for
the bird—for magpies are ugly and mischievous all the world over, and
quite as mischievous in Gotheborg as anywhere else,—but from a popular
superstition they are under the especial protection of the devil—and
truly the devil cares for his own: they build their nests and bring up
their young under the very noses of the schoolboys; they feed them with
stolen goods, filched from every kitchen,—and often and often, among the
delicacies of the season, they regale them with spring chicken of their
own killing. But no one molests a magpie; Heaven only knows what would
be the consequences of killing one; and, though Government has set a
price on their heads, they sleep in safety, under the protection of their
great master.
The town ought to be handsome, but it is not; the description would look
well on paper. A great broad canal through the centre, with quays all the
way on both sides, as at Dublin, only twice as broad, forming a very wide
street; and from this five or six similar canals, similarly furnished
with quays and streets, branch off at right angles. The banks of all
these canals are planted with trees, and arranged as shaded footways. All
this sounds as if the place ought to be pretty, but, though every word of
this is true, the reality falls far short of the ideas it conveys. The
houses are mean and low, and, the windows being flush with the sides, the
whole appearance is pasteboard-like and unsubstantial, which the reality
is not. The Swedes build their wooden houses in very good taste, and they
harmonise very well with the scenery, but they should stick to that—_ne
sutor ultra crepidam_: let not the carpenter aspire to be a mason. Every
house, large or small, in town or in country, has very large panes of
glass,—the very cabins have them; the glass is as bad as bad can be,
full of flaws and waves, and very thin besides; even this produces a bad
effect; besides, it is impossible to admire the finest of towns, when
walking over streets so roughly paved that eyes and thoughts must be
continually directed towards the footing.
There is a capital market, and the canals bring the hay, and the fuel,
and all other heavy articles from the interior, to the very doors of the
houses. It was singular to see floating haystacks and faggot piles—for
so they looked, the hulls of the boats being completely hidden by their
freight,—towed up in strings by the little steam-tugs, and moored to the
quays. If Gotheborg is not a prosperous town, Sweden will not support
one at all, for it is impossible for any situation to be more favourable
for trade. The river itself forms a secure harbour, its only fault being
that vessels of heavy draught cannot anchor within a mile of the town.
The interior water communications comprehend all the midland provinces,
and the landing and shipping of goods is as easy as art can make it;
besides, it is the outermost port of the whole country.
The markets, certainly, are well supplied, especially that of fish, both
salt and fresh-water. Beef and mutton are among its articles of export
to the southern coasts of Norway, and there is not a bad display of
vegetables for so northern a country. The quantities of spinach which
are seen everywhere, and which mingle with every dish, rather surprise
the traveller, till he finds out that the sandhills which he has seen
on each side of him all the way up the river, are covered with it,
growing wild—wild as it is, English garden spinach is not at all better
flavoured. Singularly enough, melons are plentiful; one would almost as
soon expect to meet with pines in these latitudes,—but the short summer
of Sweden is peculiarly favourable for them.
The trade of the place does not look very lively, and the bustle in the
streets is nothing at all like that of Bristol or Liverpool. What little
stir there was just then, seemed to be rather military than mercantile.
Dirty, slovenly-looking artillerymen, with ugly blue and yellow uniforms,
putting one disagreeably in mind of the _Edinburgh Review_; overalls
patched extensively with leather that terribly wanted the blacking-brush;
and dingy steel scabbards, that did not know what emery-stone was, were
clanking about the streets, followed by little crowds; and groups of
officers were standing at the doors of the hotels and lodging-houses.
Evidently a review was not an everyday business.
The Parson and Captain were soon deserted by their military cicerone,
who left them, to prepare for his part in the military display, having
directed them into the street that leads to the scene of action. This
was a large meadow, or small park, to the east of the town, rather a
pretty promenade, enclosed with trees, which was now crowded with people.
Towns, especially trading towns, are not remarkable for costume. The
people, seeing such a variety of foreigners, get to be citizens of the
world themselves, and so lose their nationalities. But there were a few
fancy dresses, too, from the country round; short round corduroy jackets,
sometimes a sort of tartan, too, but which invariably had rows of
buttons sewed as thick together as they could stand. Among the women, a
handkerchief was frequently tied round the head instead of a bonnet; but
every one, almost, carried his or her bunch of flowers, an article which
abounded in the markets; these were very often carried in the hats, or
stuck through the knots of the kerchiefs.
And now the bugles of the artillery were heard, and the rumbling of
wheels, and the trampling of horses, as battery after battery rolled
into the park. The Swedes call them horse artillery, but they are, in
reality, only field batteries; for of horse artillery, properly so
called, that most beautiful of military toys, they have none. Their guns,
twelve pounders, are drawn by six horses, each of which carries a man. In
bringing the guns into action, the off-man of each pair dismounted, and
these were joined by three others, whose seat was on the limbers. These
are hardly men enough to work so heavy a gun, allowing for the casualties
of action, but on emergencies the driver of the middle pair also lends
his services.
There was nothing showy in the review, the manœuvres of which were
confined to advancing and retreating in line, and forming column, and
deploying into line again; but all at a foot’s pace, or at a very slow
trot. They had no idea of changing front, or retreating in echéllon, or
any of those showy manœuvres in which the prolong is used. In fact, so
far as display went, it was a very slow affair indeed; the men, however,
seemed to know their work pretty well, and though individually dirty
and slovenly and without the well set up carriage of our own soldiers,
they bore, as a body, rather a soldier-like appearance. They ride very
forward, absolutely on the horse’s withers—this is said to give the horse
greater facility of draught; and it may, but at all events, it gives a
most awkward and unsoldier-like appearance to the men, which is in no
way improved by the manner in which they carry their swords—the elbows
sticking out at right angles to the body, and their knuckles thrust into
their sides, as if they had a pain in their ribs.
The guns seemed to be very much under-horsed, but perhaps this is more
apparent than real; for the Swedish horses, though small, are strong and
wiry, and their enclosed country is not only not calculated for horse
artillery manœuvres, but does not admit of them. The chances are, that
a whole campaign might be fought in Sweden without the artillery being
required to move faster than at a foot-pace. So far as numbers went, they
mustered at least three times as many guns as can be got together at
Woolwich for love or money at the best of times.
The army of Sweden is very curiously constituted, and it is not easy to
reckon up its effective strength. The regular army does not consist of
above 10,000 men; the guards—than which no finer body of men is to be
seen in Europe,—the artillery, and three or four garrison regiments, who
are stationed at Wanås, in the interior, and Carlscrona, and one or two
other fortresses on the coast.
The militia, which is called Beväring, consists of every man in the
country between the ages of twenty and twenty-five; these have regular
days of exercise, generally Sunday evenings in the summer, which is with
them by no means a popular arrangement, for those are the hours which the
ingenuous youths of Sweden devote to dancing, an amusement of which they
are passionately fond. This really is a much more effective force than
it seems, for the Swedes are natural soldiers; besides which, it gives
them all a habit of drill, which might be rendered serviceable in case of
invasion; for, as every man in the country has been drilled in his youth,
they are all capable of immediately taking their places in the ranks of
the regular regiments. It would be a very great improvement if they were
drilled to ball practice, like the Swiss and Tyrolese, for a Swede is
terribly clumsy with fire-arms, and on a skal, is just as likely to shoot
himself or his comrade, as a bear or a wolf.
But the strength of the Swedish army lies in its Indelta, a description
of force peculiar to that country—unless the military colonies of Russia
be considered a parallel case.
The crown possesses large estates, and these are leased out, like the
knight’s fees in old times, on man service, and for that purpose are
divided into hemmans, each hemman furnishing a man, who has a portion of
it by way of pay—the hemman is not a measure of size, but of produce.
Fertile hemmans are small, waste or barren hemmans are large; and thus
it often happens, when a crown estate has been cleared and brought
into cultivation, though quite as productive as some other estate, it
furnishes a much smaller quota.
The holder of such a property, is then bound to serve himself, if
capable, and to furnish a certain number of efficient soldiers, horse or
foot, according to the size of his estate. The whole country is divided
into military provinces, under colonels; these are subdivided into
districts, under captains, with their proper complement of subaltern and
non-commissioned officers, who are paid by the tenure of certain reserved
farms, which they hold in virtue of their commissions.
Whenever the Indelta is called out—and a third of them assemble in camp
every summer,—the crown tenants of the estates that furnished it are
bound, at their own expense, to cultivate the farms which the soldiers
hold, and to return to them their lands, when they are dismissed from
active service, in the same condition in which they took charge of them,
accounting for any sale of produce which they may have made.
The service of the Indelta is very popular, and for every vacancy there
are at least half a dozen candidates. No application is ever received
without written testimonials from the clergyman of the applicant’s
parish, and no man is ever admitted who has been convicted of any crime.
Many of these crown holdings have been purchased and re-purchased, and
transferred from hand to hand so often, that they are regarded as a sort
of private property, and their tenants very often complain of being
burthened to a greater extent than their countrymen. This, however, is as
unreasonable as that a tenant should complain that in paying rent he is
not on an equality with the proprietor in fee. The sale of crown lands is
merely the transference of a beneficial lease.
So far as the morals of the people are concerned, the patronage of the
Indelta, and the reward it holds to good conduct, act very beneficially;
as to the efficacy of the force, the wars of Gustavus Adolphus and of
Charles XII., may form a pretty fair criterion. The strength of this
contingent to the Swedish army, may be reckoned at 20,000 infantry, and
5,000 cavalry, and has the advantage of being always available.
“You may come out of your hole now, Birger,” said his friend, the
artilleryman, who, arriving hot and dusty from the barracks, was lounging
down the streets, with his jacket open and his stiff military stock in
his hand, a free and easy style of dress, in which an English officer
would think it just impossible to put his nose beyond the barrack gates.
“The General and all his staff are gone in a body to Arfwedsen’s Villa,
so you are safe for to-day.”
“And for to-morrow, too,” said Birger, “for the steamer starts for
Stockholm to-morrow morning early; while you were amusing yourselves, I
have been doing business. As soon as I heard from the sound of your guns
that the General was safe, I stepped down to the quay, went on board the
_Daniel Thunberg_, and engaged two cabins—we will toss up who is to have
the cabin to himself.”
“Why, where’s Moodie?”
“Moodie!” said Birger, taking out his watch, “why, by this time Moodie is
at Agnesberg.”
“And where is Agnesberg?”
“The first stage to Trollhättan. He had transacted his business, and
transferred his herd of deer to the Zoological men before we came, so
he said he would start at once for Gäddebäck, and prepare to receive
us. I rather think there is some bear hunting afoot, for the Stockholm
post came in while you were at the review, and I am sure I recognised
Bjornstjerna’s great splash of a seal, and his scratchy hand. At all
events, off started Moodie.”
“Why! is it not necessary to lay a forebud.”
“Not on the main road; there is traffic enough between this and
Wenersburg to keep holl-horses (retained horses) always at the stations.
He will be at Gäddebäck, I will venture to say, before daybreak.”
“And when do we sail?”
“At ten to-morrow; we can see the falls and the canal before nightfall,
and sleep at Trollhättan to-morrow night; and on the following morning
Moodie is to send his boat for us. And now for dinner, I have ordered it
at the Prinds Karl; Todd’s is a very good house to sleep at, and not bad
for breakfast, but I want to shew you what Swedish cookery is, as far as
you can get any worth eating in the provinces.”
[Illustration: p. 251.]
“Ah! there spoke the guardsman.”
“Well, it is very true, as you will confess, if ever I get you to
Stockholm; is it not, Count Dahlgren?” addressing the artillery officer.
“You dine with us, of course; in with you, and wash off the stains of
war, which are pretty visible at present. You have not more time than you
know what to do with. If we do sail to-morrow, we will make a night of it
to-night.”
“Like our first night at Mosse Eurd?”
“No, hang it, no; not so bad as that;—that was all very well for the men,
but we do not make such beasts of ourselves in this country. I have told
them, though, to put plenty of champagne in ice, and to provide the best
claret they have got; we will be merry—and wise, if possible.”
“And if not possible?”
“Why, then, the merry without the wise.”
Whether mirth, or wisdom, or a judicious mixture of the two prevailed
that evening at the Prinds Karl, need not be related; but the next
morning saw the party on the clean white deck of the elegant little river
steamer _Daniel Thunberg_, dashing along its broad, still stream, between
rows of feathering rushes, sometimes so tall as to eclipse the still
flat and uninteresting country beyond them. Ducks there were, in such
numbers, that the fishermen half repented their engagement with Moodie;
and Jacob, to whom every spot was familiar, kept up an incessant chorus
of regrets, pointing out here a spot where he had made a fortune with the
långref, having hauled up a three-pound eel on every hook,—there a corner
where he had caught a pike so big he could not lift it into the boat, but
was obliged to tow it astern all the way to Gotheborg,—and there a bay
in the rushes in which he had bagged five swans, eight geese, and more
ducks than he could count, at a single shot,—with as many more stories,
equally veracious, as he could get people to listen to; and in fact,
could be stopped by nothing short of that grand event in a Swedish day,
dinner, which, announced by the steamer’s bell, was served with great
magnificence in the saloon.
These little steamers form as luxurious a conveyance as can be imagined;
they are galley-built, that is to say, the quarter deck is two or three
feet higher than the waist; the after part is divided into ten or twelve
little private cabins, each possessing its own port, and each furnished
with its two sofas and its table; the fore part contains the saloon, or
common cabin. They do not carry very powerful engines, but they burn
wood, and are as clean and as free from disagreeable smells as if they
were sailing vessels.
At the locks of Lilla Edet, where a reef comes across the river, forming
a low but very picturesque fall, the fine scenery commences. The fall
itself is singular. The water of the Gotha, fresh from the great lake of
Wenern, which acts as an enormous cesspool, is as clear and bright as
that of the Torjedahl, but with ten times its volume; it slips off the
smooth ledge of rocks as if it were falling over a step; the ledge off
which it slips is seen through it as distinctly as if it were enclosed
in a glass case, for the water preserves its unbroken transparency till
it reaches the bottom, and then spreads out into a broad border of foam,
like a fan with swansdown fringe.
From this point, a very perceptible difference was remarkable in the
run of the current, which retarded considerably the way of the steamer
through the belt of highlands which separates the low tract bordering the
sea-coast from the higher level of Wenersborglan; and it was not till
past five, that the low rumbling, earth-shaking sound of the great falls
began to tremble on the ear.
CHAPTER XVIII.
TROLLHÄTTAN.
“Gefjon drew from Gylfi
Rich stored-up treasure,—
The land she joined to Denmark.
Four heads and eight eyes bearing,
While hot sweat trickled down them,
The oxen dragged the reft mass
Which forms this winsome island.”
_Skald Bragi the Old._
“It was a wondrous sight to see
Topmast and pennon glitter free,
High raised above the greenwood tree—
As on dry land the galley moves,
By cliff and copse and alder groves.”
_Lord of the Isles._
“Birger, what is the Swedish for ‘Go to the devil?’ I cannot make these
little brutes of boys understand me,” shouted the Captain, who was not
in the best of humours, having already made half a dozen slips on very
dangerous ground. In all Sweden, there is not a more slippery bit of
turf than that which clothes the cliffs and highlands of Trollhättan.
The bank along which he was scrambling to get a good view of the falls
rounded itself off gradually, getting more and more out of the horizontal
and into the vertical at every step, till at last it plunged sheer into
the foaming turn-hole of the middle fall, in which the very best of
swimmers would have had no more advantage over the very worst than that
of keeping his head above water till he went down the third leap, and
got knocked to pieces on the rocks below. There was not a root to hold
on by stronger than those of the dwarf cranberries, whose smooth leaves
only aided the natural slipperiness. Heather is not common anywhere in
Sweden; but here there was quite enough not only to give a purple brown
hue to the scenery, but also to add to the difficulty of keeping one’s
feet, in a way which any one who has walked the side of a highland
hill in very dry weather will fully be able to appreciate. It was very
irritating when one at last had attained a point of view—after traversing
what to a leather-shod stranger was really a dangerous path—to have the
current of one’s thoughts interrupted by a parcel of bare-footed urchins,
who came frolicking over the very same ground, and insisting that the
visitor should see everything, from the orthodox point of view set down
by Murray, and from no other whatever, and moreover should pay for being
tormented and unpoeticised, the regulated number of skillings.
The rush of waters was certainly very grand and very magnificent. Much
has been written about it in books of travels, and much more in the
album kept at the inn for the purpose of enshrining and transmitting to
posterity the extasies of successive generations of travellers; but the
Parson, who ought to have been lost in admiration—to his shame be it
spoken—appeared chiefly solicitous to procure bait, which he and Torkel
had been diligently hunting for in the shallows. It was not without
considerable difficulty that a trout sufficiently small to fit the
snap-hooks of the trolling-litch could be found, and when it was found,
we are happy to say, it met with no more success than it deserved; for
though at very considerable personal risk he tried as much of the rushing
water as his longest trolling-rod would command, he was not rewarded with
a single run.
But for all that, there certainly are fish in all the pools about these
tremendous falls, and that he had the opportunity of satisfying himself
about before he left off; for just as he was giving it up for a bad job,
Torkel, who had an eye for a fish like that of a sea-eagle, caught sight
of something alive that had poked itself into one of the runs from the
saw-mills, a place not three feet across; and unscrewing the gaff which
he was carrying, and substituting for it the five-pronged spear, he
plunged it into the water and brought out a black trout (_salmo ferox_)
of ten pounds weight at the end of it. From the nature of the water it
is impossible that trout can abound at Trollhättan in any great numbers.
The river has scarcely any tributaries below the falls; and as it is
absolutely impossible for a fish to surmount them, the breeding ground
is very limited; but, on the other hand, the clearness of the water is
precisely that which best suits the constitution of a trout; bleak and
gwinead, which form their principal food, are very plentiful, and from
the depth of the water, there is scarcely any limit to the growth of
the fish; a man, who is satisfied to catch now and then a monster, will
do very well at Trollhättan, and in the course of the season will have
a few stories to tell, which in England will be set down as altogether
fabulous,—but it does not answer for a day’s fishing. The traveller may
as well make up his mind to admire the scenery at his leisure,—it will
not answer his purpose to wet a line there.
The Parson having convinced himself of this, and, moreover, having had
one or two very narrow escapes, reeled up his line and contentedly sought
out his friends, who, by this time, had succeeded in explaining to the
swarms of guides that their services were not required, and were sitting
on a heathery bank feathered with birch, exactly in front of the middle
falls, comfortably eating gooseberries, which grow there in such plenty
that, though the place swarms with children—a whole regiment of soldiers
with their wives and families being hutted in the vicinity,—the bushes
were still full of them.
“That is a curious cave,” said the Captain, pointing to a hole which
seemed to enter the face of the precipitous rock by the side of the
great fall, and to penetrate it for some distance; at least, the depth
was sufficiently great to be lost in darkness; the bottom of it was on a
level with the water, and was not accessible without a boat.
“That!” said Birger, “that is Polheim’s grave.”
“Do you mean to say that any man was buried there?”
“Not the man himself, only the best part of a man—his reputation.
Polheim was an engineer, and when the first idea of making a practicable
communication between the Wener and the sea was entertained, he
attempted to carry it into effect by burrowing out that hole. If he had
succeeded in boring through the rock, he would have accomplished the
largest _jet d’eau_ in the world. However, Government were wise enough to
put a stop to it, and to employ a cleverer man. Polheim died—it is said
of grief,—his body buried at Wenersborg; what became of his soul, I will
not take upon me to say; but as for his reputation, there is no doubt
about that—that lies buried there.”
“That canal certainly is a wonderful work for a country like yours, where
the extent of land is so great, and the produce from it so small.”
“It would have been more wonderful still,” said Birger, “for it would
have been done when the country was still poorer, had it not been for the
Reformation.”
“The Reformation!” said the Captain. “What, in the name of Tenterden
Steeple and the Goodwin Sands, has the Reformation to do with the Gotha
Canal?”
“Not much with the canal, but a good deal with Bishop Brask who planned
it—the man whom Geijer calls, and very deservedly, ‘the friend of
liberty, and the upright friend of his country.’ The present canal,
nearly as you see it now, was sketched out in a letter still preserved,
which was written in the year 1526, by the Bishop, to stout old Thurè
Jensen, whom men called King of East Gothland—that gallant old fellow,
who, when he saw how the Diet of Westeras was going, struck up his
drums and marched forth, swearing that no man in Sweden should make
him heathen, Lutheran, or heretic. Before the Bishop’s scheme could be
converted into a reality, stout old Thurè was a headless corpse, and
Brask a voluntary exile. But the good which men do, lives after them.
Gustavus, who had always respected Brask, and would fain have retained
him in his See of Linköping, carried out many of his plans—and in the
course of time this, as you see, was carried out too, though it was not
for a hundred years or more after the successful king and the deprived
bishop had gone to their respective accounts.”
“Jacob has just been giving us another version of the story,” said the
Captain, “something about Gefjon and Gylfi.”
“O, the Gylfa-Ginning. Stupid old fool!—that did not happen here, but
down in the south, between Sweden and Denmark. So far, however, he is
quite right,—at least, if you believe the Prose Edda; the Goddess Gefjon
was the first canal maker in Sweden, and the event happened in the reign
of King Gylfi.
“Thus it was:—
“King Gylfi ruled over the land of Svithiod (Sweden), and at that
uncertain date which is generally known as ‘once upon a time,’ he
recompensed a strange woman, for some service she had done him, with as
much land as she could plough round with four oxen in a day and a night;
but he did not know, till the share struck deep into the earth and tore
asunder hills and rocks, that it was the Goddess Gefjon that he was
dealing with. So deep were the furrows, that the place where the land had
been became water, for the oxen, which had come from Jötenheim (the land
of the Goths), were really her sons, whom she had yoked to her plough.”
“Phew-w-w,” whistled the Parson.
“What is the matter?” said Birger.
“Only that as Gefjon is the northern Diana, I thought you might have made
a mistake; her nephews, possibly, not her sons?”
“O, that goes for nothing in Sweden,” said the Captain, laughing; “there
are plenty of cases in point. I have no doubt Birger is quite right.”
“Well, if you come to scandalising national divinities,” retorted
Birger, “I am sure that story about Endymion was never cleared up very
satisfactorily.”
“Clear up your own story, at all events, and place the oxen in any
relationship to the maiden goddess which you may think best suited to her
fair fame.”
“Then I will call them what the Edda calls them,” said Birger, gallantly,
“her sons, and never sully the fair fame of the maiden Gefjon either. The
whole is an allegory. Sweden achieved the sea-path, or inland navigation
by the labour of her own sons, and that is what the old Skald Bragi
means when he likens them to oxen, and says—
“‘Four heads and eight eyes bearing,
While hot sweat trickled down them,
The oxen dragged the reft mass
That formed this winsome island.’
And now Gefjon and her sturdy sons have been at work again. The whole
south of Sweden is an island now, and it is this canal from the Cattegat
to the Baltic that makes it so.”
“Well, so it is; and though it is a long while since the days of the
Goddess Gefjon, or even of good Bishop Brask, the work is complete at
last, and a very creditable work it is. I think, by-the-way, that we
English had something to do with it.”
“England had a hand, and a very considerable one, in the other end of
it,” said Birger, “but these locks are home manufacture, and the thing
really has answered very well. See what a trade it has opened with the
Wener only, which was the original plan; the communication with the
Baltic being a sort of after-thought of the Ostergöthlanders, carried
out by Count Platen. This part of the canal, which was opened in 1800,
has made four of our inland counties, Wenersborglan, Mariestadslan,
Carlstadslan, and Orebrö, into so many maritime states; and now the other
end has done the same for Jonköping and Linköping. In national wealth,
it has paid a dozen times over. There is no one who has ever lived,
since the days of Oxenstjerna, to whom we owe so much as we do to Count
Platen. In the very heat of the war—that is to say, in 1808—he conceived
the idea of prolonging the water communication to the Baltic. He went
over to England to inspect, with his own eyes, the Caledonian canal. He
engaged Telford, returned to Sweden, and, within two months, sent in
his plans, with their specification and estimates, which, strange to
say, have not been exceeded in the execution. It is this old part of the
canal, however, which is, at all events, the most showy job; here are
two miles of solid rock cut through, and, as you see, these falls are
pretty high—not less than a hundred and twenty feet of them, besides the
rapids,—they require, therefore, a good many locks; in fact, as you see,
it looks more like a staircase than anything else.”
“It certainly was a singular sight,” said the Captain, “to see our
steamer high above our heads, and the masts of the brigs sticking out
from the tops of the rocks, and far above the highest trees.”
“This part of the canal is the most showy,” said Birger; “no doubt
but Platen’s work was not altogether so easy as it looks. Any one can
appreciate the skill of an engineer, who sees a great body of water
surmounting a steep wall of rock; but a still greater amount of skill
is evidenced in laying out a plan; so as to render such tedious and
expensive works unnecessary. When I was a youngster, I was sent by the
Kongs-Ofwer-Commandant’s Expedition, to survey, by way of practice, the
two lines from our fortress of Wanås-on-Wettern to the two seas, and I
really do not know which is the most wonderful conception. The original
plan was only eight feet deep, but they are deepening it two feet more,
and making the width of the locks twenty-two feet throughout. We shall
see the Linköping battalion at work on this to-morrow. I must go and pay
them a visit while we are staying at Gäddebäck. I know a good many of the
officers.”
“It is a military work, then?”
“Not exactly, though, like most other large undertakings, it is done by
soldiers. It is a speculation, something like those in your own country,
which is taken in hand by shareholders, with a board of directors, though
I believe Government gives them a lift of some sort or other; but in
this country, in time of peace, you can always get as many soldiers as
you want for labourers, from a corporal’s party up to a battalion, or
a brigade, for matter of that. You lodge so much money in the hands of
the Government officer appointed for that purpose, and a regiment, or a
company, or a detachment, receives orders to march and hut themselves
in such a place. Your engineer, or foreman, or bailiff, as the case may
be, gives his orders to the officer in command, who sees them carried
into effect. It costs more in hard money—and, what is a worse thing for
us Swedes, _ready_ money—than any other sort of labour, but it answers
exceedingly well for those who can afford the first outlay, for the men
are under military discipline, and Government are responsible, not only
that you shall have so many men to work, but so many _sober_ men, _fit_
to work, which, in this country, as you know, is not exactly the same
thing.”
“And how do the soldiers like it?” said the Captain, who, though he
did not say so, certainly was thinking that it was not precisely the
situation of an officer and a gentleman, to do duty as foreman of the
works for some speculating farmer, or builder, or engineer.
The idea never seemed to strike Birger, who, by-the-way, belonging to
the Royal Guards, was himself exempt from such service. “It is rather
popular,” said he, “with all classes; the men like it because they have
a considerable increase of pay, and as for the officers, except one
or two who are on duty for the day, they have but a short morning and
evening parade, just to see that their men are all right, and then they
may do what they please. They lose nothing, either, for all places are
equally dull in the summer, when everybody is at work; there can be no
festivities going on anywhere, and so they shoot, or fish, or lounge, or
make love, at their leisure. But here we are at the parade-ground,” he
continued, as they came upon a cleared space in the forest, surrounded
by very neat and compactly-built huts, some of considerable pretensions,
framed with trunks of pines, and walled and roofed with outsides from
the saw-mills, arranged as weather-boards; others, more humble, were
constructed of pine-branches and heather; but all alike compact, neat,
firm, tidy-looking, and arranged in military order, in straight lines,
with their officers’ huts in front.
The sun was not far from its setting, and the soldiers having put aside
their tools, were throwing on their belts in a way that certainly would
not have satisfied an English adjutant, and were hurrying, with their
muskets in their hands, to their respective posts. There was a short
private inspection by the non-commissioned officers, while the band, a
pretty good one, were tuning their instruments; after which the companies
formed into line, faced to the west, and as the lower limb of the sun
touched the horizon, the officers saluted with their swords, the men
presented arms, and accompanied by the band, sang in chorus, every man of
them joining in and taking his part in it, the beginning of Grundtvig’s
glorious hymn to the Trinity.
“O mighty God! we Thee adore,
From our hearts’ depths, for evermore;—
None is in glory like to Thee
Through time and through eternity.
Thy Name is blessed by Cherubim—
Thy Name is blessed by Seraphim—
And songs of praise from earth ascend,
With thine angelic choirs to blend.
Holy art Thou, our God!
Holy art Thou, our God!
Holy art Thou, our God!
Lord of Sabaoth.”
The air was simple enough, though beautifully harmonized; but there is
nothing in the whole compass of music so magnificent as the combination
of some hundreds of human voices trained to sing in harmony; the band
would have injured the effect, but in truth it was hardly heard,
overwhelmed as it was by that volume of sound,—except, indeed, the roll
of drums which accompanied the final “Amen,” swelling and prolonging
the notes, and then dying away like a receding peal of thunder. The men
recovered arms, were dismissed, and in ten minutes were dispersed over
the parade ground, playing leap-frog, fencing, wrestling, foot-ball;
while not a few were lighting fires, and boiling water for their evening
gröd.
Birger stepped on, to see if he could meet with his friend, while the
other two, thinking that they should most likely be in the way among
people who, if they spoke English or French at all, spoke it with
difficulty; turned into the well-beaten track that led to the inn and
landing place of Trollhättan.
Before they arrived there the night had already closed in; that is to
say, it had faded into twilight, for that is the nearest approach which
a northern summer’s night makes to darkness. All that the travellers
then saw of the inn was the light which, glancing from every window,
beamed forth a welcome which it had evidently been beaming forth to
others before them; judging from the din which arose from the evening
relaxations of a dozen or so of jolly subalterns. These, who had money
enough, or who fancied they had money enough to spend in luxury, had
fixed their quarters at the inn, instead of the pretty looking green huts
which their less wealthy or more prudent comrades had run up in the camp.
In fact, the sitting rooms of the inn offered at that time fewer
temptations than the very clean, bare bed-rooms, with their very white
sheets, and very warm down coverlets. Winter and summer alike, the
feather bed is uppermost, and here it was still; though the only reason
why the windows were not left wide open all night, was the clouds of
musquitos which, entering by them, menaced the repose of the sleepers.
Jacob, whom the party had somewhat inconsiderately left in charge of
the baggage, had, much to their surprise, deceived them all in making
no mistake, and leaving nothing behind; the carioles had been landed,
and were ready packed for their journey on the morrow, as duly as if the
fishermen had seen to them themselves; but in his own country Jacob had
become quite a different character, and piqued himself in showing to the
Norwegians in his own person how vast was the superiority of the Swedes.
Birger was not seen again till the party was collected at a sufficiently
early hour of the morning round a magnificent breakfast of fruit and
fish, which had been laid out under the verandah of the inn,—a narrow
esplanade which looked out upon the yet quiet waters of the brimming
Gotha, at the very point where they were gathering their strength for
their first furious plunge.
Most cataracts commence with a rapid: so still and calm was the Gotha
at this point, that the esplanade in question was the general landing
place from Wenersborg, and was furnished with iron rings for the purpose
of mooring the boats, several of which, very fair specimens of Swedish
boat-building, were hanging on to them, scarcely stretching out their
respective painters, so gentle was the current. Among them lay a very
handsome gig with bright sides, well scraped oars, and a white English
ensign fluttering in the morning breeze; from which Moodie, who had come
in state with four rowers, had just landed, and by means of which, the
travellers were to complete their journey.
In truth, Gäddebäck was not very accessible in any other way; it had been
originally built as a pic-nic house by the Mayor of Wenersborg, who, when
he had been half-ruined by the great fire that had taken place there the
year before, was glad enough to contract his expenses, and to find a
person to take it off his hands. It suited Moodie well enough, and its
low rent suited him also, but there were not many men whom it would suit
at all. It had been built exclusively for pleasure parties, and these
were expected to arrive there either by boat or by sledge, according as
the surface of the river was, water or ice. No one had ever troubled
themselves with any other entrance, and it was no sort of drawback to the
place in its original state, that communication with the main land was
entirely cut off. The still, deep brook which gave to the place its name
(pike brook), had spread out behind the house into a broad reedy morass,
which in spring, during the floods, was a broad reedy lake, but in summer
a sort of neutral ground, between land and water, through which was led
a precarious track, which might be passed on wheel, or indeed on foot,
provided the traveller did not object to very clear water, not much above
his knees. The actual spot on which the house was situated in the middle
of all this, was a patch of parky ground, abounding in beautiful timber,
which was five or six feet above the general level; that part of it which
lay next the river was firm, and hard, and covered with short green turf,
but this subsided to landward, first into wet sponge, secondly into
bog, and lastly into reedy water, in proportion as it receded from the
river. The brook, divided by this patch of dry land, soaked into the main
stream, on either end of it, completely insulating the domain.
This suited Moodie exactly, for the little park was full of all sorts of
grouse and other birds, which looked as if they were at perfect liberty,
as indeed they were, only that having had their pinions cut, and not
being able to swim, they could not pass the girdle of water—herons, and
cranes, and bitterns, were stalking about, or watching for fish in the
shallows, like their wild brethren, for though excellent waders, and
quite in their element on the soppy shores to landward, they could not
swim any more than the grouse. There were some deer, also, of various
kinds, but as these had no sort of objection to take the water, they were
confined in little paddocks, those being classed together who would keep
the peace.
On the esplanade, between the house and the river, lay a dozen dogs,
mostly English, on excellent terms with the great brown bear, who, though
perfectly tame, was secured from paying any inquisitive visits to the
deer paddocks by a collar and chain, with which he was made fast to a
substantial post at the door.
The whole front of the house had been occupied by a ball-room, with
windows opening into a verandah. This verandah had become a general
marine store—oars, boat-hooks, masts, sails, were arranged along it on
hooks; but so tidily and regularly were they disposed, that they looked
as if they had been placed there for ornament;—fishing rods of all
lengths were there, and a large assortment of eel-lines and night-lines,
and trimmers, and gaffs, and pike-wires, and spears, and other poaching
implements, together with a goodly assortment of drags and flues in the
back ground; while a full-sized casting net, hung up to dry, displayed
its leaded semi-circle to the sun: for be it remembered, Moodie made
a profit of his pleasure, and not only kept his own establishment in
fish, but very seldom allowed the Gotheborg steamer to pass without
dispatching in her a heavy birchen basket, consigned to Jacob Lindegren,
the fishmonger.
Neither was the interior at all out of character: the ball-room had been
divided by wooden partitions into three very tolerable apartments—an
ante-room or broad passage in the middle, and on either side his dining
room and what he called his study, that is to say, the place where he
made his flies. The passage, which was sufficiently littered, contained
little other furniture than a turning-lathe and a carpenter’s bench, with
shelves and pigeon-holes round the sides for the necessary tools; but
both rooms were pictures of tidiness; the furniture was plain enough,
certainly, but the walls were covered with sketches, of Moodie’s own
drawing, and with sporting trophies of every kind: huge bear skins and
wolf skins occupied whole panels, surmounted, perhaps, by the grinning
skull of a lynx, or a huge antlered head with the skin on; between these
were cases containing most of the wild birds found in the country, all
stuffed by his own hands; together with specimens of eggs, hung up in
a pattern, but each labelled with the name of the bird it belonged to.
Between the windows was a formidable armoury, while over one door was
a stuffed otter, and over the other a wild cat, and the rug itself was
formed of badgers’ skins bordered with fox; for Moodie had imported an
English grate and had built a fire-place, besides the invariable stove.
Such was the sportsman’s paradise, into which Moodie welcomed his guests.
There was accommodation, such as it was, for an unlimited number of
them; for there were several empty rooms of one sort or another; and a
rough box, hastily run up with planks from the saw mills, filled with
dry poplar leaves and covered with a bear skin, was a bed much better
than any of them had been accustomed to. As for washing, their toilet
apparatus was laid out every morning on the stage to which the boats
were moored, and a dive into the river was the very best way of washing
the face after shaving,—at least, so Moodie seemed to think, for though
his room was pretty well fitted up, inasmuch as such toilet would be
difficult in the winter, when the river was as hard as a stone, in summer
he always chose the boat stage for his own dressing room, as well as for
that of his guests.
No one was sorry for a rest; journals had to be written up, notes had to
be compared; there was something, too, in lounging lazily in the sun, or
smoking a peaceful cigar under the shade of the awning, or teasing the
bear, or feeding the grouse, and knowing all the while that there was no
duty neglected, and no opportunity lost. Not but that excursions in a
quiet way were made—now upon the water with the trolling tackle, now on
the high grounds of the royal forest, now on neither land nor water, but
on the marshy debateable land, astonishing the ducks that swarmed among
the reed beds which divide the left bank of the river from the sound
land; but nothing very particular was done, beyond existing in a very
high state of quiet enjoyment.
CHAPTER XIX.
GÄDDEBÄCK.
“I hung fine garments
On two wooden men
Who stand on the wall;
Heroes they seemed to be
When they were clothed;
The unclad are despisèd.”
_Hávamál._
The day had been oppressively hot, more actual heat, perhaps—reckoning
by the degrees of Reaumur or Farenheit—than had been experienced on the
fjeld of the Tellemark;—but that was dry, bracing, exhilarating heat,
such as is felt on the mountain side; this was the moist, feverish
warmth, caused by the sun’s rays acting on the wide expanse of the Wener
Sjön and its marshy shores, and secretly and imperceptibly drawing up
vapours, which would eventually fall in rain,—not, perhaps, on the spot
from which they had been raised, but on the cold distant mountains of
Fille Fjeld, which at once attracted and condensed them. There was not a
cloud in the sky, but the sun would not shine brightly or cheerily either.
The long summer’s day was, however, drawing to a close, and the party
were sitting at the extreme end of a little jetty which Moodie had built
out into the river on piles of solid fir. This was covered with an awning
of striped duck,—of little use as an awning so late in the day, for the
sun was low enough to peep under it, but still kept up, partly to tempt
the air of wind, which every now and then fluttered its vandyked border,
and partly as a preservative against the dews, which would be sure to
fall as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon.
From a flag-staff, stepped on the outermost pile, hung a huge red English
ensign, every now and then stirring in the breeze, half unrolling its
lazy folds and then dropping motionless against its staff. Moodie was
very particular about this flag, and hoisted it every morning with his
own hands,—for ever since he had fairly turned his back upon his native
land, he had become intensely national.
In the front and beneath them the broad, clear, deep, still, brimming
river, full four hundred yards from bank to bank, glided quietly along
with a calm unbroken surface, and a motion hardly sufficient to bring
a strain upon the chain cable of the little cutter that was moored
some twenty yards off the head of the pier, with her triangular burgee
fluttering out in the breeze that was not strong enough to move the
heavier ensign, and displaying the red cross and the golden R.Y.S. so
well known in every port in Europe. It was a singular thing to see it
here though, a hundred miles in the heart of Sweden, with the tremendous
Falls of Trollhättan between it and the sea.
Made fast to the rails of the jetty were half a dozen boats, of all
shapes and sizes—from the long narrow galley with its four well-scraped
ashen oars, to the little white flat-bottomed duck-punt,—for Gäddebäck,
though not, strictly speaking, an island, except during the freshets of
early summer, was so perfectly insulated by the sluggish brook and the
marshy ground through which it flowed, as to make all communication with
the main land, except by boat, extremely precarious.
Dinner had been over for some time, and the party had adjourned to the
jetty, as the coolest place they could find. They were sitting with their
wine glasses before them, while two or three bottles of light claret were
towing overboard, suspended in the cool water of the river by as many
night-lines.
“Upon my word,” said the Captain, throwing open his waistcoat, “the
West Indies is a fool to this; and it is not unlike a tropical climate
either,—moist, damp, and hot,—stewing rather than broiling.”
“To tell you the truth,” said the Parson, “I am surprised at your
selecting this spot for your residence, beautiful as it certainly is;
with all this marsh land about it, it cannot fail to be unhealthy.”
“Well, I do not know,” said Moodie, “they do talk of agues, certainly,
but these things never hurt me, and the place suits me well enough; there
is plenty of shooting—ducks and snipes without end; and on the other side
of that range of heights, not three miles from us, is a royal forest,
well preserved, in which I have full permission to kill anything I like,
except stags, elks, and perhaps peasants, though they do not make much
fuss about a man or two either; and, besides, the Ofwer Jagmästere is
a particular friend of mine. And as for fishing, it is not altogether
such as I should choose, no doubt, for it is mostly trolling,—but there
is some capital fishing, such as it is. I will show you what we can
do to-morrow at the upper rapids,—we have not been there yet. It is a
singular sort of sport, certainly; but if you are half the poacher you
used to be, you will like it for its novelty. However, the greatest
attraction that the place has in my eyes, lies in its situation: this
river is the high road from Gotheborg to Stockholm, and steamers pass it
every day. Living on this Robinson Crusoe island of mine, I can command
the best market in the country, and in fact, I do realize a very fair
income by my fish and my game. Look at my yacht, too, where else could I
put it to so great use. A short canal and a single lock passes me into
the great lake Wener, where I command some of the best rivers and some
of the best bear-country in Sweden. If I want to smell salt water again,
I have but to put my cutter in tow of the market-tug, and to steam away
to Gotheborg; and when I want to be sulky, here I am, looking after my
menagerie of Scandinavian birds and beasts, and adding odds and ends
to my museum. I dare say people wonder at the old flag ‘that braved a
thousand years, the battle and the breeze,’ as they pass backward and
forward in the steamers; but no one stops here, and you may be sure no
one would find me out by land. This is just the place for me; besides, it
is not always so hot as it is now,—I have driven my cariole across this
river, many a time.”
“By the way, what do you do with yourself in the winter?” said the
Captain; “you were never very much given to reading, and your shooting
and fishing must fail you then.”
“Fishing, yes; shooting, no,” said Moodie; “the finest bear shooting is
in the winter.”
“What! do you meet with bears in the forest?”
“Pooh, nonsense! you Englishmen are always fancying that we kick bears
out of every bush in Sweden.”
“You Englishmen!” said Birger, glancing at the flag.
“Well, well,—you Johnny Raws, I should say,—you freshmen—you griffins. I
was just as bad myself, though: I remember the day I landed at Gotheborg,
marching off with my gun over my shoulder to a little wooded valley at
the back of the town where the Gotheborg cockneys have their villas, and
attacking a Swede, dictionary in hand, with ‘Hvar er Bjornerne’—how the
scoundrel laughed.”
“Well, but what do you mean by bear shooting then,—where do you meet with
it?”
“Why, you travel a hundred miles to get a shot at a bear, and think
little of it too. The bear hunter must keep up a correspondence with
the Ofwer Jagmästerer of the different provinces, and get information
whenever the peasants have ringed a bear as they call it—that is to say,
ascertained that he is within a certain circle, and then out with the
sledge and the dogs, and the rifles, and away up the river, or across the
lake, as it may be. You do not meet with a bear at every turning, I can
assure you. I have killed a pretty many though, one way or other, since I
have been here.”
“That you have,” said the Captain,—“at least, if all those trophies that
ornament your walls are honestly come by; but by your own showing, you
cannot be hunting every day in the week; what do you do on the off-days?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I was dull enough the first winter; you
will hardly believe it, but I took to reading—I did indeed; you may
laugh, but it is quite true. I got up the natural history of the country
thoroughly, and crammed Linnæus. But I soon found something better to
do, when I began to get acquainted with the people, worthy souls that
they are. I had invitations without end, and got on capitally with
them,—quite a popular character I am.”
“The English are popular,” said the Parson, certainly; “high and low
we have found that, wherever we have been. What we English have done
to deserve it is more than I can say; but Norway and Sweden, agreeing
in nothing else, agree at all events in doing honour to the English
traveller.”
“Do not be taking the conceit out of Moodie”, said Birger; “it is evident
that he would have you to understand that it is he, the individual,—not
he, the Englishman, who is thus honoured and caressed.”
“You need not be afraid of doing that,” said the Captain; “ever since I
have known him, Moodie has been a very great man,—in his own eyes, at all
events.”
“Why, you must know I am a great man here,” said Moodie, “whatever I was
in my own country. I am a kammerjunker—no less.”
“A what?” said the Captain.
“A kammerjunker; and, in virtue of it, I have a right to go before every
one of you.”
“Well, but how came you to be a what-do-you-call-him? ‘Who gave you that
name?’ as the Catechism says.”
“Not ‘my godfathers and godmothers,’ certainly,” said Moodie, “and I
hadn’t it ‘in my baptism;’ but I will tell you how it was. Sweden, in
the winter, is as different from the same country in the summer as
Connaught from Paradise. In the winter, they are fiddling, and dancing,
and singing, from night to morn, and from morn to snowy eve. There is
not much else to do, as you say, that is the truth of it, unless one
happens to hear of a bear; so when I came to understand a little of
their lingo, I was very glad to go to their jollifications. The people
were always very civil in asking me, wherever I was—that I must say for
them. Now we, in England, don’t care much about precedence, as you know.
Most of us do not know who is first and who is last, and the rest do not
care; and those who feel most secure of their rank, are generally too
proud to take the trouble of asserting it. But it is not so here; they
all know their places, like schoolboys, and fight for them like dogs
at a feeding-trough if you happen to make a mistake about them—a thing
which the natives never do. I did not care much about this at first, no
Englishman would,—in fact, I did not understand it; but after a bit it
got to be very unpleasant—it made me a marked man. Here was I, an English
gentleman, as noble as the king—and a little more so than that Brummagem
article of theirs,—shoved down, not only by counts and barons, which I
did not like over and above; for half the people you meet with here are
counts and barons,—and precious queer ones, some of them; but, besides
this, there were their confounded orders of knighthood: there are knights
of the Cherubim and Seraphim[45], and knights of the Elephant and Castle,
and knights of the Goose and Gridiron, and Heaven knows what besides.
Then came the officials, from the prime minister down to the post-master,
and their sons and grandsons. Why, there was not a tradesman I dealt
with, hardly a beggar I gave a shilling to, who had not a clear right to
go before me—aye, and showed every disposition to exercise it, too!
“One day I was ass enough to be vexed because my tailor, who was knight
of the Shears and Cabbage, or something of the sort, elbowed his way
before me; and one of my friends, I think it was this very Bjornstjerna,
the Ofwer Jagmästere, offered to get me a settled precedence. ‘Yours
is not a new family,’ says he.—Of course it was not, everybody knew
the Moodies, of Hampshire.—Well, that was all right; I had only to
get my sixteen quarters blazoned, and he would see that I was made a
kammerjunker. Sixteen quarters! thought I. I had had a great grandfather,
that is certain, for there he lies in Havant Church, with a ton of marble
over him, and his arms on the top of that, a chevron ermine between three
mermaids ppr. to cheer him up on his road to Paradise. He was a great
man, too, and looked as if he was the son of somebody, as the Spaniards
say, to judge by the picture of his coach-and-six, and outriders with
French-horns, which is hanging up in our hall, at Havant Manor. But he
had played ‘ducks and drakes’ with his guineas, and as for his quarters,
you know we don’t greatly trouble ourselves with such matters.
“Well, I told my difficulty to one of my friends in Stockholm—an idle
young scamp of an _attaché_. ‘Why the devil don’t you write to the
Herald’s College,’ said he, ‘they will trace your descent from the
Preadamite Grants,[46] if you pay for it. Tell them to make you up a
pedigree for Sweden, and, my life for it, they will get it up well.’
“I could not lose by it, you know, so I wrote, and, sure enough, they
found out that the old family had come over with Duke Rollo, and had
a hand in that conquest of ‘Normandie,’ which your fellow Torkel is
continually dinning into our ears. They found out, too, that our name
originally was spelt ‘Modige,’ which, in old Swedish, means ‘dashing,’
and that it was a title of honour, given to us for our gallantry in the
said conquest. And, what was pat to the present purpose, Duke Rollo
had conferred on us the honour of hereditary chamberlains, as soon as
ever he had a court to appoint us to. How we came to England I forget—I
suppose, though, it was with Duke William,—and what we did there I do
not know, unless it was plundering the Saxons, like the rest; but, at
all events, I got a string of shields, fit to roof Valhalla, and a
beautiful tree—rather an expensive plant it was, though, for I paid
sixty pounds for it. However, Bjornstjerna and my friend the _attaché_
marched off with the chevron ermine and the three mermaids to the
Hof-Ofwer-Something-or-other, and brought me back a sheet of parchment
with a big seal hanging from it, giving me the privilege of pulling off
the inexpressibles of the third prince of the blood royal—whenever it
should please Providence to bless his Majesty with one,—and in virtue of
that office to style myself kammerjunker.”
“So you are a greater man than your tailor, now?”
“O yes,” said Moodie, “I take precedence of all manner of people, and
moreover wear, whenever I please—which is not very often, you may be
sure,—a concern in my button-hole, something like what I used to wear
when I was Noble Grand of the Julius Cæsar Lodge of Oddfellows, at South
Marden. You may depend upon it I am something very great indeed, though I
must admit I do not know exactly what.”
“Very great indeed!” said Birger, who, as may be supposed, did not
feel his country particularly flattered by Moodie’s absurd—not to say
ungrateful—description of his honours, and retorted with a bit of Swedish
slang: “I am sure you are something ending in ‘ral,’ as the Karing’s wife
said to her husband; it certainly is not admiral—perhaps it is corporal?”
“Upon my word, Birger, I beg your pardon,” said Moodie, in some
confusion. “You speak English so perfectly, and look so like an
Englishman, that I forgot we are not all countrymen together.”
“Well, well,” said Birger, good humouredly, “I must confess there is a
great deal too much of truth in your satire, and that is what makes the
sting of it.”
“Never mind him, Birger,” said the Parson; “you Swedes are uncommon fine
fellows, and carry your honours in your history; I should like to know
what Europe would have done in the thirty years war, if it had not been
for Gustaf Adolph and Oxenstjerna? Why, it was you who thrashed Czar
Peter and all the Russias into something like civilization, and were the
making of his armies by licking them. Gallantly, too, did you hold your
own, under the other Gustaf, against the giant you had made; and I have
no doubt but that you would have thrashed the French giant Nap., as well
as the Russian giant Peter, if you had only made up your minds in time
which side you meant to fight on. But for all that, it is a fact, as
Moodie says, that, like the girls, you are a little too fond of ribbons.”
“It is very true,” said Birger; “we depreciate our own honours by our
over-lavish distribution of them. That which is plentiful, is cheap—that
which is little, valued. It is the law of nature, and as true of stars
and ribbons as it is of green peas and early potatoes.”
“To be sure it is,” said the Captain; “what regiment in our service cares
a button for the distinction of ‘Royal,’ which it shares with the Royal
African condemned corps? Who prizes the Waterloo medal, which places in
the same category the Englishman who fought and the Belgian who ran?”
“Yes,” said Moodie, who had by this time done blushing at his blunder,
“at the Congress of Vienna, Lord Castlereagh sat among the starry host of
plenipotentiaries in a plain blue coat, without one solitary decoration.
‘Ma foi! c’est bien distingué,’ said good Bishop Talleyrand, who himself
had a star for every oath he had broken, and whose tailor could not find
room on his coat for all of them!”
“It was ‘distingué,’” said the Captain; “he belonged to a country whose
citizens do their duty for their duty’s sake. That is distinction enough
for any man.”
“Yes,” said Birger, “_if they do_—but a good deal depends on that little
particle;—however, even if citizens could be got, whenever wanted, to do
their duty for their duty’s sake, which I doubt; distinctions, which of
course involve precedence, are useful in themselves. In your country,
people are always jealously guarding their position in society; you are
always on the look out, lest some interloper should thrust you out, or
refuse you the honour you consider your due. This is what makes you
Englishmen so unsociable and exclusive; you are always on guard, walking
sentry over your own honour. Now look at our people—our barons and our
tradesmen, our princes and our farmers, all meet together without fear of
losing caste, because every one has his position secured to him, beyond
the possibility of invasion. You dare not do this.”
“Do not say, ‘you,’” broke in the Captain, “I, thank God! am a gentleman
born, and have not to work for my daily dignity.”
“That is only another instance of what I assert—‘a gentleman born!’ you
can afford to do what we all do, because, by birth or by accident, you
find yourself in the very position in which we Swedes are all placed by
the customs of our country.”
“That is all very true,” said the Parson; “for the amenities of life,
I grant your system is by far the best; men live happier and more
contentedly under it; and it certainly does produce a much more genial
and social intercourse among all classes, that men are dependent for
their dignity on something else than their wine merchant and their
pastry-cook. Still, yours is not the condition of progress; your people
live content, perhaps happy, in their fixed position; but every man of
ours, who is working for his daily dignity, as the Captain calls it,
is, in a very unpleasant and uncomfortable manner, pressing onward and
improving his own condition. Now, that nation in which every man is
continually excited to improve his condition, is nationally progressive;
that, in which every man is content in his own place, is nationally
stationary. I do not say which is the best principle, only, there is
something to be said on the other side. One thing is certain, our
principle is not the same as yours; and it is excusable, when we do
borrow from the continent, if we make a generous blunder in a science
which we do not understand, and in the largeness of our heart, give
medals to runaway Belgians, without remembering that the honour of
the medal lies not in the silver, but in the action which the silver
commemorates, and that, in truth, what we have given to the cowards who
ran, we must have filched from the brave fellows who had earned for that
medal its value.”
“So far, at all events, you are right,” said Birger, “that your nation
does not understand the science of decorations any more than ours. You
helped to spoil your own Waterloo medal much more than ever the Belgians
spoiled it, and that not altogether from your largeness of heart. If I
had been a pink-faced ensign of that day, I should have been ashamed to
wear my medal in the presence of a Peninsular veteran, who had done five
hundred times as much as I. It was a better feeling than that of being
ranked with the Belgians that made your people shy of their Waterloo
medals. And now that you begin to distribute your decorations, you do
not know how to do it: first of all you give it for any little trumpery
affair, like sticking those Chinese pigs, and then you give it to all who
have seen the smoke of the gunpowder.”
“We presume that every one present does his duty, and that none can do
more,” said the Captain.
“A very pretty poetical fiction,” said Birger, “pity that it is a
fiction. However, one thing is certain—that will never be prized that is
shared by all alike; you see that at once in our case—it is equally true
in you own.”
Just then the Stockholm steamer, _Daniel Thunberg_, hove in sight, with
her light blue pennant of smoke, so unlike the black volumes that roll
from the chimneys of coal-burning Englishmen.
“They have got something on board for us,” said Moodie; “that calico
concern on her foremast is their best Swedish imitation of our English
jack, and they always hoist it whenever they have got a letter or
parcel for me. There goes a gun; those rascals are always glad of any
opportunity for making a bang. Hallo, there! Nils!” continued he, in
Swedish, to the master of his yacht, who had gone to sleep against the
heel of the bowsprit, with his pipe in his mouth; “answer that signal,
and send a boat on board the steamer.”
He spoke as if he had a frigate’s crew at his command. Nils started
up, and as he happened, at that moment at least, to be the captain and
the whole ship’s company in his own person, he proceeded to obey both
orders personally—in a few minutes was alongside the gay little craft,
and returned with a letter, the writer of which, to judge from the
superscription he placed upon it, must have considered Moodie a very
great man indeed, so many titles did he prefix to his name—High-born and
Illustrious were the very least of them.
Moodie, a little afraid of the Captain’s satire—though the direction,
after all, was nothing more than the ordinary Swedish form in which
one gentleman addresses another, and quite as appropriate as our much
mis-used esquire,—crumpled up the envelope in great haste.
“Hurrah!” said he, flourishing the letter over his head, “this is the
very thing for us—you are in high luck; look here.”
“What is it?” said the Captain, for the letter, which was in Swedish and
written in the Swedish character, might as well have been Cyrillic or
Uncial, for anything he could make out of it.
“Why, there is to be a skal in Wermeland, next Tuesday; a grand bear
hunt, in which they drive twenty or thirty miles of country; this letter
is from the very man I have been speaking of—Bjornstjerna, the Ofwer
Jagmästere, and my own particular friend. Some half dozen respectable
farmers have made oath to him that they have been annoyed by bears, and
he tells me he has written to the præster of the neighbourhood, to give
notice from their pulpits, and to turn out the whole country. That is the
legal form on such occasions, and there is a heavy fine for any man who
does not obey it.”
“Hurrah!” said the Captain, in his turn, “then we shall kill a bear at
last.”
“That you will,” said Moodie; “Bjornstjerna knows his business as well
as any man in Sweden; there are people who fancy his patronymic a
nick-name[47] of his own earning. He would not be turning out the country
for nothing, you may depend on it.”
“Where is this to take place?”
“Why, in Upper Wermeland, as I told you, near Lysvic, not very far from
the banks of the Klara, a river I know well, as full of grayling as it
can hold; not that that has much to do with bear hunting. It is not above
a hundred and fifty or two hundred miles from this.”
“Quite in the neighbourhood,” said the Captain, laughing.
“O that is nothing, we never mind a hundred miles or so. If we get
anything like a breeze, we will run across the Wener, in the yacht, we
can send the carioles on by land to Amal, and we will pick up a waggon,
or something, for the men, at there or at Carlstad; and then you will
see how we will rattle up the country. We must send a boat, though, to
Wenersborg this very night, and tell the post-master to make out a forbud
for us; it will not do to trust to chance on such an occasion as this,
for we shall have to collect a good many horses at every station. Let me
see, we shall want one for each of us, and three for the waggon, that
will make seven; and I suppose they will charge half a horse more besides
the forbud; for we shall have four men with us, and we must take things
enough to make us comfortable, for I dare say we shall have a week in
the forest, one way or the other. Come, finish that bottle, and we will
go in and have some coffee; it is not so well to stay out here at night
when that blue mist is hanging on the swamp; besides, these rascally
musquitoes are anything but pleasant.”
CHAPTER XX.
WENERN.
“The Night has covered her beauty. Her hair sighs on Ocean’s
wind. Her robe streams in dusky wreaths. She is like the fair
Spirit of heaven in the midst of its shadowy mist.
“From the wood-skirted waters of Lago ascend at times
grey-bosomed mists, when the gates of the West are closed on
the Sun’s eagle eye. Wide over Lara’s stream is poured the
vapour dark and deep. The Moon, like a dim shield, is swimming
through its folds.
“‘Spread the sail,’ said the King; ‘seize the winds as they
pour from Lena.’ We rose on the wave with songs,—we rushed with
joy through the foam of the deep.”
_Ossian._
“So peaceful, calm, and leaden grey,
Beneath our keel the waters lay,
Parting around the vessel’s prow
With rippling murmur, sweet and low,—
And rising slowly from the lake,
The wreathing mists asunder break—
Revealing all concealed before
Of forest, hill, and rocky shore.”
_Anon._
There was no great stir next morning at Gäddebäck, considering the
importance of the expedition; as for preparations, no more preparation
was necessary than is necessary for a detachment of soldiers that has
received its route; the guns and ammunition were paraded, and the
knapsacks were packed in light marching order; the carioles had been
despatched over night to the post-master at Wenersborg, under the charge
of Piersen and one of Moodie’s people, with directions to send on a
forebud, and then to proceed by land to Amal; and the cutter having
received her freight, had, on the preceding evening, hauled out into the
stream in order to be taken in tow by the night steamer, for Wenersborg.
Moodie had determined that there was no need of disappointing himself
or his friends of their day’s fishing at the upper rapids, seeing that
they might easily be taken on the road. He proposed, therefore, joining
the cutter at Wenersborg in the evening, and making the passage to Amal
by night, observing, that by getting what sleep they could while at sea,
they would lose no time, and might start immediately on landing.
“This is rather close shaving, Moodie,” said the Captain, as they sat at
breakfast the following morning,—rather an early breakfast, for Moodie
meant to give the fishing-ground what he called a full due.—“You have
made the evening breeze an element in your calculation; we shall be in a
mess if this night is anything like the last.”
“O, but it will not be, ‘you see ghosts by daylight,’ as our people say;
there is always a breeze on the open lake, it is not like this valley;
besides, if it does fail us, we have only to post; there is a regular
posting track across the lake, with stations on the islands, where they
keep boats in the summer and horses in the winter. If the breeze does
fail us, which I tell you it will not, we have only to send the dingy to
Leckö or Lurön, whichever we may be nearest to, and get boats enough to
carry us all.”
The Parson made no opposition, though in his heart he agreed with the
Captain that the experiment might very possibly involve the loss of
their ultimate object, the skål; the salmo ferox was, however, a new
fish to him, and notwithstanding all he had said in its disparagement
on the banks of the Torjedahl, he would not much have liked to lose his
chance of landing one. By his advice a light rod or two were added to the
baggage,—for the rivers north of the Wener abound in grayling, though,
strange to say, these delicate fish are never found south of it.
The four-oared gig being the fastest pulling boat, carried them up the
stream to the point at which the great canal leaves the river; beyond
this it ceases to be navigable on account of its rocks and rapids, but
for this very reason becomes much more valuable as a fishing preserve.
At these rapids, which was the crack station of all Moodie’s fishery,
was a sort of out-post, where he had a keeper’s house, with a separate
establishment of boats. The Captain turned up his eyes a little at
hearing of this fresh proof of his friend’s magnificence; but it sounds
grander to English ears than it is in fact, for Moodie made money by
his fishery, and of course required men, not only to preserve it, but
to catch the fish while he was absent on any roving expedition like the
present; and as for boats, where planks may be had at the saw-mills for
almost nothing, and where every man is more or less of a carpenter,
rough fishing punts are articles of very small expense indeed, and are
generally built at home.
It is said that the great lake, Wener, even now the largest in Europe,
was once much larger; that it once extended to the falls of Trollhättan;
that all the low-lying and marshy shores, which are now the delight
of ducks and the glory of musquitoes, were once under water, but that
the stream having gradually worked its way over the falls, like a saw,
continually wearing away the rock from which it fell, and carrying it
off, portion by portion, opened a deeper passage, and that the lake has
gradually receded to its present limits.
This of course, happened in Preadamite times, or, to use the language
of the allegorical history of creation supplied by the prose Edda—in
those days, “before the sons of Bör had slain the giant Ymir.”[48] And
certainly the formation of the valley afforded some grounds for the
conjecture: two low lines of hills, steep and cliff-shaped, suggested
readily the idea of Preadamite banks; while the flat bottom of the
valley, in many places irrecoverably marshy, in all liable to be covered
with water whenever the river is in flood, looked quite as much like the
bottom of a drained pond as it did like the real land. It was not without
its beauty, either; if ever it had been a lake, it must have been a
lake studded with low islands, and these, as well as much of the marshy
ground, were covered with forests, hiding, by the luxuriance of their
growth, the numerous cultivated spots which intervened.
It was a very different description of scenery to that of Norway
certainly, for the hills of Hunneberg and Halleberg, which bound the view
to the east and contain some very valuable limestone quarries, are, what
limestone soil invariably is, tame and monotonous. They, however, abound
in oak—a very rare tree in the north,—and also in deer and roe-bucks,
which are not common either, but this being a royal forest, they were
probably better looked after than they are in private lands, and Moodie,
who, practically, had the rangership, as he was the only man allowed to
shoot there, was scrupulously particular, and would as soon have thought
of shooting a keeper as of shooting a deer.
The rapids are formed by a ridge of rock which crosses the river, over
which it pours down one or two steps leaving deep broad pools of eddying
water between them. The whole of this part of the river is overhung with
trees of the largest growth which Sweden affords, and is as beautiful a
spot as any they had seen. As the rocks are extremely rugged, the river
is of very unequal breadth,—the banks, at one place, approaching so near
to each other, that an Alpine bridge is formed of pine trees thrown
across it. Four of the longest firs that could be found, with their
stems resting on the rocks, are tied together in pairs, at their upper
ends, by means of two iron bands, forming a broad Gothic arch. This is
the skeleton of the bridge; the horizontal timbers, which were laid for
the footways, passed them at about a third of their height, like the
cross-bar of the letter A, and formed ties to steady them as well as to
support the rest of the structure. It was an exceedingly picturesque
affair, and told well for the ingenuity of the architect.
This bridge was their first stage. The keeper’s hut commanded the pools
both above and below the bridge, and had establishments of boats for both
divisions of the river—for there was considerable difficulty in getting a
boat from one to the other.
The salmo ferox, when small, is often caught with a fly, and may be so
caught when fourteen or sixteen pounds weight, but this is not a very
common occurrence. The usual way of fishing for him is with a large litch
of six pairs of hooks and a lip-hook, very heavily loaded and baited
with a bleak or a gwinead, of which there are plenty in the river. A
boat is absolutely necessary. The fisherman stands in the stern, and
runs out some thirty yards of the line heavily loaded, with a short
stiff pike-rod; the boat must be kept continually traversing the stream,
beginning at the head of it and quartering it down to the foot, while
the troller at the stern, with the point of his rod low, keeps his bait
spinning in jerks,—the object being to imitate a sick or wounded fish.
At each turn of the boat, the line must be gathered in by the hand, or
the edges of the rapids, which indeed are the most likely parts, would be
untried; four out of five fish are caught while the boats are in the act
of turning.
This rather monotonous description of sport had gone on for some time,
when the Parson felt the rod nearly taken out of his hand by the rush
of a fish. The battle was furious, for the salmo ferox does not belie
his name, but it was a mere trial of tackle, without any opportunity for
the exercise of skill,—carried on, too, at the bottom of water twenty
feet deep; and when, after a quarter of an hour’s boring against the
bottom, the Parson succeeded in bringing to the gaff his huge capture, he
declared he had done enough for fame, struck up his rod, sought the lower
pool in pursuit of gös and id, with which, as well as with trout, it was
said to abound.
The Swedes say that gös is a fish very difficult to catch; to an
Englishman, by far the most difficult part of the business is to name
the fish when he has caught it. Certainly, no one is qualified to do so
who speaks of Göthe under his English appellations of Goth and Goaty:
the dotted o affects and softens the preceding consonant as well as the
vowel, and the name of this fish is pronounced much as if it was spelt
“yeus,” in French letters. The difficulty experienced by the Swedes in
catching it, arises from the fact of its requiring fine tackle in the
clear waters which it frequents, instead of the coarse gimp or wire which
is sufficient for the rash and headlong pike; in all other respects the
habits of the two fish are very similar, except that the gös is a much
smaller fish, and very much more prized. For him, the Parson was content
with setting lay-lines with live baits and considerable length of fine
gut, while he directed his personal attention to the id.
In every particular, except one, the id is a chub; his haunts, his
habits, his food are those of a chub; in looks, too—though certainly not
altogether so clumsy, and, so to speak, chubby,—he reminds one forcibly
of the chub family. He is something like the half-polished parvenu in his
transition state of existence, just admitted into aristocratic circles,
but, as yet, unable entirely to lay aside his brandy-and-water habits
and feelings. In every particular, _except one_, the id is a chub, and
that is, that he is by far the best eating of any of the cyprinæ; in
fact, so far as the pot goes, he is a very respectable prize. The Parson,
who, in his youth, had caught many a chub, and was fully aware of the
zoological affinity of the two fish, was by no means at a loss for
subjects of mutual interest between himself and his new introduction; a
fly, resembling, as near as it could be made on the spur of the moment,
a humble-bee, was tied on his finest gut, and the boat, anchored in
the stern, was by slow degrees permitted to descend within long-cast
of a still, over-shaded pool: the fly, thrown from as great a distance
as he could command, fell as lightly as so clumsy a combination of fur
and feathers could be expected to fall, and was moved very slowly and
regularly over, or rather through, the water; for, as it may be supposed,
the length of line caused it to sink a few inches below the surface.
His science was not unrewarded, for, before long, a sluggish roll in the
waters, and a strong, obstinate, pig-headed pull at his line announced a
capture. This was quickly followed by others, for id, though gregarious,
are quite as indifferent to the troubles of their neighbours as if they
were human creatures; provided you do not show yourself and alarm them
for their individual safety, their friend may kick and struggle before
their eyes, without causing a single wag of their selfish tails.
It was not bad fun upon the whole, for the id, though not possessing a
tithe of the life and activity of the salmo genus, pull like donkeys,
and might have lasted some time longer, for the Parson was getting
interested, when Jacob was seen making his leisurely way along the
bank, for the purpose of announcing “mid-dag’s mad.” The ground was
sufficiently tangled, and Torkel, who was managing the boat and landing
the fish, was extremely amused at the air of vexation and annoyance
with which he dipped under a low-spreading fir branch, or put aside a
too affectionate bramble. About a hundred yards above the id pool was a
little beach of the whitest and smoothest sand that ever fairy danced
upon. From the point where the boat was anchored, it was evident that
this was caused by a little dull-looking stream, which had brought the
white particles from the hills during the floods; but which then, very
suspiciously, did _not_ run into the river, but lost itself behind the
white beach. All this was lost upon Jacob, who was in the wood, and who,
not liking the tangled ground, made a valorous jump on to the white beach.
“Der var et spring af en Leerovn!” shouted Torkel, quoting a Danish
proverb (“there was a jump for a tile-stove!”)—as poor Jacob flopped
through the thin crust of white sand into a bed of black, tenacious
clay, in which he seemed planted up to his middle, with his long flowing
coat-tails spread out upon the unbroken sand.
The more he screamed with fear, the more they screamed with laughter.
There was not the slightest danger, for he had evidently got as far as he
meant to sink; but as for getting out without a purchase from something
solid, the thing was impossible.
“We must have another fish,” said Torkel, to make up the dozen; “and it
will be impossible to get Jacob out without spoiling the pool by pulling
the boat across it.”
The Parson coolly took another cast,—Jacob screamed louder than ever.
“Bother that fellow,—I have missed him,” said the Parson, meaning not
Jacob, but the fish.
“Try again,” said Torkel, coolly, “you will get him next time.”
A despairing shriek from Jacob.
“Ah! that is in him!—this is the biggest we have had yet! mind what you
are about with the landing-net,—do not let him run under the boat!
Well, really, we must pull out poor Jacob, or he will poison us with bad
cookery, out of revenge. Up killick! or whatever you call it in your
language, and shove across to him.”
But when they landed, they seemed as far from the rescue as ever. Jacob
had jumped vigorously, and the bank from which he had jumped was high. To
reach him was impossible, and to get out on the sand would be to share
his fate. While Torkel was trying to slip down the bank, the Parson took
out his knife to cut a branch.
“Stop! stop!” said Torkel, who, unsuccessful, had scrambled back. “What
are you doing?—we shall all suffer for this; it is elder that you are
cutting.”
“Well! what then?”
“Why, if we take it without asking for it, the elves will have power over
us for nine days, and the chances are, some of us will die suddenly.”
The Parson was inclined to laugh, but he did not, and turned to look for
a branch of less dangerous wood; but Torkel, placing himself before it,
taking off his hat and bowing three times to the tree, said, “Elf-mother!
elf-mother! let me have some of thy elder, and I will give thee something
of mine.”
The elf-mother certainly did not refuse, and Torkel took silence for
consent, which it proverbially is, and cut away at the bough, which,
stripped of its side branches, formed a communication with the imbedded
Jacob, who, black without and sulky within, and, as Torkel said, looking
more like a pig than ever, was dragged floundering to the shore,—not at
all the more pleased when Torkel reminded him that, as they were in light
marching order, he would have to wash his shirt, trousers, and stockings,
and to sit without them till they were dry.
When the party met at their mid-dag’s mad, which was not till long
after the Swedish time for mid-dag’s mad had passed, there was a very
respectable show of fish—not only enough for the cutter, but also a very
handsome basket for the Gotheborg steamer that evening, which was duly
packed and forwarded in a light cart to the locks; while the party,
shouldering their weapons and that part of their prize which they had
reserved for themselves, took the forest path to Wenersborg. Before
sundown they were safely established on board the little cutter, who
immediately tripped her anchor, hoisted jib and foresail—for the mainsail
was already set,—payed off slowly before it, and stood out into the lake,
which was glowingly reflecting the red beams of the setting sun, but
still faintly rippling under the easterly breeze.
“Did not I tell you so?” said Moodie, who, seating himself with his legs
dangling down the well, had assumed the tiller just as a gentleman drives
his own carriage; “we have had a capital day’s sport, and got a glorious
breakfast for to-morrow. I have turned a few bancos, which will help to
pay for the trip, and here we are, resting from our labours while the
wind is carrying us on our journey.”
“I hope it will stand,” said old Nils, “but it is easterly, you see, and
the sun is setting; the wind does not like to blow in the face of the
sun.”
“Go to the—Strömkarl—your old croaker, and check the main-sheet; you
have got the sail a fathom too flat. The wind is drawing round to the
southward, as any one may see; ease off the jib and foresail too, while
you are about it.”
The fact was, that the wind had stood steady enough, but Moodie, in his
anxiety, had let her fall off a couple of points, which Nils saw, but
was too sulky to mention, and which the rest of the party did not see,
because, as strangers, they were ignorant of the true course, and there
was no binnacle, or, so far as they could see, compass of any kind,
besides those they had in their pockets.
The cutter was half-decked, with a tidy little cabin forward, and a
couple of bunks for sleeping—one on each side of the well; in these the
party very shortly disposed themselves, for they knew that a pretty stiff
day’s work lay before them; and having established the best defence in
their power against the musquitoes, slept as campaigners sleep, in right
down earnest.
“Hallo, Nils! where are we?” asked a sleepy voice next morning.
The Captain, who had curled himself into the opposite bunk, was not quite
certain whether it was not still a part of his dreams.
The next call was quite enough to settle this fact.
“Nils!” roared Moodie, “why Nils! confound the fellow, I believe he is
asleep.”
And so, sure enough, he was, with his head on the rudder-case, as fast as
any one of the seven sleepers of Ephesus; and poor Nils was by no means
singular in this respect—passengers were asleep, attendants were asleep,
dogs were asleep, Jacob was asleep and snoring, the winds were asleep,
everything was asleep but the sails, and they were waving to and fro with
the knittles pattering against their surfaces, and shaking the night dew
on the deck like rain, while over all, like an eider-down coverlet, had
sunk on them all a steaming white fog, so thick that the sharpest eyes
could not see the little burgee at the mast-head, or the out-haul block
at the bowsprit end. It was not dark, it never is in summer, but no one
could tell whether the sun had risen or not.
“Here’s a go!” said the Captain.
“Faith! I wish it was a go,” said the Parson, putting his head out of the
cabin door; “it seems to me just the reverse.”
Moodie, whose clever plan seemed to promise anything but success, was as
sulky as Nils had been overnight, and rated the poor fellow soundly for
going to sleep.
Nils represented, not altogether unreasonably, that the wind had gone to
sleep first.
“What is to be done now?” said Moodie, breaking off a discontented and
reflective whistle, the last notes of which had been singularly out of
tune; “I cannot send this sleepy old fool to Leckö, or anywhere else, for
I do not know where Leckö is, or where we are, or anything about it in
this fog; who was to have thought of this?”
“Never mind,” said the Parson—
“The wisest schemes of mice and men
Gang aft ajee;”—
“I suppose this fog will clear off some time or other, and we are well
provisioned, at all events.”
“Yes,” said Moodie, “but we have sent on a forebud, and we shall have to
pay for the horses all the way up.”
“Well, that is a bad job,” said the Parson, “as far as it goes; but the
worst that can come of it is to pay double,—once for the failure, and
once for the real journey.”
“No, that is not the worst, by any means; we have not only lost our
money, but our forebud; we shall be kept waiting for an hour or two at
every station, and shall most probably arrive when the fun is over. At
such out-of-the-way places there is not a chance of holl-horses, that is
to say, horses which the post-master keeps himself on speculation, and we
shall have to send to the farms, whose turn it is to furnish them. I have
been kept waiting that way for four hours at a single station.”
Here Nils, who had been up to the mast-head to see if he could make out
anything (for these fogs very often lie on the surface, not a dozen
feet thick, looking from above like so much cotton wool in a box, while
the sun is shining brightly above them), slid down the back-stay, and
declared he could feel a light air aloft on the starboard beam; “his
cheek felt quite cold,” he said, “though the heavy main-sail, dripping
with dew, did not acknowledge the breeze at all.”
“How is her head; why, confound you, you have forgotten the compass” (not
at all an unlikely piece of forgetfulness in a river yacht.) This was
soon remedied, for the Parson put his own little pocket affair on the
deck, which, as it was a calm, did quite as well as her own.
She was looking a little southward of east, having probably turned round
and round a dozen times during the night.
“That would do, the wind was southerly then; but where were they?”
The day was now getting bright, and the fog was looking like a silver
veil; the tiresome pattering of the knittles had ceased, or was renewed
only at intervals; she was evidently gliding through the water,—but
which way were they to steer? Amal certainly must be somewhere to the
northward, but within six or eight points it was impossible to tell
where after such a sleepy watch as had been kept during the past night.
Reluctantly, Moodie brought her to the wind, and hauled his foresheet to
windward.
But the breeze increased, and the fog began to lift now and then; it
could be seen under, as it were, and though just as thick about the
mast-head as ever, a hundred yards or so of the surface could be seen
plainly on either side.
Nils rubbed his hands at this infallible sign of the rising of the fog,
and Moodie, somewhat easier in his mind, ordered coffee.
“There’s land on the port-beam,” said the Captain, during one of these
lifts. “I am sure I saw land, whatever it is.”
“There ought to be no land there,” said Moodie; for, lying as she did
now, close to the wind, she had brought the east, that is to say, the
great expanse of the lake, to her port-side, and was looking exactly on
the opposite direction to her course; “get a cast of the lead, and keep a
bright look out for rocks.”
Just then the curtain of the fog rose in earnest, and disclosed a cluster
of rocks and islets, among which they had got themselves completely
entangled. “Why, what is this?—it is! no, it can’t be! yet it is—”
“It is Lurön,” said Nils.
“Lurön,” said Moodie, “why, that is miles to the eastward of our course!
Where have you been steering to during the night?”
“You told me to ‘keep her as she goes,’ and so I did.”
And so he had; the fault lay with Moodie himself, who from the first
starting had steered two points to the eastward of his course; the fog
and the current—for the Wener is big enough for current—had done the rest.
It did not however signify, the breeze blew merrily and promised to
stand; the fog now lay in light fleecy clouds far above their heads;
the sun, not far from the horizon, began to smile upon them and to
chase away the dangers of the night, and with them the ill-humour they
had engendered; the fore-sheet was let draw, and as she gathered way
she tacked, fell off on the port-tack, and with a jolly breeze on her
quarter, buzzed away through the water to the northwest.
Soon a line of trees appeared on the horizon, as if they were dancing
in the air, or floating in the water; then the trunks began to form and
unite with something below them; then the line of land, real firm land,
began to manifest itself; then red, and white, and black, and brown, and
striped cottages began to show out; and before ten the anchor was let go
before the little town of Amal.
The horses were still awaiting them, for the allotted three hours, during
which they are bound to remain, had not yet elapsed and they escaped on
payment of the regulated fine for being after time. The men were sent
on immediately in the waggon which Moodie had spoken of, and which he
had written to his friend the farmer to borrow, sending his note by the
forebud. In half-an-hour the carioles were harnessed, and as they plunged
into the forests at the back of Amal, the last thing they saw was the
pretty cutter, close hauled, lying as near to her course to Wenersborg as
the wind would let her look.
The trees of Western Carlstadtlan, which they were now traversing, are
said to be the finest in Sweden; this is due partly to the depth and
goodness of the soil—a circumstance which will eventually secure their
destruction, by offering a temptation to convert the fjeld into arable
land; that they stood, even yet, was principally on account of the
absence of any great rivers, which afford the only means of conveying
timber to the coast. The land is quite as good on the banks of the Klara
and Swedish Glommen, the latter of which runs into the lake a few miles
eastward of Amal, but there is a sensible difference in the growth of the
timber. There was fir, no doubt, in plenty—there is no Swedish forest
without fir,—but there were also huge beech trees, and a sprinkling of
not very happy-looking oak, that put one in mind of the English in India:
they lived in the country, but they did not enjoy it.
The whole country looked like an enormous park—rather too thickly
planted, to be sure,—one kept looking, at every turn of the road, for
the mansion; and the road, too, though not one of very great traffic,
was very good, winding along with a great border of short turf on each
side, comparatively level on the whole, but occasionally interrupted
by a descent so sharp that it seemed as if the carioles were going to
cut a summerset over the horses’ ears,—more particularly as the horses
invariably chose those portions of the road for going as hard as they
could lay legs to ground, a peculiarity sufficiently trying to the
nerves; and as those portions of the road were invariably cut to pieces
by the rush of the water, and were full of rocks besides, sufficiently
trying to the bodily feelings.
On the opposite sides of these ravines, the horses would creep at the
rate of about a mile an hour, the passenger being so absolutely expected
to walk up them, that many of the horses came to a dead halt at the
bottom, and refused to proceed at all till disencumbered of their weight.
“It is not without reason,” said Birger, as they sat on the roadside, at
the top of one of these descents, watching the slow progress of their
carioles, under the care of their respective schutzebonder—little boys
or girls, as the case may be, who sit on the foot-boards, and bring the
horses back after they have done their stage;—“it is not without reason
that the ancient Swedes have invented the legend that in certain places
the elves and the trees are identical; that these forest elves are
intensely patriotic, and that in times of invasion they assemble their
bands and fight by the side of their human countrymen, in defence of
their common country. Many of the trees in Carlstadtlan, as well as in
other places, are trees only by day, but are armed soldiers by night.
Of course the idea is that the forests fight for the country in case
of invasion, and add to the numbers of its defenders; and so they do.
Russia might pour her thousands upon us, and sweep us off the face of the
earth, by mere force of numbers, in an open field; but how would she ever
force her passage through a forest like this, filled with a few thousand
riflemen? The trees would fight for us even by day; but by night our
numbers, counting the elves, would be irresistible.
“The slight variety that there is in the legend in Denmark, bears this
out there also; where the deep Sound and fjords intersect the kingdom,
the stony promontories are its best defence, and the elf kings are called
Klintekonger, or Promontory Kings. There are several stories about their
parading their elf soldiers, with fife and drum, on the breaking out of
a war, and driving over the sea, with snorting horses, in clouds and
blackness, from one promontory to another. The elf king of Bornholm will
not allow any earthly prince to sleep more than three nights within his
dominions, nor will King Tolv permit any king besides himself to pass the
bridge of Skjelskör. This is all part of the same allegory; the elves are
the spirits of the woods, and the Grims of the cataracts, and the Haaf
manner of the sea, and the Strömkarls of the rivers. They all bear the
same character; they are capricious as the elements are over which they
preside, and often injure most those who are most accustomed to them, but
in case of an invasion become rivers, and lakes, and fjords, and forests,
and unite to repel the invader. Bother that little schutzebonde of mine;
I wish she were a boy, that I might whip her instead of the horse;” and
Birger strode down the hill to infuse fresh spirit into the post-horse
and post-girl.
Thus they travelled on, at the rate of five or six miles an hour on the
average, bowling along through the forest, but interrupted, whenever
they came near cultivation, by timber fences and swing gates across the
road, living mostly on their own provisions, with the help of a little
gröd which they got from the post-houses, sleeping when they would in the
haylofts, sometimes in the open air, and occasionally on peculiarly dirty
sheepskins in the post-houses. Oh those sheepskins—
“Ye gentlemen of England,
Who live at home at ease,
How little do you think upon
The dangers of the fleas!”
CHAPTER XXI.
THE MEET.
“A various scene the clansmen made—
Some sate, some stood, some slowly strayed,—
But most, with mantles folded round,
Were couched to rest upon the ground—
Scarce to be known by curious eye
From the deep heather where they lie;
But when, advancing through the gloom,
They saw their chieftain’s eagle plume,
Their shout of welcome, shrill and wide,
Shook the steep mountain’s steady side,—
Thrice it arose, and lake and fell
Three times returned the martial yell.
It died upon Rochastle’s plain,
And silence claimed her evening reign.”
_Lady of the Lake._
Evening had already begun to close in, and the dark branches of the
firs, which for the last five or six miles had canopied the road, were
beginning to grow darker still, when the carioles emerged from the great
forest into a green park-like glade, studded with feathering clumps of
birch and spruce; and rattled up to the door of the little inn that stood
on the borders of it, which was the place appointed for the meet.
The inn, which, after all, was little better than a post-house, was
evidently not large enough to contain a tenth part of the crowd collected
in front of it; nor did the half dozen wooden houses, which formed the
village, afford much more extensive accommodation.
Few, however, of those there assembled seemed to care much about the
matter; the evening was warm, the sky was clear, and the stars were
beginning to twinkle merrily through the calm blue sky; the good green
wood was shelter enough for the hardy peasants and their equally hardy
landlords, and would have been shelter enough though the ground had been
white with snow.
Fires were beginning to rise here and there, bringing into view the
gipsy-like groups collected round them, as they sat, stood, or lay at
full-length upon the turf—some busied about the little tin kettles,
in which they were mixing their rye gröd, some bringing in fuel,
some returning from the inn and the temporary stalls that had been
established round it for the sale of bread, cheese, butter, brandy,
and other necessaries; though most of the party had brought good store
of provision in their own bags. Some—and they mostly the elders of the
parish—were quietly smoking their pipes, and discussing the events of
former skals, and prophesying good or bad of the present one, according
as their dispositions were sanguine or the reverse; but all were talking,
laughing, hand-shaking, imparting or listening to little pieces of
domestic news, or parish scandal—for, in the forest parishes, (and in
Sweden most parishes are of that character), a skal brings together men
who have but few other opportunities of meeting.
A few old stagers, indeed, were trying to get one good night’s sleep, in
order to prepare themselves for the fatigues of which the morrow was but
the beginning, and were stretching themselves on the turf, with their
feet towards their fires; but new arrivals were continually rousing them
up, and some fresh Calle Jonsen, or Swen Larssen, or Nils Ericsen, would
be continually dropping in with fresh inquiries, fresh news, and fresh
greetings.
From the windows of the inn, which were wide open, a broad, bright
glare of light was streaming across the glade, obscured now and then by
the shadow of some great head and shoulders—for the room was full of
people,—but strong enough, notwithstanding, to light up the boughs of the
old lime trees that shaded the porch, glittering among their soft green
leaves, as if they really were what the Swedes suppose them to be, the
roosting places of the Spirits of Light.
This was evidently the head quarters of the skal, where the generals
and field officers were holding high council, receiving information,
arranging plans, and issuing orders; and Birger, springing from his
cariole and throwing the reins of his horse to his schutzebond, or
post-boy, and committing, with utter recklessness of consequences, the
whole department of quartermaster-general, and commissary-general to
boot, into the hands of Jacob, rushed into the room, followed by his
three friends.
This opportune reinforcement was greeted with shouts of welcome: Birger
himself was an old friend of the Ofwer Jagmästere, and had, before this,
signalized himself as a hunter. Englishmen are invariably popular both in
Norway and Sweden; and besides, the value of English rifles, and English
sportsmen to carry them, was universally acknowledged. Moodie, however,
was the great prize; he had been now, for four years in the country,
and had been there quite long enough to be known and appreciated as the
best shot and the most sagacious and inventive leader in the province.
With a natural turn for the chase in all its varieties, he had thrown
himself, heart and soul, into the business of bear hunting, had studied
it theoretically and had worked out his theories practically, till he was
universally acknowledged to be a fair match for the “gentleman in the
fur cloak, who has the wisdom of ten and the strength of twenty,” as the
Swedes periphrastically term their great enemy, the bear.
He had remained in the porch for a minute or two, giving some directions
to his followers, so that the greetings, and introductions, and first
inquiries had a little subsided when he entered; but the moment his
well-known green cap was seen in the doorway, there arose such a shout of
welcome, that it made the flitches of bacon and strings of onions tremble
from the rafters.
“Modige! Modige!”[49] for so they had naturalized his name into a word
which, in their language, signifies courageous.
The well-known cry was caught up among the parties out of doors, and
echoed back again from tree to tree, while the glare of the camp-fires
shewed dark shadows of insane figures, waving arms and hats, aye, and
handkerchiefs, too, for every woman who can possibly slip away from home,
turns out on a skal.
“Modige! Modige!” again came thundering and screaming back in all sorts
of voice, old and young, male and female; now dying away, then bursting
forth, as some distant post took it up again.
“Upon my word,” said the Ofwer Jagmästere Bjornstjerna, speaking in
French, out of compliment to the strangers—for this language, though
utterly despised in Norway, is pretty generally spoken among the Swedish
aristocracy; “upon my word, the people have decided the matter for us;
I wanted some one to take charge of the hållet, and was going to offer
you the command the moment I saw you, but the people seem to have taken
the matter into their own hands now; you cannot possibly refuse, you are
elected by acclamation.”
“I am delighted to be of any use,” said Moodie,—in fact, he did look
delighted in good earnest,—“and will do my best; but you are aware that I
am not very familiar with the ground here.”
“Never mind that,” said Bjornstjerna; “we will soon find some one to be
your quartermaster-general; what we want is, a man that the people look
up to, who knows his business, and is accustomed to command.”
“How many shall I have under me in the hållet?”
“We cannot spare you above five hundred,” said Bjornstjerna; “but the
ground is easy enough, at least so far as the hållet is concerned. See
here,” and he produced a rough but well-executed military sketch of the
ground, which he had surveyed and mapped that morning; “this plain is the
country we mean to drive,—there is about three miles of it in length,
that is to say,” he added, parenthetically, nodding to the Englishmen,
“what you would call in your country, one or two-and-twenty. On the
west, as you see, it is bounded by the river which I have marked here
in blue; this, in its course, expands into these two lakes, and just
by the water-side the country is comparatively open, with a few farm
houses and hamlets about it; the forest, however, closes it all round,
getting thicker as you approach the mountains. On the east is this range
of heights which, as luck will have it, I find are scarped by nature
into cliffs, so that nothing but a bird can get up them—except at these
passes, which I have marked on the map with a cross. These are mostly
the dry or half-dry beds of torrents, and by the side of almost all
of them there is a passage into the upper fjeld, practicable for men,
and, consequently, for beasts also, when they are frightened. At this
point, where we intend stationing our dref, the range of hills is about
six of your miles distant from the line of the river, but it gradually
approaches it; and at this point, where there are some falls and rapids,
the distance is very trifling—not above a thousand eller—somewhere about
half an English mile; and, besides, there is a spur of rock here which
causes the falls of the river, and upon this the forest is very thin and
open. Here I propose placing you with the hållet. You will establish
yourself on the reverse slope of the spur, so that our shot will pass
over your heads; you will then only have to clear away sufficient of the
under-stuff from the front of your position to give you a fair shot at
anything that attempts to cross.
“About a thousand or fifteen hundred eller in front of your position, and
parallel to it, runs a cow-track to the upper säters, which, upon the
whole, is pretty open, and upon which you may as well set a hundred or
two of your men, to improve to-morrow into a shooting line. Here we shall
take our stand after we have driven the country. There is a thickish bit
between this path and your position; the game will not object to enter
it, and if they do, we ought to get every one of them, for to the left
the rock is absolutely perpendicular, and on the right the rapids are
such that nothing can cross them.”
“You have no skal-plats?” said Moodie.
“Why this is a skal-plats,” said Bjornstjerna, “rather a large one, to be
sure; but we shall not run much risk of getting our men shot in driving
it, because you will be on the reverse slope; and, by the way, you must
be very particular in cautioning all your skalfogdar to keep their men
from showing themselves on the crest of the hill. I did at one time think
of making a skal-plats here, on the banks of this lower lake, and driving
from both ends at the same time; but the ground is not favourable; a
good deal of it is cleared, and every bear will make for the roots of
the mountains, where the under-stuff is thickest; they cannot get up the
perpendicular cliffs, to be sure, but we should have them creeping up a
little way by the branches, and then stealing back as soon as the dref
has passed the place,—upon the whole, though, I think my present plan is
the best.”
“I really think it is,” said Moodie, “as far as I can judge from seeing
it on paper; but you seem to have a pretty large country to drive, not
less than twenty miles English in length. What number do you muster?”
“Not above fifteen hundred or two thousand at the most,” said
Bjornstjerna, “though I have called out five parishes; but look at the
place, it seems cut out for a skal,—half-a-dozen boats will guard the
river, which is navigable in its whole length till you come to the rapids
which flank your position, and not a bear will go near the houses, as
you know, or face the open ground, if he can possibly help it,—so much
for our right flank; while for the other, a small picket at each of the
water-courses, will be quite sufficient to guard them till the dref
has passed, and then the picket can either strengthen the other guards
farther on, or reinforce our line, or join you at the hållet, according
as they are wanted. Then, since the cliffs keep approaching the river, in
proportion as we drive forward so our line will be strengthened by the
men closing on each other, till, in the end, when the beasts begin to
break out, we shall be able to send you a reinforcement of two or three
hundred men, for we shall have more than we want.”
“That will do,” said Moodie; “we shall have a glorious skal, I see, and I
give you great credit for making the most of your men.”
“The truth is, I have quite as many men as I want—I have never been at a
loss for them; what I have been at a loss for, hitherto, is officers,
for the Indelta has been unexpectedly summoned to Stockholm, and with
them I have lost almost every man who knows how to command.”
“Why not wait till they come back?” said Birger; “they never keep the
Indelta out for more than three weeks, and I am sure the ‘Fur-clothed
Disturbers’ would wait for you:” (no Swede ever mentions the bear’s name,
if he can possibly help it).
“Yes,” said Bjornstjerna, “but after that the militia is to be called
out, and if I get my officers I should lose my men—aye, and two-thirds of
the women, too. How many women do you think would turn out, if you took
away all the men between the ages of twenty and twenty-five? And let me
tell you that the women, though the law does not allow us to press them
into the service, are just as useful as the men,—and in the dref, where
all you want is to drive the game forward, a great deal more so, for they
talk twice as much, and their screams, and squalls, and laughter, are
heard as far again as the men’s shouts. O, by the Thousand! I had rather
lose my men than my women. But you gentlemen are a perfect Godsend; I
shall do very well for officers now. Herr Modige is kind enough to take
the hållet, and, whether you like it or no, Master Lieutenant, you will
have the charge of that skal-arm which furnishes the pickets.”
“Well, I suppose I must obey my superior officer; I wish they treated us
Lieutenants of the Guards as well as they do those of England, and then I
should be Captain as well as you—commanding you, perhaps, if I happened
to be senior.”
“Would you, my boy? I would have you to know that I rank a Colonel now,—I
write ‘Hof’ before my name.”
“Upon my soul, old fellow, I congratulate you; I do not know any one who
deserves it better.”
“No more do I,” said Bjornstjerna, “and I must say that it is not often
that the Förste Hof Jagmästere shows such a specimen of discrimination.
However, to business. Along the left flank of the dref, you will see
that in the course of our beat there are some fifteen or twenty places
where game can escape by climbing up the water courses. At each of these
you will post a picket, strong or weak, according to the nature of the
ground. Herr Länsman, can you furnish the Lieutenant with a man who knows
the country?”
The Länsman, or tax-gatherer, who in these remote districts acts as
police officer, and is, in fact, the sole representative of majesty,
offered his own services in that capacity.
“Very good,” said the Ofwer Jagmästere, “then you will point out the
particulars; but, to help you, I have marked all the more practicable
passages with red crosses. Here, however, is your principal danger—in
fact, it is that which made me hesitate about establishing the hållet
where it is. You see where this cow-path leads to the hills—the path, I
mean, which I have just pointed out to Herr Modige as the place where I
wish him to arrange the shooting line; carry your eye onward to where it
ascends the hills; that is an easy pass, such as you can ride up, and it
is so close to the hållet that any beast that turns at the line, would
naturally dash at the opening. Here you must post a very strong force.”
“I cannot do better than put my English friends there,” said Birger, who
saw at a glance that this was the very crack post of the whole line; “I
will venture to say that their rifles will not allow anything to pass
alive through that opening, from an elk to a rabbit.”
“Hush, not a word about elks,” said Bjornstjerna; “neither they nor stags
must be touched—the new law is very strict about that.”
“It is very difficult to tell one beast from another, in the thick
juniper,” said Birger; “I never could myself.”
The Ofwer Jagmästere laughed, but put on an official frown.
“Do you know, Birger,” said the Parson, “I should like to be your
aide-de-camp better than to hold any definite post; I could carry your
orders, you know.”
“And deliver them in English or French,” said Birger; “I shall have a
very effective aide-de-camp indeed. However, if you like it, I will give
you the post, and I think you are right; you will see more in that way
than in any other, and you can reinforce the post of danger whenever you
are tired. Indeed, you may as well consider it your home during the
skal. Would the Captain, then, take charge of that point?”
The Captain was quite willing, and promised to give a good account of it.
“Well, then,” said Birger, “I shall not want Piersen to-morrow, so you
may have him, and your own man Tom, and Jacob for cook. The Parson
will probably take Torkel, but I dare say the Länsman can find you an
intelligent Swede, who knows the ground and can understand a few words
of English, and three or four fellows for sentries; that will be quite
enough for you, for the Parson and Torkel will join you, and be under
your orders before there is anything serious.”
Here the Ofwer Jagmästere spoke a few words in Swedish to Birger, who
laughed and replied—“No, no, certainly not; I am confident he would
consider it an honour of no small magnitude to bear a commission in our
service. The fact is,” continued he, addressing the Captain, “everything
in these skaller is arranged according to military discipline, and
everyone here has military rank. And as you have to command a picket, you
would not object to hold a temporary commission, not quite equal to your
own in the English service.”
“Object!” said the Captain, “O, no—delighted, of course!”
“Then give me your cap,” said Birger. “Hand me over that chalk,
Bjornstjerna;” and he wrote upon its peak the mystic letters, “S.F.,”
being the initials of Skal Fogde; and accordingly the Captain took rank
as full sergeant in the Swedish army.
“Now, then,” said the Jagmästere, “as I have arranged matters so
satisfactorily here, I will start at once for Lysvik, where I have
ordered the dref to assemble. I shall have enough to do to-morrow
morning, as you may imagine,—what with numbering the men, and appointing
their skalfogdar, and seeing them at their stations, the commander
has no easy life of it. As for you, Moodie, I need not tell you your
business—you know it as well as I do myself,—but begin appointing your
skalfogdar the first thing to-morrow. You need not wait for your full
complement of men, they will drop in in the course of the day; but
as your best men are sure to be the first, appoint at once; at twelve
precisely write the numbers in their hats, as they stand, and we will
fine all that come later than that. That, Mr. Länsman, must be your
business; but first of all look out for Lieutenant Birger fifty of your
best men. That,” turning to Moodie, “will leave you nearly five hundred,
which is quite as much as you can want, as the boats will be manned from
my party. You, Birger, will march at daybreak, for I must have every
picket posted by twelve, at which time we move forward with the dref.
Now, Lönner, my horse, as quick as you please, for we have seven quarters
to go before we sleep.”
The Ofwer Jagmästere might almost be said to “exit speaking,” for he
continued his speech into the porch, and the last words were lost in the
canter of his little hog-maned pony, as he floundered off, followed by
Lönner and a couple of orderlies, together with the Länsmen of the two
other parishes, who had met him by appointment at Ostmarkand, and now
formed his personal staff.
Moodie, who was now in command, hesitated for a moment whether he
should exercise it by clearing the inn for the sleeping accommodation
of himself and friends, but, on turning the matter over in his mind,
the interior looked so dirty and stuffy, and was withal so redolent of
tobacco, brandy, and aniseed, while the exterior was so fresh and green,
and the moon was shining down so softly, and the air was so still, and
the camp fires so bright and inviting, that, with universal consent and
approbation, he adjourned the divisional head-quarters to a spreading
fir-tree, whose branches were illuminated by a fire worthy of a General;
while the provident Jacob, who had tilted the carioles on end, to form
a sort of screen, spread out before them the contents of his ambulatory
larder.
This was soon discussed, and then a quiet pipe, a moderate horn of brandy
and water, a hopeful good night, a roll in their cloaks, and before their
heads were well on their knapsacks, the whole four were in the fairy land
of sleep and forgetfulness.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SKAL.
“When shaws beene sheene and shrads full fayre,
And leaves both large and long,
’Tis merry walking in the fayre forest,
To hear the small birde’s song.”
_Robin Hood._
“These mounds I yet may clamber,
And look on the rocks so grey,—
On these huge stones on the summits
I can lie, as oft I lay.
“And if it soughs in the forest,
In the beechwood’s native land,—
And if the wave roars deeply,
I nod to sea and strand.
“O, never my heart forgetteth
The cairn, the wood, and the strand,—
For my heart is only at home in
The warrior’s fatherland.”
_Holger Danske-Ingemann._
The sun had not yet lighted up the spires of the fir-trees, when a buzz
of voices and a shuffling of feet broke the slumbers of the head-quarters
party. Länsman Matthiesen, true to his word, had not slept before he
had picked out his fifty mountaineers, chalking their hats at the back
with the letters “H.F.,” standing for hög fjeld, or the high forest,
indicating the position they were to occupy.
While Birger was still rubbing his eyes and kicking up Jacob to boil
the morning’s coffee, Matthiesen was numbering them from 1 to 50, with
chalk, in the front of their hats, and selecting their skalfogdar, who
were marked, as the Captain had been on the preceding evening, with the
letters “S.F.” It is usual to appoint a skalfogde to every ten men; but,
as these were to be divided into small parties, it was thought expedient
to appoint one to every five, it being understood that, whenever any of
these parties were united, the skalfogde whose number was lowest should
reckon as senior, and command the whole.
Fire-arms are not very plentiful in any part of Sweden, but Matthiesen
had so picked his men, that about one-fifth of them had something of the
sort,—most of these weapons looking very much more formidable to the
sportsmen who carried them than to the game at which they were pointed.
The rest were armed with poles, many of which had spikes at the end.
Here and there was an old sword or a pistol that had seen service in the
Thirty years’ War; but most of the men carried very efficient axes,—an
excellent weapon against a tree, and not a bad one with a bear in close
conflict, if such a thing ever does take place in a skal; but the fact
is, the beasts on these occasions are so completely cowed, that they
rarely, if ever, show fight.
The men had been searched that morning, and all their brandy taken from
them, and the rest of their provisions examined, to see if there was
enough to last out the number of days for which they had been summoned.
But, before starting, Birger served out to each a horn of hot coffee from
Jacob’s soup kettle, with a double allowance of sugar in it; for if there
is anything that comes near to brandy in the estimation of a Swede, it is
sugar, which he eats and drinks whenever he can get it, like a very child.
Birger then, having first taken a careful survey of the whole plan of
the skal, a copy of which Matthiesen had placed in his hand, summoned
the Parson and Torkel, and, placing himself at the head of his party,
gave the word to march. This was obeyed in a very military fashion,—for
every Swede is or has been a militia-man, and is very proud of his
soldiering,—and the party was soon lost among the green shades of the
forest.
Moodie watched them very composedly, and then quietly set himself down
to breakfast, not a little to the discomposure of the Captain, who, if
he had had his will, would have been walking sentry on his post with
his rifle in his hand, looking out fiercely for the bears,—a proceeding
which, as the dref or driving party was not to move till noon, and then
would be twenty miles from the scene of action, evinced, to say the least
of it, more zeal than discretion.
The Captain need not, however, have disquieted himself, for the
preparations all that time were going steadily forward. Moodie,
having selected six of the most experienced hunters as Adjutanter
or lieutenants, left them to nominate and chalk off the fifty
Skalfogdar which his party required, and to distribute the men into
tens in such a way that every part of the line should be equally
provided with fire-arms. The farmer who owned the land had offered
his services as personal attendant, or what the Jagmästere had called
Quartermaster-General; and Moodie, quite aware that the authorities of
the place, who knew the characters and capabilities of the men, would
set in order these details much better than he could, permitted them
to manage things their own way, and interfered but little with their
arrangements.
It was not before ten that everything was put into proper order, and the
little flags prepared which were to mark out the ground; but then Moodie
readily enough got his men into marching order, and proceeded to take up
the position. This was distant about four miles (English) from the place
of meeting; the road to it leading down the glade, and at right angles to
the direction taken by Birger and his party that morning.
If Moodie had seemed apathetic and dilatory while others were capable of
doing the work, there was no want of energy in him when the party had
arrived at the ground. His orders were given with that distinctness and
decision which evinces an intimate acquaintance with the business in
hand, and ensures the prompt obedience of all engaged in it.
Two of the Adjutanter, with three men from each skalfogde’s command were
detached to establish the line which the hållet was finally to occupy,
and to mark out with little flags of white calico, on which were painted
their numbers, the post of each subdivision. In the meanwhile the main
strength of his party were engaged in preparing the mountain road which
the Jagmästere had pointed out for what is termed the shooting line,—that
is to say, the line on which the dref or driving division was finally to
halt, having thus enclosed the game in the patch of wood between it and
the hållet, which is called the skalplats.
The shooting line was formed, by cutting down the junipers and lower
branches of the trees for about twenty yards on each side of a mountain
road which ran parallel to the front of the position; but the great
labour was to remove everything that had been cut, for, had such evident
traces of man’s work been left, not one single head of game would have
ventured across the clearing. For this reason, also, Moodie began his
work in this place, leaving the clearing of his own line for future
operations, in order that he might give time for the scent to clear
away,—and therefore it is, that when the shooting line is once formed, no
one is ever permitted to cross till the dref arrives, driving the game
before them.
The peculiar kind of the ground had, in this instance, caused the
skalplats to be made very much larger than is usual; in fact, it was
nearly half a mile deep, and very much more than half a mile in front
width—and from this it would be difficult to dislodge game which had been
thoroughly frightened. But Moodie’s English education had suggested a
remedy: besides the main shooting line, the axe-men were instructed to
subdivide the skalplats by parallel “rides,” as they are called in an
English cover, running from front to rear, so that a marksman placed at
the end of any of these would have a fair shot, as the game moved from
one block of forest to another.
All this, however, was a work of time as well as labour, and though
four hundred men were employed about it, and though they worked as men
work who combine pleasure with duty, the day was far advanced, and the
skal had begun for some hours before Moodie took his final survey, and,
dispatching the Captain and his party to their post in the mountains,
withdrew his workmen to their own position on the reverse slope of the
spur. Having posted his sentries on the crest of the hill, he dismissed
the remainder to procure their suppers, and to make themselves as
comfortable as was consistent with extreme watchfulness.
Long before any serious impression had been made by Moodie, on the
shooting line, Birger and the remains of his party had reached his
farthest post, having taken his route along the crest of the heights.
Calculating his time with military precision, he had visited the heads of
all the different passes, stationing at each a picket, the strength of
which was in proportion to its ascertained importance, or blocking it up
with an abattis of trees—a very easy thing to do, for the bear, when his
suspicions are fairly roused, turns readily at the slightest appearance
of a trap. And now, as the minute hand of his watch indicated twelve, a
fact which he took care to point out to the Parson, Matthiesen was in
the act of displaying from the branch of a dead fir tree which overhung
the precipice, the long fluttering slip of white calico, which not only
marked out the position of the pass to those below, but was the agreed
signal that it was occupied.
The day was bright and hot, as a northern summer’s day generally is, and
within the cover of the woods not a breath of wind had been felt; but on
the exposed cliff, where they then stood, or rather lay—for the recumbent
was decidedly the favourite position;—a light and refreshing air was just
creeping up the sides of the cliffs, stirring the feathery leaves of the
birches, but leaving the heavier foliage at rest.
It was a joyous scene, as the eye traversed the tops of the great forest
stretched out like a map below, and traced the different colours of the
foliage—here was a thick, close array of firs, forming a solid column, of
miles in extent—there were the serried ranks of the spiry spruce,—here,
again, where the axe had been at work selecting the best trees and
leaving the rest to succeed as chance had planted, there was a broad,
park-like expanse full of juniper underwood, bordered, it may be, by a
belt of birch, the consequences of some forgotten fire, or a patch of
white poplars, indicating a marshy bit, or a dozen or so of restless
aspens, balancing their leaves when all around was still;—here, again,
was a svedgefall, as they term the places where the wind gets under the
branches of the firs, and levels acres of them together. Sometimes these
form parks of exceeding beauty, as the young trees grow up sparsely;
but here and there, where they are too small to be worth removing, they
lie, entangled with weeds and undergrowth, a mass of rottenness and a
stronghold of Bruin, out of which it will sometimes take hours to drive
him.
Here and there, too, was a sœter, or, as we are now in Sweden, a
satterval, or mountain pasture farm, with its low roof of pine-branches
and its meadow of rough hay, which generally stood in large cocks, ready
to be removed as soon as the snow should form a road; round most of
these, groups of cattle might be seen; but there was no smoke from their
chimneys, for every human being was at the skal.
Far in the distance, indeed too far to be seen, except where the sun
lighted up its waters and returned a dazzling reflection, was the river,
already guarded by its fleet of boats, though these were entirely
invisible from the cliffs.
To the southward, the range of heights sank gradually into the plain,
which here was traversed by the main road, cutting both the ridge and the
river at right angles.
Beyond this, all was one black, dreary, desolate wilderness, without a
shrub, or a bush, or a blade of grass; nothing but bare, grey, ghost-like
trunks of dead trees, stretching forth their charred and blackened
branches, and looking as if a curse was resting on them. Three years ago
that blackened track had been a flourishing pine forest, but the fire
had passed over it, and it was gone. According to a generally received
Swedish superstition, though the birch might succeed it, no pine could
grow there again for ever: the burnt tree had been cursed in itself and
in its seed.
This superstition is actually borne out by fact: cut a pine-forest, and
a pine-forest succeeds it; burn a pine-forest, and the succeeding trees,
when they do again clothe the ground, are invariably birch. In reality,
this is not so strange as it seems at first sight; the fir is the natural
seed of the country, and the young fir is the hardiest tree,—wherever
that tree will grow no other can compete with it; but its seed is heavy,
and cannot fall far from the parent tree, when once vegetation is
destroyed,—the fir-seed can never travel into the wasted land; but the
birch-seed flies in the wind, and its young seedlings are invariably the
first green which succeeds a fire.
This black wilderness was one cause among many which had induced the
Jagmästere to select this particular spot for his skal; no game would
willingly break through his line when they knew that miles of uncovered
country must be traversed before they could again find shelter. He had,
therefore, that morning marshalled his dref along the high road, by
placing them in position there, and numbering their hats as they stood,
from the centre to each flank; but, true to his word, no sooner had the
white flag fluttered from Birger’s post, than his bugle sounded the
advance along his whole line, and the skal was already begun.
The Parson and Birger, whose work for that morning was done, were seated
on the outer ridge, with their feet fairly overhanging the precipice,
reconnoitring with their glasses the progress of the dref, as here and
there the men emerged into a more open space, which the skalfogdar
were taking advantage of, in order to reform or repair their line, and
re-establish their communications with the parties right and left of them.
Every now and then a sudden shout, followed by half-a-dozen shots,
marking the place by a light puff of smoke, (Swedish powder makes plenty
of that), would point the glasses to some particular spot,—but on no
occasion was any game visible from above.
According to law, all shouting is strictly forbidden in skals, and so is
firing at small game, and so is the presence of women or boys, upon the
express count that they are too noisy; but these laws seem to have been
made for no other purpose except that the people might enjoy the pleasure
of hunting and breaking the law at the same time, for no one ever thinks
of keeping them; shouting is incessant, women are plentiful, and, as for
shooting at small game, the best chance a cock-robin stands of his life
consists in the very great probability of a Swedish piece missing fire,
or a Swedish marksman missing his aim.
And, indeed, it is universally admitted by the moderns that their
forefathers were in error; that not only shouts and musketry are useful
in keeping up the men’s pluck and pointing out to each other their
whereabouts, but they are positively of advantage in driving the game.
When the ring is once completed, either by artificial or natural means,
and the game is fairly surrounded, it is far better that it should be
aroused by distant shouts, and should be suffered to slink off quietly
and unseen, approaching by degrees the hållet, where, after all, it must
be brought up by the standing line, than that it should be surprised by
the dref advancing in silence. A startled bear is just as likely to bolt
backwards as forwards, and, if he does, the chances are that he gets off
scot free. He must be an unlucky bear, indeed, who, at the earlier part
of a skal, and before the men have closed in, charges the line and gets
more than one shot at him; and a most particularly unlucky bear must
he be if that shot takes effect, whereas it is just as likely to take
effect on some Jan or Karl, who stands with his eyes and mouth open as
the “Disturber” rushes by,—and thus affords, in his own person, the only
chance of a sitting shot, which Swedes delight in;—indeed, this is almost
the only way in which accidents do happen in skals; the bear very seldom
revenges himself, but he now and then gets people to do it for him.
The Parson sat reclining against a rock, very much at his ease, sometimes
watching the progress of the skal, sometimes picking off the stalks from
a quantity of ground-mulberries[50] which he had gathered during that
morning’s march. Indeed, the Parson, in the course of that march, had
succeeded in making a very pretty figure of himself: his knowledge of
botany amounted simply to a desire of appropriating to himself every
unusual flower he came across; so that by the end of the day his hat,
which was of that description popularly known as a wide-awake, was
generally surrounded by a garland fit for a May-queen.
In the present instance, the front of his hat exhibited a purple plume
of the “laf-reseda,” which perfumed the air around him with an odour
like that of the night-scented stock. He had placed it there not so much
for that or for its beauty, as because, like the ground-mulberry, it is
never seen south of the latitude in which they then were—not even in the
south of Sweden. Twining round the hat-band was a wreath of “Baldur’s
brow,” a beautiful white flower, dedicated in heathen times to the
god of Innocence, and still bearing his name, and retaining a portion
of its ancient sanctity.[51] The lily of the valley, which in Sweden
signifies much the same as it does in England, formed its appropriate
companion; and so might the heart’s-ease, which fairly tinged the hill
sides with blue and yellow, had it retained any equivalent to its English
appellation; but in Sweden it is called “skart-blom,” and is appropriated
to the Devil. It is the flower the witches decorate themselves with when
they ride by night to the Satanic rendezvous, and dance infernal polkas
in the wilds of Blaakulla.
“See!” said Birger, “look at that white flag! there it is, glancing
against the corner of those firs in the svedgefall; now you see another
in a line with it,—that is the Ordningsman and his party; he marks the
centre of the advancing line. Before they started, the Jagmästere will
have given him his precise bearing from the centre of the hållet, and
his business is to attend neither to the bears nor to the beating, but
to advance steadily on his own line; for that purpose he has those three
flagsmen allotted to him. There, you see that fellow on the farther edge
of the svedgefall, showing his flag from that black-looking fir?—look
through your glass, and you will easily make out the Ordningsman himself;
there he is, with his compass in his hand, close by the farthest flag; he
is taking the bearings of the first man that we made out; and there is
the third now advancing to take up a new position. What he has to do is
to keep those flags always in the straight line, and all the rest dress
from him.”
Just then, the Jagmästere rode, or rather clambered, into the svedgefall
on his little cream-coloured pony, which, accustomed to the work,
scrambled about the fallen trees more like a dog than a horse. He was
attended by a large party on foot; one of these, who might be termed
his orderly, had to lead his horse round by the forest cattle tracks,
whenever it happened, as it very frequently did happen, that the
under-stuff was too thick for a horseman to traverse.
His right wing, which had been beating the easier and more open country
towards the river, had got some distance in advance, and he was evidently
directing the Ordningsman to halt in the svedgefall till the left had
time to come up. Messengers were dispatched right and left; the bugles
began to sound, some the “advance” and some the “halt,” and those
parts of the line which had begun to emerge from the trees, were seen
collecting in little groups in different attitudes of rest, lighting
their pipes, or visiting their havresacs for their mid-dag’s mad of black
bread and hard white cheese.
Before long the left wing, the advanced flank of which was under their
feet, made itself to be both heard and seen. The ground here was much
more difficult, because at the immediate foot of the cliff the _debris_
of ages had formed themselves into a very steep slope. This part, rugged
and uneven with fallen blocks of stone, was covered with a close brake
of underwood, not only of juniper, but of hazels and rowan bushes, all
matted together by brambles,—as well as birch and ash, the last of which,
winding its long roots among the stones, had in most places attained the
dignity of timber trees.
Well aware that every head of game disturbed along the whole line would,
if possible, seek refuge here, the Jagmästere had intended that his left
wing should be thrown forward, and had allotted a hundred men, under the
most experienced of his Adjutanter, to search the ground well, keeping
a mile or so in advance of the line. The eagerness of the men on first
starting had somewhat disturbed this arrangement, for at the beginning
the cover, along the greater part of the line, had consisted of firs,
which not only screened the men from the eyes of their officers, but, by
destroying the under-stuff, permitted them to get forwards without any
great exertion. It was to rectify this that the halt had been called.
“What is that?” said the Parson, jumping up and scattering half his
mulberries down the precipice, as a rush of wings came sharp round the
corner of the rock, and a great cock-tjäder, as big as a turkey, came
close over his head, and dashed into the firs that crested the hill.
“That,” said Birger, unslinging his rifle, “that is a hint that we ought
to keep a better look-out;—not that we should have had that fellow
though, for, awkward and heavy as they seem, they rush along like a round
shot, when once they get into their flight. But never mind, we shall have
more of them presently—mind where you shoot, though, if you use your
rifle,—there will be a peasant or two knocked over before we have done,
most likely. We do not think much of that, but you would not like to be
playing Archbishop Abbott[52] yourself, would you?”
The Parson laughed, as he examined and poised his double-barrelled
gun—for the rifle was in the charge of Torkel,—and made a successful
right and left shot among a covey of orre grouse that were skimming over
the tree-tops at his feet.
“Oh, if you stick to small shot,” said Birger, who had despatched a human
retriever down the watercourse to pick up the birds, “you may fire away
in the men’s faces if you like; there is not a Swede who would not stand
the chance of a peppered jacket, to be able to pick up an article of
game,”—a sentiment fully confirmed by the grinning faces of the picket,
for whose benefit he had translated his words.
“But we are not likely to have bears coming up to us, if we keep up such
a popping as this,” said the Parson.
“‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush;’ if there are bears within
the skal, depend upon it we shall get them, sooner or later. Fire away!
most of us like a broiled grouse for supper.”
“Here goes for the bird of Yggdrasil,” as a magnificent peregrine falcon
came floating through the air, as if by the mere act of volition; “he
shall never sit again between the eyes of the eagle.”[53]
Birger had, however, miscalculated his distance, for the bird, taking no
more notice of his shot than if they had been hailstones, sailed quietly
on his course, without turning to the right or left.
“The bird of the gods bears a charmed life,” said the Parson, “it is no
use firing at him. Come, load away! look sharp, or you will lose your
next chance.”
Game, however, is nowhere very plentiful, either in Norway or in Sweden;
and though every eye in the picket was on the look-out, nothing more
was seen, except a blue Alpine hare, that came quietly lopping up the
watercourse, and sat on its hind legs, innocently looking Matthiesen in
the face during the minute and half in which he was taking aim; the shot,
however, was successful at last, and puss was destined to supply the
evening kettle.
“If you want a chance at big game,” said Birger, “I will tell you what
you should do; it is altogether against the law, no doubt—and that is
one of the few laws relating to skals that ought to be observed;—but if
you were to slip down one of these watercourses with Torkel, and take
your course quietly and silently through the fjeld, keeping four or five
miles ahead of the dref, more unlikely things have happened than that you
should set your eyes upon some beast or other stealing off. You have got
your compass, and you cannot be lost in a little strip of a forest like
this, not half a dozen miles across. Besides, every stream you come to
runs from our pickets, which you may always reach by following it. You
can always distinguish them in the day-time by their flags, and if you
should be overtaken by night—”
“If I should,” said the Parson, “there is nothing I should like better.
Torkel will soon get up a fire. I have plenty of provisions in my
havresac, and a little of the contraband, too,” he added, shaking his
bottle; “they forgot to search me; so that if we should be out at night,
we will try if we cannot make a night of it.”
“So be it, then,” said Birger; “be early at the Captain’s post, that is
all, for you may depend upon it, if I know anything of the lie of the
country, there will be sport there long before the dref comes up. You
will probably find me there before you.”
“Au revoir, then,” said the Parson, as he swung himself off the cliff on
which he had been sitting, into the boughs of an ash, and thus dropped
into the watercourse; down this he disappeared, with Torkel after him,
floundering, crashing, and rolling the stones before him.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SATTERVAL.
“’Tis merry, ’tis merry, in good greenwood,
Though the birds have stilled their singing;
The evening blaze doth Alice raise,
And Richard is faggots bringing.”
_Alice Brand._
Avoiding the advanced column of the dref, which had halted just short of
the watercourse, the Parson and his follower took a line nearly parallel
to that of the hills. It is no easy thing to beat a Swedish forest,
for there are every now and then thick-tangled brakes, and grass-grown
svedgefalls, and occasionally, it may be, a little lake to break the
line, causing perpetual halts, since one part must necessarily wait for
another. But simply making a passage through a Swedish forest is almost
as easy as walking on plain turf:—here there will be a wide patch of high
pines, under which nothing will grow,—then there will be actual green
glades of considerable length, with short mountain turf, broken only by
tufts of lilies of the valley, or, perhaps, whortleberry or cranberry
plants; and everywhere, when the trees are young, or have been cut, and
the understuff has been permitted to come up thick, the whole space is
intersected by cattle paths,—for all the fjeld is divided into sœters
belonging to the lowland farms, forming the summer runs for their cattle.
The Parson and his follower, therefore, had no difficulty in leaving the
whole line behind them, so that first their shouts and then the reports
of their firearms were lost in the distance, and the forest, soon to be
so busy with life, looked as quiet and lonely as if it never could echo
sounds louder than the coo of the wood-pigeon.
After five or six miles’ walking, the closeness of the air under the
trees began to tell upon them—more especially as this afternoon’s
excursion had been preceded by a morning’s walk of sixteen or seventeen
miles, and neither of them felt at all sorry when, in a natural opening
of the forest, the rough enclosures of a sœter came into view.
“Come,” said Torkel, “we shall get some brandy here, anyhow.” He was
mistaken, however, for no living thing was to be found there, except a
dog tied to a stump (for dogs are strictly forbidden in skals), that at
first made the forest ring with its barking, but soon became reconciled
to the intruders by that sort of free-masonry, whatever be the cause of
it, which always exist between a dog and a sportsman.
“At all events, they must have milk here,” he said, “and I am not sure
whether, just now, I had not rather find milk than brandy.”
The Parson laughed at Torkel’s unusual feelings of sobriety, but quite
participated in his longing for milk. This they found, and plenty of it,
for the single room of the cabin was full of vessels, shoved in anywhere,
as if the milkers had been in such a hurry to complete a task which they
could not have neglected without spoiling their cows, that they had not
given themselves time to put their milk away.
Torkel went down on his hands and knees, put his mouth into a bucket
that stood near the door, and drank away as if—like Odin, when he
wheedled Gunlauth into letting him take a sip from the cup of poetic
inspiration—he meant to drain it to the very bottom, and then set to
upon a sort of cake that he found strung upon a cord between two of the
rafters, which looked something like a number of round, thin discs, of
semi-transparent paste, with holes punched out of the centre to hang them
up by.[54]
The Parson, who was not less thirsty and exhausted, evinced a little
more moderation than this “hog of the flock of Epicurus;” he was content
with filling his horn occasionally at the milkpail, and floating in it a
handful of cranberries, bushels of which were growing wherever a glimpse
of sunshine could penetrate the canopy of foliage, “incarnading” with
their red berries the turf of the whole forest, “and making the green one
red.”
The refreshment was, as Torkel had observed, better than brandy, and
both felt quite sufficiently invigorated for a fresh journey; but their
present quarters looked very comfortable,—the shadows of the evening
were fast lengthening, and they had already advanced far beyond any
point which the skal could be expected to reach that day. They remained,
therefore, comfortably sitting on the rail fence, and looking down the
grassy glade, without any intention of going farther that night. Since
diving into the forest they had not seen a head of game of any kind,
except a flock (for it hardly deserved a more sportsman-like appellation)
of the smaller description of grouse, which Torkel, whose eyes were
everywhere, had detected on the higher branches of one of the trees.
Three of these the Parson had brought down in the most pot-hunting and
unsportsman-like fashion, by getting them into a line as they sat, and
bringing them down as a boy massacres fieldfares. These Torkel was
indolently picking, and preparing for the frying-pan, an article which
is generally to be found in a sœter, while, at the same time, he kept a
professional eye on the glade. The Parson, sitting beside him, was as
indolently pulling off the fruit of the hägg, a sort of wild cherry, a
clump of which overshadowed the fence on which they were sitting, and
afforded them a partial cover from any quick-sighted animal coming up
from the forest.
“I do not like these great summer skals,” said he. “If you really want
to see sport you should come here in the winter, when the snow is on
the ground,—that is the time for a man to set his wits against ‘old Fur
Jacket,’—to ring him in the snow—to look out for his den—to turn him
out—to dash after him through the snow on our skier—to follow him day
after day—to camp on his track—and after him again as soon as day breaks,
and at last, after a week’s hunting, perhaps, to run in upon him and
put a rifle-ball upon his head. All this too is done quietly,—a party
of two or three at the most,—not mobbing the poor devil to death in
this fashion,—that is the thing that tries a man’s talents as a hunter.
In such a skal as this, one of those squalling women could knock over
a bear as well as the best of us, if she happened to meet with him;
he very seldom shows fight, either, in the summer time,—he sees he is
overmatched, and gives it up as a bad job; but in the winter, you may as
well have a firm heart and a steady hand before you bring your rifle to
bear, and you would be none the worse for a stout comrade to stand beside
you, with pike and knife.”
“The bear does charge them sometimes?” said the Parson.
“Yes, if hit,” said Torkel, “or if he thinks you have got him into a
corner, otherwise he would always rather run than fight. I remember one
journey I had with two young Englishmen a few years ago; we went to shoot
in Nordre Trondhjemsampt;—ah! you should go there if you want shooting.
I never saw such a place for grouse of all kinds,—aye, and for deer too.
Well, these Englishmen were always wanting to find a bear,—they would not
be satisfied with the very best of sport, they kept saying that it would
never do to come from Norway without having a bearskin to show their
friends,—for all these Englishmen seem to think that bears are the common
game of the country.”
“We shot deer and grouse as many as we pleased, but we did not so much
as hear of a bear till we had given up shooting altogether, and were
travelling home, which we did by the road through Ostersund, Hernösand,
and Gefle. When we got to the post-house at Skalstuga, the first on the
Swedish side of the mountains; early in the morning, long before it was
light, the cow-boy came in crying, and said that a bear had just killed
one of the cows. Off goes one of our Englishmen, half naked, with his gun
in his hand, just as if he had nothing bigger to shoot than a hare. I
caught up an axe that was lying there and ran after him. Up he comes, and
stands right in the bear’s path, just as if he cared no more for him than
for a big dog, and fires away two barrels right in his face. Lord! it was
nothing but small shot, such as he had been shooting grouse with, and the
bear came at him like Thor’s hammer. Just in the way, as luck would have
it, stood a sapling fir-tree; and I never could tell whether the bear
was blinded by the smoke, or whether some of the small shot had taken
him about the eyes, but he seemed to take the tree for that which had
hurt him, and he reared himself up against it, and shook it, and fixed
his teeth in it, and shook it again, and seemed to mind nothing else,
till I stole up quietly behind him and drove the axe into his skull. The
Englishman never seemed to care a bit about the danger he had escaped;
all he said was, ‘Got him at last!’ ‘That’s the ticket!’ and shoved into
my hand more yellow and green notes than ever I saw there before or
since; and, for all he was so free with his money, he went to the Länsman
at Ostersund and got the bear’s nose sealed, and touched the Government
reward for it, just like one of us, and then he tossed the money to me,
and told me to get drunk upon it.”
“Which you did, I’ll be sworn,” said the Parson.
“I believe I did!” said Torkel; “I was not fairly sober for a good three
days after it.”
“Hist! what is that,” said he, dropping, as he spoke, on the inside of
the fence, and motioning the Parson to do so likewise.
A wolf came lolloping along with the slovenly gallop in which that
disreputable beast usually travels, looking as if it had sat up all
night drinking and was not quite sober yet. The Parson laid down his
gun, and quietly taking his rifle from Torkel, cocked it, and lodged it
upon an opening between the planks. The wolf had not seen them, but came
shambling on, when, either scenting his enemies, or knowing by experience
the ineligibility of a path near fences, he edged away towards the close
covert, showing a portion of his ungainly side at a long shot, and though
looking as if he were lame of all four legs at the same time, clearing
the ground with his immense and untiring strides faster than any dog
could have followed him.
Crack went the Parson’s rifle; but whether the wolf was hit, or whether
he knew what a rifle-shot meant, or whether he so much as heard it, or
saw the smoke, it was all the same; his course was not altered, his pace
was neither relaxed nor quickened, he went lolloping on, just as when
he was first seen, and, as much at his ease as ever, disappeared in the
forest not a hundred yards from them.
“Missed him, by all that is unlucky!” said the Parson, jumping up.
“There is no knowing,” said Torkel; “if you had hit him it would have
been all the same. Unless the shot strikes a part immediately vital they
take no notice of it.”
There was evidently nothing to be done; and, indeed, the probabilities
were that the Parson really had missed, for there was not a vestige of
blood to be seen on the turf; and as the shades were closing in and the
woods were getting too dark to see anything, they returned to their
comfortable quarters, and, by bringing in one of the cocks of rushy hay,
they succeeded in making up on the floor of the hut two couches, much
more luxurious than anything they had enjoyed since leaving Gäddebäck.
“That will do,” said Torkel; “it is a great piece of luck that we
happened upon this sœter. We shall make a much better cookery of our
grouse here than we should have done under a tree in the fjeld. There
must be a frying-pan here somewhere, if we had only light to find it by.”
“Why do you not light the fire?” said the Parson; “that will give you
light enough, for this fuel is as dry as tinder, and good honest birch,
too, with some heart in it. You must have a fire for cooking, whether you
want it for light or not, so heap up the hearth-stone at once.”
This was done as soon as said; and to the cheerful blaze of dry and
crackling fir succeeded the steady, candle-like flame of the birch,
lighting up the remotest corners, and glancing on that indispensable
requisite of mountain life which Torkel had been seeking. Fresh butter,
just from the churn, is not altogether uneatable even in Sweden, and
besides, hunger is not nice; the Parson consumed, with considerable
relish, his own share of the grouse, and only wished they had been as big
as black game, or tjäder. Brandy there certainly must have been somewhere
in the hut, for there never was a Swedish hut without; but so well was it
hidden, that all Torkel’s experience failed to bring it to light, and,
very much to the Parson’s delight, they were reduced to milk, of which
there was enough to supply the whole skal.
“Well,” said the Parson, who had succeeded in twisting up his hay into
a sort of chaise-longue, with a well-formed cushion for his back, “I
did not expect to have a roof over my head; I must say this is a real
piece of luxury. Why we are better off than the Captain with his tents;
everything we want to our hands, and no host to ask for a reckoning.”
“That would not be over safe in the Hardanger-fjeld,” said Torkel; “but
I suppose Sweden is another thing: indeed, in Norway it is only on the
Hardanger that the thing is permitted.”
“What is permitted?” said the Parson.
“Why the ghosts of the damned,” said Torkel, “are permitted to wander
about the Hardanger as they please. No great favour after all, as you
would say if you had ever seen the place; and when they see travellers
coming they build comfortable huts by the wayside, with fires burning,
and dry clothes, and plenty of brandy and good provisions, and everything
a man wants in order to make himself comfortable. It would be pretty
much of a temptation anywhere, and you may fancy what it is on that
exposed and treeless waste, where, whenever it is not raining it is
snowing, and if it is not snowing it is raining. But if a man once enters
and accepts the hospitality, he is lost,—the rushing wind carries away
the house and all that is in it, and the travellers are never heard of
more.”
“You never happened upon a ghost-house yourself, did you?” said the
Parson.
“I never did,” said Torkel, “though I have been a good deal on the
Hardanger-fjeld in my day; it is a capital place for ripar. But the truth
is, these things are not so frequent as they used to be. My father,
though, once passed a very uncomfortable night on the fjeld, and he never
could make out, to his dying day, whether the ghosts had or had not
anything to do with it.”
“How was that?” said the Parson, as he threw another log on the fire, and
stirred the embers into a good ghost-story-telling blaze.
“In those days,” said Torkel, “we lived near Bykle, on the upper
Torjedahl, and grew a good deal of barley which we could not very well
consume ourselves, and had no means to transport to Christiansand, where
generally there is a pretty good market for it. So my father set up a
still, and drove a good thriving trade with the country about Jordbrakke
and Skore, exchanging our brandy for their salt fish, an article which
is scarce enough in the Tellemark. My father used generally to meet a
trader, of the name of Nilssen, at what is called a post-house, situated
on a ridge that divides the Torjedahl from the waters that flow into
Wester Hafvet (the North Sea). Why they called it a post-house I am sure
I do not know, for there is not a horse within a day’s journey of it,
nor a post-master neither, nor, indeed, any one else. It was built by
Government, no doubt, but you seldom saw anything so bad at a common
sœter. One miserable room of ten feet square, the walls built of dry
stones, with the wind whistling in at one side and out at the other,
which was the only means of carrying off the smoke. Fuel there was, and
straw there was, for Government provides that, and the post-master
of the next station is responsible that there shall always be a store
of both; but Government says nothing about the quality, and we used
generally to find the green bog myrtle which grows there, bad as it is,
better fuel and better bedding than either of them.
“One evening, about eight o’clock, my father arrived at the usual place,
having appointed a meeting with Nilssen, but when he came there he could
nowhere find the hut. He recognised the place well enough, there was
no missing that; there was the deep still lake, the waters of which
contained no living thing,—there it was, as black as ever; there, too,
was that old mass of whinstone, which used to form the back of the hut,
and always had a stream of moisture trickling down it, but no house was
to be seen, and, what made matters worse was, that a thick mountain mist
had come on, with driving rain, which felt as if every spiteful little
drop was a needle. My father looked disconsolately along the track, and
fancied he saw, through the blinding fog, the gleam of a fire; he went
on some fifty yards, and there, sure enough, was a nice comfortable hut,
water-tight and weather-tight, with the door wide open, a bright fire on
the hearth, and two or three rounds of flad bröd and a Dutch cheese on
the great stone in the middle which did duty for a table,—but not a soul
was there.
“My father was not easily frightened; he was an old sailor, and had
helped to catch many of your English traders during the last war. He
could have looked down the throat of a cannon, and did pretty near, for
he was on board the _Najaden_ when the _Dictator_ sank her; but he did
not much fancy being damned, for all that. So he looked and looked at the
merry blaze that smiled its welcome through the door, and watched the
cheese and the flad bröd which seemed to be dancing in its light, but for
all that he laid himself down under the lee of a rock, and cold, and wet,
and miserable, wished for morning, for the wind blew, and the rain kept
pelting away all night, till he thought it would have floated him, rock
and all, into the Normand’s Laagen; and there, all the time, was the fire
blazing away, till it subsided into a glowing heap of red-hot embers.
“Towards morning he fell into a miserable sleep, and when he woke up the
mist was gone, the sun was shining brightly, and there was not a shred
of cloud to be seen. The first thing he put his eyes upon was Nilssen,
coming up from the shores of the lake, and looking as wet, and as cold,
and as wretched as he was.
“‘Ah,’ said Nilssen, ‘so you have been lost in the fog, like me. My
misfortune was all my own fault, too. I got here yesterday in very good
time, and lighted the fire, and made all comfortable, and then I must
needs be fool enough to start after a covey of ripar, that I did not get
a shot at after all; and then the mist came on, and I could not find my
way back. A wretched night I have passed, I can tell you.’
“‘What,’ said my father, ‘was it you who lighted that fire?’
“‘To be sure I did,’ said Nilssen, ‘who else should? Men are not so
plentiful in this cursed place.’
“‘And you are not damned, after all?’
“‘Not that I know of,’ said Nilssen.
“‘That is not the old hut, though, I will take my oath.’
“‘No,’ said Nilssen, ‘it is not; the other was very nearly to pieces,
as you may recollect, when we were last here. The roof fell in not a
month after that, and then the authorities of the three Ampts contrived
to settle their differences, and do what they ought to have done years
ago—build a new one at their joint expense. They have not made a bad job
of it. Come in, you are cold enough.’
“‘And I have been lying out in this cursed rain and wind all night,’ said
my father, ‘with a good fire before my eyes, and a warm roof within fifty
yards of me, fancying all the while that you were damned, and that you
wanted to take me off to the Devil along with you! What a confounded fool
I have been!’
“But I am not sure that my father was such a fool either,” continued
Torkel, “for Nilssen died very soon after that; in fact, he had caught a
bad cold during that night, and as he had sold us a lot of bad fish, I
have no doubt he _was_ damned; at all events, it is quite true that from
that day forward my father was never entirely free from the rheumatism,
and this in his latter days, when he began to get religious, he always
attributed to the sight of the fire in the post-house; for he never was
without his misgivings that Nilssen had been damned before he met him.
He once went as far as Hardnæs to ask the priest about it, and he said
that the idea was new to him, certainly, but that he would not take upon
himself to pronounce it impossible. To the very end of his life, my
father used to congratulate himself upon the fortitude and self-denial he
had evinced during that terrible night, ‘because,’ said he, ‘if the bare
sight of that fire through the mist was visited so severely, no one can
say what would have been the consequence had I sat by it all night.’”
“No,” said the Parson, solemnly, “no one can.”
“You see,” said Torkel, “the whole question hinges on the fact whether
Nilssen was damned or not; now he certainly did take us in about the
fish—we were obliged to throw away half of it. I should like very much to
have your opinion on the subject.”
“Why,” said the Parson, gravely, “will you take upon yourself to say, on
your conscience, as a Christian man, that there was no potato-haulm in
the wash from which your brandy was distilled?”
Torkel laughed, and rubbed his hands at the recollection. “No,” said he,
“that I will not; I do not think the old scoundrel made much by us, after
all.”
“Well, if that is the case, I do not think, if I were you, I would be too
hard upon poor Nilssen about the next world. But you ought to be able
to judge for yourself whether the laager was a ghost-house or not; what
became of it?”
“O, there it is still,” said Torkel. “I have slept in it often myself
since, and no harm has happened from it. But all that hill-country is a
terrible place. Do you know, the Evil One once leaped over the Tind Sö,
where it is four miles across? He did, indeed; I have seen the prints of
his footsteps with my own eyes—and a very curious thing it is, that one
foot is bigger than the other. Our Kyrkesonger says it is to mark the
difference between mortal and venial sins.”
“I am afraid your Kyrkesonger will never rise to the rank of Candidatus,”
said the Parson, “if he does not get up his theology a little better. Is
not this the place where your witches meet?”
“It is not far from it; and it is generally supposed that it was in
hurrying away from one of these meetings, which was suddenly dispersed
by some one having accidentally named a holy name, that the Devil left
the mark of his feet on the shores of the Tind Sö; but the actual place
of meeting is the top of Gousta Fjeld. The ridge of the mountain is so
narrow that you may sit astride on it, with a leg on each side in the
air, and no resting-place under either foot for a thousand fathoms. On
this ridge the Devil sits playing on the bagpipe, while the witches dance
the polska round him in the air. They come from all parts of the country,
riding upon the skyts-horse, which looks like a flying cow, and carrying
with them all the children they can catch, in order to enlist them in
the Devil’s service; for each witch has a needle, by which she unlocks
the sides of the houses, and makes an opening, if she likes, big enough
for a carriage and horses to pass through; and after she has passed,
she locks them up so that no one can know where she has been. When she
arrives at the convent—so the assembly is called,—she presents to the
Devil all those children whom she has brought with her: she cannot force
the children to take service with him,—some refuse, and the witches are
obliged to carry them back again. These are good and holy people ever
afterwards; but most of them do enter the Devil’s service, for though he
is bound down with a chain, which he has always worn ever since our Lord
came upon earth, yet he can make himself look so fine and so glorious
that very few of them like to say ‘no,’ and to go back to their homes
through the dark night. If they once say ‘yes,’ he gives them a silver
dollar each, and marks them, by biting the crown of their heads; and then
they are taught to curse all that is holy—the Heaven, and the earth, and
the fruits of the field, and the birds of the air,—all except the magpie,
for that is the Devil’s own peculiar favourite. And then the witches
make them a mess of rö-gröd, with corn that has been stolen. They have a
way of their own for stealing corn: they put a sack to the roof of the
granary as they fly past, and say ‘Corn draw corn, and straw draw straw,’
and then all the corn flies up into their sacks, and the straw remains
behind. I know this to be true, for I have lost lispund after lispund
myself that way. I had a girl in my service once, who was a witch, and
I lost as much as three tonne of corn, and a great many things besides,
while she was with me. But she vanished one night and has never been
heard of since, and with her a great scoundrel, who had lately come into
our parts, whom she called her lover,—but the people said he was the
Devil in disguise.”
“Very likely,” said the Parson, “lovers very often are; but what about
your witch children?”
“When they have done all this, the Devil gives notice of the next
convent, and the witches take the children, and they grow up with their
brothers and sisters just like any of the others, only that they are
cross-grained children from that time forward, and are always getting
into one mischief or another, and quarrelling, and fighting, and
stealing, and lying, and doing the Devil’s work on earth; for they have
all had new names given them at the convent, and whenever the Devil calls
them by those names, they must go and do whatever work he sets them
at, for they have taken his wages, and, having once engaged to be his
servants, they cannot help themselves now.”
The Parson felt by no means inclined to laugh at Torkel’s demonology,
every bit of which may be found gravely and solemnly recorded in the
State papers of Sweden, for it once formed the grounds of accusation upon
which men and women were executed by the dozen; for with the exception
of the material and tangible facts, the cow-like horse, and the silver
dollar, and the ridge of Gousta, and the bagpipes, the whole of Torkel’s
story was but an over-true allegory, the antitype of which may be found
everywhere in real life; and the fact of the Superior Power compelling
the restoration of all who do not willingly engage in the Devil’s
service, is a very sound piece of theology. So he very readily joined
in the prayer of the Evening Hymn, a very ancient composition, dating
from centuries before the Reformation, which Torkel sang as well and as
heartily as if he had been kyrkesonger himself. A portion of it has been
thus translated:—
“Ere thy head, at close of day,
On thy lowly couch thou lay,
On thy forehead and thy breast
Be the Cross of Christ impressed.
“Sin and shame, like shades of night,
Fade before the Cross’s light,—
Hallowed thus, the wavering will
And the troubled heart are still.
“Far, far hence, dark phantoms fly,—
Haunting demons come not nigh,—
Ever waiting to betray,
Arch Deceiver, hence!—away!
“Serpent! with thy thousand coils,
With thy many winding wiles,
With thy deep, meandering arts,
Ruffling calm and quiet hearts;
“Hence!—for Christ, yea, Christ is here,—
At His token disappear;
Lo! the sign thou well hast known
Bids thy cursed crew begone!”
It is a fact that the Gousta Fjeld and the Tind Sö, a very
large and lonely lake at its foot, are popularly supposed to
be the resort of the Devil and his adherents. The author,
however, has not been able to meet with any authentic accounts
of the diabolical convents in Norway. He has, therefore,
substituted those of Sweden, the locality of which is
Blaakulla, in Dalecarlia. These are quoted by Frederika Bremer
from the manuscript of Kronigsward, which details the judicial
murders which took place under Councillor Lawrence Kreutz,
in 1671,—were continued for three years, and were suppressed
at last by the exertions of Countess Catharine de la Gardie.
But, though the executions for witchcraft were put an end to,
the belief in it is as rife as ever. The same book contains
a laughable story of a supposed witch residing in the island
of Söllezo, in the Silya Sjön, and of her recovery; which
proves that the clergy of Sweden have not lost their power as
exorcists. Not many years ago, a young girl of that island
asserted positively that she was conveyed every evening to
Blaakulla. Her parents, who were honest but simple folks, were
much disturbed about it. They closely watched their daughter
by night,—bound her fast in bed with cords,—but nothing would
avail; for, in the morning, weeping bitterly, she still
maintained she had been at Blaakulla. At last, her unhappy
parents took her to the clergyman upon the island, and begged
him, with earnest tears, to save their child from the claws of
Satan. After having had several interviews with the maiden,
the clergyman one day said to her, “I know a remedy,—a certain
remedy to cure you! but it will give me much trouble. Yet, as
nothing else appears to be of any avail, we will have recourse
to it.” With much solemnity, he caused the girl to seat herself
upon a commodious chair in the centre of the apartment, took up
a “Cornelius Nepos,” and began reading one of the lives. Before
he had finished, she fell fast asleep; and when she awoke, the
clergyman told her she was cured—and she was so!
CHAPTER XXIV.
MAKING ANOTHER NIGHT OF IT.
“Unstable are autumn nights,—
The weather changes
Much in five days—
Still more in a month.”
_Hávamál._
“Praise the day at eventide,
The wife when she is dead,
The sword when thou hast proved it,
The maid when she is married,
Ice when thou hast crossed it,
Ale when thou hast drunken it.”
_Ibid._
Probably their couches were softer than usual,—probably the fact of their
being under a roof where the sun could not shine on their faces, might
have prolonged their slumbers; but the fact is, the cock, had there been
one at the sœter, which there was not, would have “had his boots on”[55]
a very long while before either the Parson or his follower had opened
their eyes; and when they did open them, it was some time before either
of them could recollect where they were. Swedes are not over fond of open
air, and though their glazed windows in the towns are large enough and
numerous enough to prove that no ingenious chancellor of the exchequer
had ever devised a tax upon their light, yet in the fjeld, where glass is
scarce, windows are scarce too, and the few that there are, are generally
stuffed with hay. In the present case, though the sun was well above the
trees, there was not light enough to see the smoky rafters over head,
or the scarcely less dirty strings of flad bröd which were dangling
from them; but all round the building there was a perpetual ringing of
bells, from the great cracked bass to the little tinkling treble; the
sheep, scared by the noises and the fires, had wandered home during the
night, and the cows were collecting round the door of the sœter in hopes
of being milked, which hopes, for one or two of them, at least, were
speedily realized,—for Torkel, taking the bucket that had been well-nigh
drained over night, proceeded very composedly to milk them, just as if he
were in his own sœter in the Tellemark, observing quietly that new milk
was better than old.
In Sweden, as well as in Norway, every animal turned out on a mountain
pasture has a bell round its neck; certain _esprits forts_ (all of whom
do it, notwithstanding, as well as their more credulous neighbours)
assert stoutly that it is to enable the girls to find them among the
trees; but as cows generally keep together, and sheep do so, invariably,
one bell would be quite sufficient for the purpose. The more probable
solution is that given honestly in the Tellemark: that the bells are tied
on to prevent the Trolls from milking them in the night,—for no Troll, as
is well known, can abide a bell.
While Torkel was in the midst of his operations as deputy dairyman, and
the Parson was looking on, half doubting the propriety of the thing,
and half inclined to put a stop to it, a sound of laughing and talking
was heard behind the fence, and three girls, none of them more than
eighteen or twenty, came clambering over it. Torkel did not seem the
least in the world disconcerted, nor did they on their part testify the
smallest surprise or displeasure, though one of them was the proprietor’s
daughter, and temporary mistress of the hut, and the others were her
servants; but after exchanging a few joking observations relative to
their respective modes of passing the preceding night, and the young
ladies’ taste for field sports, they all set to work milking in earnest,
and provided for the sportsmen a better breakfast than they were likely
to have achieved by their own unassisted efforts; nor could they be
prevailed upon to accept any payment, beyond laughingly insisting upon
the intruders carrying out every bit of hay, rebuilding the hay-cock,
sweeping out the room, and putting everything tidily into its place;
till the Parson detected Miss Lilla eyeing, with evident admiration,
a pair of Tellemarken shirt-buttons,—round hollow silver balls, about
the size of a grape-shot, with which he had decorated his broad-flapped
hat. These, after a good deal of pressing, she permitted the “Herr
Englesk” to fasten on the red silk handkerchief which formed her very
becoming head-dress, and they parted mutually pleased, Lilla remarking
politely—as the Parson, shouldering his gun and taking off his hat after
the manner of the natives, bade her farvel (for the word is Swedish no
less than English)—“Jeg er ret lykkelig ved at kunne berede dem denne
lille Tjeneste,” which, as Lilla was a pretty girl, Torkel condescended
to understand and interpret,—a thing which he had often professed himself
utterly unable to do when the speaker was a bearded man, and informed
the Parson that she was very happy in finding such an opportunity of
rendering this trifling service.
The Parson’s Swedish was at an end with his “farvel;” all he could do in
return was to bow and smile, and wave his hand, as he vaulted over the
rail and left the hospitable sœter behind him.
Their journey through the forest was little more than a counterpart of
that of yesterday,—now traversing spaces roofed with gloomy fir, and
beech not less gloomy when you see their undersides only and breathe
nothing but the confined air below them,—now breathing freely in a glade
or svedgefall, and gathering a handful of whorts or cranberries by the
way,—now pushing through a belt of under-stuff, thick enough to conceal
an elephant, but all the time meeting with very little game. Indeed,
skals are not by any means the likeliest times to find the smaller game,
and even the larger lurk unseen till the very end of them. Torkel had
cracked off the Parson’s rifle at a Lo, as he called it—that is to say, a
lynx,—that jumped up from under his feet and dashed into a thicket, but
with very little effect beyond frightening it, though the beast was twice
as large as a fox and twice as red. The parson had brought down a hen
“capercailzie,”—but that was the whole of their morning’s sport.
For some time the under-stuff had been unusually thick, and had formed a
considerable impediment to their progress; they had persevered through it
for about half a mile, and the wood gave no signs of becoming more open,
when Torkel stopped, and looked right and left of him through the stuff,
as if to find an opening.
“We must be skirting the border of a svedgefall,” said he, “where the air
comes in freely; these hazels would never grow in the close forest,—let
us edge a little to the right, we are taking the belt end-ways.”
“The right!” said the Parson; “that seems even thicker than where we are
now.”
“That is the very reason,” said Torkel; “the nearer the svedgefall, the
more air,—the more air the closer the understuff.”
The Parson thought this remarkably good reasoning, and set himself boldly
to face the difficulty, instead of shrinking from it,—a proceeding which,
were it generally followed in our course through life, would seldom fail
to meet with its reward.
It did not on this occasion, at all events, for after a hundred yards or
so of hard struggle, they suddenly emerged into an open plain of some
miles in length, and a good half mile across. It was not a svedgefall,
as Torkel had imagined, but the clearing formed by an old fire, the
effects of which nature had already, in a great measure, succeeded
in repairing; for a coarse grass, gemmed with all manner of flowers,
covered the greater part of it, through which the spiræa raised its
feathery head; large tracts were vividly green with young birches, as
yet hardly higher than the grass, but closely set, as if planted in a
nursery;—here and there the cranberry threw a gleam of crimson into
nature’s carpeting, while the epilobium—an absolute tree compared to the
dwarf plants around it—showed, with its thickly set flowers, a mass of
lilac; and the fox-glove (in Sweden a holy flower), bent its head and
rang its fairy bells, inaudible by mortal ears, whenever a good angel
passed it by on his errand of mercy. A few great mournful dead trees were
still stretching out their helpless and blackened branches, like the old
and ruined families after a revolution, sorrowful remembrances of the
glories which had passed away; but most of these had dropped where they
had stood, and were already concealed by the vigorous young undergrowth,
which was springing up all the more vigorously because the soil had been
for ages fertilized by the leaves of their predecessors.
The Parson sat down exhausted on one of these remains of fallen majesty,
and fanned himself with his broad-leafed hat, while Torkel, standing on
the highest point he could find, cast a look up and down the opening,
which seemed as silent and as destitute of animal life as any part they
had hitherto traversed.
“There is something,” said he; “I see it move—I am sure there is
something alive there.”
The Parson was up in an instant, with his telescope in his hand.
“There it is,” said Torkel, “on the farther edge, just under the high
trees—that tall dead trunk with a forked head is exactly in the line;
look there, I see it move now as plainly as possible.”
“I have got it now,” said the Parson, “and it is a bear, too, if ever I
saw one in the Zoological Gardens.”
“Hush!” said Torkel; “do not say that, or we shall never get a shot at
it.”
“Why?” said the Parson; “it is almost out of sight, let alone out of
hearing.”
“That does not signify,” said Torkel, “that animal is wiser than any of
us; whether it has a fylgia, or guardian[56] spirit, like us, is more
than I can say, but it is the truth, that if ever you name its name you
will get no shot at it, and fortunate for you if you do not meet with
some piece of ill luck into the bargain.”
“Well, well,” said the Parson, “I will take care in future; but what am I
to call him?”
“Call him Old Fur Jacket! or call him The Disturber! or call him The Wise
One! anything you like, only do not call him what you have done just
now. I hope no mischief will come of it.”
“There are two,” said the Parson; “there is a little one—I see it plainly
enough, now that they have got clear from that patch of epilobium. What
on earth is the old—pshaw!—the Old Wise One about? she seems to be
administering a little wholesome discipline to young Fur Jacket;”—and he
handed the glass to Torkel.
“She has been frightened,” said he, “she has been roused out by the dref,
and she is making her cub get up into the tree; they very frequently
do that when they suspect they will have to run or fight for it. Young
Wilful does not seem to know what is good for him, and must be flogged
into it. Just like our own younkers,” said Torkel, philosophically,
taking another look through the glass.
“It is not very good for him just now,” said the Parson, “with our eyes
upon him. If he once gets up he is a lost Fur Jacket.”
“And up he gets,” said Torkel, “and receives a parting benediction from
his mother’s paw across his stern, just to freshen his way, as Tom says.
And now how to get a crack at the Old Lady? if we were on the other side
we might do it easily enough, but the stuff here is not high enough to
hide us; those brutes have eyes sharp enough to see through a mill-stone.”
“Had we better not watch her? perhaps she will think that which is good
for young Hopeful will be good for her; we shall have her climbing,
herself, next.”
“Not she, she knows better; the branch that is very good protection to a
little lump of brown fur, she knows well enough, would not do for a beast
almost as big as a cow,—you will not catch her up a tree, and you need
not expect it.”
“What is to be done then? there she is still.”
“I do not know anything better than to keep along this edge, till we put
a mile or so of ground between us and her, and then to cross; and the
sooner we start the better, for she will not stay long after she has
disposed of her young one.”
“Good!” said the Parson, “and now for finding the place again;”—and he
took out his compass and placed it on the fallen trunk. “That forked
tree bears to us exactly E. by N.; when we come down the other side and
bring it W. by S., we shall not be very far from the place; and then the
northern edge of that large clump of epilobium will give us the exact
mark. And now to get there as quick as we may.”
They had not proceeded a couple of hundred yards when they met with a
brook which intersected the opening nearly at right angles.
“This will do,” said Torkel, jumping into it, for it was not much more
than knee deep, and clear as crystal. “The fall of the ground, the bed of
the stream, and the stuff that always grows on the banks, will be quite
sufficient cover for us.”
On they went, stooping, sometimes splashing through the water itself,
sometimes creeping on hands and knees under the bank, resting for a while
behind some friendly rock or stump, then creeping on again, till at last
they neared the opposite side; and then, seeking the shelter of the
trees, they took a few minutes’ rest—for going on all-fours is anything
but a comfortable mode of progression. Slowly and warily they advanced,
peering about, moving from tree to tree, and looking closely into every
bush before they showed themselves. There was the place evidently enough;
the north corner of the epilobium was near enough to the forked tree
to make a capital mark—there could be no mistake as to the locality;
besides, the bear’s tracks were evident enough on some soft ground; but
no living creature was to be seen. The bear had either heard them, or
smelt them, or, having provided for her young one, and being restless and
anxious on account of the noises that had roused her at first, had gone
on to some thicker cover.
“That comes of calling the beast by his name,” said Torkel, half sulkily;
“never do that again, at least not in the fjeld. Well, never mind, we
will have young Innocence, at all events; the reward is half as much for
a cub as it is for an old one.”
“That is all you think about,” said the Parson.
“No it is not,” said Torkel; “I like the sport itself as well as any
man living—I love it for its own sake; but I should not mind a few of
their yellow notes, either, to be turned into honest, hard Norwegian
specie-dalers, and laid up for the winter,—at least, just now, for Lota’s
sake. Fancy what a set of scoundrels these Swedes must be, when they have
to print on all their notes, ‘Whoso forges this shall be hanged’—we do
not do that in Norway.”
“No,” said the Parson, “you are none of you clever enough to forge—the
_Norges Bank’s Representativ_ is quite safe in such clumsy hands as
yours.”
“There he sits, just in that fork close to the trunk,” said Torkel, who,
if he had not, as the Parson insinuated, skill enough in his fingers to
forge a note, had quickness enough in his eyes to see through a log of
timber, if a bear had been hiding behind it. “There is young Innocence!
Oh! do not spoil his skin with that small shot. Here is the rifle. Put
the ball in under his ear,—that will not hurt him.”
It did not seem to hurt him, in good truth, for he never moved an inch
on receiving the shot, though the blood dripping down the tree showed
that the ball had reached its mark. The cub remained perfectly dead, but
supported by the fork in which he was sitting.
“What is to be done now?” said the Parson; “I do not see how to get him
down, for the trunk is too big to swarm up, and we have not a branch for
twenty feet; but it will never do to leave him there.”
“Leave him!” said Torkel; “O no! that would never do. I think we may get
up into that tree, though, with a little management.”
There was growing, within a few yards of the great tree which the bear
had selected, a small thin weed of a fir, which, coming up in the shade,
had stretched itself out into a long branchless pole with a bunch of
green at the top, in its legitimate aspirations after light and air.
Torkel, disengaging the axe which he usually carried at his back, notched
it on the nearer side, and then, seeing its inclination would carry it to
the great tree on which the cub was hanging, cut vigorously. In a minute
or two the little fir sank quietly into the yielding arms of his great
neighbour, and formed with its trunk a rough ladder. Up this Torkel,
having paused for a moment to see if it had finally settled, climbed
as readily as any bear in the forest. He was soon seen worming himself
through the spreading branches, and slipping down to the fork; and the
little lump of bear’s fat, about the size of a two-year-old hog, came
squashing down upon the turf.
Small as it was for a bear, it was impossible to carry it; so they tied
its hind legs together, and hung it upon one of the dead trees in the
open, the Parson having first pinned upon its snout a leaf which he had
torn out of his note-book, and had written Torkel’s name upon it.
Torkel, however, was mistaken about his share of the yellow notes,
though the Parson did not suffer him to lose by it. Every bear killed in
a skal is the property of the Ofwer Jagmästere; a regulation which is
found to be absolutely necessary, in order to prevent men from breaking
their ranks and hunting the likely places independently,—a proceeding
which would ensure the loss of every bear except the particular animal
which was the object of immediate pursuit. Of this Torkel was not aware,
because in Norway skals such as this seldom or never take place, not
only because the ground is generally too difficult, but principally
because the inhabitants are too widely scattered to be easily collected
in sufficient numbers, and a great deal too lawless to be managed if they
could.
With all the complacency which the consciousness of having done a good
action confers, they proceeded on their journey, which, as their course
happened to lie lengthways of the opening, was easy enough. Hot, and the
least little bit in the world fatigued, they sauntered along on the shady
side of the glade, till they began to discover that the whole country had
become shady, and that a little sun, if it was to be had, would be just
as pleasant. In fact, it had become extremely chilly.
“There goes Thor’s hammer,” said Torkel, as a crash of thunder burst over
their heads, echoing from tree to tree; “we need not fear the Trolls
now, every one of them is half-way to the centre of the earth by this
time.”
“I wish we had nothing worse to fear,” said the Parson; “but this gradual
darkening looks a great deal more like a spell of bad weather than a
sudden storm. I wish we knew where the Captain’s post is.”
“We cannot be within seven or eight miles of that,” said Torkel; “and
I really do think that we are going to have a wet night, and plenty of
mist into the bargain. It will be perfectly impossible for us to find
the post, knowing so little of the country as we do. We had better hut
ourselves at once. If we had been on the hill we might have seen this
coming, but down here it was impossible, with no sky visible, except that
which is right over our heads.”
“Well,” said the Parson, “if it is to be, we may as well halt at once. So
off with your havresac, and turn to. This spreading fir will do as well
as any for our canopy.”
Torkel was a man of deeds, and his assent and approbation were
demonstrated by his throwing down his havresac and forthwith selecting
and cutting down a young fir for his ridge-pole; and,—while the Parson
was securing the locks of the guns with handkerchiefs, and such like
extemporaneous expedients,—for the gun covers had, of course, been left
with the baggage,—he had already cut down two pair of cross timbers to
lay it on. The Parson, with his hand-bill, aided him vigorously, and
the more so that the rain had now begun to patter sharply from leaf to
leaf, and it was very evident that no long time would elapse before
it found its way to their localities below. The frame-work of the hut
was arranged, and branches of the fir and beech, and coarse grass and
juniper,—in fact anything that could be collected on the spur of the
moment,—was laid on as thatch, while Torkel hastily drew together and
chopped up the driest stuff he could find for the fire.
The rain was now coming on in right earnest, and the night was
prematurely setting in. The drops came through thicker and thicker, each
one as big as a marble; and the sportsmen, with jackets more than half
wet through, crept disconsolately into the unfinished hut, in order, as
Torkel said, to make themselves comfortable.
The first piece of comfort which was discovered was that the havresacs,
which had been thrown off at the beginning of the hutting operations,
had been left where they were thrown, and were by this time wet through
and through, together with every morsel of bread that they contained.
The supper was not luxurious, and, as neither was greatly disposed for
conversation, they laid themselves up in the warmest corner they could
find, and courted forgetfulness, as well as rest and refreshment, in
sleep.
The Parson, as an old fisherman, had been pretty well accustomed to a
minor description of roughing it. The boxes of dried poplar leaves of a
Norwegian cottage, or the heaps of hay of a sœter-farm were to him as
feather beds. A rainy day, too, he had often hailed as remarkably good
fishing weather, but a night’s bivouac, sub-Jove, and that Jove pluviali,
was rather a new thing to him; and his cloak, too, miles off, under the
charge of the faithful Jacob. One habit, however, he had picked up in his
travels, which stood him in good stead now, and that was the habit of
“making the best of it.”
Bad was the best; the fuel was wet and scanty, and the fire soon went
out; and Torkel’s house, run up hastily and after dark, was as little
water-tight as if it had been built by contract. Before midnight the
Parson was roused up, first by detached drops and then by little
streamlets falling on his face and person, and wet and chilled, he lay
counting the hours, and envying Torkel, who snored comfortably through it
all.
Morning came at last—it always does come if we wait long enough for
it,—and a dull and misty light began to struggle in through the opening
of the hut, and through several other openings also, which, during the
past night had officiated, though uncalled for, as spouts for the water.
Still the rain fell, not in showers, not violently, for there was not a
breath of wind, but evenly, quickly, steadily, as if, conscious of its
resources, it meant to rain for ever; while the big drops from the fir
branches kept patter, patter, on the soppy ground, and the mist hung so
low that you could scarcely see the branches they fell from.
“Hang that fellow, he will sleep for ever,” said the Parson; “come, rouse
out Torkel, ‘show a leg,’ as Tom says, it is broad daylight now, and high
time for us to be moving.”
Torkel stretched himself and rubbed his eyes, and looked stupid; his
thoughts had not returned from his native Tellemark, and his prospects of
a “home and pleasing wife,” on the banks of the Torjedahl, of which, in
all probability, he had been dreaming.
“Come, Torkel, rouse up my boy,” said the Parson, kicking him; “here
is the tail end of the brandy-flask for you, and when that is gone, we
must find our way to where more is to be had.” The hint of brandy had
the desired effect of waking up the old hunter; for even his iron frame
was none the better for the night’s soaking. The brandy, however, put
them both in good-humour, and having extracted from their havresacs that
which had once been excellent kahyt scorpor, but which now were black
soppy lumps of dough, they made an extempore breakfast, seasoned by some
chips of Fortnum and Mason’s portable soup, a piece of which the Parson
invariably carried with him, but which, as there was now no possibility
of lighting a fire, they were obliged to suck or eat as they could.
“Now Mister Torkel, _en route!_ hvar er väga til hållet? we must get
there before we taste brandy again, that is certain; pray Heaven they
have not broken up the skal, and left us alone in our glory. That is our
direction,” continued he, looking at his pocket-compass, “but the thing
is to keep it, in this thick wood and thick weather, when no one can see
a dozen yards before his nose.”
Every one who has been out in a fog knows the propensity the traveller
invariably has to work round in a circle, and to return to the spot from
which he started. True, in the present case, the compass was a safeguard
against this, but to consult the compass when walking or riding requires
time, the needle does not settle itself to the north without a good deal
of vacillation; and here the lie of the country gave no assistance
whatever; it was not a plain, certainly, for it was very uneven, and
occasionally rocky, but there was nothing like hill, or any continuous
direction of declivities, which could form a guide. Here and there were
dense brakes, every leaf and twig of which, overcharged with moisture,
showered down its stores upon them, and there was no possibility of
picking the ground, where the only chance of finding the track lay in
keeping the compass course. No brook had been met with of sufficient
volume to render it probable that it had come from behind the hills; and
besides, it was more than probable that the watercourses, which formed
the only communications with the pickets above, were much too full now to
be practicable.
As hour after hour wore on, and the forest seemed always like that
through which they had started in the morning, the Parson was more than
once tempted to follow the course of the running water, and to make his
way down to the river, upon the chance of at least a shelter and a meal
at one of the farm-houses; but the hopes of effecting a junction with his
friends, and still more with his baggage, kept him to his course, though
the hållet—as Virgil’s Italy served poor Æneas—seemed to be continually
going backwards as he approached it.
“Hallo!” said Torkel at last, who was then a little in advance, “what
have we got to now, a svedgefall, or a sœter? the fjeld is much clearer
here. Oho, I see! this will do; look here, this juniper was cut only
lately, and here is another stump, and the branches all carried away,
too, and there is a tree that has got its lower boughs trimmed; we have
got to the shooting line at last.”
“Upon my word, I think we have,” said the Parson; “and if so, we must
turn short up to the left, and the Captain’s post cannot be far from us.”
“Unless they have broken up the skal,” said Torkel.
“If they have, I am sure we shall find some one here, left to guide
us; Lieutenant Birger knows that we are to make for this spot. Here is
something, at all events,” as they came in sight of a line of peeled
saplings, right across the path, which had for some time begun to ascend
rather rapidly. “This will do, I am sure;” for now a peasant, who had
been sitting cowering under the rock, with a soldier’s musket in his
hand, the lock of which he had covered with a sack that had evidently
done duty with the carioles, came forward to meet them.
He was not very communicative, however, for he could not speak English,
and would not understand Norwegian; but, at all events, they learnt to
their comfort that the post was there still, and, after ten minutes sharp
pull up a steep but very open and practicable pass, they came in sight of
the Captain’s watch-fires, situated in the gorge of it.
“Home at last!” said the Parson.
“And high time, too,” said the Captain. “There, pick those wretched
flowers out of that hat of yours, and let us see whether we cannot make
you look less like a drowned rat.”
“You have not broken up the skal, then?” said the Parson.
“Oh, no! nothing like it; the rain came on late in the evening, and
they could not have broken it up then if they wished, for the men would
not have had time to go home, and might just as well make themselves
comfortable where they were.”
Comfortable! thought the Parson, shrugging his wet shoulders, and
thinking of his own comforts during the night past.
“And this morning,” continued the Captain, “the weather-wise say that the
rain will not last; and as they have driven so much of the country, and
fairly disturbed the game, the Ofwer Jagmästere sent for some brandy—not
enough to make the men drunk, but as much as is good for them,—and they
are to keep their fires burning and make all the noise they can, and so
keep the game within the ring till the weather clears.”
“And where did you hear all this?” said the Parson.
“Oh, Birger is here,” said the Captain; “he came in about two hours ago,
as wet as you are; he is asleep in the other tent. Did you not see a row
of barked bushes as you came up?”
“Yes,” said the Parson, “that I did, and I hailed them as the traveller
did the gibbet,—the first mark of civilisation I had seen; but I cannot
say that I understand what they mean.”
“It was Birger’s plan,” said the Captain, “they have done it pretty
continuously along the line of the dref; it is intended to look like a
trap, and to prevent the game from coming up the pass during the rain,
when we cannot trust to our rifles. We have had half-a-dozen wolves here
last night; there is one of them,” pointing to a carcase which two of
the men were skinning. “I was not ready for them, that is the truth,
for I was eating my supper. I ought, certainly, to have had a brace of
them, but this gentleman was a little in the rear of his party, and the
Devil took the hindermost,—at least my little pea-rifle did. And there
are a couple of foxes; Tom says their skins are valuable. I picked them
off during the night. I am pretty sure we had a bear, too, early this
morning; but he turned, whatever he was, before I could get a sight of
him.”
“No wonder, with that fire,” said the Parson.
“Why, we do want to keep them in,” said the Captain; “besides, who is to
do without a fire in such weather as this? There—had you not better go
and make yourself comfortable. Jacob has brought your knapsack and cloak:
you will find them there in the tent—(by-the-bye, what do you think of
the use of tents now?) After that I suppose you will be ready for dinner?”
“You may say that,” said the Parson; “it is little beside biscuit sopped
in rain that we have had this day. Tom,” he shouted, “mind you take care
of Torkel there; going without his grub is a serious thing to one of your
country, and a still more serious thing going without his brandy.”
“As for your wet clothes,” continued the Captain, “there is no help for
that. Birger’s are much in the same mess, but we have a fire big enough
to dry anything, if the rain would only hold off. In the meanwhile
you must keep under canvas; those lug-sails of yours keep the wet out
capitally. You see, I have used them for roof, and have built up walls to
them with fir-branches and junipers.”
“Upon my word,” said the Parson, “it is quite luxurious, and so is this
dry flannel shirt—Heaven bless the man who invented flannel shirts,—I
should have been dead with cold by this time, if I had been wearing a
linen one. Hallo, Jacob! you look rather moist; what is the state of the
larder?”
Whatever the state of the larder was, the Captain had determined it
should be a mystery, for he knew well that nothing unfits a man for
subsequent work so much as a hearty meal after great fatigue upon little
sustenance. As soon, therefore, as he heard that they had eaten little
or nothing since their breakfast at the sœter on the preceding day, he
gave a private sign to Jacob, and nothing whatever was forthcoming but a
good strong basin of portable soup, smoking hot, with a couple of kahyt
scorpor bobbing about in it; and, early as it was in the day—for it was
not more than four in the afternoon,—the Parson was well satisfied to
scoop out a bed in the dry moss of the tent, to draw his fur cloak over
him, and to seek in sleep the rest which he needed quite as much as he
did the food.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE WATCH FIRE.
“Fire will be needful
For him who enters
With his knees frozen.
Of meat and clothing
Stands he in need
Who journeys o’er mountains.
“Water is needful,—
A towel and kindness,
For the guest’s welcome.
Kind inclinations
Let him experience;—
Answer his questions.”
_Hávamál._
Sound and deep were the Parson’s slumbers, complete and absolute was
his state of unconsciousness. Noises there were in the camp, no doubt,
noises of every description: eight or ten people without any particular
occupation, without any reason whatever for keeping silence—rather the
reverse,—are apt to be noisy. But it was all one to him, the Seven
Sleepers themselves could not have slept more soundly; and the next
four or five hours were to him as though they had not been. His first
perception of sublunary matters was awakened by the words of a well
known air, which at first mingled with his dreams, and then presented
themselves to his waking senses:—
“O, never fear though rain be falling,—
O, never fear the thunder dire,—
O, never heed the wild wind’s calling,
But gather closer round the fire.
For thus it is, through storm and rain,
The weary midnight hours must wane,
Ere joyous morning comes again,
And bids the gloom retire.”
The Parson unrolled himself from his cloak and looked out; the night had
fallen dark enough, and the rain, though it gave evident symptoms of
having exhausted itself, was still falling, but scantily and sparingly.
The mist was thicker and darker and blacker than ever; all, however, was
bright light in the camp, for the bale-fires of Baldur could not have
burnt more brightly than the watch-fires of the picket. The Captain had
had plenty of spare hands and plenty of spare time, and had kept his men
in work by collecting stores of fuel; besides which he had made use of
an expedient which, common enough in winter camps, is seldom resorted to
in summer. A full-grown pine, which seemed to have died of old age, and
had dried up where it stood, was cut down; the head, already deprived of
its branches by Time, was chopped off and laid alongside the butt, end
for end, and the fires had been lighted on the top of these two pieces
of timber. The interstice between them admitting the air from below,
roared like a furnace, and blew up the bright flames on high; whilst the
trunks themselves, which had speedily become ignited, contributed their
own share to the general light and heat. There were several supplementary
fires, for the great furnace was much too fierce for culinary operations;
and the smoke from all these, pressed down, as it were, by the
superincumbent mist, formed, by the reflection of the flames, a sort of
luminous halo, beyond which it was impossible for eye to penetrate. Here
and there fir branches were stuck into the ground to dry the clothes
upon, for though the drizzle had not exactly ceased, the heat dried much
faster than the rain moistened.
Full in the blaze of light, and as near as he could approach to it
without burning himself, stood Birger; his neat little figure just as
tidy, and just as carefully dressed, as if there had been no such thing
as falling rain, or wet juniper, or prickly brambles in the world. He
was standing with his back to the fire, and his hands in the pockets of
his shooting-jacket, watching the preparations for a late supper, and
singing, at the full pitch of a very powerful voice, the magic words
which had recalled the Parson to a state of consciousness. The Captain,
who had evidently been furbishing up with fresh chalk the “S. F.” on
his cap, which looked quite white and new, notwithstanding the rain, had
just returned from visiting his sentries, and was examining the lock
of his American rifle, which he had carried with him, to see if it had
sustained any damage from the wet. Jacob, and his attendant imps, were
emerging from behind the flames with the everlasting black kettle, which
was accompanied this time by a pile of steaks, cut from some mysterious
animal, and served up on the splash-board of one of the carioles, by way
of dish.
“Halloo! Birger,” said the Parson; “you here! Rather a change in the
general aspect of affairs since we parted last!”
“You may well say that; I never saw such a determined day’s rain; I
thought the twilight of the gods was come in real earnest.”
“To judge from the fire that you have got up,” said the Parson, emerging
from the tent, “you seem inclined to realize the old prophecy, that that
twilight is to finish off by a general conflagration.”
“You need not cast inquiring glances at me,” said Birger to the Captain,
who, having satisfied himself about the state of his weapons, was trying
to make out the allusion. “I am not going to tell you that long story
now. The gods themselves, if we may trust the high song of Odin, used to
take off the edge of their hunger, and thirst, too,—for they were thirsty
souls,—before they called on Bragi, the god of minstrelsy, to sing even
their own deeds. And, to tell you the truth, to say nothing of my being
as hungry as a hunter, these steaks are most magnificent, and this kettle
unusually savoury.”
“What have you got in it?” said the Parson.
“Andhrimnir cooks Sahrimnir in Eldhrimnir,” replied Birger, quoting from
the cookery of the prose Edda. “Do you not see Odin has sent us a present
of heavenly meat from Valhalla?”
“Nonsense! what is the meat of Valhalla called here on earth?”
“Goat’s flesh,” said Birger, demurely.
“Humph!” said the Parson, turning over, with his crimping knife, a bone
almost big enough to have belonged to a small ox; “and this is a goat’s
rib, is it?”
“Valhalla was always remarkable for its breed of goats,” said Birger:
“but never you mind what rib it is, there’s a biscuit to eat with it,
that is all you need care about, just now. I am afraid our host, the
Skalfogdar” (bowing to the Captain), “cannot find you any currant jelly
to eat with it.”
“I can find you some cranberry jelly, though,” said the Captain, “which
is a much better thing, and much more characteristic of the country.
Here, Jacob, hand me that mess-tin, will you. The very first thing I did,
after reconnoitring my post, was to lay in a store of these cranberries,
and to make them into jelly. I had not to go far for them. You would not
like them in the Swedish fashion—pickled,—would you? I think the men have
got some which they have made for themselves.”
“Thank you, yes; and a little of the forbidden stuff, too, to wash it
down with. Never mind the water, Piersen, I have taken my share of that
already.”
Here Jacob made his appearance, with four or five orre grouse, spitted
upon a strip of fir;—Jacob piqued himself on his fjeld cuisine, and
really did serve up his dinners admirably. The whole was concluded with
split grayling, by way of cheese, for being north of the Wener Sjön, they
were in the grayling country,—a circumstance which the Captain, whose
post was not a mile from the river, had not been slow to profit by;—on
the sunny morning of the preceding day, he had caught them by dozens.
The grayling, which are seldom caught in Norway, where the rivers are
mostly too rough for such tender fish, abound throughout the whole north
of Sweden, and are worth anything to the fisherman; they render his
chances of sport, as well as of provisions, very much less precarious,
because they do everything which trout do not; they are stationary
when—in Sweden, at all events—the trout is migratory; they come into
high season when the trout are going out; they will not rise in a stormy
day, which the trout loves; but, when the sun is bright and the wind is
low, and not a ripple curls the surface, and not a trout stirs beneath
it, the swift, shadow-like grayling dot it with their rises like so many
hail-stones. They are very good eating, too, when dressed in any way man
can devise; but a very excellent method, and a very common method in
Sweden, is to split them down the back, pepper them well, and dry them in
the hot sun before broiling them, or making them into plok-fiske. This
Jacob was unable to do on the present occasion, for the rain had been
falling from the time of the Captain’s return from the river; so he had
substituted for the sun that which was scarcely less hot—the Captain’s
blazing fire; and his imitation was unanimously pronounced to have
exceeded the original.
“I do not think I should have fared like this at any of the farm houses,”
said the Parson, stretching himself at full length on his cloak and
basking at the fire, for the rain had now entirely ceased, and the
bivouac began to look home-like and comfortable. “I must say it required
a pretty firm determination to keep steadily onward, with soaked clothes
and chilled bones and empty stomachs, such as we had this morning. I was
sorely tempted to make for shelter; but I set before me the comforts of
persevering, and I am very glad I did so. To say nothing of your company
and Jacob’s dinner, this glorious blaze is far better than a farm-house
stove, and my old cloak than a dirty sheep-skin. Well, virtue is its own
reward. Jacob, fill the pot with hot water, and let us have a few embers
here to keep it warm. Have you got any sugar?”
“There is nothing your countrymen are so remarkable for,” said
Birger, “as a steady, resolute perseverance against difficulties and
discouragements.”
“Pluck?” suggested the Captain.
“Yes, Pluck! you did not know when you were beaten at Waterloo, and so
you won the battle; Wellington would have got an army of Englishmen out
of the scrape of Moscow, if he had ever been ass enough to get them into
it.”
“I think,” said the Parson, “that this may be traced to a national
peculiarity of ours—love of adventure. Other men will undergo hardships
and incur dangers, in search of gain, or even in the pursuit of some
definite object, but the Englishman seeks his hardships for the pleasure
of undergoing them,—courts his dangers for the pleasure of surmounting
them, and follows out his adventure for adventure’s sake.”
“In fact,” said the Captain, “he does just what we are all doing now.”
“Well,” said Birger, “and let no one say—what is the use of it?—what is
the Englishman the better for diving into mines, and scaling mountains,
and crossing deserts?—what has he to show for it? He has this to show
for it,—a manliness of character,—a spirit to encounter the dangers of
life, and a heart to overcome its difficulties. Depend upon it, while
your aristocracy—men brought up and nourished in the very lap of luxury
and ease—seek their pleasures in the dangers of the wild ocean, or the
hardships of the stormy mountain-side, you will see no symptoms of
degeneracy in the hardihood and manliness of your national character.
Pluck is a genuine English word, slang though it be.”
“I think you may translate it into Swedish,” said the Captain, “for our
English blood has a cross of Scandinavian in it, and there really is as
great a similarity in our national characteristics as there is in the
structure of our languages.”
“I think,” said the Parson, “your word ‘Mod’ implies pluck, with a dash
of fierceness in it. When it is said of some grand berserkar, ‘har
oprist syn mod,’ it means that he has summoned his pluck, with the full
intention of making his enemies aware of that fact. Still, however, it is
a fair rendering of our more peaceable word, and you have a right to it;
but I am quite sure you cannot translate that expression into any other
language under the sun, without losing some part of its force.”
“Whether any foreigners can translate the word into their own language,”
said the Captain, “is more than I will undertake to say, but they
perfectly understand and appreciate this peculiarity of our English
character. Last year I was arranging with one of the Chamouny guides an
expedition into the higher Alps; I had with me a jolly talking little
French marquis, whom I had picked up at St. Gervais. He was an ambitious
little fellow, and volunteered—Heaven help him!—to be my companion.
My guide—(you recollect old Couttet, Parson?)—looked rather blank at
this, and taking me aside, said in a low voice, ‘_absolument je n’irais
pas avec ce Monsieur lá_.’ ‘Why?’ said I, rather astonished at the man
refusing that which would certainly have put some additional francs into
his pocket. ‘_Je connais bien ces Francais_,’ said he—‘an Englishman
is fearful enough in the valleys, always saying he will not do this,
and he cannot do that, because in truth he is so proud that he does not
like to take anything in hand and be beat in it; but once get him on the
mountain, and fairly in for it, and be the danger what it may, he faces
it, and be the fatigue what it may, he keeps up a good heart, and in the
end gets through it all as well as we do ourselves. Your Frenchman is as
bold as brass in the valleys, and does not do badly for a spurt if he
thinks people are admiring him, but he gets cowed when danger comes and
no one to see him, and sits down and dies when he is tired.’”
“Mr. Couttet was a sensible fellow, and knew his man,” said Birger, who,
descended from the old aristocracy of Sweden, hated and despised the
French party most cordially; “and how did you get rid of your travelling
companion?”
“O! Couttet took the management of that upon his own hands; he made
the poor little marquis’s hair stand on end, with all sorts of stories
about snow storms, and whirlwinds, and frozen travellers; which no doubt
were true enough, for there is not a pass in the High Alps without
its well-authenticated tale of death; so the little fellow came to me
heartily ashamed of himself, and looking like a dog that was going to be
whipped, with his ‘mille excuses,’ and so forth, and in fact, we then and
there parted company, and I have not seen him from that time to this. He
certainly was rather an ambitious Tom Thumb for the Col du Géant.—Hallo!
there is something on foot there,” said he, interrupting himself, “hark
to that! there goes another.” And in fact, three or four shots not very
distant from them were distinctly heard, though they came, not sharp
and ringing as such sounds generally strike upon the ear through the
clear air of the north, but deadened by the mist, as if, so to speak,
the sound had been smothered by a feather-bed. “There goes another! and
another!” then came a whole platoon—“O, by George! I must go and visit my
sentries.”
“All nonsense,” said Birger, “one fellow fires at a rustling
leaf, and then all the rest crack off their pieces, by the way of
follow-the-leader; you may just as well make yourself comfortable,”
drawing his cloak round him by way of suiting the action to the word.
“Hand me over the bottle, Jacob! some more hot water in the pot!”
“I shall go, however,” said the Captain, who was young at picket work,
and proportionably anxious; so shouldering his rifle, and calling to Tom,
his corporal and interpreter, he disappeared into the outer darkness,
while his friends settled themselves more comfortably in their cloaks,
and threw half a dozen additional, not to say superfluous, logs into the
glorious blaze.
The dispositions at the foot of the pass had been made with great
judgment; the object was, if possible, to prevent anything from passing
during the night, but at any rate to arrange matters so that nothing
should pass without being seen.
For this purpose a pretty large fire was lighted so near to the
perpendicular part of the rock that nothing would be likely to go behind
it, the shrubs of course being cleared away from its vicinity; and on the
opposite side of the passage was a little sentry-box of fir branches,
under which sat two Swedes, with directions to let fly at anything that
crossed between them and the fire; so that if they missed, as most likely
they would, the picket above might at least be prepared.
The men, who had been excited by the firing, were sharp as needles, and
indeed, were not very far from letting fly at their own commander, but
they had seen nothing that they could be very certain about, though of
course their imaginations were full of half the beasts in Noah’s Ark; and
so, after straining his eyes into the thick darkness for half an hour
or more, the Captain heaped fresh fuel on the fire, recommended a sharp
look-out, returned slowly up the pass, and was well laughed at for his
pains as he resumed his seat by the blazing tree.
“By the way, Birger, what is that story that you and the Parson were
alluding to just before dinner, I hope you have eaten and drank enough by
this time to qualify you for relating it.”
“What, the twilight of the gods? the Ragnarök, as the Edda calls it; that
is not a story, it is a bit of heathenism.”
“It seems to me,” said the Captain, “that you Swedes keep your heathenism
a great deal better than you do your Christianity.”
“The Norwegians do, certainly,” said Birger, “the fact is, their
conversion was effected by force of arms, rather than by force of
argument; the party of Olaf the Christian was stronger than the party of
Hakon the heathen, so they killed and converted, and the people became
Christians, and very appropriately adopted the saint’s battle-axe for
their national emblem. As for their Reformation, that was simply an order
from a despotic court, not resisted, only because the people did not care
much about the matter. ‘It will not make herrings dear,’ was the popular
remark on the subject. The creed of Odin was the only religion that they
were in earnest about, and that is why the legends that they cling to,
are, nine times in ten, heathen rather than Christian.”
“I think I have read that story about the herrings in Geijer, but applied
to a different nation,” said the Parson; “it will not do for you Swedes
to be throwing stones at Norway, in the matter of that Reformation; your
original conversion by St. Ansgar, was a good deal more creditable than
theirs, but your Reformation was simply the party of Gustaf stronger than
the party of Christiern—you reformed your Church because you wanted to
dissolve the union of Kalmar.”
“What do you say about your own Reformation?” said Birger.
“That it has nothing to do with the twilight of the gods, which the
Captain wants to hear about—tell us what you Swedes believe about that.”
“Why, we Swedes do not believe in it at all; it is not like the legends
of the Walpurgis Night, or the death of Baldur, which are annually kept
alive by the change of seasons which they commemorate. This legend
has lost its hold on the popular mind; but it is a curious theory,
notwithstanding, because it contains evident traces of a revelation
corrupted, because disjoined from that people to whose guardianship had
been committed the oracles of Divine Truth. In the twilight of the gods
may be clearly traced a representation of the end of the world, such as
is revealed to us:—a fierce winter, the most terrible natural affliction
to the northern mind, is to usher it in; then comes the general falling
away, which we are ourselves taught to expect.[57]
“The sun and the moon are to be devoured by the wolves, that have
been continually pursuing them ever since creation, and every now and
then, by seizing them, have caused eclipses; the stars fall, the earth
quakes so that the trees are shaken from their roots, and the mountains
totter;—then the Midgard Serpent turns on its ocean bed, and an immense
wave rushes over the land, upon which floats the phantom ship, Naglfar,
which is built of the nails of dead men—the wolf, Fenrir, together with
the midgard serpent,—both of them the offspring of Loki, the Principle
of Evil,—which hitherto have been chained down by the Æsir, are now
permitted to break loose; the heavens are cleft in twain, and the sons
of Muspell, the Band of Brightness, headed by Surtur the Avenger, ride
through the breach, and advance by the bridge of Bifrost which bursts
asunder beneath them. For the time the Avengers join their bright bands
with Loki and the Children of Darkness, and advance to the battle-field
of Vigrid, where the destinies of the world are to be decided.
“In the mean while the gods are fully prepared; Heimdall, the Warder
of Heaven, has sounded the Horn Gjallar, and the gods assemble in
council;—Valhalla pours out from its five hundred and forty gates its
hosts of heroes; these, which are the men who have been slain in battle
from the beginning of the world, and ever since have been trained by
daily tournaments for this very purpose, are eager for the combat; and
Odin, having previously ridden over for the last time to the Well of
Mimir, and consulted the Norna, marshalls his hosts on the field of
Vigrid; loud and desperate is the battle, the Powers of Evil fall one by
one before the gods, but very few of these survive the conflict. Thor,
having killed the Midgard Serpent, falls exhausted with his efforts and
dies; Frey, who has parted with the sword of victory, falls before the
avenger, Surtur; Loki and Heimdall engage in battle and mortally wound
each other; Odin himself is swallowed up by the wolf Fenrir, which is
instantly destroyed by Vidar; and last of all, Tyr, the God of Victory,
falls in the very act of overcoming the dog Garm.
“Surtur the Avenger, having now no opponent, sets the earth and the
heavens on fire with his excessive brightness, and the whole race of men
is consumed, with the exception of certain chosen individuals who lie
hid and protected in the forest of Hodmimir. Then Surtur himself retires
before Vidar, the God of Silence, who, calling to him Modi and Magni
(Courage and Might) the sons of Thor (Violence), and summoning Baldur
(Innocence) from the realms of Hela (Night or Invisibility), founds a new
heaven and a new earth, and a new race of inhabitants, and they dwell on
the plains of Ida (perpetual youth), where Asgard formerly stood, and
their descendants shall spread over the new earth, which shall be lighted
by a new sun.
“‘The radiant sun
A daughter bears
Ere Fenrir takes her;—
On her mother’s course
Shall ride that maid
When the gods have perished.’
“And now, to quote the conclusion of the Prose Edda, ‘If thou hast any
further questions to ask, I know not who can answer thee, for I never
heard tell of any one who could relate what will happen in the other ages
of the world. Make, therefore, the best use thou canst of what has been
imparted to thee.’”
“Why,” said the Captain, “this is Revelation!”
“To be sure it is,” said the Parson; “and my wonder is not that so much
of revealed truth should have been corrupted, but that so much should
have been preserved. There is no occasion for the sneers of those who
say that in the conversion of Scandinavia, St. Ansgar merely substituted
Valentine for Vali, St. Philip for Iduna, and our Lord for Baldur. He
had, in truth, little to teach his converts beyond explaining allegories,
and shewing them that their religion was only a mild, yet tolerably
faithful type of that which was actually true,—that Thor and Odin
were attributes, not persons, and that Asgard and Gimli, and Hela and
Nifleheim, were states and conditions, not places.”
It must not be supposed that this conversation had been continued
altogether without interruption. Shots had from time to time rung through
the night-air; some faintly and from great distances; some, as it would
seem, within a few hundred yards of them; there was evidently something
restless in the circle of the skal, but their own sentries gave no
notice, and the ear becoming accustomed to such noises, the shots had of
late been little regarded.
One moment, however, changed the whole aspect of affairs, and recalled
the thoughts of the party from the heights of Asgard to the affairs of
middle earth.
A shot from the foot of the pass; then another! “Hjortarne! hjortarne!”
(the stags! the stags!) roared out the sentries.
The Captain sprang into a dark corner, bringing the whole blaze before
him, and cocked his rifle. Then came a sound like a troop of horse
at full gallop—a rush!—a charge! Jacob flying into the arms of the
sportsmen, his coffee pot scattering around its fragrant contents,—dark
forms bounding across the bright spot of light, scattering the men,
and the wet clothes, and the cookery, and the crockery! A crack from
the Captain’s rifle! a crash! and the whole scene passed away like an
illusion, leaving the circle tenantless, in the midst of which the great
fire was blazing away as quietly and peaceably as if nothing unusual had
ever been illumined by its light.
“By the Thousand! that shot told somewhere,” said Birger, picking himself
up. “By George, it is Jacob! poor devil! Well, I am sorry for him, the
old scoundrel.”
But Jacob, when he could be brought to his senses, could not find out
that he had been wounded at all, though his great unwieldy frock-coat
was split up the back, and the tails rolled in some unaccountable way
round his head. His ideas, which were never peculiarly bright, had got
completely bewildered, and nothing could convince him that a legion of
Trolls had not been making a ball-room of his ample back.
“It was not Jacob I fired at,” said the Captain, quietly reloading his
rifle; “take a pine knot, and look a little further up the pass; I
suspect you will find something more valuable than our fat friend. Oh,
that’s it!” as a loud shout was heard; “I thought it could not be far
off,—bring him into the light.”
Birger repeated the command in Swedish, and presently three or four of
the men emerged from the outer darkness, bearing, with some difficulty,
an enormous elk, the patriarch of the forest.
“Well done,” said Birger; “capital shot! Here! Tom, Torkel, out with your
knives, and off with the skin; do not think twice about it. Ten to one
we shall have Moodie here; he will not mind his own people much, but he
knows that we are not in the habit of firing into the air, and he will be
coming to see what has been disturbing the camp all night. There, look
sharp! never mind a tear or two; make that beast into goat’s flesh as
soon as you can. Cut off the head at once, you cannot disguise the horns!”
“Well, but what if Moodie does see it?” said the Parson.
“Why,” said the Captain, “Birger is quite right. Moodie is in command,
and he would consider it his duty to report us; and besides, I will
answer for it he would jump at the chance of playing Brutus, and delating
his own friends. There was a good deal of significance in the way he
cautioned us that elks and red-deer were strictly preserved. It is a
fact, too, that with all that immense range of royal forest at his
undivided command, he has never shot a stag or an elk yet. He considers
himself on honour, and behaves like a gentleman and a kammerjunker, as he
is.”[58]
“He is the only man in Sweden who does, then,” said Birger. “I will
engage for it. Bjornstjerna, Hof Ofwer Jagmästere, as he writes himself,
never loses a chance if he can get one on the sly. By the way, how nicely
the mist has cleared off, without any one seeing it. Positively I can see
the stars again. I told you it would be so:—
“Through storm and rain,
The weary midnight hours must wane,
Ere joyous morning come again,
And bid the gloom retire.”
“I wish I could take you up to our day look-out place,” said the Captain;
“we should have a good view of the watch-fires from it now. I stood there
for an hour together on the first night, looking at the fires of the
hållet; and by this time the dref must have come quite near enough for us
to see them too.”
“Well,” said Birger, “come along! I think I know the way,—it is the path
I came down by this morning, is it not?”
“Yes it is, but it will never do on a dark night like this; it is not
over-safe by day, and there are shreds of the mist hanging about us
still. We want light for that path.”
“And light you shall have,” said Birger. “Here, Tom, split me this
fir-root, it is as full of turpentine as it can hold. There,” continued
he, thrusting the end of one of the slips into the blaze, and striking up
the song of the Dalecarlian miners:—
“‘Brother, kindle thy bright light,
For here below ’tis dark as night;
Gloomy may be on earth thy way,
But light and good shall make it day.’
“Now then, I think we start by this ledge; light another of these
pine-slips, Tom, and bring the whole bundle with you.”
The path was not altogether a safe one, certainly, for it was a narrow
ledge, winding round the face of the cliff that formed the northern side
of the pass, and leading to a sort of promontory which jutted forward
somewhat in advance of the range; but there were plenty of branches to
hold on by, and there was no real danger as long as there was light
enough to see where to place the feet; and when they had got fairly out
of the range of their own enormous fire, the stars were glimmering, and
the night was not, after all, so very dark. A withered ash, the bare
trunk of which stretched out horizontally, like a finger-post, from the
extreme point, was their look-out, and bore the strip of calico, once
white, but now sullied and dishonoured by twenty-four hours of continuous
rain, which marked the position of their picket.
The look-out commanded completely the position of the hållet, the
encampment of which was placed among some straggling copse that feathered
the reverse slope of the spur of rock which connected the range of
hills with the rapids and falls of the river. Among this bushwood were
scattered, irregularly, the cooking and sleeping fires, glancing every
now and then on the huts of boughs and other temporary shelter which had
been run up to protect the men from the wet, while, on the bare crest
of the spur, which had been entirely denuded of what little timber it
possessed, was a line of fifty watch-fires, one to each skalfogde’s
command; each of these had its stoker, who from time to time replenished
its blaze with fresh logs,—and its sentry, who, sitting or lying in
some dark recess, was to fire at everything that came within the circle
of the light. Everything betokened extreme watchfulness; not a fire
burnt dim,—black figures were continually passing and repassing before
them,—and every now and then a straggling shot waked up the echoes, and
kept the whole line in a state of continual agitation.
The dref, which had advanced a little during the day, was still five or
six miles off, and their fires, which formed a vast semicircle, were,
for the most part, hidden by the trees; but a hazy and continuous line
of misty light defined the whole position, tinging the very sky with
redness, so that the receding skirts of the mist looked luminous, like a
terrestrial aurora borealis.
While they yet gazed, the tree tops, which, beyond the reflection of the
fires, had hitherto been one unbroken sea of blackness, came gradually
into view: first the spiry tops of the firs, then the rounder and softer
outlines of the birch and ash, grew more and more defined; then the
character of the foliage became distinguishable,—the glaucous white of
the poplar and the fringiness of the ash and rowan: then a soft pale
light, interspersed with deep broad shadows, was cast over the scene,
slightly dimming the glow of the watch-fires, and contrasting strangely
with their yellow light; and then the half moon rose up from the cliffs
behind them, illuminating the distant landscape, but bringing that
immediately beneath their feet into blacker and darker shade.
“Your friend Bjornstjerna is a plucky fellow,—that I will say for him;
most men would have turned tail at such a drench of rain as we have had;
and now virtue promises to be its own reward—we shall have a glorious day
to-morrow.”
“I think we shall,” said Birger,—“indeed, I am sure we shall, as far as
the weather is concerned; but I am afraid that will not prevent us from
suffering some loss by what we have had already. You may depend on it
every beast within our circle has gone the rounds and tried the weak
points of it,—some have escaped, at all events. The wolves last night,
and the stags just now, have forced the passage with very little loss;
and certainly ours is not the most unguarded spot in the line.”
“By George! Birger! that shot is from our post!”
“Not a doubt of that;—and there’s another! Wait a bit, it may be nothing
after all.”
“O! but it is something!” said the Captain, in an agony, as three or four
more shots rang from the out-post itself, followed by confused cries and
shouts, as if men were engaged in mortal conflict.
The Captain threw himself on the steep descent, the whole of which he
would have accomplished very much quicker than was at all salutary for
his bones, had not Birger caught him by the collar as he was disappearing.
“For God’s sake, mind what you are about! Take a torch in your hand, if
you must go; or, better still, let Tom go first. Whatever it is, the
thing must be over long before you can get there. All you will do at that
headlong speed will be to break your neck down the precipice!”
Tom, much more cool, had already taken the lead, and was throwing a light
on the narrow and broken pathway for the Captain to see where to place
his footsteps. Birger’s selection of Tom for a leader was a good one,
for it was absolutely impossible for one man to pass another during the
descent, and no threats or entreaties from the Captain could urge the
phlegmatic Norwegian beyond the bounds of strict prudence. The last ten
feet of the rock the Captain leaped, and pounced down from above into the
midst of the picket.
Before the great fire lay a full-grown bear, dead, and bleeding from a
dozen wounds, and round him were grouped the whole picket—including the
sentries, who had deserted their posts,—whooping, and hallooing, and
screaming, and making all sorts of unintelligible noises.
The story was soon told, when the men had been reduced to something like
order. The bear had been attempting to steal past the first fire, and,
sidling away from it, had almost run over the two sentries, who were
much too frightened to fire with any aim or effect. The bear, almost as
frightened as they, had rushed forward, but, startled at the great blaze
upon which he came suddenly at the turn of the pass, hesitated a moment,
and received Torkel’s spear in his breast. The rifles and guns, which
were lying about, were caught up and discharged indiscriminately, and,
as luck would have it, without taking effect on any of the party. Some
rushed on with their axes, some with knives, some with blazing brands;
and the bear dropped down among them, mobbed to death, every individual
of the party being firmly convinced that it was he, and none but he, who
had struck the victor stroke.
“Well!” said Birger, “there is the bear, at all events; and a good thing
for us that he is there; we should not have heard the last of it from
Moodie for some time, if he had slipped off. Hang him up, my men; we will
skin him when we have time and daylight; we do not want to make goat’s
meat of that fellow, at all events. Hang him up openly, by the side of
the wolf.”
“Bother that moon,” said the Captain, sulkily, for he did not enter into
the spirit of ‘_quod facit per alium facit per se_.’ “What a set of
lunatics we were to go staring after the picturesque instead of minding
our business; all of us together, too!”
“It was very poetical,” said the Parson.
“Yes, that is the very thing. Birger, you do not take in the allusion, I
can see—a ‘grāte powut,’ as they pronounce it, is, in Ireland, slang for
an irrecoverable fool.”
“Well! well!” said Birger, laughing,—for, being an old bear-hunter, he
was not jealous, and could afford to laugh,—“we have not got to the
higher flights of poetry yet, and we will take good care not to leave our
posts again. As for you, Captain, _pends-toi, brave Crillon, nous nous
sommes combattus à Arcques et tu n’y étais pas_. However, I think we had
better get a little sleep, those who can, for the chances are we shall
want steady nerves to-morrow.”
So, sending back the sentries to their posts, the whole party, with their
weapons by their sides, and everything ready for a sudden emergency,
rolled themselves up in their cloaks, with their feet to the fire, one of
them (taking it by turns of an hour each) walking up and down, rifle in
hand, within the circle of its light.
CHAPTER XXVI.
BEATING OUT THE SKAL.
“Now the hunting train is ready. Hark, away! By dale and height
Horns are sounding,—hawks ascending up to Odin’s halls of light.
Terror-struck, the wild-wood creatures seek their dens ’mid woods and
reeds;
While, with spear advanced pursuing, she, the air Valkyria speeds.”
_Frithi of Tegner._
“Hillo, Moodie! what news?” said the Captain; “have a cup of coffee and
a—a—chop,” as that individual strode down the pass from the side farthest
removed from the skal looking—as, indeed, was very nearly the case—as if
he had neither trimmed his beard nor washed his face since the beginning
of the campaign.
“Why, the news is, that you had better look out sharp, if you mean to
do credit to my recommendation. I had a message from Bjornstjerna last
night, that he meant to get the dref in motion an hour before sunrise, so
as to beat out, and give the men time to get home before evening; they
must have been advancing for these two hours; our people have heard their
shouts distinctly enough, and I only wonder we have had no game yet.
Capital mutton chops, these,” he added; “who is your butcher?”
“O, we are pretty good foragers,” said the Captain, carelessly, but at
the same time casting an anxious glance round the encampment, to see
whether there were any tell-tale horns or hoofs lurking about. “Terrible
weather yesterday, was not it?”
“Upon my word, it was as much as I could do to keep the men at their
posts; I have got one or two skulkers down in the Länsman’s books, but
I do not think I can have the conscience to inflict the fine; I had
half a mind to skulk myself;—we must do it, though, in justice to the
honest fellows who braved the weather. I think the best man I have is
a woman; she did more service in shaming the men and keeping them to
their duty than a dozen of us. I had occasion to degrade a skalfogde
for drunkenness, and I promoted her into the vacancy on the spot. How
the men laughed: they call her some Swedish equivalent to the ‘Dashing
White Serjeant,’—and I only wish I had a dozen white serjeants instead
of one. But what have you done here in the shooting way? I heard a good
deal of firing last night from your post; you have made yourselves pretty
comfortable, at all events.”
“It is a way we have in the army,” said the Parson. “There is our
_spoliarium_, however,” pointing to a group of carcasses that were
hanging to the lower branches of a fir,—“one bear, two wolves,
five foxes, a lot of hares, and”—here the Captain plucked his
sleeve,—“and—that is all, besides a young bear which I killed in the
fjeld as I came along.”
“Oh come! that is not so bad; and that bear is a glorious fellow! who
killed him?”
“Why, we cannot justly say,” replied the Captain, sheepishly: “the fact
is, he made a charge upon the picket, and it took a good many hands
to quiet him,—you may see that by the gashes; I am afraid the skin is
terribly injured.”
“What a mercenary dog you are; these are honourable scars, which, while
they impair the beauty, only enhance the value;—every cut is the memorial
of a gallant deed.”
Whether the Captain,—who was vehemently anxious to kill a bear to his own
hand, and whose conscience upbraided him bitterly for his last night’s
dereliction of duty,—coincided in this sentiment, might be doubted;
at all events, he made no attempt to remove the doubt by indiscreet
confessions, and was only too glad to shift the subject, lest any
untimely observation from his companions or attendants might reveal the
true state of the case.
“What have you done yourself?” said he; “I am sure your people must
have fired twenty shots for our one; I thought you were having a mock
skirmish, at one time.”
“O, those people fire at anything or nothing, just for the sake of making
a noise. We have got a good many wolves and foxes, though, and a rascally
lynx or two; but we have not been so fortunate as you with the bears;
though I am clear we saw two or three during the night. I am sorry to
say that there were three or four stags killed, and I do not know what
to do about it. There was a herd last night very restless; it had tried
our line at several points. I had given strict orders to let them pass,
but they always got headed back, somehow,—in fact, the men fired at them,
that is the truth of it, and the skalfogdar say they could not prevent
them. This morning, as many as three were brought in dead, and I am sure
I do not see how I am to identify the men who fired; they were firing all
night, and every skalfogde stoutly denies that his party had anything to
do with it.”
“Oh! how were the people to distinguish one beast from another in the
dark?” said the Captain; “you may be thankful they have not shot one
another, and that you have not had three or four peasants brought in this
morning, instead of three or four deer.”
“Upon my word, there would have been less said if it had been so.
However, I must report it to Bjornstjerna, and leave him to do what he
pleases. I strongly suspect my dashing white serjeant of being one of the
murderers. Give me another chop,—that mutton of yours is the very best
thing I have eaten since we left Gäddebäck,—and then you really must get
to your posts; we shall have the dref down upon us before we know where
we are. Several hares had been showing themselves, and trying to pass the
line before I came up, and they will not do that by daytime, unless they
are driven. You had better break up the encampment as soon as you have
done breakfast: let Jacob stow everything ready for moving, and then send
him off to have the carioles harnessed. The skal will break up before
noon, and then there will be such a rush of fellows wanting to get home,
that the chances are we shall have a Flemish account of our horses, if
we do not look sharp after them now. People are in no ways particular on
these occasions; there are so many of them, that it is difficult to fix
the blame anywhere, and all roguery goes down to the account of mistake
and confusion.”
“Very well,” said the Captain, jumping up and carefully loading the rifle
which Tom had just been cleaning from the effects of the night’s dews
and rain, while the shot-gun had been doing duty in its place by the
Captain’s side,—“then here goes; I am going to the foot of the pass, and
shall not want Tom this half hour, so he may help Jacob. Birger is going
to the look-out place, and he will not want his man either. What will you
do, Parson?”
“Why, I think I will take a turn with Moodie down the hållet, when he
goes back to inspect his posts. I shall want Torkel to carry my rifle, as
I may not come back here; but your two men will be enough to help Jacob.
How are we to carry these great beasts?”
“Oh, that is Bjornstjerna’s business. I dare say he has given orders for
a sufficient number of carts, or, at all events, we shall have men enough
to carry them when the skal breaks up. These are public property,—you
need not trouble yourselves about them; what we have to think about is
our own little belongings.”
“Public property!” said the Captain; “I did not bargain for that; I want
the skins to hang up in my paternal halls, as trophies of the battle.”
“Then you must buy them,” said Moodie; “there will be an auction up the
village as soon as the skal breaks up, and by offering a little more
than the market price, you may secure anything that you want. It really
is a very fair regulation,” he added, observing a shade of discontent
on the Captain’s brow. “You shot them, no doubt; but you could not have
got a shot at them at all if it had not been for these people driving
them. Properly speaking, they belong to Bjornstjerna, but I understand
he has given up his right to the men, if so, they will all be converted
into brandy before night-fall, you may be quite sure. However, come
along,—that last volley was from the dref, and it sounded quite close.”
Moodie’s path was by no means either easy or safe, for he carefully
avoided the straight road which would have led him across the shooting
line, and contriving to make a circuit and scramble down the face of the
cliff at a small fissure, which lay a quarter of a mile to the north
of the pass, he attained the rear of the hållet without disturbing
or tainting the ground. It may be observed, that there was no such
extreme necessity for all this precaution; but Moodie was, after all,
an Englishman, and a hunter of but four years’ standing, and, if he
was the least bit in the world a martinet, he was not altogether
without excuse,—and really his position was, it must be confessed, very
scientifically occupied.
At the time that he and the Parson came on the ground, the hållet was
just relieving guard, in order to give the morning watch an opportunity
of breakfasting before the general turn out; and the scene was extremely
picturesque.
The breakfast was an extempore affair enough, except among those parties
who had been so fortunate as to knock a hare on the head, or to secure a
joint of what Moodie turned his face away from, and the Captain persisted
in calling mutton. A little rye meal, mixed up cold, or in special cases,
when kettles could be had, made into stirabout, was very nearly the whole
of it. An older commander would have closed his eyes to the sight of
brandy, and his nose to the smell of aniseed, but Moodie was young, and
faithful to his trust.
Groups of men and women were collected round the fires for cooking,
some rubbing up firearms, some snapping and oiling obstinate locks and
picking touchholes which the wet had damaged, and drying powder which
either would not go off at all or else flashed in the eyes and singed
the hair and eyebrows of the operators. Gradually, however, they all
began to straggle into their line, for the sounds of the dref were more
and more audible, and now and then some scared and crouching beast would
show itself on the side of the hill, and after drawing upon itself the
fire of all who were within a quarter of mile of it, would shrink timidly
back into cover, nine times in ten absolutely unharmed. Now would come,
high over head, and altogether free from the chance of shot, a gallant
blackcock or a tjäder, who, having run or flitted under cover for miles,
had at last taken heart of grace, looked his danger in the face, and
dashed across the line with that success which bravery deserves. Hares
would from time to time race along the brow, unable to make up their mind
which way they would head, and sometimes would draw a fruitless shot or
two from a young and over-ardent sportsman, followed by the grave rebuke
of his steadier skalfogde.
Meanwhile the Captain had advanced along into the shooting line, and
building himself up a screen of branches, where he could fully command
the passage, waited patiently for what luck would send him; absolutely
despising the smaller game that occasionally stole across the line and
sheltered themselves in fancied security in the skalplatz, and not
greatly disturbed by the occasional double-shots from Birger’s look-out
place on the cliff above, though this was not unfrequently followed by a
rattle of the twigs, or a soft _thud_, as his victim came tumbling to the
earth.
Birger’s post, indeed, had proved an excellent position for winged game,
for the grouse, though by no means plentiful anywhere in Sweden, had been
collected from twenty miles of country by the continued driving. Many, of
course, had taken wing, and dashing over the heights, had found security
in the higher fjeld, or across the river. But the grouse, especially the
old cock, is a running bird, and numbers of them had continued toddling
away by short and startled runs, a mile or so in advance of the dref, and
now, hearing the noises in front as well as in the rear, and beginning
to comprehend the precise dangers of their position, were, one after
another, taking wing. Many of these followed the line of the cliffs,
unwilling, perhaps unable to face them, but coasting their inequalities,
and looking out for a lower point; these would come exactly on a level
with Birger’s stand, and very seldom passed it unharmed.
All this the Captain left unheeded; his soul was above black game; and,
burning to wash away the disgrace of the preceding night, he kept his eye
resolutely fixed on the shooting line; something moves—it is a bear—no—a
rascally wolf, in that nonchalant style which no amount of danger will
induce him to put off, slouches across—not across, for he is worthy of
the Captain’s rifle; a shot reaches him, and he rolls over and over to
the very foot of the shelter he had sought. Not a stir is heard from the
Captain’s screen, and when the little puff of white smoke is dissipated
into air, no one would have told where the fatal shot had come from.
There goes a real full-grown bear, in downright earnest, and followed
by two half-grown cubs, crouching and squatting, and making themselves
as small as possible, like so many rabbits stealing out of cover; but
confound them, they are three hundred yards down the line, the Captain
will not risk wounding or missing them, and they disappear into the trees
of the skalplatz to be headed back by the hållet when too late to return.
And now the shouts and cries began to come louder and louder; and the
hares, which had lingered as long as possible on the edge of the wood,
began to creep, or steal, or race, or bound across the line, and among
them several specimens of better game; the men were actually beginning
to show themselves here and there in what, from the closing in of the
ranks, had now become close order, so that nothing could have passed
their line, when a gallant bear, with head erect and mouth open, dashed
into the opening at full gallop, and came straight upon the Captain’s
hiding-place, as if he knew where his enemy was lying, and meant, at all
events, not to die without vengeance.
The Captain fired deliberately,—paused for a moment to see the effect
of his shot—then fired his second barrel; both took effect on the broad
chest exposed to him, though without checking, for a moment, the rush of
the bear. On he came!—the screen went down like reeds before him; but
the Captain had thrown himself flat on the ground, and, covered by the
branches, had escaped the view of his adversary, who plunged over them,
dashed at the opposite cover, and disappeared from view.
“Upon my word, that was a near thing,” said Bjornstjerna, who cantered
up to the spot on his pony; “but a miss is as good as a mile,—not that
you missed that rascal; I saw both shots strike as plainly as ever I
saw anything in my life. Never mind, my boy, you have not lost him; he
will not go far, for all his gallant bearing. Larssen!” he shouted,
“Larssen! come here and take my pony. We must ride the Apostle’s
horse[59] now;” and, leaping off, he proceeded to arrange his army,
causing each skalfogde to muster his own men, as they came up, on the
edge of the shooting line. Soiled, and wet, and dirty they looked: a
Swede is rather a picturesque animal, when you are far enough off not
to see his dirt, particularly when there is any general muster of them,
for as each parish weaves its own wadmaal, or coarse cloth, and each
wears it of a particular colour or pattern, the commencement of a skal
looks, at a little distance, like a muster of regular troops, in regular,
though rather eccentric uniforms: but the rains, and the dirt, and the
mud-stains had reduced this to a very general average,—a sort of forest
uniform of neutral tint.
Advantage was taken of the halt to clean and reload the fire-arms, most
of which had been rendered useless in the morning’s beat; for though the
sun was shining brightly, there had been no wind, and the rain-drops of
yesterday were glittering like diamonds on the branches, and pattering
down like a shower-bath on all who moved them.
In the mean time, the two chiefs having completed their junction, held
a short consultation, and it was determined to advance a strong party
from each side, close to the roots of the cliffs, sufficiently numerous
to allow each man to touch his neighbour, and then to beat the skalplatz
out to the river, which, not being quite so rapid or impassable as was
expected, was guarded by the boats.
This involved the abandonment of the Captain’s picket, which
reinforced the beating party, the _materiel_ being conveyed, under the
superintendence of Jacob, to the travelling-waggon which had been brought
as near to the scene of action as the forest roads permitted.
And now began the real dangers of the skal,—the difficulty of restraining
the men from firing indiscriminately into the skalplatz, and shooting
everything alike,—wolf, hare, fox, or beater.
Fortunately the men were sober, and the officers well aware of the
danger. Flags were sent into the forest to mark the advancing line;
strict injunctions were given that none should be permitted to advance
faster than his neighbours, and a trusty man on the outside of the
cover carried a white flag about five yards before the main body of the
beaters, followed by an _extempore_ provost marshal, with a party of
trusty men, who had orders to tie up and flog on the spot any man who
fired at anything whatever in the rear of the flags.
All these arrangements were completed in little more than half-an-hour,
and the bugles on both sides rang out the advance. The progress was very
slow, not only on account of the necessity of preserving the accurate
line, but because the beasts themselves required so much rousing; many of
the smaller game, and, on one occasion, even a wolf, absolutely refused
to move at all, and was knocked down or speared as it lay. In no case was
resistance made by any of the wild beasts, with the single exception of
the gallant fox, who, desperate but unsubdued, stood boldly at bay, and
bit furiously at everything within its reach, but in vain,—for as the
line soon became two or three deep, escape was next to an impossibility.
One of the bear cubs, a three-parts grown animal, was dispatched by a
blow of a hatchet, and the other was shot in the thick cover, by a man
who had almost stepped upon it without seeing it. The Captain’s bear, a
full-grown male, did not live ten minutes after it had gained the cover;
there was no faltering in its gait or symptom of injury, for no muscle
had been cut or bone broken by the shot, and its pluck and energy had
carried it on till it fell suffocated by internal bleeding.
And now the shouts rang out from the river-side; the she-bear had taken
the water, and was gallantly forcing her way across it at a point rather
higher than the boats had expected her. The stream was strong; the boats
were at some distance; the Swedes, who were never good at moving-shots,
had blazed away when she first dashed into the stream, and there was
every chance of her escape, for they are terribly awkward in loading
their terribly awkward firearms; the rowers were pulling away for life
and death, and the heavy boats were forcing their slow progress against
the stream, which was gradually bringing the bear down to them as she
swam across it, when a long-shot from Bjornstjerna took effect, she
rolled over, recovered herself, struck out again, but was carried down
among the boats, secured, and brought to land.
The game was then mustered,—so far, indeed, as it could be recovered, for
it was shrewdly suspected by some, that the whole was not forthcoming.
There were four full-grown bears and three cubs, seven wolves, two
lynxes, three or four badgers, and a queer nondescript animal of the
genus _canis_, which they called a filfras; foxes there were in some
numbers, and this a much more valuable description of animal than ours;
hares were numberless, and also squirrels,—many of both these last
species of game, too, had been stewed and eaten on the preceding days.
Whether any other description of larger game had been shot, did not
appear. Notwithstanding what Moodie had said about the herd of stags,
none were paraded at the muster, and as he did not, after all, make any
complaint to the Ofwer Jagmästere on the subject, it may be concluded
that the whole was a mistake or a dream of his own, and that no such
breach of forest law had been committed by any one,—a fact of which the
Captain loudly declared his complete conviction.
[Illustration: DEATH OF FEMALE BEAR.
p. 376.]
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE BALL.
“Truly my brethren—truly my dear sisters—do you know how it
seems to me—why it seems to me that no one can get along till
he has taken a draught—How so? Eh? Your health, dear soul—
Here’s to you day and night,
New raptures, new delight.
Strike up with the fiddles! beat the drums! a stout pull at the
pot!
Here’s to ye as is fit,
The reckoning day endeth it.
The big bottle hail ye,
The drums beat reveiller,
At one draught down send it,
The reckoning will end it.
Kajsa Stina stands a drawing,
All my heart is clapper-clawing,
From the pot my fingers thawing—
Thus I sing my dying song.”
_Fredman’s Epistle to Kajsa Stina, Karl Bellman._
Never had the arches of the old forest rung with such shouts and screams,
and roaring songs, and bursts of laughter, as they did on the evening
of the great skal. A few of the elderly people, but a very few, had had
enough of it, and went off quietly to their homes as soon as they were
released from duty; as for the rest, no one could have supposed that
they had been worked off their legs, and kept from their natural sleep,
and drenched to the skin for the last three or four days and nights;
they were not over-clean, certainly, though some of the youngsters had
contrived, somehow or other, to smarten themselves up for the occasion;
but the rest made a great contrast to the women, those at least who
had taken no active part in the skal,—their white woollen jackets, or
scarlet or green spencers covered with embroidery and buttoned down the
front with silver knobs, formed a pleasing relief to the dinginess and
raggedness of active service. As for the unfortunate buglers, who,
most of them, were general musicians, and would play upon anything that
was wanted, these, without the least regard to their previous fatigues,
which had been even greater than those of the beaters, were placed upon
barrels, or carts, or stumps of trees, fiddling and clarionetting for the
bare life, while men and women tore in wild polska round them.
Some travellers have characterized the Swedish dances as indecent;
whether they are so or not, English papas, and mamas, and maiden aunts
are very competent judges, for they are precisely the English polka, as
we call it (dropping the s for convenience of pronunciation); the English
polka is, in reality, the national peasant dance of Sweden; and in their
own country the Swedes dance it with all their hearts and souls as well
as their limbs and bodies—not sliding and mincing as we do, but downright
pounding, so as to leave the print of the foot, and especially the heel,
on the yielding turf.
It might seem difficult to provide refreshments for such a ball-room
in such a place, where the dancers mustered somewhere about two
thousand strong—but in truth they were no way nice. The game, which
Bjornstjerna had very liberally given up to them, formed a good part of
these refreshments, a few sheep—“really sheep this time,” the Captain
observed,—with a good supply of rye-meal made into stirabout, formed
the solids, and these, though, with the exception of the game, they did
not grow in the forest, were easily procurable, for the families of
the combatants, knowing that a party of English gentlemen were engaged
in the skal, and rightly conjecturing that their hearts would be open,
had brought their stores to the meet, and all of these stores were not
exactly solids; the barrels on which the fiddlers were standing were
intended for something better than rye-meal: in fact, corn brandy, and
a hot fiery liquor which they make out of potatoes—very beastly to the
taste, but quite as efficacious in producing drunkenness as the very best
Cognac—was in plenty, and, the restrictions of the skal being at an end,
there was every prospect that the men would fully indemnify themselves
for their previous abstinence.
Birger and Moodie were stamping, and polking, and hurrahing, and kissing
their partners with the best of them, and the Captain, also, was not
altogether unsuccessful in his _coup d’essai_; as for the men, Tom and
Piersen had altogether forgotten the inferiority of the Swedes to the
true Norwegians, and Jacob’s long streaming coat tails had gone quite mad.
Torkel, alone, stung by some jest from his friend Tom, about the peculiar
duties and system of self-denial proper for an engaged man, crept up
rather discontentedly to the fire, at which the Parson was standing and
talking over the events of the day with Bjornstjerna.
In Norway, which in reality is a republic, and not a monarchy, there
is a great deal of independence and equality among all ranks, which is
not by any means the case in Sweden; but even in Sweden, a skal is a
time of saturnalia; and besides, Torkel, though in some measure acting
in the capacity of a servant, was, in reality, the son and heir of a
sufficiently wealthy proprietor; and the Englishmen, whom he ranked
infinitely higher than he did the very first of Swedish nobility, having
treated him all along more as a companion than anything else, he felt not
the least shy of the Hof Ofwer Jagmästere, though he added the title of
Count to his official honours,—and therefore entered very readily into
conversation.
They were turning over the skins of those beasts the bodies of which
were already undergoing a conversion into soup; most of these had been
purchased by the party, and were laid aside for packing; but the lynxes
and the filfras, and some others, which are not considered good for
eating, were still hanging by their heels to the lower branches of the
tree.
The filfras was a curious animal, about three feet long, but low in
proportion to its length, with great splay feet, well calculated to form
natural snow shoes—in fact, he leaves a track almost as large as that of
a full-grown bear, and upon the whole, very like one, and climbs trees
even better and quicker than his big brother. The present specimen had
been detected on a tree, and being wounded while in the act of passing
from one branch to the other, had come to the ground; but, wounded as
he was, he had fought gallantly for his life, and had bitten so severely
the first man who attempted to handle him, that he was obliged to leave
the skal and go home. The filfras is a harmless beast enough, so far as
sheep and cattle are concerned, and lives chiefly upon hares and such
game, which, though his eyesight be not very quick, a remarkably keen
scent enables him to tire down—he himself, in return, is even detected
by his own scent, which is perfectly perceptible to human nostrils, and
extremely disagreeable,—few dogs can be got to run him.[60]
The lynx, though of the tiger race, is a very harmless beast unless
attacked; he may carry off a young lamb now and then, but very seldom
kills his own mutton—it is not for want of spirit, for he fights like
any tiger when driven into a corner; throwing himself on his back, he
polishes off the dogs as fast as they come near him. A pack of English
fox-hounds might settle his business, as they probably would that of his
Bengal cousin himself; but there is not a dog in Sweden that would look
him in the face.
“It is a great pity,” said Torkel; who was examining the shot-holes in
the bear-skins.
“What is a great pity?” said the Parson.
“Why, to mob to death all these fine beasts, that might have given people
no end of sport in the winter.”
“And eaten up no end of sheep and oxen,” said Bjornstjerna.
“Ah! well!” that did not strike Torkel very forcibly; he had, it must
be confessed, led hitherto a rather miscellaneous sort of life; he knew
a great deal more about hunting than he did about farming, and regarded
the depredations of the bear—though some of them had been made on his
father’s own farm—much in the light in which an English fox-hunter
listens to tales of murdered geese and turkeys.
The matter which weighed upon his conscience just then was, that poor
Nalle[61] had not received altogether fair play. This had not struck him
during the heat of the chase so very much, but, now that the murder had
been committed, and that he was regarding the result of it in cold blood,
he evidently did not feel quite easy in his mind about it.
“Ah!” he said, “poor fellow,” turning over the skin of Bjornstjerna’s own
bear, which was yet wet with the water of the river in which he had been
killed; “well! we do not do such things in our country.”
“No!” said Bjornstjerna, “you could not get a couple of thousand people
together in your country without knives drawn.”
“But how do you manage it in your country?” said the Parson, who was not
a little afraid that his follower’s nationality would get the better of
his politeness.
“Ah!” said Torkel, “you should see one of our Norwegian bear-hunts in the
winter; it is not an easy thing to get Master Nalle on foot, and he takes
a good deal of looking after; but, when you do get a chance, it is worth
having.
“I remember my brother Nils one day, as he was coming home from church,
took a short cut across the fjeld, and put his eye on a queer-looking
heap in the snow, that he did not rightly know what to make of. While
he was looking at it out came a great fellow—one of the biggest I ever
followed,—as if he would eat him. Down tumbled Nils on his face, and the
Wise One came ploutering through the snow right over him, but went on,
minding his own business, as all wise ones do, and never stopped to look
at Nils.
“It so happened that my brother Nils had nothing but a pair of skarbogar
on his feet (a rough sort of snow-shoe, made of wood and rope), and,
knowing he could not get over the ground very well, never tried to
follow him, but came home quietly and told me what he had seen. The
weather looked fine, and there was neither snow likely to fall, nor wind
likely to drift what was fallen already, so that we knew the tracks would
lie; and the next morning, before it was well light, we had each of us
our pair of skier on our feet, our rifles at our backs, a good iron-shod
pole in our hands to shove along by, and a week’s provision in our
havresacs. I took old Rig[62] with me, in case we should lose the tracks.
“We soon came up with them, and off we went, taking it leisurely—for we
had a long run before us. It requires some little exertion to get up hill
with these skier; they do better for such a country as this than they do
for the rocky and tangled fjeld in Norway; but, on flat ground, you get
along five or six miles an hour without feeling it, and as for down-hill,
you may go just as fast as you like, only for standing still and keeping
your feet.
“For four or five hours the track lay as straight and even in the snow as
if we had been travelling the post road to Christiania. Old Nalle thought
his winter quarters were not over safe, and meant evidently to make a
passage of it, and had just been trotting along in the snow, not looking
right or left of him.
“After that the track came doubled and crooked, as if the old gentleman
had been taking a view of the country, to see whether it would suit his
purpose, before lying down for another nap,—so we had to work it out
painfully, step by step. This was a slow job, for he had taken a turn
to every point of the compass, and had crossed and re-crossed his own
tracks, and had changed his mind so often, that the short winter’s day
began to close, and we feared the light would fail; so we started right
and left of the spot, and succeeded in ringing him before we met again.”
“What do you mean by ringing a bear?” said the Parson.
“Making a circle round his tracks,” said Torkel, “so as to be sure
none lie beyond it; in that case you are independent of a thaw, for you
know that the old gentleman must be within a certain space. When we met
we agreed to leave our friend quiet, and to sleep till morning; so we
cut down a tree or two, and got up a roaring fire in a little hollow to
leeward, where we were sure the bear could not see our light or smell our
smoke, and there we lay, snug and comfortable enough.
“No thaw or mischance of any kind had taken place during the night, and
the next morning we were on the tracks again; for we had marked the place
where we had left off, by setting up one of the poles in it.
“We soon got puzzled, however, and began to be very thankful that we had
brought old Rig. Rig was a sharp fellow,—one of the quickest dogs I ever
met with at picking up a scent, or taking a hint either; his namesake,
when he watched at the gates of Asgard, could not have kept a brighter
look-out. The ground soon got very tangled and sideling, so, as the ring
was but a small one, we determined to give up the tracks, and to hunt for
him with the dog.
“The old fellow was not long in getting a sniff at him, and made noise
enough to wake up the Nornir in the cave of Hela. I pushed on, and before
I could tell where I was, ran my skier one on each side a little hole in
the snow, where the dog was baying,—a place that did not look big enough
for a fox to get in. I could not very well turn, for the points of the
skier were one on each side the trunk of a great twisted birch, at whose
foot the hole was; and I could not see what was in the hole, the snow was
so dazzling in the bright sunshine that everything else looked black. I
began to think that Rig had got hold of nothing better than a fox, and
was beginning to be angry with the dog for making such a row, and running
the chance of giving our real game a hint to steal off. I was looking
down between my skier, with my face as low as my knees, when all at once
I felt the snow heaving up from under me, and over I rolled, head over
heels, and old Fur Jacket with me, and Rig, who had pinned him as he
bolted, on the top of us both.
“The old fellow was a great deal too much taken up with the dog to mind
me; but before Nils could come up, or I could get my legs again, he had
shaken him off, and was dashing through the deep snow at a rate that
kicked it up in a white mist behind him.
“I had kept fast hold of my rifle, all through, and the snow had not done
it a bit of harm; in fact, the frost was so sharp that it came out of the
barrel like so much flour; and besides, we always cover our locks with
tallow after loading. He had got pretty well out of shot before we were
in chase, but for his sins he had taken down-hill, and the ground was
pretty clear, so we slid along after him like Fenrir after the Sun;[63]
when all at once, Nils, who had a little the best of the race, touched a
stump with the point of his skie, and flew up into the air, pitching head
foremost into the snow. It was, luckily for him, deep enough to save him
from a broken head or neck—at least, so I found afterwards, for I had not
time to stop then. As for the dog, he was a mile behind.
“Just at the bottom of the slope, I ran in upon the chase, and he turned
short round when I was not half-a-dozen yards from him. I could no more
stop than I could stop the lightning; so, setting my pole in the snow, I
swerved a little, and just missed going over him, as Nils had done with
the stump.
“By the time I had curved round, I found he had taken advantage of his
chance, and was going up again, travelling three times as fast as I could
hope to do, for skier are desperate bad things up-hill. However, mine
had seal-skin upon them, luckily, for in our mountainous country we are
obliged to do something to prevent slipping back; but, for all that, he
was getting much the best of it, so I took a cool shot at him, and heard
the ball strike just as if I had thrown it into a piece of dough, but he
never winced, or took the least notice.
“However, Nils had managed to pick himself up, and I saw him and Rig
together a good way above us, so I waved my cap and shouted: you can
hear a shout in the winter half-a-dozen miles off. Nils changed his
course, so as to cut us off. I followed, loading as I went. By-and-bye
the old fellow seemed to find out that he had enemies on both sides of
him, for he stopped, and growled, and looked back at me, and showed
his teeth. Just then Nils made a noise above, by breaking through some
understuff; and he turned, and came at me with his mouth open, charging
down-hill as hard as he could lick. It was ‘neck or nothing’ with me now,
I knew that, for there is no turning or dodging on skier, going up-hill,
so I rested my rifle on the fork of a branch, and, waiting till he had
come within a dozen yards of me, I shot into his mouth. Lord! it seemed
as if somebody had given him a lift behind; his hind-quarters rose up,
and his head went down, and he came sliding along the snow on his back,
wrong-end foremost. I could not move right or left, hampered as I was,
and he took me just across the shins with his huge carcass, breaking one
of my skier, and carrying me with him as if I were riding in a sledge;
but when we got to the bottom he never tried to hurt me, for he was as
dead as Baldur.
“That was something like a chase, and we turned a pretty penny by it,
too; we got four specie for sealing his nose, and fourteen for his skin,
to a young Englishman who wanted to prove to his friends at home that
he had killed a bear, and gave two specie over the market price for the
shot-hole; and, for ourselves, we had lots of fat, most of which, by
the way, had got melted in the race, and had to be frozen again before
we could carry it; and, for solid meat, the scoundrel weighed hard upon
four hundred pounds. We had pretty hard work in getting him home, for in
those two days we had run on end more than thirty of your English miles,
besides the turns. We had to go home and fetch a sledge for him, and my
sisters had a pretty job of salting when we got him there; Kari said that
our work was not half so hard as hers.”
“It is a curious thing, much as I have been in your country, I never saw
a skie,” said the Parson; “I do not even know what sort of things they
are.”
“It would be strange if you had,” said Torkel; “we never keep them at the
sœters, for the plain reason that we do not use them in summer at all,
nor inhabit the sœters in the winter. You have been very little in any
of our permanent winter homesteads since you have been here, and if you
had happened to put your eye upon half-a-dozen long pieces of wood, with
leather straps to them, the chances are, you would never have thought
of asking what such very ordinary-looking articles were. I will answer
for it, Herr Moodie has plenty of them at Gäddebäck; but they are, most
likely, stowed away at the top of the house, in the winter store-room,
where you would never think of going. They are long, thin strips of
wood, of a triangular form, about three or four inches broad, with their
points curved up for a foot or so, to clear the obstacles. In this flat
country they make the left-foot skie, which is of fir, ten or twelve feet
long; the right one is generally of ash, and not above five or six feet
in length, or they would never be able to turn in them. I, myself, like
them best both of a size, and not above five or six feet long,—only then
you must have them broader, to prevent sinking in the snow. This is a
disadvantage, certainly, still they are much handier to dodge about the
trees with, than those unwieldy concerns they have here. Mine are a pair
of old military skier, and there are none better.”
“What! do the soldiers use them?” said the Parson.
“That they do,” said Torkel. “I was always a good runner on skier, but
I learnt a good many clever tricks at drill, when I was serving my time
of duty in the militia. Our rifle regiment have all two light companies
of skielobere, and are drilled to light infantry movements on skates.
I did not like much being called out in the depth of winter for drill,
and not a little did I grumble at the hard work they put us to,—scaling
mountains, which we are obliged to do in skier, like ships beating to
windward; and then charging down them among trees and stumps,—swinging
this way and that, to keep one’s rifle out of harm’s way, and then
suddenly called upon to halt and fire,—and preciously punished are we if
the piece is not ready for action. However, I did not know what was good
for me; I have been twice the man ever since after the bears and winter
game.”
“I suspect,” said the Parson, “that is pretty nearly the whole use of
your skate-drill; it must be a pretty thing to see in a review,—but he
must be a gallant enemy who undertakes a winter campaign in Norway,
unless he is descended from the Hrimthursar themselves.”
“Well! I cannot stand this any longer,” said Moodie, coming up; “half the
party are drunk, and the rest are half-seas over; and there’s the Captain
pounding away to his own whistling, for the last fiddler has just dropped
off his empty barrel. It is time to go to bed.”
“Bed, yes! but where are we to find it: Jacob, I suppose, is by this time
numbered with the dead drunk.”
“You may swear to that, and Tom also; I saw him very near his end an hour
ago.”
“Well I do not care, for one,” said the Parson; “my bed is here,” and he
pulled out of his cariole his trusty mackintosh, and folding one of the
sails to his own length, he spread the mackintosh upon it. “I shall sleep
here luxuriously; and Torkel, bring me the cushion of the cariole seat. I
will not forget to tell Lota how faithful you have been to her this day.
Good night, all of you; we have work before us to-morrow.”
And so they had,—for the sun was not yet far above the horizon, when the
carioles were bumping along the forest roads to the southward.
At Amal, Torkel, with good wishes from all, and presents from some of
the party, took his leave to prepare for what Tom called the amending of
his life, and parted on his separate road through Fjall, and laid under
contribution a market boat from Wagne to Frederickshald, where he hoped
to find a vessel to Tonsberg, or Larvig, on the Norwegian coast. The
party proceeded leisurely along the western coast of the lake, to enjoy
for some time longer the hospitalities of Gäddebäck.
But the days began to shorten, and the joyous Scandinavian summer to come
to its close. It was necessary to think of the homeward passage, in time
to allow fine weather and sunny days for a leisurely cariole journey
along that most picturesque of countries, the southern coast of Norway.
Torkel’s wedding day, too, was approaching, and the party were under
a half engagement to old Torgensen, which tallied very well with the
necessity of reaching Christiansand for their homeward passage. “Time and
tide wait for no man,” and a forebud having been laid to Strömstad, the
carioles, accompanied as far as Wenersborg by Moodie, rolled away on the
road to Uddevalla.
One piece of luck attended them,—they were not yet to part from Birger,
for it so happened that his royal highness the Crown Prince, was to
pay his usual state visit to Christiania, on which occasion he was to
be attended by Count Birger, our young scamp’s father, whose daughter,
Birger’s sister, held also some appointment in the establishment of the
Princess. Birger, therefore, was able to consult his pleasure and his
duty at once, in going to Norway; to enjoy the coasting journey with
his friends, and then to meet his family at Christiania after their
departure.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE WEDDING.
When he came into the house at nightfall,
She was angry with him—his old mother—
“Son,” she said, “thou lay’st thy snares each morning,
And each day thou comest back empty handed!
Either thou lack’st skill, or thou art idle;
Others can take prey where thou’st taken none!”
Thus to her the gay young man made answer:
“Who need wonder that our luck is different,
When the same birds are not for our snaring?
At the little farm that lieth yonder,
Lives a wondrous bird, my good old mother;
Snares I laid to catch it all the autumn,
Now, this very winter have I caught it.
Marvellous is this bird! for it possesses
Not wings, but arms for tenderest embracing;
Not down, but locks of silky, sunny lustre;
No beak, but two fresh lips so warm and rosy!”
_The Young Fowler.—Runnèberg._
It was the morning of the wedding-day, and that day, of course, Sunday.
Autumn was a little advanced, but the sky was as serene, and the lake as
still and as smiling as it was on that day on which the fishermen had
last looked upon it.
The Parson had strolled out with Birger, after a very hurried and
uncomfortable breakfast,—the only time such a thing had ever occurred
under the hospitable roof of Torgensen; this was not so much for exercise
as for the sake of being out of the way of the good lady Christina, who
looked as if she considered the whole of her daughter’s earthly happiness
to depend on the perfection of the wedding-dinner, which, even at that
early hour of the morning, was in the course of preparation. Upstairs
and downstairs was she, with a face as red as her scarlet stomacher,
her great bunch of keys jingling like a sheep-bell as she moved, and her
embroidered skirt whisking round every corner. She was partially dressed
for the grand occasion, though her head was as yet muffled in a rather
dirty handkerchief, but the glories of her holiday gown were in a great
measure obscured by an immense apron, which bore indisputable marks of
something more than mere superintendence of her peculiar department. The
whole district would be there, no doubt, for though there are generally
appointed days for weddings, and several couples were usually married
at the same time, and moreover, the beginning of winter is a very
favourite time for such matters, yet the Torgensens were so indisputably
the squires of the place, that besides their own party which had been
collected from far and wide, and that of one or two of their dependants
who were to be married on the same day, the chances were that they would
have visitors enough from other and inferior bridals.
Come as many as there might, there were provisions enough for them all;
there was brandy enough to float a barge; there were heaps of fish and
game of all sorts; and—a much rarer thing at the beginning of autumn
and before the cattle have returned from the sœters,—plenty of beef and
mutton. Puddings, sweet soups, and all the infinite variety of gröds had
been in preparation for days and nights; still the good house-mother
distressed herself; and rendered uncomfortable everything around her,
lest something should have been forgotten, and the credit of Torgensen’s
hospitality should suffer in the eyes of the strangers.
The Captain, who had offered to officiate as bridesman, was taking
lessons in his arduous duties from little Lilla, the præst’s daughter,
who, proud of her English, and not at all unwilling to get up a
flirtation with a good-looking foreigner, had neglected her own duties
as bridesmaid, and enticed the Captain, nothing loth, to the præstgaard,
where he was practising the required duties of his office; and, to judge
from the time he took at his lessons, he must have been particularly slow
and stupid in comprehending them.
What was the morning occupation of Lota and her other bridesmaids was
a mystery,—not one of them was visible; that it was something of an
entertaining character was evident from the tittering, and gay laughter,
and occasional little screams that proceeded from a large square-headed
window wide open on the upper-floor, and on the farthest extremity of the
building. The only anxious and unhappy-looking countenance was that of
the happy bridegroom himself, who having nothing whatever to do, wandered
up and down the terrace with his hands in his pockets, the only idle
man, and consequently in the way of every one. Conscious that he was the
object of every body’s attention, and the butt of those jokes which are
common on such occasions, and no where more common or less delicate than
in Norway, he laboured hard to be at his ease and succeeded but very ill.
Indeed, his new jacket, which did not come down to his shoulder blades,
and was a little too tight for him into the bargain, and his stiff
glossy trousers would alone have been sufficient to disturb any man’s
self-possession, to say nothing of the chain of filagree silver balls,
each as large as a grape-shot, which were called shirt buttons, and hung
down from his neck; while a stout broad hat twice as broad in the crown
as in the rim, and stiffly turned up on each side, weighed on his brows
like a helmet,—so very new that it still exhibited the creases of the
paper in which it had been packed.
Jan Torgensen, Lota’s brother, who was his other bridesman, was doing his
best to keep him in countenance, for they had always been great allies,
and in fact, Torkel had been Jan’s preceptor in wood-craft, and, so Lota
declared, in every sort of mischief besides. At this present moment
any one who had seen them both, would have taken Jan for the preceptor
and Torkel for the pupil; and Jan for the happy bridegroom, and Torkel
for the disappointed swain,—so happy looked Jan and so sheepish looked
Torkel. But, in truth, Jan had his own particular pride and happiness,
connected, though in a remote manner, with that of his friend. He had
just received his appointment as skipper of the _Haabet_, vice Svensen,
superseded in Lota’s affections by Torkel, and in the command of the brig
by Jan; for the poor fellow, when he found how things were going with
him, resigned the command, settled accounts with old Torgensen, and, much
to the regret of the latter,—for Svensen was a first-rate sailor,—betook
himself to Copenhagen, out of the sight of his rival’s happiness.
Jan, who was a thorough partizan, and had never liked poor Svensen, not
so much on account of any of his demerits as out of affection for his
friend Torkel (for Lota it is to be feared, had coquetted between her
admirers much more than was altogether proper), was singing, or rather
roaring, at the full pitch of a sailor’s voice, the popular ballad of Sir
John and Sir Lavé:—
“To an island green Sir Lavé went;
He wooed a maiden with fair intent;—
‘I will ride with you,’ quoth John;
‘Put on helmets of gold, to follow Sir John.’
He wooed the maiden and took her home,
And knights and serving-men are come;—
‘Here am I!’ quoth John.
They set the bride on the bridal seat,—
Sir John, he bade them both drink and eat.
‘Drink, and drink deeply!’ quoth John.
They brought the bride to the bridal bed,—
They forgot to untie her laces red:
‘I can untie them!’ quoth John.
Sir John, he locked the door with speed;
‘Good night to you, Sir Lavé,’ he said.
‘I shall sleep here!’ quoth John.
Word was brought to Sir Lavé there—
‘Sir John is within, with thy bride so fair!’
‘That am I, in truth!’ quoth John.
At the door, Sir Lavé makes a loud din;—
‘Withdraw the bolts, and let us in!’
‘You had best keep out,’ quoth John.
He knocked at the door with shield and spear,—
‘Withdraw the bolts, and come out here!’
‘See if I do!’ quoth John.
‘If my bride may not in peace remain,
I will go and unto the king complain.’
‘Just as you like,’ quoth John.
Early next morn, when the birds ’gan to sing,
Sir Lavé is off to complain to the king;—
‘I will go, too!’ quoth John.
‘I was betrothed but yesterday,—
Sir John has taken my bride away!’
‘Yes, so I have!’ quoth John.
‘If that the maiden to both is dear,
It must be settled at point of spear.’
‘I’m very willing!’ quoth John.
As soon as the morrow’s sun was bright,
Came all the knights to see the fight;—
‘Here am I!’ quoth John.
The two were mounted, and at the first round
The knees of Sir John’s horse touched the ground.
‘Now help me, Heaven!’ quoth John.
Once more, and in the second round
Sir Lavé lies upon the ground;—
‘There let him lie,’ quoth John.
Sir John he rode to his hall in state,
And his maiden met him at the gate;—
‘Now thou art mine,’ quoth John.
Thus was Sir John made happy for life,
And the maiden became his wedded wife.
‘I knew I should have her,’ quoth John.
‘Put on helmets of gold, to follow Sir John.’”
“Come, come! Jan!” growled old Torgensen, “hold your saucy tongue;
Svensen was a better man than you will ever be in a year of Sundays.
And you, you grinning flirts,”—to the servant-girls, with whom Master
Jan was an especial favourite, and upon whom the application was by no
means lost—“get along with you, and mind your own business,—as if you
had nothing to do, on such a morning as this, but to listen to such
fooleries! Be off with you, I say!”
In the meanwhile the Parson and Birger,—who, by the way, hardly
recognised each other in their gala habits, for the one was habited,
in honour of the occasion, in the black dress of an English clergyman,
while the other, with his sword clinking by his side, blazed in all
the blue and yellow splendour of the Swedish guard,—took up their old
position at the lich gate of the church; one as before balancing on
the stocks, the other astride on the dwarf wall, glad to be out of the
din of preparation. It was not a happy day for any of them, for it was
the last day of the expedition, which every member of it had enjoyed so
thoroughly;—Birger’s leave of absence was running to an end, and the two
Englishmen had taken passage with young Torgensen to the _Haabet_. They
were to sail—so Torgensen said—that night; but, as it was quite certain
that, before that time, the whole crew would be drunk, in honour of their
young mistress, this probably meant to-morrow. Still, to-morrow was to
be the final break-up of the party; and Tom had been philosophizing,
with tears in his eyes, on the transitory nature of human pleasures; and
Torkel, bridegroom as he was, would willingly have postponed his wedding
if he could have prolonged the expedition,—at least, so Lota had told him
the evening before, and he did not look as if he was speaking the truth
when he denied it.
Neither of the friends felt much inclined for conversation. They were
natives of different parts of the world; their courses from that point
lay in opposite directions; the chances were very much against their
meeting again, and, though their acquaintance had not been of very long
duration, so far as time is concerned, one week’s campaign in the wild
forest does more towards ripening an intimacy than a year of ordinary
life.
In the meanwhile the time passed on, and the early peal rang out, and
the groups began to collect as before in the church-yard, and the lake
to be dotted with boats, all pulling or sailing from its remoter bays
and islets to the church, as a common centre. Here and there a party, as
before, was occupied round a grave, pulling up the overgrown convolvulus
and trimming the withering leaves of the lilies. By and by a bugle
sounded a call, and a couple of fiddles from one of the nearest boats
struck up a polka.
“Here come some of the wedding parties,” said Birger; “there seem to be
plenty of happy couples in Soberud this year. Well! there is nothing like
fashion,—in this, as in other things, one fool makes many. Look at that
leading boat!—that one, I mean, just pulling round the point of the
island!—there is a crowned bride in her! Holy Gefjon, Mother of Maids!
such a sight as that is rare in Norway! I should think the chances were
that she got some one to pull her crown off her head before the day was
over. She does not seem much afraid, either, and an uncommonly pretty
girl, too, which makes it all the more wonderful. Well! well! ‘a virtuous
woman is a crown to her husband;’ I hope he will appreciate his blessings
as he ought, such blessings as that do not fall to the lot of many in
this country.”
“What do you mean by that, Birger?” said the Parson, getting up, and
shading his eyes with his hands as he looked out on the lake.
“Ah, you may well shade your eyes before beauty and innocence,” said
Birger; “you do not often see them combined, in this country.”
“Well, the fact is this,” said he, dropping his bantering tone, “what you
commonly call virtue—that is to say, chastity,—is a very rare article
indeed, I am sorry to say, either in Norway or Sweden; the manners of
the people do not tend to foster it. Their promiscuous way of living in
the winter, and the sœter life in summer, makes it absolutely necessary
for a girl either to have a very great respect for herself, or to be
forbiddingly ugly; and whatever the case may have been in earlier and
better times, certain it is that beauty is now much more common among us
than self-respect. Then, again, the laws which prevail in Sweden, and
the customs, which the Udal tenures in Norway make as stringent as laws,
forbid any to marry who are not householders (whence your word husband,
which simply means huus bonde—a peasant with a house), and at the same
time forbid the erection of more than a specified number of houses on
any land. All this renders early marriages almost impossible. The result
may easily be imagined. And to make this the more certain, our wise
laws enact that a woman, having any number of children by any number
of fathers, who at any time of her life shall marry any one whatever,
by the simple act of marriage affiliates all the children she may ever
have had on her unhappy husband; and wherever the Udal law prevails,
he is obliged to share his land equally among them. The consequence of
this is, that unchastity is no sort of disgrace. It is the commonest
thing in the world for a noble to live with a woman all his life, under
promise of marriage to be performed on his death-bed, and the woman is
all the while received much like the Morganatic bride of a German prince.
Frederika Bremer, herself as exemplary a woman as ever lived, has made
the plot of one of her novels to hinge on a man living in such a manner,
and dying suddenly, without being able to perform his promise. She does
not attach the shadow of disgrace to any one, except the relatives of the
deceased, who refused to acknowledge the woman merely on account of this
‘unfortunate accident,’ as she calls it. And so it is. Had she written
otherwise, she would have been out of costume; there is no disgrace in
the matter. I do not mean to say that this girl is not proud of her
crown—of course she is, just as I am proud of this blue and yellow ribbon
of mine,” pointing to the Order of the Sword with which he had decorated
his uniform-coat for the occasion; “but look how she is kissing that girl
in green, who has just landed from that other boat,—that is another bride
who cannot claim the distinction; she no more thinks her disgraced, than
I should think a brother officer disgraced to whom his gracious Majesty
had not been pleased to give the same distinction that he has to me.”
“There seem to be plenty of brides,” said the Parson, “for there is
another green lady, of damaged fame; she seems to be a rich one, by the
number of her fiddlers before, and followers after.”
“They generally have one wedding-day for the district,” said Birger,
“and a good plan too; it diminishes the expense when they all have their
festivities together, and diminishes the drunkenness very considerably,
both on the day and on its anniversaries, for the whole district get
drunk together at once, and get it over, instead of inviting one another
to help them to on their several wedding-days.”
“But what are the ‘crowns?’” said the Parson.
“An ancient custom, by which they challenge any imputation on their
fair fame; any one who has anything to say against the chastity of the
wearer, is privileged to pull off the crown and to drive the lady out of
the church, only the accuser is bound to prove his allegations.”
“It seems a pretty expensive affair, at least, to judge of it at this
distance.”
“O yes, far too expensive to be the property of any individual; they hire
it for the occasion, and, I will be bound, pay five or six dollars for
the pleasure of wearing that and the rest of the costume. Just look at
her as she comes into the light; that dress of black bombazine, with the
short sleeves and white mittens, is probably her own,—very likely it was
her mother’s before her, only fresh dyed for the occasion; but that gay
apron, with the ribbons, and beads, and the silver chains and necklaces,
I should think were hired; the dollars round her neck are her dowry in
all probability, and, consequently, her own; so is the muff, and the
handkerchiefs of various colours that hang from it; and possibly, also,
those yellow kid gloves. But look at the crown itself! why it is silver
gilt!—and that scarf, which hangs down from the spray on the top of it,
is covered with satin lappets, three-quarters long! now do you think a
peasant would buy that? A green bridal, you see, is a much more modest
affair; they wear their silver chains over their green bodices like the
others, but on their heads, instead of the crown, they have the ordinary
wimple of married women, made of fine white linen, and above it the
triangular snood of unmarried girls.”
“Here come our party at last! What a host they have collected! the church
will not hold them all. And there is pretty Lota, with her bridesmaids
after her. Well, I hope no one will pull her crown off; how pretty she
looks in it.”
“Not half so pretty as that little fresh-looking, innocent, Lilla
Nordlingen,” said Birger. “Upon my word I am half inclined to make love
to her myself.”
“You had better not, Mr. Guardsman, you do not stand the ghost of a
chance; how she would turn up that innocent little Norwegian nose of hers
at a brute of a Swede. Besides, do you not see how she is making love to
the Captain, how uncommonly smart the Captain has turned out in his red
uniform! to which the moustache he has been growing ever since he has
been here, forms so appropriate an appendage. Your blue and yellow would
look dingy to eyes that have been dazzled with such scarlet magnificence.”
“Ah, well, we will see. The Captain looks as if he were saying to her,
‘_Aimez moi vite, car je pars demain._’”
“That’s your best chance,” said the Parson, maliciously; “but come,
the bells are ringing in, and we had better get into the ranks of the
procession. Here comes Nordlingen, with his long-legged Candidatus at his
heels.”
While the Pfarrherr went in to array himself in his robes, the different
marriage parties, warned by the bells, had begun to arrange themselves
into one grand procession; while their respective musicians, who together
formed a pretty numerous band, laid their heads together about the tune
to be played on this grand occasion, and tuned their fiddles into concord.
The party had by this time increased considerably, and when at last the
band, having settled their harmonious differences, marched up the nave of
the church playing, somewhat incongruously, a jolly polka, there marched
after them no less than six happy couples, with their followers, each
bride and each bridegroom having a silver ort (ninepence) tied up under
their respective garters, for luck. Only two of the six were crowned
brides, and that, Birger whispered, as they took their places, was a
wonderfully large proportion.
First after the fiddlers came the Candidatus in his gown, who had gone
out to marshal the procession; then came the married men related to the
parties, in their short blue jackets and white-fronted shirts, some
of which were clean; then came the bridegrooms with their bridesmen,
dressed something in the same fashion, except that they affected buckskin
breeches and white stockings: each bridegroom, by way of distinction, had
a fine white handkerchief (cambric, if he could possibly come by it),
tied round his right arm; then came the bridesmaids in green, (which
there is not an unlucky colour as it is with us), with bare heads, and
their hair, which was plaited with many coloured ribands, hanging down
their backs in two tails; then the bride-leaders, married women, who
are supposed to encourage the brides during the ceremony, and lastly,
the brides themselves, in all their splendour. The chancel was as full
as it could hold, the principals disposing themselves round the altar,
kneeling, while the bridesmaids held canopies of shawls and handkerchiefs
over their heads, and the congregation craned in through the chancel
rails, while the priest proceeded with the service.
Scarcely was the benediction pronounced, when the fiddlers again struck
up their polka, and the happy couples, now arm-in-arm, marched down after
them, (the wedding-party forming a sort of escort), and proceeded with
great ceremony to the præstgaard meadow, where the marriage feast—an
enormous pic-nic—was prepared for them, and where the wedding presents,
many of them of considerable value, were set out for public inspection.
These were not exactly the expensive sort of trumpery which forms the
staple of bridal presents in England,—silver vessels that no one ever
drinks out of, and dressing cases far too expensive for ordinary use. The
presents here were real honest implements of house-keeping or farming;
pots and pans, and plates and dishes, and chairs and tables,—spades,
pickaxes: a tonne of rye-meal was the offering of one,—a sack of potatoes
of another; here was a pile of oderiferous salt-fish,—there a flitch
of bacon, at which one of the Captain’s best jokes missed fire—bacon
having no allegorical value whatever in Norway; here again was a good
milch cow, tethered to a tree, or half-a-dozen sheep or pigs folded with
hurdles, while the bride’s feather-beds would have borne a high value in
England. Lota’s were something quite magnificent. With such hunters in
her train, as Torkel and poor Svensen, and her own brother Jan, (who in
his younger days and before he had found out some one to whom to transfer
his youthful allegiance, had contributed largely to his sister’s stores),
it was not to be wondered at if she easily eclipsed all the brides of the
season.
At a comparatively early hour, Torkel and his wife took their leave,
as they had that evening to reach Lönvik, a pretty little farm in the
interior, on the banks of a small lake of the same name, which Torkel’s
father had given up to him on his marriage. But this by no means put a
stop to the festivities, which were carried on to a late hour in the
night, and at which, Sunday though it was, Nordlingen himself presided.
Sunday in Norway begins at six o’clock on Saturday night, when invariably
preparations are commenced for the next day, in the way of looking up
Sunday clothes, and brushing up or washing out the house,—sometimes,
in religious families, by special prayer, though that is not very
common,—sometimes even by washing their own persons, though this, it must
be confessed, is rarer still,—for all of them have a very great horror of
the personal application of soap and water. Sunday, therefore, even as
a day of worship, legitimately ceases at the same hour on the following
day, and, as Nordlingen himself remarked,—what was a more fitting time
for enjoyment than just after they had been admitted to their Lord’s
presence, and had had their sins forgiven them. It was surely much more
congruous than the English way of “making a Saturday night of it,” with
all their sins yet upon their shoulders.
If, however, there was dancing, there was no visible drunkenness; the
Pfarrherr was a man of sufficient influence to make a stand against the
national vice, and if any of the guests did feel a little the worse for
liquor, he quietly took himself, or was taken by his friends, beyond the
glare of the great bonfire, where no one could see him,—for Nordlingen
was wise enough not to look too closely into what was not intended for
his inspection.
It was this idea, or perhaps the recollection that the _Haabet_ was to
sail the next day, that induced him to close his eyes to the fact that
that innocent little Lilla had danced with no one but the Captain the
whole evening, on the plea that no girl of the party, except herself,
was able to talk to him in English. Whatever it was that they had to
say to one another, there was a good deal of it, and it took a good
while saying, and as Birger, who was outrageously jealous remarked
spitefully,—“they, as well as the drunkards, preferred evidently the
light of the moon to that of the great wedding bonfire,” and thinking,
probably, how he would make up for lost time after the _Haabet_ had
tripped her anchor, whistled pensively the Swedish song—
“Hence on the shallows our little boat leaving,
On to the Haaf where the green waves are heaving,
Causing to Thyrsis so much dismay.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
And, now, my good friends, I’ve a fine opportunity
To obfuscate you all by sea terms with impunity.
And talking of “caulking,”
And “quarter-deck walking,”
“Fore and aft,”
And “abaft,”
“Hookers,” “barkeys,” and “craft,”
(At which Mr. Poole has so wickedly laught);
Of “binnacles,” “bilboes,” the boom called the “spanker,”
The best “bower cable,” the “jib,” and “sheet anchor;”
Of “lower-deck guns,” and of “broadsides and chases;”
Of “taff-rails” and “top-sails,” and “splicing main braces,”
And “shiver my timbers,” and other odd phrases
Employed by old pilots with hard-featured faces;
Of the expletives sea-faring gentlemen use,—
The allusions they make to the eyes of their crews.
_Ingoldsby._
The _Haabet_ did not sail that night, which indeed was hardly possible,
her Captain being employed in dancing, and making love, and singing, in
the words of Karl Bellman,—
“Awake, Amaryllis! my dearest, awaken,—
Let me not go to sea by my true love forsaken,—
Our course among dolphins and mermaids is taken:
Onwards shall paddle our boat to the sea.”
Neither did the _Haabet_ sail on the morrow, for the wind had chopped
round to the south-west; neither did she sail the next day, for there
was a dead calm;—there was plenty of time for leave-taking, and a
leisurely journey to Christiansand besides, which was accomplished in
the carioles—their last journey, as Tom feelingly remarked. The Captain
arrived at Ullitz’s, a good hour behind the rest, who would not wait for
the end of his last conference with Lilla Nordlingen.—They were, besides,
a little anxious about the weather, for the season was somewhat advanced,
and everything was so deadly calm, that it was quite evident a change of
some sort was at hand.
What that change was, the next morning made manifest enough, for the wind
was roaring round the house, and the rain pattering furiously against the
windows long before the sun was up.
However, the old copper lion that surmounted the church had veered
round again, and was turning his battle-axe towards England, and Jan
Torgensen—Captain Torgensen we should call him now in virtue of his
new command, and in truth he was not a little proud of the title
himself,—came in just as a very sulky breakfast was completed, and
announced, “that as the wind was fair, he did not care the scale of a
herring how much there was of it, and that this night should be spent at
sea.”
No one was sorry for this announcement, not even Birger, who was going
back to Nordlingen’s, as he said, “in order to console Ariadne for
the desertion of her faithless Theseus.” The pleasures of the summer
had departed, and it was useless to linger over the scenes of past
enjoyments. At Nordlingen’s perhaps the time might have passed pleasantly
enough, notwithstanding the change of weather, but Christiansand has
but few resources for a rainy day; and besides this, the very idea
of a prolonged parting is depressing. Torkel was gone, and Tom was
much too low for a story or a joke. There were, however, some marine
difficulties—there always are; papers are never ready, and agents are
always behind time, and thus, though every one was anxious to be off, and
none less than Torgensen himself, who grudged every blast of the fair
wind, it was full five o’clock before the anchor broke ground; and a
cake, the last token of Marie’s affection, having been previously placed
on the taffrail for Nyssen, the _Haabet_ turned her stern to the blast,
and set her fore-sail, and hoisted a couple of double reefed top-sails to
receive it. The rain redoubled—certainly if Gammle Norgé had received
them with smiles, she honoured their departure with tears.
The first thing that met the Captain’s eye, as he turned from waving the
last farewell to Birger’s receding boat, was the pilot, roaring drunk
already, and the mate supplying him with no end of additional brandy. He
went forward to draw Torgensen’s attention to this apparently dangerous
breach of naval discipline.
“Be quiet,” said Torgensen, in broken English, “the mate knows very well
what he is about, I supplied him with the brandy myself. That drunken
rascal is sure to get us into a scrape, if he has sense enough left
in his drunken body to fancy he can take charge of the ship; and I am
obliged, by law, to take him drunk or sober. As soon as he gets too drunk
to interfere, which I am happy to say will be the case very shortly, I
shall pilot my own ship, and I should think I ought to know how to take
her out of Christiansand by this time—we all do that; in fact, these
drunken pilots are nothing but an incumbrance.” And an incumbrance in
this instance he proved, for, Torgensen having safely carried his brig
to the mouth of the fjord, they were obliged to heave to for the pilot’s
boat, which kept them waiting for a good hour more. The Parson suggested
taking him to sea; but Torgensen swore he had had too much of him already.
It was long after dark, therefore, when they passed the lighthouse, which
they did in a furious squall of wind and rain, and stood out to sea under
close reefed top-sails and reefed fore-sail, with two men at the helm,
the brig steering as wild as if the Nyssen were blowing on both quarters
at once, but dashing away through it for all that, and heaping up the sea
under her bluff bows.
The whole surface was one vast blaze of phosphoric light—the ship’s
ragged wake was a track of wavering flame, the water that broke from her
bows was a cataract of fire, a rope that was towing under her counter
(Torgensen was not at all particular about these little matters), was ten
times more visible than it would have been by broad daylight, for every
strand in it was clearly defined by lines of delicate blue flame, while
each breaking wave was a flash of brightness. The wind was as fair as
it could be, and as they drew out from under the lee of the land, seemed
enough to tear the sails from their bolt ropes.
“Hurrah for Nyssen!” shouted Torgensen; but he shouted a little too soon,
for not an hour afterwards they were close hauled with a south-west wind,
dead foul, dancing like a cork in a mill pond, on the top of a tumbling
cross sea, and plodding along at barely three knots; not even looking up
within four points of their course.
And the next day, and the next night, and the next, the same monotonous
story; only as the wind settled to the south-west, the bubble went down,
and it was not so difficult to walk the three steps and a half, which
formed the _Haabet’s_ quarter-deck.
Still the only answer to the anxiously repeated morning question of “How
is her head,” was, when most favourable, “half a point southward of
west,—think we shall weather the Naze, please God.”
Torgensen was always in high spirits, and was as proud of his new
command, the Captain said, as a peacock with two tails; and she
really had qualities of which a commander might well be proud, as a
sea-boat,—but these did not comprehend either beauty, or comfort, or
speed.
There is no between decks in a Norwegian timber brig, the whole space
being occupied with its bulky cargo, much of which lumbers up the waist,
and forecastle besides; the crew inhabited a small hurricane-house just
abaft the mainmast; a very small slip of this was bulk-headed off for the
mate,—while the remainder—and a very small remainder it was—served the
crew for parlour, and kitchen and all, for there was no other cookery
place in the ship; in one sense this was an advantage, for they could
cook in the worst of weathers, and this is not always practicable in a
merchant ship; but if they did get this advantage over the wind and rain,
it was, as the Captain remarked, a very dirty advantage indeed. All that
there was of cover below the deck, was a very small sail-room aft, also
used as a bread-room; before this was the Captain’s cabin, measuring
exactly eight feet by six, which served for Torgensen and his two
passengers, and for a purser’s store-room into the bargain, with all its
indescribable stinks. After a very little practice, the Captain declared
he could always tell the tack they were on, by the particular description
of stink that was uppermost, and used to say that they had got their
starboard or port stinks on board, as the case might be.
The bread alone of the ship’s provisions was under cover; the beef
and pork was stored in harness casks, lashed to the bulwarks, thus
diminishing still more the very diminutive quarter-deck. In fact, a
quarter-deck walk was what none of them ever thought of.
Hurrah!—the Naze bearing N.N.E., and all dangers of a lee-shore past: a
lee-shore in timber ships is no joke; they never sink—they cannot, for
the Norwegian deals and baulks being of less specific gravity than water,
the ship that carries them would be buoyed up even if water-logged, but
their very want of specific gravity is the cause of their danger on a
lee-shore; besides being full below, the whole deck is lumbered up for
six feet or more, and the centre of gravity is so high that they are all
crank to the most ticklish degree; and, though invariably carrying very
low sail, require every attention to keep them on their legs; for this
reason, if caught on a lee-shore in anything like a breeze, they can
never claw off, for they can carry nothing without tumbling over on their
beam ends. For this reason, every Norwegian is very careful of an offing,
it is the only thing he seems to care much about. When the wind changed,
every ship that the fair breeze had tempted out of Christiansand that day
had put back, and Torgensen only had held on, partly because he knew the
comparatively weatherly qualities of his brig, but principally because he
was young and foolish.
Toward evening the wind drew round to the northward, and the brig was
able, first to lie her course, then to shake out the reefs from her
topsails, and lastly, having brailed up her fore and aft mainsail, to
display a very ragged suit of studding-sails, which together got a fathom
or two over six knots out of her—the very top of her speed,—and the Naze
slowly sank below the horizon, fading into blue as it sank.
But this good luck was not to hold; fine weather returned, but with it
calm and light baffling breezes, with the ship’s head looking every
way except that which she was wanted to go. Singular as anything of
cleanliness seems among people who personally rejoice in dirt, there was
more fuss in cleaning decks than is to be seen in many a man-of-war;
the very cabin-deck was holy-stoned every morning, as well as the
quarter-deck; though so far as the latter was concerned, this was
rendered absolutely useless by the abominable habit of spitting, for
which the Norwegians deserve as much notice as the Americans themselves,
and which they do not yet only “_quia carent vate sacro_,” because
they have not a Mrs. Trollope to write about them. In the present
instance this was the more inexcusable, because the northern style of
ship-building pinches in their ships so much aft, that a man with strong
lungs might set on the weather bulwark, and with ease spit over the
lee-quarter.
As for seamanship, there are no smarter seamen in the world than the
Norwegians when there is need, or more slovenly when there is not; but
how they contrive to navigate their ships is a mystery which none but a
Norwegian can solve. The whole of it is done by dead reckoning, with, in
the North Sea at least, a pretty liberal use of the lead: besides the
deep-sea lead, their only nautical instruments are the log, and what they
call the “pein-compassen.” This last is a compass-card made of wood, and
marked with thirty-two lines corresponding to the points, and drawn from
the centre to the circumference, on which centre revolves freely a brass
needle of equal length with the lines.
On starting, the true bearing of the destined port, or of some remarkable
point or headland which must be sighted during their voyage, is taken,
and the “pein-compassen” is fixed to the binnacle, with that part set
towards the head of the vessel. This, for that particular voyage, is
called “the steering line;” and so long as the true compass tallies
with its wooden brother—that is to say, so long as the ship looks up for
her port,—the whole run is given her at the end of each watch; but, in
traverse sailing, the two compasses must of course point different ways.
In this case, at the end of the watch if the wind has been steady, or
whenever the ship, from tacking, or any other cause, alters her course or
her rate of sailing, the brass needle on the “pein-compassen” is turned
to that point of the compass to which the ship’s head has actually been
lying, and a line is drawn from that point with chalk, intersecting the
“steering line” at right angles. The part cut off between the centre
of the compass and the point of intersection gives the actual gain in
distance to the port towards which she is bound, and answers to the
cosine of our more scientific nomenclature. This, with some corrections
for lee-way, is given to her, while the chalk line drawn from the point
of the moveable needle to the point of intersection, which answers to
our sine, gives the number of miles which the adverse wind has compelled
her to diverge from her course, and which must be compensated for by a
corresponding deviation on the other tack.
Thus it is that, day after day, the ship’s reckoning is kept, not by
calculation, but by actual measurement, performed by a pair of compasses
on a graduated scale; and, clumsy as this contrivance may seem, they do
navigate their ships with an accuracy that might put some of our merchant
skippers to shame,—to say nothing of the masters in Her Majesty’s
Navy.[64]
So far as the North Sea goes, which is the principal scene of Norwegian
navigation, this mode of reckoning is considerably assisted by the
lead,—indeed, it would be hardly too much to say that these timber ships
are navigated by the lead alone. The soundings of the whole North Sea are
accurately marked, and it so happens that there is considerable variety
in the sand which the arming brings up; besides which there are a good
many “pits,” as they are called—that is to say, small spaces, some of
them not a mile across, in which, for some unexplained reason, the depth
is suddenly increased. Should the ship be so fortunate as to strike one
of these, they are so accurately noted in the charts, that it is as good
as a fresh departure.
It was about a week or ten days after the Naze—the last point of
Norway—had faded from their sight, like a dim blue cloud, that the
Parson was sitting or lying at the foot of the foremast in a soft niche,
which he had arranged for himself among the deck timber, and had called
his study. He was reading, for the books which they had brought with
them, and which, hitherto, they had had neither time nor inclination
to look into, were now very acceptable indeed. The Captain, sitting on
the bulwark abreast of him, and steadying himself by the after-swifter,
was watching the proceedings of some visitors who had come on board the
preceding evening—a kestrel and half-a-dozen swallows. The swallows
were so tired when they came on board, that they readily perched on the
fingers that were held out to them, and one of them had passed the night
on the battens in the mate’s cabin. The hawk did not seem a bit the worse
for his journey; he was seated very composedly on the quarter of the
top-gallant yard close to the mast, where he was pleasantly occupied in
preparing his breakfast off one of the swallows, who had risen earlier
than his companions, and who did not exactly realise the proverb about
the “early bird finding the worm,”—on the contrary, he had been found
himself, and was thus ministering to the wants of the hungry, while his
brethren, having now recovered their strength by their night’s rest, were
flitting unconcernedly about the masts and yards, just as on shore they
had flitted round the church steeple, and were wondering, no doubt, what
had become of all the flies.
“As this is only the middle of September,” said the Parson, looking up
at the birds, “it is evident that the migration of swallows must begin
in the North first, and that previous to their leaving our shores, the
English swallows must receive a large addition to their numbers; a fact
which, so far as I know, naturalists have not noticed.”
“Or else,” said the Captain, “that they shift their quarters, like a
regiment that has got its route, and march by detachments—one relieving
the other. Ah!”—with a long sigh—“I wish I had wings like a swallow!”
“Pooh! nonsense!” said the Parson; “we shall get on shore some time or
other; everyone does, except the ‘ancient mariner.’ ‘Good times, bad
times, all times pass over.’”
“So they do; but all this is so much waste of life. Here am I, sitting
dangling my legs over the sides of this cursed brig, knowing all the time
that my friends are knocking the partridges about. Who can give me back
my 1st of September? Besides,” he added, in a grumbling tone, “I want a
clean dinner, if it is only by way of a novelty; I can rough it as well
as anyone for the time, as you know, but a course of such living as this
will poison a man.”
The Parson laughed.
“It does, I assure you! I have often seen it in the West Indies; when a
nigger takes to eating dirt, he always dies, and I should think a little
of that would go a great way with a white man.”
“Well, you know it is said that ‘every man must eat his peck of dirt in
the course of his life.’”
“That’s exactly the thing; we are allowed a peck of dirt, as you say, to
last our lives, but you see if we stay here much longer, we shall soon
get to the end of our allowance. What do you think I saw yesterday? When
I went below, I could smell the cook had been there; you say yourself
that you are always obliged to open the skylight whenever he comes near
the cabin. You know what a beastly miserable day it was, and as I had
nothing to do, I thought I would turn in and try to sleep away a little
time, and get a little warm. I felt the pillow rather too high, and,
putting my hand under it, I found the dish of plok fiske we were to
have for dinner stowed away there to keep it warm! Bother that skipper,
he is going about again,” as the Norwegian equivalent for “raise tacks
and sheets” came grumbling on his ear, and the men lounged lazily to
their stations; “he’s as frightened at the shore as if it was Scylla and
Charybdis, and the Mäelström into the bargain. If he would only hold on
three or four hours more, we might sight Flamborough Head, and get on
board an English collier and enjoy a little cleanliness.”
“Ah! you will not enjoy that luxury for this voyage,” said the Parson;
“the English ships always keep inside the line of sandbanks on the
Norfolk coast; almost all we have met outside, as you may have remarked,
are foreigners.”
“Outside barbarians!” said the Captain, who was not in a good humour.
By this time the clue-garnets had been leisurely manned, one at a time,
and the mainsail was hanging in festoons from its yard; Torgensen himself
steering, as, indeed, he had done for the last hour, and also giving the
word of command. The wind was as light as could be, so that it really did
not signify, except for fidgettiness, on which tack she was.
The helm had been a-lee for about a minute, and the men were at their
stations for “mainsail haul,” while the brig went creeping and creeping
into the wind. The men began sniggering and joking to one another,
but their jokes being Norwegian, were for the most part lost on the
passengers.
“What is that young fool about?” said the Parson, who had not risen from
his recumbent posture; “he will have the brig in irons before he can look
round. Jump up and see what is the matter.”
The Captain scrambled on to the forebitts, so as to look over the
hurricane-house, and burst out laughing. “Bother the fellow! if he is
not reading ‘Peter Simple,’[65] and jamming his helm hard a-lee with his
hinder end. Why, Torgensen! Torgensen! what the Devil are you about? the
brig has been in the wind this half-hour!”
Torgensen started up, flinging his book on the deck, righted his helm,
and bellowed out his next command. It was loud enough to startle the
mermaids in their coral caves; but noise will not compensate for
slackness; the brig was already nearly head to wind, and there she
hung—she would not go an inch farther for any one, and at last fell off
again. Torgensen was obliged to wear her, after all.
He swore, however, he did it on purpose, in order to get a cast of the
lead, as he had not got one for the whole watch. This did not seem to the
Parson so very indispensable, seeing that in the whole of that forenoon
watch they had not shifted their position four miles; nevertheless, to
suit the action to the word, Torgensen did lay his main top-sail aback,
and armed his lead with as much gravity as if he really expected that the
sand and shells brought up by this cast would be different from the sand
and shells brought up by the last.
“I tell you what, though, ‘it is an ill wind that blows nobody good,’—we
may get a cod while Torgensen is sending his note to the mermaids; jump
below and get up the lines. The rind of that ham we had for breakfast
will be a dainty such as Tom Cod is not likely to meet with often in the
haaf, and it will be a pleasing variety to that eternal plok fiske, if
we can get one. By the way, that salt fish has got desperately hard; I
saw the carpenter pounding our dinner with the back of his axe yesterday,
before the cook could do anything with it.”
Whether Tom Cod would have been duly sensible of the honour that was done
him, and would have accepted the line of invitation which the Captain
had sent him for the next day’s dinner, it is impossible to say, for,
unfortunately, he never received it. The whole bank abounded with hungry
dog fish, and the bait never got a dozen fathoms over the side before
it was seized by them. However, it was all fish that came to net; dog
fish are not esteemed on shore, but place the diner on board ship, give
him three weeks of calms and foul winds, short provisions, and those
provisions principally dried fish, with a piece of salt horse for a
luxury on Sunday, and even dog fish will come to be appreciated at their
just value.
It was about the middle of the dog watch in the same day—when, according
to the theory of the Norwegian marine, everybody is supposed to be on
deck for his own pleasure, and, according to matter of fact, everybody is
below, sleeping, or talking, or cooking, or mending his clothes,—when the
Parson, whose time began to hang a little weary on his hands, was yawning
about the _Haabet’s_ quarter-deck, with his hands in his pockets.
The Norwegian dog watch must not be confounded with the English watches
of the same name. In the Swedish or Norwegian navy, the twenty-four
hours are divided into five watches instead of seven, as with us. These,
beginning at 8 p.m., are called the first watch, the night watch, the
morning watch, the forenoon watch, and the dog watch, respectively, of
which the first four consist of four hours each, and the last of eight.
The dog watch comprehends the time from noon to 8 p.m. It is, of course,
impossible for human strength and human endurance to keep it properly,
but it is permitted to be kept in a slack sort of way by the whole ship’s
company conjointly, one watch being indeed responsible for the duty, but
not being forbidden to go below, provided their place, for the time, be
taken by amateurs.[66] The natural effect of this is, that the whole
watch is kept very slackly indeed, even in men-of-war; in fact, at the
particular time specified, there was no one whatever on the deck of the
_Haabet_, except Torgensen, who, as before, was steering, and the Parson,
who had come on deck because the Captain was snoring so loud, and who, as
luck would have it, was looking over the bulwarks to windward.
The day had continued calm and hot, as September days often are, and the
ship was not many miles from the place in which she had missed stays in
the morning. She was close hauled, but carrying everything that would
draw.
“Torgensen,” said he, “I think you had better look out; there is
something coming down upon us, that looks very like an invitation from
your friends the mermaids.[67] I should like to send an excuse.”
“O, The Thousand!” said Torgensen: “God forgive me for swearing, at
such a time;” and shoving the helm into the Parson’s hands, he seized a
handspike, and began to belabour the deck.
On all ordinary occasions there had been a good deal of republican
slackness on board the _Haabet_, the men doing what they were told, but
doing it leisurely, and in a _nonchalant_ sort of way. It did not much
signify, for in blue water and calm weather, it makes little difference
whether the manœuvres are performed smartly or not.[68] But assuming
the handspike was like taking up the dictatorship; there was no want of
smartness now; the men buzzed out from their hurricane-house, like bees
out of a hive, some half dressed, some stuffing a handful of plok fiske
into their mouths, but all rushing to their stations, as if the very
tautest-handed boatswain in the British service was at their heels.
It so happened that Torgensen had been fitting up a fore-sail of his
own, which he called a fok; a stoutish spar held the place of foot rope,
which, though it diminished the area of the sail, certainly had the
effect of making it stand better when close hauled; but that which he
prided himself most upon, was his substitute for clue-garnets, which
consisted of two ropes, which, rove through blocks at the quarter of
the yard, led before the sail through a block at the clue, then to the
yard-arm, and then along the yard; thus, embracing the sail, acting as
spilling-lines and clue-garnets at once, and hauling it up, as it were,
like a curtain in a theatre.
The square main-sail was by this time clewed up, and, had not
Torgensen’s head been full of this invention, he probably would have seen
the necessity of casting off the sheet of the fore and aft main-sail, as
he passed, supposing he had not time or hands to man the brails; as it
was, the fore-sail came in most sweetly, and Torgensen, forgetting his
captainship, skipped up the rigging, and was out at the weather earring,
like a monkey up a cocoa-nut tree.
Just then the squall struck her. Naturally the brig carried a lee helm,
but at this moment, relieved of her fore-sail, and at the same time
pressed upon by the whole force of the squall in her main-sail, she
griped obstinately,—a propensity which the Parson had originated by
steering as near as he could, in order to shake the wind out of the
top-sails while the men were reefing. Things began to look serious; not a
soul was on deck, every man being out on the yards, which, so soon as the
sails began thrashing in the wind, jumped and jerked so furiously, that
it was as much as any of them could do to hold on; the brig lay over, so
that the water not only bubbled through her scuppers, but came pouring
in over her bulwarks, and the Parson, with both hands clutching the
bulwarks, was driving the helm a-weather with his stomach, while his feet
were slipping one after the other on the wet and slanting deck.
Just at that moment the Captain—his coat and shoes off, his head tied
up in a pocket handkerchief, and his eyes scarce opened, just as he had
roused up from his slumbers,—showed an astonished face above the hatchway.
“Hallo! what’s the matter now? who spilt the milk?”
“Jump! and let go that main-sheet! cut it if you can’t get at it any
other way! but take the sail off her at any rate, or in two minutes we
shall be at Fiddler’s Green.”
The Captain was wide enough awake to see that things were rather too
serious for a joke, and scrambled up to windward as well as he could.
Round rattled the sheaves, as if they would set fire to their blocks;
away flew the sheet through them, the slack of it whipping the deck right
and left, and barely missing the Captain, while the end of the main boom
plunged into the water, wetting the sail half way up. The brig, eased
of the strain, slowly and reluctantly paid off, while Torgensen, still
seated at the weather yard-arm, with his legs twisted round it, holding
on by the earring with both hands, with his breast straining against the
lift to which he seemed to be holding on with his chin, and his hat, the
while, which had been secured round his neck by a lanyard, fluttering and
dancing to leeward, just nodded down on deck, as if to say, “all right my
boys, I knew you would do the needful,” and then went on with his work as
if nothing particular had happened.
The squall, however, was only the prelude to a change of wind; in less
than an hour’s time she was able, not only to shake out her reefs again,
but to lie her course, and to jog along it merrily.
Towards the close of the next day they were looking out sharp for the
Outer Garboard Buoy, which, out of sight of land, marks the mouth of the
Thames, and, strange to say, after a cruise of three weeks’ traverse
sailing, hit it to a nicety,[69] and on the following morning, when the
fishermen came on deck, they had the satisfaction of seeing, for the
first time since the Naze had sunk in the horizon, not only land, but
land on both sides of them, of which that on their starboard beam bore a
very strong resemblance to the old South Foreland.
“England again!” said the Captain. “Hurrah for England and
partridges!—what the deuce are you squinting at on the French coast,
Parson?”
“A very interesting sight for us,” said the Parson, putting the telescope
into his hands, “though not on the French coast; look at that sail, and
tell me what you make of her.”
The Captain took a long view. “A lugger I think, coming down before the
wind, wing-and-wing.”
“The very thing, and of course bound for England: if all goes right, we
shall nearly cross her, and that in less than an hour.”
“Then hurrah for a leg of mutton!”—for it should be said the _Haabet_ was
bound for Bordeaux, to exchange her timber for the light St. Julien’s
claret, of which so much is drunk in the north, and the fishermen had
taken their passage in her on the chance, which amounted to almost
a certainty, of meeting with an English coaster that would put them
on shore somewhere. This they had not been able to meet with on the
east coast, for foreigners are too much afraid of the shoals to allow
themselves to go near a track which, by English vessels, is as well
beaten as a turnpike road.
“A leg of mutton!” said the Parson; “you are as bad as a Swede,—always
thinking of your dinner.”
“Upon my word, I have eaten such a lot of trash in that country that it
is very excusable to long for the sweet simplicity of English roast and
boiled; we have not had one single wholesome, unsophisticated meal since
we got there; it was all grease, and sugar, and gravy, and preserves,
except, indeed, where we boiled our own salmon on the Torjedahl, or
toasted our own ‘mutton,’ as Moodie calls it, at the skal.”
“Ah, poor Moodie! I wonder whether he has found out yet that mutton is
not made out of elk’s meat? But that lugger is nearing us fast; I think
we had better talk to Torgensen about it, and get our traps on deck.”
Torgensen was sorry to part with his passengers, and they, though to a
certain extent reciprocating his grief, were much more sorry to part
from Torgensen than from the _Haabet_. But, sorry or glad, it was all
the same, the brig and the lugger, on their respective courses, rapidly
approached each other; a weft hoisted by the former was answered by the
latter, and, in a few minutes, her mast-heads were seen bobbing about
over the brig’s lee quarter.
Less than half a minute sufficed to transfer the fishermen and their
belongings from one deck to the other, and then, hands shaking,—caps
waving,—hoist away the lugs,—and up-helm for merry England.
Away flew the lugger, “her white wings flying,”—it could not be added
“never from her foes,” for she turned out afterwards to be a noted
smuggler that no revenue cutter could ever catch. Up rose the white
cliffs,—plainer and plainer grew the objects on shore: now the white
houses of Dover came in view,—then the sheep on the downs, and the men on
the piers,—then the rising sunbeams flashed back a merry welcome from the
windows,—then the pier-heads opened, with the tide bubbling up against
them like a river in flood, which, taking the lugger under the counter,
gave her a final slew, as she rushed between them,—then through the inner
harbour, and down sails, carrying on with the way already acquired,—then
run up alongside the Custom-house quay.
“Home at last!” said the Captain, as he leaped on shore.
_Hic longæ finis chartæque viæque._
THE END.
PRINTED BY COX (BROS.) AND WYMAN, GREAT QUEEN STREET.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The families of Lejonhöved and Svinhöved were conspicuous in the wars
of Gustavus Vasa, at which time Sweden threw off the yoke which Denmark,
with the concurrence of Norway, had fixed on them, by taking undue
advantage of the conditions stipulated in the Union of Calmar. The head
of the former family perished in the treacherous massacre at Stockholm,
generally spoken of by the name of the “Bloodbath.” Both families derive
their names from their armorial bearings, as at that time there were no
surnames in Sweden. These signify Lion-head and Boar-head, or Pig-head,
respectively. Hence the Parson’s sarcasm.
[2] Långref—a poaching method of catching fish.
[3] Tjäder—the capercailzie. Taking him in his lek—that is to say, during
his play, a very singular method which both the tjäder and the black-cock
has of calling together the females of their respective species, is
strictly contrary to law.
[4] Fjeld Ripa—The mountain grouse; a bird something like our ptarmigan,
the pursuit of which is always attended with toil, and sometimes danger.
[5] According to ancient Scandinavian mythology, the earth, which is flat
and surrounded by water, is continually guarded by Jörmungard the Sea
Serpent, the daughter of Loki; who is so large that she encircles the
whole earth, holding her tail in her mouth. She is sometimes called the
Midgard Serpent;—Midgard meaning middle guard half way between the earth
and the realms of the Hrimthursar, or Frost Giants, which is her post.
[6] The god Kvasir, or Unerring Wisdom, was the joint offspring of all
the gods, and was created to aid their negociations with the Vanir.
His blood, sweetened by mead, forms the drink of Poetic Inspiration,
which was guarded by Gunlauth, the daughter of Thjassi, the chief of
the Frost Giants. Odin, who was her lover, prevailed on her to give it
up to him, and it is at present lodged in the heights of Asgard. That
Poetic Inspiration should be wisdom, sweetened by honey and guarded by
love, is in itself a beautiful allegory—and not less beautiful that it
should be won by the gods and lodged in Heaven;—but the generation of
Kvasir involves a most curious anomaly, and that is, that the gods should
be able to create a being more intelligent than themselves,—unless,
indeed, we interpret the allegory as implying that mutual council is more
unerring than the unaided intelligence of any individual.
[7] The Indelta has very erroneously been stated, by one or two
travellers in Sweden, to be the militia of the country. Sweden has
a militia, and a very efficient force it is; but the Indelta is a
feudal army raised and maintained by the holders of crown lands. The
constitution of this force will be explained more fully hereafter; it is
exclusively a Swedish institution, and does not exist in Norway.
[8] “Come over the river.”
[9] “Quick, here, with the boat! and so you shall have some money for
drink.”
[10] One of the wild ideas of Scandinavian mythology is, that the sun
is the eye of Odin, and that he once had two like other people; but,
that coming one day to the well of Mimiver, the waters of which are pure
wisdom, he bargained for a draught, and bought the horn gjoll full at
the price of one of his eyes; no such great quantity either, if gjoll be
the original of our English gill. However, this fully accounts for the
fact that the moon is not now so bright as the sun, which it probably
once was. It must be confessed that the whole of this story is entirely
inconsistent with the theory of the sun and moon in the prose “Edda,”
where these are represented as separate and independent divinities, the
son and daughter of the giant Mundilfari,—the sun being feminine and the
moon masculine; a tradition contrary to the notions of our poets, but
fully borne out by our English peasants, who invariably speak of the moon
as “he,” and the sun as “she.”
[11] Full-grown salmon have two or three ranges of very small teeth,
whereas grauls (Scoticè, grilse) have only one. It is this distinction
which, on the Erne, is technically termed “the mask,” and not the size,
which determines the difference between a graul and a salmon.
[12] An ort, or mark, is the fifth part of a specie-daler, equivalent to
ninepence or tenpence of our money. A skilling is about the same as an
English halfpenny; the word, however, is pronounced exactly the same as
our English word shilling, the _k_ being soft before _i_; a circumstance
which rather perplexes the stranger in his calculations.
[13] Since the abolition of capital punishment in Norway—a measure
that does not seem to answer at all—murderers are confined, like other
criminals, in the castle at Christiania. They may be seen in dresses of
which each sleeve and leg has its own colour, sweeping the streets and
doing other public work; and a very disgusting sight it is. The average
of crime is very high in Norway—perhaps higher than in any country known,
and particularly crimes of violence. This may be accounted for, partly
by their wonderful drunkenness, and partly by the very inefficient state
of the Church, and the almost total absence of the religious element in
an education which is artificially forced by state enactments. In Norway
there is a very great disproportion between intellect and religion.
[14] Manchester has its faults, and a good many of them, but among them
all its Anglo-Saxon virtue of order and capacity for self-government come
out in strong relief.
“Where are your policemen?” asked the Duke, as he glanced at the masses
that thronged the streets during the Queen’s visit,—perhaps the largest
crowd that had ever been collected in England. The streets of the Borough
of Manchester were not staked and corded off, and guarded by men in blue;
but thousands of strong, active warehousemen and mechanics formed, by
joining hands, a novel barricade. And in the evening, when numbers beyond
computation were assembled in the streets to witness the illumination,
amidst all the confusion there was nothing but good-humour.—_Fraser._
[15] Alluding to a custom in Norway, of mixing the inner rind of the
birch tree with their rye meal, during times of scarcity.
[16] The fisherman is very much recommended to tie his own flies for
the Tay, or to get them at Edmondson’s. The author bought a good many
pretty-looking specimens in the country, by way of patterns, all of
which whipped to pieces in half-an-hour’s fishing. The fact is, there
is a cheap way of tying flies, which it is impossible to detect by the
eye; and it is just as well that the young fisherman should ask the
_character_ of his tackle-maker before investing his money in such very
ticklish wares; the worthlessness of which he will not find out till he
reaches his fishing-ground. The author, a fisherman of some experience,
has tied a good many flies in his time, and has had a good many tied
for him by his attendants and other professionals on the river’s banks;
but the only tradespeople he has ever found trustworthy, in all points,
in such matters are, Chevalier, of Bell-yard, London, and Edmondson, of
Church-street, Liverpool. Their flies have never failed him, whether in
their hooks, their gut, or their tying. All that the fisherman will want
in their shops will be a little science, to enable him to choose his
colours, _and a little money to enable him to pay his bills_.
[17] The real scene of this piscatorial exploit is on the Mandahl river.
There is a Hell Fall on the Torjedahl also; indeed, the name is common
in Norway, and in Sweden too, so as to become almost generic for a dark,
gloomy rush of waters; but the Hell Fall of the Torjedahl is inaccessible
to salmon, which, notwithstanding all that Inglis says to the contrary,
are unable to surmount the great falls of Wigeland about a mile below it.
It is, therefore, worthless as a fishing-place; and, the author suspects,
altogether too dangerous to be attempted without good reason. When the
water is low, the fall of the Mandahl may be fished in the ordinary
manner from a boat, and it is well worth the trial; but if the river be
full, the birch rope will be found necessary.
[18] The lower part of the Torjedahl is perfectly free from musquitoes,
which cannot be said of all the rivers in Norway; this probably is owing
to its rapidity, and to the absence of all tributaries and still water.
[19] It is no inaccuracy to give Birger a Scotch song, for there is a
considerable infusion of Scotch blood among the Swedes, and Scotch family
names are by no means uncommon among the nobility. In fact, Scotch names
are to be met with even in their national ballads: for instance—
It was young Folmer Skot
Who rode by dale and hill,
And after rides Morton of Fogelsang,
Who bids him hear his will.
[20] The thirtieth of April.
[21]
Lie still, my child;
In the morning comes Fin
Thy father,
And gives thee Esberne Snorre’s eyes and heart to play with.
[22] Esberne Snorre is the Danish Faust. In no country whatever was
the reformation popular among the peasantry, and therefore the popular
legends invariably assign the leaders and causes of it to the devil, as
in the case of Faust himself, who, whatever Goëthe may say, really was
a very respectable tradesman, and had no more to do with the devil than
is involved in the invention of that art which became so powerful an
instrument in the hands of reformers—printing. Esberne Snorre was what
very few of the Danish Reformers were, a really good and conscientious
man, who might well have built the Church of Kallendborg, or even have
given his eyes for it. Nevertheless, pre-eminently before all the
reformers, the devil carries him off bodily in every legend of the time,
just as he did Faust.
[23] Equivalent to “spoiling a market” in Ireland, or “opening a
Sheriff’s ball” in England,—“Goth’s garden” being the cant name for a
place of execution in Stockholm, which is adorned with permanent gibbets,
and is so called from the name of the first man who was hanged there.
The saying is Swedish, not Norwegian, not only because it is local, but
because there are no capital punishments at all in Norway.
[24] Christina, daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus, a popular
and able sovereign, abdicated voluntarily,—wearied of the toils of
government,—and is said to have uttered some such speech as that
attributed to her by Torkel on crossing the little stream which in those
days separated her late dominions from those of Denmark.
[25] Between “the two lights,”—that is to say, twilight,—is always the
time in which all spirits of the middle earth have the greatest power;
of course the reason is, that seen indistinctly in the doubtful light
of morning or evening, natural objects take strange forms, and exhibit
appearances which are ascribed to the supernatural.
[26] A sort of scallop, of very beautiful colour.
[27] In the Swedish Church there used to be a regular private confession
made to the priest before every Communion, on which occasion an
offertory, called confession-money, was deposited on the altar. It is,
indeed, the rule of the Church still, though, since a royal ordinance, in
1686, forbade penitents to select their own confessors, confining them to
the priest of their parish, the custom has fallen into disuse; still the
old expressions are frequently retained.
[28] The mal is said to be a great-headed, wide-mouthed monster, with
a long beard, of the same colour as the eel; and, like the eel, slimy
and without any perceptible scales. It is said to grow to the length of
twelve or fourteen feet, to weigh three or four hundred pounds, and to
carry on his back fin a strong, sharp lance, which it can elevate or
depress at pleasure. It is supposed to lie seeking whom or what it may
devour in the deepest and muddiest holes of rivers or lakes. The author
has heard this fish talked of very often, but has never seen one, and
believes fully that it may safely be classed with the Black Horse, the
Mid-Gard Serpent, and Dr. Clarke’s Furia Infernalis.
[29] The leading fish of each shoal, or school, as it is called,—usually
a salmon of considerable weight and experience—is so termed by the Irish
fishermen.
[30] Frue is properly a title of nobility, and is of Danish origin. No
Norwegian titles date earlier than the Union of Kalmar. These, however,
have been all abolished by a Storthing, which, consisting mostly of
peasants, set itself strongly against aristocratical distinctions; and,
taking advantage of that clause in the constitution which provides,
that if a bill be carried three times it overrides the king’s veto,
have succeeded in abolishing them. Habit and custom, however, are
stronger than parliaments; and the mistress of a wealthy establishment
is frequently designated, not by her husband’s name, but as Lady Marie,
Lady Brigetta, or, as in the present case, Lady Christina—for that is the
meaning of the title Frue.
[31] Not many years ago, the “summer parlour” was the only room in any
house that had windows that would open.
[32] All livings in Norway have a dowager-house and farm belonging to
them, for the widow of the late incumbent. At her death, it passes back
to the present possessor of the living.
[33] Deep water.
[34]
Here the Neck strikes his harp in his city of glass,
And the Mermaids comb out their bright hair, green as grass,
And bleach here their glittering clothes.
[35] Those who are drowned at sea, and whose bodies are never recovered,
are said to have been enticed away to the mermaids’ caves beneath the
deep water.
[36] Those who are lost and starved to death in the forest—a thing which
is of perpetual occurrence,—are said to be detained through the love of
the Skogsfrue.
[37]
“We fly from day’s dazzling light,
But we joy in the shades of night,—
Though we journey on earth, our home must be
Beneath the shell of the earth and the sea.”
_Mathisen._
[38] This legend is taken from the Brage Rädur, which, in the original,
is obscure enough. Finn Magnussen, however, seems to have hit upon the
right interpretation of it, which we have followed here. His explanation,
as given in “Blackwell’s Northern Antiquities,” is this:—“Iduna,
the ever-renovating Spring-being, in the possession of Thjasse, the
desolating Winter,—all nature languishes until she is delivered from her
captivity. On this being effected, her presence again diffuses joy and
gladness, and all things revive; while her pursuer, Winter, with his icy
breath, dissolves in the solar rays, indicated by the fires lighted on
the walls of Asgard.”
[39] Niord and his wife, Skadi, had naturally some disputes about their
future residence,—he preferring the brightness of his own palace,
Noatun, she very naturally yearning after Thrymheim, the abode of her
chilly father. The dispute was referred to Forseti, the son of Baldur,
the heavenly attorney-general, who decided that they should alternately
occupy Noatun for three months and Thrymheim for nine,—which is about the
Norwegian proportion of summer and winter.
“Thrymheim, the land
Where Thjasse abode,
That mightiest of giants,—
But snow-skating Skadi
Now dwells there, I trow,
In her father’s old mansion.”
_Elder Edda._
[40] A proof of the authenticity of this legend is to be found in the
etymology of the word, “gate,” (gatin—the street), being a Norwegian word.
[41] Hermod and Baldur were both sons of Odin. That is to say, Courage
and Innocence are both children of Heavenly Wisdom.
[42] The moral of this legend is admirable. The Principle of Evil is of
itself powerless against the Principle of Good, until it is assisted by
well-intentioned, but blind Prejudice; but that same Prejudice, after its
enlightenment, becomes its partner and ally.
[43] An attentive reader, who is also a fisherman, will see, by reverting
to the time which the adventures in the Torjedahl and Soberud-dahl must
have taken, that this voyage must have taken place much later in the
year than the 24th of June, and that consequently he could not have seen
the bale-fires he describes. The fact is, the author made two visits to
Christiansand; he arrived there in June, but, finding the snow-water
still in the river, he made a voyage among the islands, to occupy
the time, and visited the place again at the end of July. To prevent
unnecessary confusion, the incidents of both these visits are told
together; but the fisherman must not conclude from this, that anything
is to be done in any of the Tellemarken rivers before the second week in
July.
[44] The whole Norwegian navy consists of one frigate, two corvettes,
two brigs, three schooners, and a hundred and forty of these gun-boats.
The Swedes, who have upon the whole rather a powerful navy, considering
the poverty of their country,—that is to say, thirteen line-of-battle
ships, fourteen frigates, some of them very heavy ones, and twenty-two
steamers—possess also three hundred of these gun-boats. They carry
generally one long tomer forward, and sometimes a carronade, sometimes
a smaller gun aft. They are quite open, except a couple of bunks for
the officers’ sleeping places, pull from twenty to thirty oars, and are
generally sent to sea in squadrons, with a frigate or corvette to take
care of them,—like an old duck with a brood of ducklings. The frigate
forms a rallying point and place of refuge, as well as a place of rest,
for the crews are changed from time to time, and in their turns enjoy a
week’s rest and cover on board of her.
[45] In Sweden there really is an order of the Seraphim, and in Denmark
one of the Elephant,—for the Goose and Gridiron we will not vouch.
[46] That ancient and distinguished family are said to read Gen. vi.
4 thus: “And there were Grants in the earth in those days.” The word
“giants” being, according to the best authorities in that family, a
modern reading.
[47] Bjornstjerna, a not uncommon name in Sweden, signifies “bear’s star.”
[48] Bör, civilized man,—from _beran_, to bear; the same etymology as
that of _barn_, a child. Ymir, Chaos,—literally, a confused noise; the
meaning is, “before civilization had subdued Chaos.”
[49] It must be remembered that the letter o, in Swedish, is pronounced
like our oo, and that the g before ä e i ö, as well as the final g, is
pronounced like the English y; the word “Modige,” therefore, will be
pronounced very like the English word “Moodie.”
[50] _Rubus Chamœmorus_; called in the country, _Möltebär_.
[51] Baldur’s Eye-brow—_Anthemis Cotula._—LINN.
[52] The Puritan Abbott, Archbishop of Canterbury, got into great
trouble from his sporting propensities. One day, as he was shooting with
Lord de le Zouch, at Branshill Park, he shot a keeper. According to
canon law, a clergyman killing a man becomes, from that time forward,
incapable of performing any clerical function; and three Bishops elect
refused consecration at his hand,—“Not,” as they said, “out of enmity or
superstition, but to be wary that they might not be attainted with the
contagion of his scandal and uncanonical condition.” He was re-instated
by a committee of Bishops, appointed for the purpose, but never entirely
recovered his position.
[53] According to Scandinavian mythology, the sacred ash of Yggdrasil,
which typifies the Vital Principle of the world, has seated on
its topmost boughs an eagle, bearing perched between his eyes a
falcon,—emblematic of Energy and Activity.
[54] According to the Prose Edda, the gods had originally no poetry in
their souls. The mead of Poetic Inspiration was in the keeping of the
giant Suttung, who entrusted it to his daughter, Gunlauth. Odin made
love to her,—obtained possession of the mead, and deserted her. He had,
however, the grace to be ashamed of himself, for these are the words of
the Hávamál, in which he evidently alludes to this not very creditable
passage in his life:
“Gunlauth gave me,
On a golden chair seated,
A draught of mead delicious;
But the return was evil
Which she experienced,—
With all her faithfulness—
With all her deep love!
“A holy ring oath
I mind me gave Odin,—
Now, who can trust him?
Suttung is cheated—
His mead is stolen—
Gunlauth is weeping!”
[55] A Norwegian slang expression, for “early rising.”
[56] There is a beautiful superstition—if it is not a real religious
truth—in Norway, that those we have loved best on earth become our unseen
guardians, and follow us always, to warn us of danger.
[57]
“Then shall brethren be
Each other’s bane,
And sister’s children rend
The ties of kin.
“Hard will be the age,
And harlotry prevail,—
An axe-age, a sword-age—
Shields oft cleft in twain,—
A storm-age, a wolf-age,
Ere earth shall meet its doom.”
_The Völuspà._
[58] Stags are not common so far north, but they are to be met with now
and then. Elks are much more often seen, and are now pretty plentiful.
In the days of which the author is writing, the Game Laws were, on paper
at least, very strict about both elks and red-deer. Time was, when
the former of these were classed with the bear and the lynx, and were
absolutely outlawed as noxious beasts. At the time the author was in
Sweden, the laws had gone to the other extreme, and they were absolutely
protected,—everybody being forbidden to shoot them; a prohibition which,
though it prevented men from going after them openly, was, in fact, as
little regarded as most laws are in the fjeld. Now, they may be shot,
only under certain restrictions.
[59] A cant phrase in Sweden, for “going on foot.”
[60] The only time the author ever did get a sight of one was in the
fjeld on the right bank of the Gotha, near Trollhättan, when he was
making his way through some tangled ground in search of a lake, which
lies at no very great distance from the fall. On leaping down from a
low ledge of rock, he very nearly pitched upon the top of a filfras, as
much to his own surprise as that of the beast. He struck at him with his
spiked fishing-rod—the only weapon he had with him. Fortunately for both
parties, as he now thinks, he missed him; so they parted, much to their
mutual satisfaction, and have not met since.
[61] Nalle is the cant name for the bear kind, as with us Reynard is the
cant name for a fox.
[62] “Rig,” the earthly name of Heimdall, the watcher of Heaven’s gate,
when he disguises himself to go skylarking on earth. Hence the slang
expression, “Running a Rig.”
[63] The Sun and Moon are continually pursued by the wolf Fenrir and her
progeny, who sometimes nearly catch her. Hence the eclipses.
[64] The author will not answer for his orthography in the word
“pein-compassen.” He can work a reckoning by it, but has never seen it
spelt.
[65] There is no book so popular in Sweden as what they call “Peter
Simpel aff Kapten Marrjatt.”
[66] In Preadamite times—that is to say, the times of Drake and
Raleigh—this was the custom of the English service also; but it having
been discovered that “what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,”
and that accidents and negligences were continually happening during the
dog watch, a regular afternoon watch was established, and the dog watch
reduced to four hours, and divided into two; so that the whole ship’s
company could relieve one another systematically, and not, as before,
by private arrangement; and that the whole could have two uninterrupted
hours below, between four and eight in the evening, for their evening
meal, or any other occupation. The whole afternoon watch was called the
dog watch, because in the full light,—and Norwegian ships did not go to
sea in the winter because they were frozen up,—the work was supposed to
be so easy that the dogs were sufficient to keep it.
[67] Those drowned at sea, whose bodies are never found, are supposed
to have been invited by the mermaids to their caves, and to have been
fascinated by the beauty of their entertainers. Homer’s story of the
Syrens enticing the comrades of Ulysses, has some such foundation.
[68] The words “smart” and “smartly,” which, at sea, have a signification
very different from their shore-going meaning, are pieces of
mis-spelling. They are evidently derived from the Norwegian words “snart”
and “snartlig,” which bear precisely the same nautical meaning as our
English words.
[69] This is a literal fact. Three weeks after sailing from
Christiansand, and seventeen days after losing sight of land of any
kind,—during which time there had been but two days in which the brig
could lie her course,—the author was in the fore-rigging, on the look-out
for the Outer Garboard buoy. He had but small hopes of seeing it, he
admits, for the brig had been navigated by log, lead, and compass
alone; nevertheless it is true, that within half-an-hour of his taking
up his look-out place, and precisely in the direction in which he was
looking, there was the buoy,—a little black speck, like a dancing boat.
This, considering that the steamer in which he had gone out—a vessel
commanded by a lieutenant in her Majesty’s navy—was fifty miles out of
her reckoning, after a straight course of four days, seemed, to say the
least, remarkable.
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