THE YACHT UNDER SAIL—JACKO OVERBOARD—FREDRICKSVÆRN—THE UNION JACK—SCENERY ON THE LARVIG RIVER—TRANSIT OF TIMBER—SALMON FISHING—THE DEFEATED ANGLER—LUDICROUS ADVENTURE WITH AN EAGLE—RESULT OF THE ANGLING EXPEDITION—THE BEVY OF LADIES—NORWEGIAN DINNER-PARTY SINGULAR AND AMUSING CUSTOMS.
THE YACHT UNDER SAIL—JACKO OVERBOARD—FREDRICKSVÆRN—THE UNION JACK—SCENERY ON THE LARVIG RIVER—TRANSIT OF TIMBER—SALMON FISHING—THE DEFEATED ANGLER—LUDICROUS ADVENTURE WITH AN EAGLE—RESULT OF THE ANGLING EXPEDITION—THE BEVY OF LADIES—NORWEGIAN DINNER-PARTY SINGULAR AND AMUSING CUSTOMS.
At eight o'clock on Tuesday morning, the 6th, we started for Larvig. About sixty miles from Christiania, at the mouth of the Fiord, a fine, light air sprung up, and, delighted with the expectation that we should reach Larvig before set of sun on Wednesday, we amused ourselves by firing at bottles thrown into the sea, and afterwards by watching the gambols of Sailor and Jacko. Sailor, stretched at full length on his back, allowed Jacko to pull his ears, and bite his claws; and mindless of the monkey's antics, seemed rather to encourage, than object to his vagaries. Wearied, at last, with his pulling, and jumping, and biting, Jacko sought a variation to his amusements, by springing on the weather runner-block, and thence depending by his tail. When Sailor perceived that Jacko had removed his gymnastics from himself, and transferred them to the block, he rose from his recumbent attitude onthe deck, and, squatting on his haunches, observed, for some little time, with singular attention and silence, the extraordinary flexibility of Jacko's limbs; but at the moment when Jacko suspended his little carcase by his smaller tail from the runner-block, whether it was the manner in which Sailor expressed a roar of laughter, or whether it was a shout of applause at the comical likeness of Jacko's body, swinging in the air, to a bunch of black grapes, certain it is, that, at that instant, Sailor gave one, but one, tremendous bark, and, in the twinkling of an eye, Jacko fell souse into the water. He sank like a boiled plum-pudding to the vessel's keel; for when he rose again, his little round head could just be seen a hundred feet astern. Never was there such dismay on board the Iris before.
"Jacko's overboard!" shouted each man; and echo taking up the cry, "Jacko's overboard!" must have alarmed Jacko himself by its forlorn expression. Struggling with the waves, and striking out manfully with his hands, and not like a monkey, Jacko kept his head above water, and his eyes turned towards the cap of the top-mast.
"Hard a-port the helm!" bellowed D——, rushing to the tiller himself; and soon as the cutter shot up in the wind, he added,
"Now, then, two of you, my sons, jump into the dingy."
The command was obeyed quickly as it was given; and Jacko has to thank his star, whichever it may be, that the boat had not been hoisted on the davits, but towing in the vessel's wake; or he might, many months ago, have been a source of entertainment at the Court of Neptune.
If a drowned rat looks sleekly wretched, Jacko looked ten times worse when taken out of the water. The brightness of his eye had fled,—his tail, which curled usually like a sucking-pig's, hung now straight down behind him, relaxed from its ringlet, like a piece of tarred rope,—and his stomach, vying once with the symmetry of the greyhound's, was distended and globular as a small barrel of oysters. Half a spoonful of brandy was poured down his throat, and having been wrapped up in some odd pieces of flannel, he was put in a soup-plate, and set down before the fire. This was all that human art could do, and the rest was left to the control of time, or Jacko's robust constitution.
At twelve o'clock we were off Fredricksværn, the Norwegian Portsmouth, which is a small town at the entrance of the Larvig Fiord. Here Jacko came on deck buoyant as a ball, and with a coat made more glossy by the chemical action of the salt water.
Looking towards Larvig, we saw, an unusual sight in this country, the Union-jack flying on a little rock; and were puzzled for some timeto know whether it was a compliment that had reference to us. After a tedious contention withdead water, light puffs of wind that came down the gulleys on our starboard beam, and shifted to our bows, and then veering right aft, jibed the main-sheet, we cast anchor about twenty yards from the rock on whose summit the Union-jack waved.
The Consul sent on board to say, that his house was at our service, as well as any other kindness he could show us. We understood afterwards, that the Consul had mistaken the Iris for the Fairy schooner, belonging to Sir Hyde Parker; and had hoisted the jack in compliment to his old friend the baronet.
It was not possible for us to fish to-day; but P—— hired a carriole, and drove about six miles into the country, to obtain leave from the proprietors on the banks of the Larvig River, to fish on the following morning. The task of gaining permission to fish for salmon in Norway is sometimes a tedious one; for every man is his own landlord, and possesses a few acres of land that he tills himself. All lands on the banks make the portion of the river flowing by them, the property of the landowner; and the angler may have to secure the good-will and assent of fifty persons, before he can fish in any part of a river, which is more difficult to do, as the Norwegians are jealous of their little privileges. They rarely deny courtesy to a stranger; but they liketo have it in their power to do so if they please. This, however, was not P——'s case; for through the hearty assistance and recommendation of the Consul, no obstruction was made to the attainment of everything we desired.
As all fishermen are aware, it is necessary to angle for salmon, and indeed many fish, either very early in the morning, or in the cool of the afternoon, the heat of noon being perfectly inimical to the sport. At two o'clock, therefore, on Friday morning, the memorable 9th of June, we started in the gig, stored with abundant provision, for the first foss, or fall, of the Larvig River.
The scenery of this river was the most beautiful we had yet seen, though not the grandest, the banks being thickly wooded, and the diversity of the foliage more striking than at Krokleven, or in the Christiania Fiord. Nearly four hours elapsed before we reached the spot selected for fishing; but our passage up the river had been obstructed occasionally by bars across the water. These bars are large stakes or piles driven, about twenty feet apart, into the bed of the river, and carried from one bank to the other, to which the trunks of trees are chained to prevent the timber from escaping to the sea; and it is no uncommon thing to meet with an immense field of timber, covering the whole surface of the river as far as the eye can see. A passageis kept between two of these stakes, distinguished from the others by a mark, for the ordinary traffic of the river; and is defended by a huge bar of timber, secured by a chain, on removing which, the boats are, after a good deal of bumping, pulled through. The interior of the country being so inaccessible, the Norwegians have no other alternative but to roll the timber from the tops of the mountains, and casting it on the rivers, allow it to float to these artificial havens, where it is collected, and then, being made into immense rafts, guided by some half dozen men to the town, whence it is shipped to France or Holland.
P—— had made such excellent arrangements, that two prams were in readiness to receive R—— and himself when we arrived at our destination. In some of the salmon rivers it is quite impossible to fish from the banks, but the sportsman hires a boat, and angles in the centre of the stream, which is generally interrupted by large stones, or pieces of rock, in the eddy of which the salmon delight to sport.
P—— was the first to get his rod together, and selecting a particular fly that he had considered as "a certain killer," jumped into his pram. The men who row these prams are generally Norwegians, born on the banks of the river, and knowing pretty well under what rocks, or in what eddy, the salmon abound. The Norwegian who rowed P——'s pram wasa fine young fellow, but as unable to understand the English language as he was athletic. R—— and P—— divided the river in two parts, so that neither sportsman should interfere with the amusement of the other. P—— took the upper part of the stream, and R—— the lower; or, in other words, or other ideas, P—— was the wolf who came to drink of the limpid tide, and R—— was the lamb who had to put up with the muddy water.
Broiling my back in the rising sun, I took my seat on a high rock from which I had a commanding view of both my friends, and could note the praiseworthy tact and labour with which they angled. Time flew on; a quarter of an hour elapsed, and then another quarter; and to these thirty minutes, twice thirty more were added, when the heat at my back was relieved by the furious and rapid clicking of P——'s reel. I started from my seat, and lo! P——'s rod had assumed quite a new appearance; for instead of its taper, arrowy form, it looked more like a note of interrogation, and seemed to ask as loudly and plainly as it could,
"What in heavens, master, has hold of my other end?"
P——, too, no longer retained that upright, soldierly attitude for which I had always admired him, but leaned so much backwards, that, should the good rod, I thought,give way, nothing on earth can save him from falling on the hinder part of his head. R—— wound up his line, and sat down in his pram to watch P——.
It is the custom, the instant the salmon takes the fly, for the rower to pull towards the shore with as much celerity and judgment as possible, neither to drive the boat too swiftly through the water, or loiter too slowly, both extremes endangering the chance of capturing your salmon. That part of the stream where P—— fished, was about forty yards below a rapid, and, indeed, ran with the current of a sluice; and the reader may imagine, that, a very little impetus given to the pram against this current, would increase the pressure of a large salmon on a small gut line. Directly the boatman discovered that P—— had a bite, towards the bank he commenced to row; but not with that degree of expedition P—— desired. Although I was some distance from them, I could perceive the energetic signals of P——'s left hand to the Norwegian to pull ashore more briskly. Every now and then the rattling of the reel would keep P——'s excitement alive, and as he gradually wound up the line, the salmon, making another start, would threaten to run away with every inch of tackle. Warily the Norwegian rowed, scarcely dipping his sculls in the water, lest their splash should startle the most timid of fish; but his cautious conduct made no impression on P——, for Icould still see him motion angrily to the Norwegian to be more speedy.
The bank of the river at last was reached, and stumbling over sculls and baling ladles, for these prams leak like sponges, and getting his foot entangled in a landing net, P—— contrived to step on shore; but barely had he stood on land again, than the line snapped, and the rod flew to the perpendicular with a short, sharp hiss. Imagination cannot sympathise with P——'s feelings, when, after travelling over a thousand miles, or more, for the sake of entrapping salmon, he should break, through the stupidity or slothfulness of a Norwegian boatman, his best gut line, and lose the finest salmon in the whole Larvig river. P——'s eyes wandered to the summit of his rod as it shot, like a poplar, straight into the air, and saw the remnant of his tackle, not half a yard long, flowing in every direction to the varying puffs of wind; and turning his head slowly round towards the astounded Norwegian, gave him a mingled look of inexpressible contempt and anger; and then, casting his rod violently to the ground, stamped his foot, and vowed he would never fish again.
"You stupid ass!" I heard him shout to the Norwegian, perfectly ignorant whether P—— was addressing him with excess of passion, or a tornado of praise; "didn't I tell you, as well as I could, to pull faster? Do you think cat-gut is made of iron?"
"Ja[3]," said the gaping Norwegian, catching a very vague idea of his meaning.
"But it isn't, you d——d fool!" exclaimed P—— angrily. "Why don't you do what you're told?"
"Ja——," again began the unhappy boatman.
"But you didn't," shouted P——, cutting him off in the midst of his reply.
"Ja, ja," interposed the Norwegian, "I pool pram."
"Yes, you did 'pool pram,' and a pretty mess you have made of it;" and P—— put his hands in his trowsers' pockets, and began to walk up and down on the bank.
"What's the row?" called out R—— from his pram, floating in the middle of the river; "Have you lost your fish?"
He had witnessed the whole transaction, as well as I.
"It's hardly credible," answered P——, stopping in his walk, "that these Norwegian fools can live in a country all their days, and have salmon under their noses, and not know how to catch them. Curse the fools! the sooner one leaves them the better."
"So I think," acceded R——, sitting down quietly in the after part of his pram, and dangling his crossed leg. "For my part, I don't think there are any salmon at all.Ican't getarise. I wouldn't mind betting an even crown you had hold of a weed!"
"Pooh! stuff!" ejaculated P——, starting off in his see-saw ambulation again. "I saw the fish;—'twas fifteen pound weight at least."
"Oh! if you saw him, that's another thing," said R——; and taking his pipe out of his pocket, began to soothe his nerves by blowing off his disappointment in the substantial form of pure Oronoco tobacco-smoke.
Half an hour afterwards, P—— was hard at work as ever, perfectly regardless of the solemn attestation he had volunteered to Jupiter.
The four sailors who had rowed the gig from Larvig, had, with the ingenuity of their class, constructed a tent, lighted a fire, and were preparing breakfast, both for us and themselves. This was the first time I had breakfasted in the open air, and it is not so unpleasant as might be imagined, particularly should the morning be so calm, and clear, and warm as this one was. Shaded by a high mountain, fresh with the foliage of fir, birch, and filbert trees, the morning sun reached not our encampment. The balmy air, the dew and early vapour upon the grass, the humming sound of the bee, the low of cattle, the lusty salutation of peasants as they met each other, proceeding to their labour, and, above all, the murmuring river, were sounds and things as pleasant to hear and see as always to remember.
R—— and P—— were unwearied; nor did they yield to fatigue until the sun had risen so high, that its heat sent the fish to respire at the bottom of the river, and the animals under shelter of the trees. After we had breakfasted, R—— and P—— exchanged a few remarks on the art of angling, felt the fatigue of rising at two in the morning, and fell fast asleep. I possessed the wakefulness of a second Cerberus, and allowed not Morpheus to approach my eyelids; but loitering, up and down, under the shady boughs of the trees, listened to the sweet silvery rippling of the river, as it crept between the rocks, or bubbled over its shingly bed. Overpowered at last by the fury of the vertical sun, I entered the tent that had been formed by raising the gig's sail on the four oars.
R—— and P—— were still slumbering, and I was lying under the tent, on the ground, reading the Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. The sailors who had formed the boat's crew were sauntering about along the banks of the river; and the cockswain, who generally on such excursions as the present performed the part of cook, was seated on a piece of rock which projected into the bubbling stream, busily occupied in the preparation of dinner. Whistling, and humming, by fits, one of the sea-songs of his country, he wore the time away while peeling some potatoes, which, one by one, as his large knife, slung from his belt by apiece of yarn, deprived of their jackets, he threw into an iron pot, having rinsed them previously in the flowing river. Within his sight, lay, on a white towel, a leg of lamb, bewitchingly sprinkled with salt, all prepared to be cooked, but only waiting for the potatoes to bear it company to the fire. Absorbed in my book, I paid little attention to what was passing around me, except by an occasional glance, until I heard a loud, shrill scream, and then a louder rustling of feathers, as if this was the noon of the last day, and Gabriel having blown his trumpet without my hearing it, had actually reached the earth. I jumped up, and running out of the tent, saw the cockswain standing like a nautical statue, motionless, gazing upwards, and with a stick grasped firmly in his hand. Following his example, I turned my eyes reverentially to the skies, and distinguished, from the blaze of day, a most lusty eagle, making the best of his way towards the residence of Jove with the leg of lamb in his beak; and, as if conscious of the superiority his position had given him over us, waving the white towel, grasped with his talons, hither and thither in the air, like a flag moved exultingly by conquerors after victory.
"It's gone, sir," said the sailor, lowering the uplifted club, "and, blow me, if I ever heerd him coming."
I shall not forget the utter disgust of R—— and P——, when, like a couple of Samsonsthey awoke, and found that their hair was certainly untouched, but that the most positive support of their strength had been cut off irretrievably, and their dinner of lamb gone where all innocence should go. Some bread and cheese, together with a few eggs which the boatmen purchased for us at a neighbouring cottage, supplied the loss of our lamb. The coolness of the afternoon gave R—— and P——, an opportunity to renew their ardour, and at six o'clock they both might have been found encouraging the habit of patience in the art of angling.
The rattling of their reels, gave, at almost every half hour, the announcement of a bite, and hurrying in their prams to the shore, my friends, after the torture of another half hour, would, with the assistance of a gaff, place the unhappy salmon among the long grass growing on the river's brink.
The Norwegians, and I believe, all persons who have the sense of taste developed to a most extraordinary nicety, say that the fish which are caught with the hook, are not to be compared in flavour to those taken in the net. Though I cannot account for the exquisiteness of taste, that can distinguish between one and the other plan of catching the salmon, I can very easily suppose that the pain, more or less, given in the destruction of an animal, may increase or decrease the flavour of the flesh, when used as food. A fish drawn backwards andforwards through the water with a hook piercing its gills, or the more tender fibres of the stomach, till it is almost jaded to death, and then lacerated with such an instrument as the gaff, must endure such an accumulation of the most intense pain, that the sweeter juices of the flesh escape during the throes of a protracted death, and render its taste more stale and flat. But the fish, taken in the net, suffers no injury; and free from pain is instantaneously deprived of life, while the muscular parts retain all the rigour and nutriment requisite for human food.
R—— and P—— caught eight fish between them, varying from fifteen to twenty-five pounds' weight each; and, striking our tent, we returned in the twilight of evening to the yacht at Larvig.
Nothing daunted, R—— and P—— rose again the following morning at two, and collecting their fishing apparatus, began to prepare for another jaunt up the river. They were very desirous that I should accompany them; but having had insight enough into the stratagem of salmon-fishing for the next three days, I declined.
"Well! ain't you going to get up? It's past two," I heard some one say; but not quite certain whether I was dreaming, or really awake.
"Hollo! sleepy-head!" another voice shouted, and a strong arm shook me.
"Eh? what is it?" I asked, rubbing my eyes, entirely bewildered as to the cause of such rough usage.
"Come! look alive, if you're coming. The sun's up, and we must be off," the last speaker continued. I could not conceive where I had promised to go; nor could I make out what the sun had to do with my movements. A second violent shake roused me.
"I am awake!" I said pettishly. "What do you want; who are you?"
"Get up, you great muff!" the loud voice again exclaimed from the centre of the cabin. I sat up in my bed. From my berth I could see into the main cabin. R—— and P—— in their short fishing coats, and jack-boots, were standing round the cabin table, and drinking some preparation of milk, rum, and egg.
"It's capital, isn't it?" I heard P—— say.
"Splendid!" R—— replied. "Let's have it every morning."
"Ha! many a time," P—— continued, "I have swallowed this just before going to morning parade. It's the best thing in the world on an empty stomach. Here's a little more." And he filled R——'s glass.
"Where are you going so early?" I asked, quite forgetful that we were even in Norway.
"Why, to fish, of course," replied R——.
"What else do you suppose we are going to do? Come along."
"No; not this morning," I said, falling back on my pillow. "I am tired."
"Pooh! what humbug! you've been in bed ever since twelve. What more do you want?" replied one of them.
"A little more," I answered, making myself as snug as I could; for I had really not slept an hour.
"That's just like you, always pulling another way," R—— observed. "What's the good of remaining here all alone, when you might gaff for me? It's so unsociable!"
"Hang the gaffing!" I answered.
"If you don't like to gaff," suggested R——, "take the little rifle and shoot an eagle or two. That's better than remaining behind; and we can go to bed early to-night."
"Why can't you go without me?" I said. "I don't care about fishing, and I do about comfort; for I feel now as if I had not been to bed at all."
This indifference to a sport, they both deemed the most exciting, caused them to upbraid me, till half-past two, with such epithets as, "an old woman," "a shocking cockney," "a fellow only fit to wear white kid gloves," "a Regent Street swell," "a land lubber," "a milk sop," and a multitude of other curious idioms, that rather made me merry than clashed with my pride.
About ten o'clock, I received a note from the Consul, intimating that a party of ladies desired to see the yacht, and requested he might bring them on board. I replied that I could, in the absence of R——, undertake to say how cordially he would have granted his permission, and flatteringly he would have felt the compliment, had he been present, and I begged that the Consul would act as if the vessel were his own. Three hours afterwards, I saw several boats, filled with ladies, shoot out from a little bay, on the starboard bow of the yacht, and gliding as swiftly through the smooth water as the two rowers to each boat could force them, soon clustered round the gangway. Thirteen young ladies, the Consul being the only gentleman among them, jumped lightly on board; and as they followed, interminably, one after the other, I never felt the responsibility of any position so impressively, as I did the present one. The young ladies, however, were all Norwegian, except one; so that I had not much trouble in talking to them, their native tongue, or the German, being the only two languages they could understand, and of both of which I was almost ignorant.
Although I could not enter into conversation with them, I felt it was my bounden duty to contribute by some device, or the other, to the entertainment of these young ladies. Knowing the partiality of my own countrywomen to music, I hazarded the idea, that the Norwegianladies were filled with an equal admiration for waltzes and polkas; and being fortunately possessed of two very large musical boxes, I wound them up. When these boxes began to play, my fair visitors were much delighted with their ingenious mechanism, and for some short time listened to them with wonder and delight; but at last, in harmonious movement to their sweet notes, these children put their little arms round each other's waists and began to dance. The elder girls, catching the mood, clasped their companions by the hand, and begged them to join the merry group. In ten minutes not one girl was sitting still; and she who could not get a partner, placed her arms a-kimbo, and whirled up and down the deck alone.
A Norwegian gentleman had asked me to dine with him, and as R—— and P—— would not return much before midnight, I did not decline an invitation that was not only hospitable, but would give me an opportunity of seeing more of the habits and character of his countrymen. The dinner was prepared at an early hour, one, or two, o'clock. The style of cookery was the same as in England; except the manner in which the salmon is dressed, for it is cut up into small junks and fried; but the most ordinary, and esteemed way of eating the salmon is to smoke it, which is nothing more or less than an excuse for swallowing the fish raw.
After dinner, the host filled two glasses ofwine, one for himself, and one for me; and sidling close up to my chair, placed himself arm and arm with me. I could not understand his meaning, and watched with no little anxiety the next act of familiarity he would commit. My eyes glanced round the table; but the gravity of every man's face was ecclesiastical in the extreme. Without unlocking his arm from mine, the Norwegian raised his glass in the air, and motioned with his hand to me to do the same. I did so. He then drank off the wine, and bade me drink in like manner. I did that likewise. I had thus followed my friend's injunctions, and had scarcely, with a smile, replaced on the table the glass I had drained, when I received a box on the ear. Starting from my chair at the unprovoked assault, I was about to break the decanter over the Norwegian's head, when a gentleman seized hold of my right hand, and begged me to be pacified, for that it was merely the usage of the country in pledging to the health of a friend. He said my host would be highly gratified by my retaliation.
"We have simply then been drinking each other's health?" I asked.
"No more, sir," my mediator replied.
Ashamed of my hasty and most unmannerly conduct, I gave the amicable cuff, and all was merriment again.
When we rose from table, the whole company commenced shaking hands with eachother, and coming up to me, one after the other, each guest took my hand, and
"Tak for maden," he said.
This was another mysterious usage I could not unravel. A few days afterwards, amid the general din of the same ceremony, I asked a young lady, who spoke French, what it all meant; and she then told me it was an ancient habit of returning thanks for a good dinner.
"But I have given them no dinner," I said.
"That is true," replied my fair informant; "but they thank you all the same."
While she spoke, a Norwegian gentleman took possession of her hand, and exclaimed,
"Tak for maden!" while a second did the same with my hand, and repeating similar words, passed on all round the table.
[3]"Ja," pronounced "yar," signifies "yes," in the Norwegian language.
[3]"Ja," pronounced "yar," signifies "yes," in the Norwegian language.
ANOTHER FISHING EXCURSION—LANDING A SALMON—THE CARRIOLE—BOATS ROWED BY LADIES—DEPARTURE FROM LARVIG—CHRISTIANSAND HARBOUR—RETURN TO BOOM—SINCERE WELCOME—ANGLING AT THE FALLS—THE FORSAKEN ANGLER—A MISUNDERSTANDING—RECONCILIATION—ST. JOHN'S DAY—SIMPLICITY OF MANNERS.
ANOTHER FISHING EXCURSION—LANDING A SALMON—THE CARRIOLE—BOATS ROWED BY LADIES—DEPARTURE FROM LARVIG—CHRISTIANSAND HARBOUR—RETURN TO BOOM—SINCERE WELCOME—ANGLING AT THE FALLS—THE FORSAKEN ANGLER—A MISUNDERSTANDING—RECONCILIATION—ST. JOHN'S DAY—SIMPLICITY OF MANNERS.
On Tuesday morning, at three, I joined R—— and P——, and took a second trip up the river, to indulge in this pastime of angling.
When we arrived on our fishing ground, the salmon were seen springing two or three feetout of the water into the air, a sign not always good for the sportsman; for the Norwegians say, that when the fish begin to leap out of the water, they are moving up the river, and disinclined to take food. It was entertaining to observe them, as they leaped in various places, from rock to rock, up the stream of the Foss; and although they would be brought back by the immense volume of water, nothing disheartened, would repeat the leap again and again. Seated in the pram, I watched in the clear stream, the caution with which some of the salmon approached the fly, and after darting away from it, returned and sported round it, as if perfectly aware of the deceitful manner by which the hook was hid; but in a reckless moment, just as the fly was moved along the top of the water, resembling the living insect with such exactitude that I could be deceived, they would make a sullen plunge, and then as if aware of the foolish act they had committed, secure their death by running away with the whole line before they could possibly feel the hook. A slight jerk is given to the tackle, and their doom is sealed.
I saw one salmon caught through his own folly; for had he been less violent, he might have gratified his curiosity by tasting the fabricated fly, and could, when he found that it was nothing more than a macaw's feather, have quietly spitten it out; but as soon as the hook lanced his lip, the fish made a leap of severalfeet above the surface, and on falling into the river again, shot like a silver arrow, towards any weed or rock he saw, sheltering himself behind it, as if he deemed this retreat secure. But when he felt a motive power, over which he had no control, gently drawing him by the head from his old abode, and the consequent slight, shooting pang of the hook, away he flew, right up towards the pram, flapped his tail furiously to the right and left, and then bounced about his native pool, indignant of the vile trick that had been played him. R——, was soon rowed to the bank, and I stood by his side gaff in hand.
"Look out," said R——, in an under tone; and, turning up the sleeve of my coat, I gave the gaff the full length of the handle. The fish, however, saw me move, and like a flash of lightning, clove the water to its lowest depth. The line passed with such rapidity between R——'s thumb and forefinger, that it almost cut them off.
The manœuvring of ten minutes more brought the salmon within a few feet of the bank, and crawling through the rushes, I remained ready to perform my part of the tragedy. Near and nearer, turned on his back, and panting laboriously, the fish allowed himself to be drawn towards the shore. Lowering the gaff slowly into the stream, till I guessed it was two or three inches below the fish, and then making a sudden lunge, I pierced the soft part of thestomach a little behind the two fore fins, and lifted the salmon from the water.
"You did that devilish well," exclaimed R——, hurrying up to remove the hook. The salmon plunged in every direction violently; and it was with great difficulty I could keep my hold of the gaff.
"Make haste," I said, "or he will be off the gaff; see, how the flesh of the stomach is ripping!"
And so it was. The weight of the salmon was sufficient to tear the tender part of the flesh under the stomach, and the longer I held the fish from the ground to allow R—— to remove the hook, the more probable it appeared, that, the salmon by his furious struggles, would lacerate and divide the flesh, and fall from the gaff.
"Poor wretch!" said R——, as he strove to unfasten the hook from the ligaments of the jaw, "I am keeping him in his pain a long time; but I can't help it."
"I must put him on the ground," I observed, when the fish by its struggles nearly twisted the gaff from my hand.
"No; for heaven's sake, don't!" exclaimed R——. "He'll knock both of us into the water if you do. There," continued R——, holding the hook, at last, in his hand, and cleansing it from slime and gore on the cuff of his coat, "put him down;" and opening a clasp-knife, he ran the blade into the crown of thesalmon's head. The creaking sound of the bone as it yielded to the passage of the sharp knife, like the cutting of a cork, made my teeth ache. The fish stirred not; but the blood trickled from his mouth in small bubbles, and stretching out all his fins, as a bird would stretch its wings to fly, a spasmodic shudder succeeded, and then the fins gradually relaxed and adhered close to his sides, while the blood still oozed from the mouth and gills, and striking his tail once or twice on the ground, the salmon seemed to fix his round, staring, glassy eye on me, as if in accusation of the torture I had caused, and gaping, died.
"If I ever gaff another fish, may I be gaffed myself," I said.
"Fish do not feel so acutely as you imagine," replied R——, wiping the penknife on his handkerchief with the coolness of an anatomical operator; "all the quivering you observe is not from actual pain, but merely from muscular action."
"Well, I am not surgeon enough to know that," I answered; "but if you talk for three years, you will never persuade me that a fish does not feel, as well as every other creature, in proportion to its size, the anguish of bodily torture as sensibly as you, or I."
"Never mind arguments," cried R——, "here, let's see what he weighs."
And R—— drew from his coat-pocket, a small balance that he always carried aboutwith him, and hooking the defunct salmon on it, held it up.
"Twenty-two pounds to a fraction," he said; and took a little book from his other pocket, and noted down the weight. Casting up the figures to himself in a sort of whisper common to all calculators, R—— observed aloud, when he had concluded his addition,
"I have killed forty-five pounds myself. That's not so bad, eh? Come on;" and hurrying into his pram, was rowed away.
I did not remain much longer on the bank of the river, and desiring a change, I walked towards the road that ran parallel with the stream. A Norwegian peasant, driving a carriole soon overtook me, and asking him in the most grammatical and simple manner I could, if he were returning to Larvig, he made me a long speech in reply; but beseeching him in my second address to give me a monosyllabic answer, either affirmatively or negatively, as I was a foreigner, the man bowed his head till his chin came in contact with the bone of his chest, and said,
"Ja!"
I then asked him if he were as desirous of letting his carriole, as I was of hiring it; and he again said,
"Ja!"
I tendered several small silver coins, amounting to an ort, a piece of Norwegian moneyequivalent in value to eight-pence sterling, and begged the peasant to tell me if the offer were sufficiently generous. He counted the coins in the palm of my hand. When he had done so, he smiled, and said,
"Ja, tak;" and shaking hands with me, he gave me the rope reins.
The carriole is an elegant, comfortable, but most unsociable vehicle; for it is as unfit to hold two persons, as an ordinary arm-chair. To sit properly in a carriole, you should be rather round-shouldered, as its shape is not unlike half a walnut, scooped out. The post-boy sits behind, or stands up, as a groom does in England; but his position must be uncomfortable in the extreme, as the carriole has no springs, and bounds and jumps heavily over ruts and pebbles, causing him to fidget at intervals, and make an exclamation of discomfort most irregularly. The shafts and wheels are slight, and the body painted uniformly of a chocolate colour. The foot-board is not larger than a tea-tray, about six inches square, and in order to reach it, the legs are so extended as to bring the tip of the toes and the apex of the knees on the same plane. Nor does the driver look down on his horse, as he would in England; but the eye has a level view along the back of the animal, and his neck, or wooden collar obstructs any further perspective.
I could not make the man, or skydsgut, as he is called, who accompanied me, understandten consecutive words I spoke; but asking a multitude of questions, I thought I must have collected a multitude of information. Disliking the dulness of my companion, I drove at a swift pace, but the skydsgut did not seem to like it, and several times I could guess from his manner, that he was expostulating with me. The Norwegians love their horses with the strong, feminine devotion of Arabs, and it is not an uncommon sight to see the skydsgut, if he be a boy, burst into a passionate fit of tears should you lash his horse twice in a mile. He will strive to tell his grief, but if the language of his sorrow be not understood, he will cover his face with his hands, and weep aloud by the road side. The Norwegians have given Englishmen the credit of being impatient travellers, and from their desire to pass over the greatest quantity of ground in the smallest quantity of time, they are said to use the whip more frequently than is necessary. I do not know that this is an incorrect opinion. As one man has peculiarities that another man has not, so one nation may be noted for eccentricities, of which another nation is devoid; and, for my own part, I am inclined to think, that, however superciliously Englishmen may regard the usages and habits of foreigners, there are no people who give strangers a truer idea of maniacs than Englishmen themselves.
R—— and P——, returned in the evening with a boat full of salmon, and one fine fish,weighing nearly thirty-two pounds, was smoked and prepared to be sent as a present to England. I passed the whole of the subsequent day at Larvig, and the Consul begged, that as I was alone, I would dine with him. I accepted his invitation. After dinner, in the cool of the afternoon, his daughters, two very lady-like and pretty girls, requested me to join an excursion they were about to make across the fiord, to the opposite shore. These ladies would insist upon rowing the boat the whole distance, upwards of two miles, themselves. I objected for a time; but when they told me it was the custom of the country, and, that the art of sculling was as much an accomplishment as the softer allurements of the harp, or guitar, I felt more reconciled, and fully appreciated an honour that could never be offered to me again.
At half-past ten o'clock, shortly after we had returned from our trip, and while I was standing on a high rock, from which an extensive view of the fiord could be seen, and talking to the Consul and several ladies, a gun was fired from the yacht.
"His Lordship is returned," said the Consul to me, "and I think that is for you."
"If it be so, they will fire again," I replied. The echo of the cable, as the men began to heave it, left the Consul's conjecture no longer chimerical; and after a little while, the flash and report of another gun leaped one afterthe other, from crag to crag, through the dusk of evening, and whirling above our heads, bounded over the summit of the mountain.
"Come, there's no doubt now," observed the Consul, turning round towards me.
"No," I answered; "but they don't suppose I can get on board without a boat."
"You can have mine, with pleasure;" and the Consul, addressing his little son, desired that a boat should be kept in readiness.
"Oh! there! look there," exclaimed two, or three ladies, pointing towards the cutter.
"Ay, the anchor's away," said the Consul; and the yacht, with flapping jib, began to move, like a colossal swan with erected crest, proudly through the water.
The main-sail being well brailed up, the two boats were hauled alongside to the davits, and while they were being hoisted on them, a third gun was fired. The ladies, delighted with the flash and thundering of the guns, begged me to linger a little longer, that another gun might be fired; but fearful that R—— would play some mad prank, and stand out of the fiord without me, I promised the fair dames, that the next time I came to Norway, I would comply with their request, and never leave them, or Larvig again.
The Consul's eldest son soon rowed me to the yacht. When I stood on deck, and looked towards the shore, I could see the whitehandkerchiefs of those whom I had just left, waving through the dusky air.
"There are some of your loves," said R—— to me.
"They do not wish you well less than they do me," I replied.
The separation from Larvig was the feeling of a second regret I confessed since my departure from England. Dear old Larvig! It is the green oasis where recollection, ever loving, turns to rest; and where the springs of Friendship's warm simplicity, may quench the thirst of him who sighs for Sympathy upon the Desert of Society.
At midnight we cleared the Larvig Fiord, and shaped our course for Christiansand. The weather had been sultry and calm; and at three o'clock in the morning, a tremendous thunder-storm spent the principal part of its anger upon us. The rain descended as if it had been spouted at the yacht through water-pipes; and the uproar of the thunder among the mountains, and the frequency and vividness with which the lightning gleamed, showing every object on the sea and land, were so terrific, that, each man turned in his hammock, and rubbing his eyes, wished to know what all the noise and light on deck were about.
"Lord! how it thunders!" I heard one man growl, as the peal awoke him.
"The lightning's no better," answered another, as a strong, red flash followed close afterthe sledge-hammer blow of the clap. The officer of the watch gave some command in muffled tones, and immediately afterwards the man at the helm muttered in a gruff voice,
"Seven bells."
When the hour had been struck, the silence was again profound; and only the pattering of the drops of rain on the deck, as the storm receded, could be heard.
The next morning, before I was up, there was an altercation on deck; and the word "stuff" seemed to prevail over every other.
"Here, D——," I heard R—— exclaim to the sailing master, "just look here;" and then a short pause ensued, until D—— reached the after part of the yacht, where the jolly-boat had been secured on deck.
"As long as you fellows can stuff yourselves," R—— continued, "that's all you care about; but, after that, my property may go to the devil."
Then there was a dialogue, in an under tone, explanatory of something that had gone wrong.
"I am sure, my Lord," pursued D——, "I am as careful as I can be, and I endeavour to make every man the same."
"It's all very fine to say so," answered R——, "but I wish you would act after the same fashion; for here's a salmon I ordered to be cured at Larvig, for the purpose of sendingto England as a present; and just because not one man would take the trouble to throw a piece of tarpaulin over it last night, to keep off the rain, it is perfectly spoilt."
The cured salmon had been placed in the jolly-boat the evening before, and orders were strictly given, that it should be covered during the night; but the attention paid to those orders amounted to what I have related. The salmon, however, was hung up in the shrouds, and after a great deal of trouble and attention, it was sufficiently preserved to arrive in England, three weeks afterwards, and to command the praise of every one who tasted it.
At two o'clock in the afternoon we entered Christiansand Harbour; and taking our old berth a little to the westward of the castle, fired a salute, to let our friends know we had returned. Several gentlemen came on board, and made many inquiries about our travels; and when they had learned all, arrangements were made for us to fish in the Toptdal River, at Boom, as long as we liked.
Early on Monday morning we weighed anchor, and reached up the fiord as far towards the mouth of the Toptdal River, as the depth of water would permit; and after an hour's sail, the yacht was brought up in a beautiful little bay, about three miles from Christiansand, and about four from Boom.
From a sky azure and warm as in an oriental clime, not a cloud was reflected on the smooth,transparent water, and scarcely a breath of air stirred the leaves of the trees. So absolute was the stillness, that the voices of fishermen, who dwelt among the rocks, could be heard in conversation, although their forms were diminished by distance to the size of a rook.
At five o'clock we were at Boom again, and our friend the Anglo-Norwegian was shaking us by the hand. His eyes sparkled with delight at the renewal of our acquaintance; and promising us the best of sport, he led us towards the cottage in which we had lodged on our first visit. The peasant, our landlord, came forth to the cottage door, pipe in hand, to salute us; while his wife gazed at us through a small window; and, when she caught our glance, smiled, with a sunnier language on her face than she could have uttered with her tongue, the sincerity of her joy to see us once more. I felt as if I had been a long time a wanderer, and had returned home. The three beds in the cottage were ordered to be got ready for us, and a lodging in a neighbouring farm-house was secured for the four men who had rowed the gig.
The fish did not take the fly willingly, for only one or two were caught between R—— and P——; but the amazing number of salmon that kept leaping out of the water, during the whole afternoon, bade us not despair of being more prosperous on the morrow. The ToptdalRiver is the property of a celebrated merchant resident at Christiansand, and he derives a considerable income from the sale of fish caught in it. It is one of the most famous salmon streams in the south of Norway; and its celebrity may in some way be tested when I state, that, two and three hundred salmon have been taken in the nets in the course of one day at Boom, and the same quantity has been continued through several successive days. Great numbers are still caught, but not in such multitudes as formerly; and the diminution is ascribed to the circumstance of no law existing in Norway to protect, or rather, preserve the salmon at certain seasons; and poaching has been, of late years, so extensive, that unless the Government take a little more care of a fish that has become almost a staple commodity of the country, and arrest the nefarious system at present without bounds, the extinction of salmon in the southern rivers of Norway must be immediate and complete. Indeed, we visited some places which a few years ago were famous for the beauty, size, and multiplicity of their salmon; but we were told on our arrival, that, not a fish was now to be caught or seen, from the mouths to the sources of these rivers.
Early in the morning, by daylight, I heard R—— and P—— pulling on their jack-boots, and winding and unwinding their tackle. The clicking noise of their reels awoke me.
The Toptdal River is uninterrupted by rapids from Christiansand up to our cottage, but as I mentioned, there is before the door a tremendous fall, and a pool of great depth has been formed, by the eternal force and action of the tumbling water. This pool is nearly circular, and about a quarter of a mile in circumference. A large rock, considerably above the level of the water, stands in the middle of this pool; and perched on it the sportsman may presume that he has attained the most choice position for angling. From this rock, made slippery by the ascending spray of the cataract, Mr. H——, the gentleman to whom I have referred as the proprietor of this river, is wont to fish; and he is allowed to be one of the most distinguished and sagacious anglers in the vicinity of Christiansand or Boom.
Pursuant to the mode of the country, and the recommendation of the natives, my two companions embarked in a pram to seek the piscatory treasures of this pool. The surface of the water was not so clear and smooth as at Larvig; for it boiled and eddied, and the wrath of the thundering cataract made it white as Parian marble. R—— and P——, notwithstanding the difficulty of throwing their flies daintily, from the uneasy motion of the pram, discovered another more serious obstacle to this united possession of the same pram; for, now and then, P——'s silver pheasant fly would buz very close to R——'s right ear, andR——'s white moth fly would hover around and settle at last on P——'s pepper-and-salt cloth cap, and whisk it into the water. In short, the danger of proximity in fly fishing was as obvious as the deductions of any mathematical problem. The union could not exist. A remedy was to be found; and P—— sat down on the grating over the well of the pram, and gave himself to contemplation. His inquisitive mind lost no time.
"Hollo!" he suddenly exclaimed, "there's that rock; can't I get on it?"
"Let's pull and see," assented R——; and the boatman was desired to row towards it. When the pram was driven by the force of the whirling stream against the rock, P—— jumped on it, but nearly slid off on the other side.
"Oh! ah! this is capital," he said, raising himself cautiously by the aid of both hands. "This will do."
And having, after several efforts, stood upright, he commenced untwisting his line from the rod.
"All right?" asked R——, impatient to begin.
"Yes, all right," replied P——; and away the pram, borne by the thousand intertwining currents, shot with R——.
The high peaks of the mountains now began to shine in the rising sun, and, like the ebbing surface of an ocean, the line of light gradually descended towards the valley. One by one,the cattle came forth from their sheds; and the cock, flapping his wing, stood a tip-toe, and crew most lustily. Under the weather-vane, on the farm-house roof, the pigeons trimmed their feathers, and cooed. Unfelt the coolness of the morning air, (for they were hot with exertion,) and regardless of moving shadows, or cooing doves, my two friends gave up the sense of hearing to their reels, and that of seeing to the career of the little zinc hooks at the end of their gut lines. When I looked at the insular P——, and his active rod, I thought him like to Archimedes who had found his extramundane spot of ground, and, as he threw the fly, and bent his back to let it touch the water lightly, was endeavouring to fasten his lever to the base of the adjacent mountain in order to consummate his wish of raising the world; and the circumfluous R—— with his long tackle, that hissed when he cast it with the petulance of an angry switch, appeared an ocean god, who had selected a shorter route to the North Cape by the Toptdal River, and was urging his reluctant grampuses up the cataract.
R—— and P—— might have angled for five hours, and the result of their assiduity was as diverse as pain is to pleasure, whatever the Stoics may have said to the contrary; for P—— caught fifteen salmon, and R—— not one. Disappointed, no doubt, that such trifling profit should succeed to so much labour,R—— wound up his ten or twelve yards of cat-gut, and desired the boatmen to row ashore. It was now eight o'clock; and when people rise at two in the morning, it does not require much calculation to tell how keen the appetite must become when it has grumbled five hours in vain for aliment. P——, however, was callous to hunger, or thirst; and as he made capture after capture, all thought of food decreased in an inverse ratio. When R—— had alighted from the pram, the boatman drew it up on the shore, lest it should get adrift, for it was the only available pram at Boom; and touching his slouch hat, signified to R—— his intention of going to his morning meal. R—— consented. We sat down on a piece of timber by the river's brink, and R—— watched his successful fellow-angler. P——'s very soul seemed to be diving about in the pool entirely unconscious of every earthly thing but salmon.
"By Jove! there's another bite," exclaimed R——, as P——'s reel spread the tidings with the tongue of a Dutch alarum clock. After a little play, the salmon ceased to live in the Toptdal River.
"I can't tell how he manages," said R——, in a sort of soliloquy. "I don't get a rise in two days. My flies must be bad; or, I think, P—— always takes the best place." And R—— pulled his fly-book from his pouch, and began to examine the flies attentively, one by one, from the largest to the smallest.
"Your flies are very good," I observed; "but you have not application. Look at P——; he is part of that rock, apathetic to every idea of life, but the idea that he sees his fly."
"A great deal of it is luck," answered R——; "but let us go to breakfast. I am preciously thirsty; I must swill something."
We both rose, and walked towards the cottage. The sun had now risen above the tops of the mountains, and shone brightly in the very centre of the valley through which the Toptdal River wound. Not a cloud spotted the sky, and the declining languid motion of the atmosphere gave token of a torrid noon. Entering into jocular conversation with our Anglo-Norwegian friend, who was bustling about the cottage on our behalf, we became so intimate and open-hearted, that R—— begged him to partake of breakfast if he had not eaten his own; and seating himself in the third vacant chair, the Norwegian did as much justice to our hospitality, as the hungry steer does to clover. Time wore on, for the shade of the tall trees became short and shorter; and when our little stout Northern guest went from under the cottage roof, to give some orders to a labourer, I observed that the huge flaps of his felt hat sheltered his round projecting van and bulbous flank, and, that, to the contemplative man with downcast eye, his whole frame, fat though it were, would appear quashed into a circular shadow moving along the ground.
After breakfast, R—— lit his pipe, and the Norwegian made a quid both round and opaque, and bowing to us, stuffed it into his mouth. Its proper arrangement with his tongue kept him silent for a second, and in that second, we heard the prolonged, faint call of a man in distress; but it was so indistinct, that the gentle rustling of the juniper leaf interrupted our attention to it.
"Is not this delicious?" observed R—— to me; and the gray-blue tobacco-smoke spouted, like a small fountain, from his mouth. "In London I should be just thinking of getting out of bed, and here I have been up these nine hours, and eaten like a bricklayer."
"I should not mind living here, and like this, all my life," I answered, "and paddling about on that river."
"Ja," interposed the Norwegian in a broken dialect, but he thought himself a good English scholar; "dat is goot, but you not tak care you roltz down de foss; one old vomans roltz down de foss."
"Ah?" said I.
"Ja," replied the Norwegian; "she row one praam cross de top of de foss, and de praam roltz over, and she vas drowntz."
The same dull, faint, long cry, fell on our ears; but we took no heed of it, for our native companion said it was the signal shout of huntsmen in the mountains.
"Did you ever find the old woman's body?" I asked.
"Ja," the Norwegian answered, twisting his quid from the left to the right cheek, "she vas foundtz; and vat is droltz de bags of flour she have in de praam, dough dey been long timetz in de vater, vere quite drytz—de middle quite drytz."
"And what did you do with them?" I asked.
"I eatz dem," said my friend.
Again the long, low cry stole mournfully through the still air, and it moaned like a melancholy spirit of the night that had been left behind by its fellow spirits, as they hurried from earth at dawn of day, and which, concealing itself in some mountain cavern, was wailing their absence, and telling the torture it suffered from the glaring light.
"I say, old cock, have you any goblins in this place?" asked R——, walking close up to the Norwegian, and blowing the smoke from his pipe so voluminously in the little man's face, that he coughed till he nearly spat his quid out of the window.
"Nej, nej," replied the Norwegian, as soon as he could breathe to speak, in a tone of surprise that R—— should suppose such a thing. The Norwegians are superstitious, and believe as confidently in ghosts, as I do in the heat of fire.
"What the devil then," continued R——, "is that confounded groaning about? Some fellow has committed murder. You had better go and see."
"Nej, nej," remonstrated the Norwegian, scratching his head, and moving nervously in his chair at the suggestion. The Norwegian was stable as his mountains; and R——, laughing at the man's apparent terror, resumed his seat, and increased the generation of his genuine Latakia tobacco-smoke.
It was now mid-day; and the hollow sounding tread of human feet clad thickly, made R—— and me turn our eyes towards the threshold of the cottage. Cased, like a shrimp-catcher, up to his hips in water-proof boots, his landing-net, gaff, and fishing-rod, borne on his left shoulder, P——, the very picture of impersonated anger, stood before us. Dashing landing-net, gaff, fly-book, and his only fly-rod on the table, regardless of crockery,
"A pretty trick you have played me!" he thundered out. We had never given P—— a thought until the moment we saw him, nor did we, for one instant, remember that, like Robinson Crusoe, he had been left on a desert rock, and that the doleful cry might be his.
"It's now twelve," P—— continued angrily, "and you have quietly eaten your breakfast, and allowed me to remain on that rock since six o'clock."
"But my dear fellow," said R——, "could you not call for the boat?"
"And what have I been doing these four hours?" P—— exclaimed. "No; it's just like you both; if you can satisfy yourconfounded selfishness, the devil may take any one else's comfort."
"A boat would have put off to you," persisted R——, "if you had hailed some of the workmen about."
"What nonsense that is," said P——, with wrath. "Do you think I stood there like a fool, and held my tongue? Of course I hailed every one I saw; but I should like to know who could hear me, stuck, as I was, close under that Fall."
"Well, my dear fellow," answered R——, in a pacifying tone, "I tell you the truth, I never thought of you until I saw your face at that door."
"That's just what I say; so long as you are comfortable, every one else may go to the deuce;" and P—— snapped his finger, and walked to the window. "Besides that," he added, "I am your guest, and entitled to look for a little more respect."
"Oh! hang the respect," replied R——, quickly.
"Then you may fish alone," said P——; "for I'll be hanged if I will stand being treated in this kind of way. Suppose, for one moment, you had been in my place, and I had forgotten you, what would you have said and felt? the case is the same."
"Why didn't you come ashore with me?" R—— asked, getting rather testy himself; "am I your nurse? Am I to wait and watch for you?"
"Yes, you ought," said P——; "I would have done it for you. I can't fish and have my eyes about me, in all quarters, at the same time. I think it cursed unmannerly of you both."
R—— looked at me with one of his comic faces, and I looked at him.
"As to my manners," R—— answered aloud, "whether they be vulgar, or whether they be genteel, I take no credit to myself; for an extra allowance was made for my education, that I should be polished brightly like a gentleman, and if you perceive a failure on that score, the fault is not mine, but the preparatory school's. Moreover, if a man has any mental, or personal defect, it is hardly fair to make allusion to it, and by wounding his feelings to seek the gratification of anger."
R—— gave me a wink, as much as to say, "I have the weather-gage of him." P—— spoke not in reply; but continued standing at the window, and, with his back to us, looking out upon the fatal rock and cataract.
"We have left you a couple of eggs," observed R—— pacifically.
"You had better send them back to the hen to be hatched," P—— replied.
"Come, my dear fellow," continued R——, "don't let such a little thing part us. Your being left on the rock was quite an oversight. Exercise a christian spirit, and drink this delicious coffee."
Pouring out a cup of coffee, R—— held up the Norwegian wine-bottle of milk by its long neck, and said to P——, "do you like a little, or a good deal, of milk?"
"Oh! middling;" and moving from the window, P—— walked towards the table.
"There," said R——, pushing the cup across to P——, "there's some real Mocha for you."
P—— raised the cup to his lips.
"Capital!" he exclaimed, taking breath after a long pull.
"So it is!" reiterated R——, expelling a tremendous and satisfactory cloud of smoke that took the shape of a balloon, and ascending towards the cottage beams, puzzled me, by its great dilatation, to think, how such a gigantic volume of sooty exhalation, as Dr. Johnson would say, could be compressed into a small compass, like R——'s mouth.
When pacification took place, and conciliatory explanations were made over and over again, R—— and P——, tumbling out their flies, commenced to repair those that had been damaged by the fish, and manufactured others, more suitable to the transparent water, and the timidity of the salmon. While they were thus engaged, I loitered about in the open air.
The day was hot to oppression; and it required no flight of the imagination to forget that the country was Norway, and fancy myself in the interior of Congo. Numerousinsects, that flew with a droning noise about me, and a multitude of adders basking in the sun, or hurrying through the grass as I approached, gave new force to the illusion.
In the afternoon R—— and P—— caught thirty or forty salmon between them. Such success made them determine to remain for some days longer at Boom; but being desirous of a change of scene, as well as recreation, I returned to the yacht, and sleeping on board that night, went the next morning to Christiansand.
It was the 24th of June, known as St. John's Day; and on my arrival at Christiansand, I learned that the festival was commemorated with great ceremony by the Norwegians. Along the tops of the mountains, ever where the eye wandered, piles of faggots, and old boats were collected together, like funeral pyres. Men and women, children and dogs, congregated in multitudes around them, watching for the set of sun; and when the weary god sank down to rest, and with closing lids gave darkness to the earth, a hundred bonfires simultaneously blazing forth on the summits of the mountains, strove to reach his throne in the meridian, and imitate the day. The sight was certainly fine, but could not be compared with an ancient warlike and similar custom among the Scottish Highlanders.
I called on some ladies and gentlemen whom I knew at Christiansand, and learned a usageprevalent among the Norwegians, that should still more endear their simplicity of heart, and the truthfulness of their character, since it is void of all the artfulness and social fiction of England. Approaching the house of a family, from the different members of which we had received much kindness and hospitality, a servant met me at the door, and while she was endeavouring to explain how much her mistress was engaged, the eldest daughter of my fair hostess made her appearance, and extending her hand to me, said, shaking her head,
"Herr, kan icca ta imod;" which meant, that I could not be received. This is the usual phrase; and it tells you the simple fact, that the lady of the house is at home, but her domestic occupations press upon her so much at the moment, that she is unable to receive you.