CHAPTER V.CHRISTIANSAND.
“Dark it is without,And time for our going.”Skirnis Fär.
“Dark it is without,And time for our going.”Skirnis Fär.
“Dark it is without,And time for our going.”
“Dark it is without,
And time for our going.”
Skirnis Fär.
Skirnis Fär.
At the time theWalrusdropped 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 distinguishedsuite, 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 theWalrus’sdecks 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 goodEnglish, 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 therewere 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 crossingsis 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 isso 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 thetrollius 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 hadpicked 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”—(witha 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.
“Itisthe Legion of Honour,” said Birger, “and I giveMr. 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 aci-devantbeauty.
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.