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, and R——'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 your confounded 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. Numerous insects, 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 usage prevalent 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.



CHAPTER XV.

SAILING UP THE GRON FIORD—DANGEROUS SWELL—EXCURSION ASHORE—TROUT-FISHING—MOUNTAIN SCENERY—ANT-HILLS— HAZARDOUS DRIVE—THE SCOTTISH EMIGRANT—MISERABLE LODGING—CONDITION OF THE PEASANTRY—A VILLAGE PATRIARCH—COSTUME OF THE COUNTRY-PEOPLE—ARRIVAL AT FAEDDE.

On Wednesday, the 30th, we left Boom, having, during the ten days R—— and P—— had remained there, caught two hundred and sixty-four salmon.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, we landed at Christiansand for an hour, to arrange a few accounts, and then sailed for the Gron Fiord.

The night was calm, and the sea smooth as a mirror. At noon the following day, we were once more in sight of the Naze, and, signalling for a pilot, elicited an instant answer from a solitary cottage standing on the barren promontory. The swell was terrific; and as soon as the pilot could contrive to scramble on board, we ran the vessel up the lesser channel of the Gron Fiord to escape the sea. The violence of the waves was more dangerous, as scarcely a breath of wind filled the sails; and we were apprehensive that a huge spar like the boom swinging to and fro, would carry away the mast by the board.

Leaving directions with D—— that the yacht should meet us in the Faedde Fiord, R—— suggested that we should take an excursion inland. The proposal was no sooner given than it was taken up gladly; and hiring a mountaineer for our guide, who had jostled himself on board to see all that he could, we started in the gig for a small village, the name of which I forget, about sixteen miles further up the Fiord. What with rowing, and sailing, under the favour of sudden puffs of wind which nearly capsized us a dozen times, we came in sight of the village at five o'clock in the afternoon. The sail thither was very beautiful; the lofty mountains on all sides giving the Fiord the romantic calmness and changing shadows of a beautiful lake. The water, too, so clear and shallow, left our minds at ease when the frequent gusts of warm air breathed heavily on our sail, and made us regard their sallies down the different ravines rather as the cause of sport, than the effect of mischief.

Being without a forbud, or courier, we waited for horses, as a consequence, several hours at a post-house on the bank of the Fiord. Time, however, did not hang heavily on our hands, R—— and P—— finding some amusement in fishing for trout in a neighbouring stream, and I was not the less entertained by observing the rapidity with which one fish was caught after the other. The surface of the water swarmed with these little creatures, and the fly was no sooner thrown to them, than they fought for the bait.

In half an hour we returned to the post-house; and three dozen trout were, in a short time, converted into a substantial dinner. The flesh, however, was so impregnated with the taste of turpentine, that I relinquished the greater portion of my share to others who were more hungry, and not so dainty. Living almost entirely on fish caught by ourselves, I had, on former occasions, incurred the loss of my dinner through this disagreeable flavour, but could not discover its cause until a glass of water, taken from the Larvig River, tasted so strongly of the fir, that, I preferred the inconveniences of thirst to the means of its alleviation. So much timber is floated from the interior to the towns on the sea-coast, that the rivers retain the taste of the fir, and even take from it a particular light yellow tinge, not to be seen in those streams that are too small and shallow for rafts or boats. Some kinds of fish, deriving their sole sustenance from these rivers, are consequently saturated with turpentine.

After dinner we walked up a hill, down whose rugged side ran a rapid, murmuring brook. The Fiord, surrounded by mountains, lay beneath us, and, far away, we could see the boat that had brought us hither, floating, like a white feather, slowly homewards to the yacht. The blue-bell and fox-glove were growing on every hand, and the heath throve in luxuriance, but, flowerless, seemed to miss the golden blossoms of the furze.

Sauntering along, we could scarcely avoid stumbling over numberless ant-hills, of considerable size and height, raised around the trunks of fallen firs rent in two by the violence of the winter storms, or hewn down to be converted into charcoal. Regardless alike of the sultry summer heat and of us, how industriously the little people worked, running hither and thither with pieces of stick, ten times larger than themselves, and sometimes so ponderous, that half-a-dozen of them would put their strength together, and pull them from one corner of their dominions to the other! I observed a sturdy mechanic, hurrying, like a thief, along the summit of this mound, fall headlong to the very base; but immediately recovering his senses, seized his load again, and mounted valiantly to his former elevation.

I threw my glove in the midst of them. Their confusion and dismay were beyond all description; but collecting their self-possession, they returned in a mob, and seemed to view attentively the great calamity that had befallen them. They examined it in every position, some burrowing inside and arriving at the top of the glove through a small hole between the thumb and the forefinger; others, apparently chemists, clustering round the button at the wrist, and testing its properties. Gathering in groups, they appeared to consult whether such a peculiar substance could be converted into use, or whether the glove should be drawn by main force, and precipitated to the sow-thistle below. Unlike any large assemblage of men that I have ever seen, they wasted no time in long speeches, but speedily came to a decision; and approaching the thumb of my glove, some thirty or forty stalwart artificers took hold of the seam that passes inside, and pulled stoutly. The glove moved. This was not lost on the congregated thousands; for their motions appeared to be in approval of their countrymen; and I am convinced did they wear hats, they would have flourished them in the air, or owned voices, would have cheered vociferously. The whole community now took part in the removal of my glove, and in a few seconds it began to crawl pretty evidently towards the edge of the mound.

Busily engaged as all the ants were, they did not pay much attention to the proximity of danger, and, I am sure, even with their sagacity, did not think of it; but bearing the common nuisance towards the boundary of their country, they were only bent upon ejecting it summarily. The little finger of my glove first reached the side of the ant-hill, and falling, like a paralyzed limb, suddenly over the brink, cast some forty excellent folks, head over heels, with rapidity and great force to the long grass beneath. Unconscious of this accident at the other extremity, the ants who laboured at the thumb and its environs, continued with violent jerks to draw the glove towards its destination; and when it had come so near the sloping edge, that the locomotive power became its own, it slid, like an avalanche, to the bottom of the mound, drawing nearly the entire population along with it. Never were pismires so terrified before; nor did arrow ever swifter cleave the air, as these insects scrambled over the blades of grass and chips of wood. The agility with which they climbed up their pyramidical nest was perfectly astonishing; and when the nimblest of them arrived at the top, the perfect state of confusion which seemed to pervade the whole community, and the continuance and fervour with which they were stopped and addressed by those who had escaped the mishap, were the monkeyism and perplexity of man truthful to a degree.

Late in the afternoon we started on our journey. The road at every corner unfolded the sublimest scenery, my imagination conceiving nothing beyond the grandeur and wild magnificence of the rugged mountains whose castellated peaks, gray and black with time and storm, were fretted into all combinations of pinnacle and turret raised like fortifications out of their perpendicular, blank sides. To allay the parching heat and sombreness of scene, the roar of falling water reached the ear, and here and there the eyes caught sight of wooden bridges clasping an angry torrent. Enclosed by mountains of great height, shooting abruptly into the air, the precipices both above and beneath the narrow highway were most frightful to contemplate, and in many places it was overhung with immense portions of rock. We were obliged to stoop in order to avoid striking our heads against them, and to keep the middle of the road, no other precaution being taken to hinder a restive horse from falling into the hideous gulf, than one or two stones piled on each other. The sharp turn of the road, too, would appear at a distance to terminate at the edge of a precipice; but when the spot was reached, this was found to be mere deception, the angular corners of the road being most acute; and, should a horse plunge in turning, or back, no human interference could stay an instantaneous death.

A difficult descent brought us to a valley, shut in on all sides by lofty mountains; and stopping our jaded horses by a rivulet, we had time to observe another ascent, as steep as any we had yet encountered in Norway. Looking along a ravine on the left hand, far as the eye could see, the blue mountains, capped with snow, upon whose eminences rested the brilliancy of the setting sun, were contrasted grandly with the gloom and shadow of the nearer valley. Leaping from rock to rock, even from the mountain's peak, cascades poured down their waters in every direction, sparkling like columns of molten silver through the dark green foliage of the fir and pine.

We commenced the ascent. Left to themselves, our horses exercised much sagacity in overcoming every difficulty; for, occasionally making a strong effort, they would gain ten or twenty yards upwards, and then, halting of their own accord, plant their fore legs entirely under them to recover their wind. But in spite of every indulgence, it was disheartening to see the perspiration dripping, like a fountain, from the flanks and stomachs of the animals, while they panted for breath. Toiling up the acclivity, we arrived, at last, at the summit of the mountain; and although the elevation must have been several thousand feet above the level of the sea, a plain of great extent, inclining slightly downwards to the north-west, and without the vestige of a shrub, spread before us. Alighting from our carrioles, we stood on the highest point of the mountain, and looking down the opposite side almost perpendicularly beneath us, a beautiful lake suddenly broke upon the view, the verdant banks of which, fringed with cottages, meandered for many miles along a still, romantic valley. Down the sides of the mountains that encompassed this valley, and with whose rocky heads we had an equal altitude, hundreds of cascades were seen leaping among the riven crags, and hid for a time from sight by the firs, would burst again upon the eye, and roll in one large spout of foam down the ravines, till they mingled with the sleeping waters of the lake now thrown into deep shadow by the gigantic mountains, and ended day.

Taking up our abode for the night with a Scotsman, whose cottage we found through the assistance of one of our skydsguts, we strove to make ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would admit. This gentleman, who had left his native land with the laudable motive of teaching husbandry to the Norwegians, and with the ulterior chance of making his fortune, discovered that the Norwegian farmers were as steadfast to the aboriginal mode of cultivating their land, as he was ambitious of becoming rich, and so, like a sensible man, when he found that his agricultural scheme had failed, and retreat homewards, for want of means, was impracticable, he wedded a Norwegian woman, and renting a tract of land, turned farmer on his own account. All that his frugal wife had collected for household use among these solitary mountains, milk, eggs, and salmon, was freely offered to us; and having brought our own tea and sugar, together with a few bottles of beer, we easily made a wholesome meal. After we had supped, our host said that his house was small, and his sleeping accommodation still more limited; but if we could arrange between ourselves, as to the appropriation of one bed, and a small sofa, he would be proud indeed to shelter us for the night.

We cast lots. R—— won the bed, and P—— the sofa. I might sleep where I could, how I could, and when I could. However, things are so wisely ordained in this world, even the most trivial, that I do not know whether a man should not be as much elated with failure, as with success. Who can tell the result of any undertaking?

At that "witching hour of night when churchyards yawn," we also had a touch of the gaping fit, and thought of rest. The room in which we had supped, was likewise our bed-room; and the bed and sofa, huddled cozily in one corner of the apartment, carried comfort and enticement on their spotless counterpanes. Joking, and suggesting all manner of plans for my repose, R—— took off his coat, and sat down on his bed. No sooner had he done so, than one might have thought his mattress was stuffed with dried leaves or panes of glass, such a rustling and crackling ensued.

"By Jupiter!" exclaimed R——, starting from his seat, and clapping the palm of his right hand to that part of his body that had caused the hubbub; and then turning about, placed his other disengaged hand on the bed, and said with an astonished voice and face,

"Damme, this is all straw, covered with a sheet!"

And pressing the mattress in all quarters, he seemed determined to ascertain whether it were the fact, or, simply, the wandering of his imagination. A piece of yellow straw, plucked from a central hole in the sheet, was amply authenticating. P—— took the alarm; and plunging both fists into the middle of his sofa, met with a soft composition of juniper-leaves and common moss. A pleasant sort of foundation to sleep upon, on a broiling summer's night, with the thermometer at 85 deg.! However, the fun had only just commenced, and laughing heartily I made a pillow of a couple of boat-cloaks, and wrapping myself, like a mummy, in a white great-coat, stretched myself on the floor. The boards were sanded, and so, when I turned, I sounded like a piece of sand-paper scrubbing a grate. That was the extent of my inconvenience. I slept soundly; and I may have done so for an hour, or two, when some one in a low tone of voice called to me. It was R——.

"Well, what is it?" I said.

"Lord!" he replied, "this bed is full of bugs and fleas. What the devil shall I do?"

"I don't know," I answered, half asleep;—"scratch yourself."

Seemingly in acquiescence with my advice, a violent scratching issued from P——'s corner of the room; and then a heavy sigh, peculiar to a sleeping person, succeeded. Twisting about and blowing his breath with a puff, as people do in hot weather, or when tormented, each time R—— moved, his straw-mattress yielded to his weight with the same noise as the skin of a roasting-pig yields to the incision of a carving-knife.

"I can't stand this any longer," at length he exclaimed, and shooting out of bed, walked up and down the room, scratching and fuming as if he had just escaped from an ant's nest. Infuriated by the irritation of the flea-bites, he could not do otherwise than stumble over everything that came in his way; and the long nails of his naked toes coming in contact with my ear, soon set me on my head's antipodes.

"Gracious heavens!" I exclaimed, smarting with pain; "why don't you remain in bed, instead of stalking up and down the room all night long?"

"Go and remain there yourself," retorted R——, in no happy frame of mind. "I won't be eaten up by bugs and all kinds of beastliness, for any one."

"Yes; but you can keep your nails to yourself," I replied; and having great faith in the power of friction, commenced rubbing my ear.

The silentness of death succeeded, interrupted only by the long, loud breathing of P——, and the low, melancholy howl of wolves in the mountains.

With regrets and earnest protestations never to leave the yacht again, R—— and I wore the night away. P—— remained impregnable to the attacks of bugs, fleas, and mosquitoes; and while he told us, in a sonorous language of his own, how profoundly he slept, he sometimes gave mechanical signs of feeling by scratching obstreperously his legs and arms, and slapping himself smartly on the face.

Early the subsequent morning we took leave of our host, and regardless of the intense heat, made the best of our way towards Faedde. The peasantry along the road we travelled appeared to descend in wretchedness the farther we advanced; and nothing could exceed the poverty exhibited in the outward appearance of their hovels. At every station where we stopped, misery, by exterior marks, stood dominant; and one post-house, the last before we arrived at Faedde, was divested of every comfort, and looked more dreary than all the others we had seen. The whole family were partaking of their scanty meal spread on a deal table, yet smooth as marble, and brilliant as a polished sword. Surrounded by a gang of children, some grown to maturity, men and women, and others only infants, the poor patriarch sat pale and sickly at the family board; and the melancholy shade that kept flitting over his countenance, though he smiled and rose to greet us, told of some blight that had fallen on his hopes; for he resumed his seat apart, and crossing his thin hands on his lap, gave no other notice of his presence than an occasional sigh, uttered deeply and involuntarily. Except the old man, they all eat fast and greedily of a kind of white mixture, or porridge, collected in a large wooden basin.

Leaving this place, we pursued our journey through a country intersected by rugged mountains, whose summits, denuded of all verdure, rose high and imposingly to Heaven, but their bases were clothed with the cheerful birch, the fir and pine, and here and there, a little knoll of grass shining, like an emerald, amid this wilderness of rock. Herds of cattle, interspersed with goats and sheep, hung over the edges of the precipices, browsing on the tufts of green food that sprouted from the jagged crags. The road wound through narrow mountain-passes, nearly choked up with huge fragments of rock, the parent mountains on either hand rising perpendicularly to an enormous height; and where a ravine yawned, as if to cheer the heart and eye saddened and wearied by the desolate monotony of stony fell and inhospitable hill, a forest of firs would creep, sloping, to their very summits. Far above our heads, only the fleecy clouds breaking into a variety of forms as they moved slowly along the mountain sides, and the raven's hoarse cry, or the shrill scream of the eagle, broke the prevailing solitude of scene and sound.

Many of the peasants whom we encountered on the way, wore red caps and short jackets scarcely descending below their arm-pits, covered elaborately with small conical silver buttons; and while some of them concluded their attire with breeches extending to the knees and there clasped with buckles, others, more fantastic in taste, preferred the loose trowsers of the Ottoman. Hair, prodigiously long, flowing slovenly over the shoulders, was common to all. Hats were worn, but they may be exceptions. A blue petticoat, blue as their beautiful sky, and a jacket bound by a scarlet sash around the waist, and a coloured silk kerchief wreathed about the head, its two ends projecting, like the wings of Mercury's cap, behind each ear, appeared to constitute the ordinary costume of the Norwegian peasant women.

On the morning of the fifth day since we had left the Gron Fiord, driving up a steep and winding road we reached the top of a magnificent range of mountains, and glancing over an intervening forest covered with every variety of shade, that fir, pine, birch, and grassy glades could afford, the eye rested on the village of Faedde, with its forty houses and single wooden church, bosomed in a luxuriant, green valley, on the opposite shore of the Fiord. A thousand feet beneath, on the blue water, floated the yacht with flapping canvass, and bearing all the appearance of having outstripped us in the journey only by a very few minutes. The picturesque beauty of the Fiord was increased by being distinctly seen from a commanding site, and the bold outlines of its frowning headlands jutted one beyond the other nearly into the centre of the Fiord, till they were mingled in colour with the distant ocean, of which a glimpse could just be caught. The sea gulls frequenting this Fiord, flew around us and screeched amid the universal silence which was broken by the roar of waterfalls, concealed from sight by the dark forest, but the sparkling stream, bursting at times upon the view, would flow a little way in the broad daylight, then steal as suddenly again from observation in its circuitous course.

An immense pram, larger than the launch of a frigate, and rowed by two natives, bore us sluggishly to the cutter.



CHAPTER XVI.

RETURN TO THE YACHT—POOR JACKO—ASCENDING THE STREAM—DESCRIPTION OF THE FAEDDE FIORD—ADVENTURES OF AN ANGLER—SAIL TO THE BUKKE FIORD—THE FATHOMLESS LAKE—THE MANIAC, AND HER HISTORY—THE VILLAGE OF SAND—EXTRAORDINARY PECULIARITIES OF THE SAND SALMON—SEAL-HUNTING—SHOOTING GULLS—THE SEAL CAUGHT—NIGHT IN THE NORTH.

"I hope, my Lord," observed D——, as he stood at the gangway of the yacht, and handed the man-ropes to R——, "you have had a pleasanter voyage than we."

"Why? Has any accident occurred?" asked R——, anxiously.

"No, my Lord, no accident," continued D——; "but since your Lordship left us, a gale of wind has been blowing from the south-west; and knowing your Lordship would have no home until the cutter came round to this place, I thought it best to thrash our way to Faedde in the best manner we could."

"Oh! yes; you did right," replied R——; "but, I hope, you did not strain the craft."

"No, my Lord, no," answered D——.

"How did she behave?" inquired R——.

"Beautifully, my Lord, beautifully," rejoined D——, rubbing his hands, and casting his eyes up the spars towards the top-mast, which was still struck. "We had three reefs in the main-sail, and still she made nine knots against a heavy sea. You see, she is wet, my Lord. The sea made a clean breach, both fore and aft."

"Ah! it won't hurt her," said R——, in a confident tone, while he approached the companion, and began to descend into the cabin. P—— and I had already preceded him. Every thing below seemed in the greatest medley. The four chairs, lying on the floor, stuck their sixteen legs right up in the air; and the books, with their covers horribly distorted, were scattered in every corner. The sofa pillows appeared to have been playing "bo-peep" with each other, for three had hid themselves under one sofa, and the fourth I found in the after-cabin, jammed between my portmanteau and the bulk-head. Nothing was in its place, and all things were suffering the completest discomfort.

"Hollo!" exclaimed R——, as soon as he entered; "what's the row?"

"The bell is broken, my Lord," replied the steward. This was a favourite hand-bell of R——; and any injury to it so entirely occupied his sympathy, that, the steward generally parried a minute cross-examination by referring, when he could, to the ill, or well, being of this bell.

"Is that all?" answered R——.

"No, my Lord," said the steward, pursuing his narrative, seeing the bell had failed; "three decanters, four couples of soup-plates, and——"

"Hang the plates!" interrupted R——; "how is Jacko?"

"Not so hearty, my Lord," replied the steward.

"Why, what's the matter with him, eh?" asked R——, going to the sofa, and lying down. He was accustomed to do this when, on his return home, he desired to know what had occurred in his absence.

"He went into the pantry, my Lord," the steward continued, "when my back was turned, and while he was looking about him in one of the cupboards, the vessel took a lurch to port, and unshipping the cruet-stand, emptied the pepper-pot in his eye, my Lord."

"What was he doing there?" demanded R——.

"Up to his tricks again, my Lord," replied the steward, drily.

"Is he much hurt?" R—— asked.

"No, my Lord; not much," said the steward.

"Have you done anything for the eye?" continued R—— in his interrogation.

"Cook has put on a poultice, my Lord," answered the steward, "a piece of raw beef."

"Oh! that's it, is it?" replied R——, quietly, regaining his self-possession.

"Yes, my Lord," rejoined the steward, with firmness, holding a positive belief in his own, and the cook's efficacious remedy.

"Well," observed R——, with deliberate quaintness, "don't boil it in our soup afterwards."

"No, my Lord," and the steward took his leave, understanding his master's disposition, and knowing that his dialogues with him generally resulted in a compliment to the traditionary cleanliness of persons in his office.

In the afternoon we went farther up the Fiord, about five miles to the north-east of the village of Faedde. The Faedde Fiord is of great depth, and in a circular bay to which we had now sailed, no anchorage for a vessel of the yacht's tonnage could be found. Running her, therefore, into a bight, ropes from the bow and stern were made fast to a couple of firs, and by belaying them taut, the cutter was kept clear from the base of a mountain that rose, straight as the mast, out of the water to an altitude of several thousand feet. This was the most beautiful and romantic spot of which the imagination of a poet might dream. The bay was about half a league in circumference, and a perfect circle in form. To the east, south, and west, were mountains covered nearly to their peaks with thick forests of fir; and when the dispersion of the clouds revealed their gray summits, many cascades, like thin pillars of light, darted down the rocks; and the eye, following their track, could trace their increasing bulk as they rolled along from crag to glen, bounding, gliding, foaming, till they fell, roaring, with collected volume, into the waters of the bay. The sound of these cascades during the heat of the day was not only pleasant to the ear, but still more delightful was the feeling of freshness it conveyed to the mind.

To the north a piece of level land, made into an island by the severed branches of a river, bore, by its position, all the beauty and aptitude for human habitation that nature could bestow; and the clean, white cottages with their red roofs and spires of ascending smoke, its gardens with their symmetrical flower-beds, and its cultivated fields, teemed with every sign of ease and plenty, and revealed the ingenuity of man. Beyond the northern limit of this island, far away in the interior, the blue outlines of the mountains were drawn with a darker tint upon the kindred colour of the sky, and their snowy scalps thrust to Heaven, seemed to claim priority of creation and rule with patriarchal dominion over the lesser hills. The main river ran along the eastern quarter of the island, leaping and flowing over and under the rocky ledges of a mountain, and its stream, sometimes expansive, then contracted, hurried down a bed of scanty depth.

As the sole pursuit of my two companions was the circumvention and death of numberless salmon, the same evening on which we arrived a start was made for the salmon pools on the other side of the island. In the course of an hour the pools were reached, and having gone through the usual forms, such as solicitation for permission to fish, and the hire of two prams, R—— and P—— began their accustomed labour. Taking, as customary, my position on some elevated spot, whence a good range of all my two friends' operations might be had, I strove to pass away the time by staking bets with myself whether one fish could be caught in thirty casts, or whether, on an average, twice as many minutes would elapse without such a result. My left hand generally took the odds, and I calculated that it won four times out of five.

The sun had set for many hours, but it was light as noon. Wearied with fruitless watching, I lay down on the grass. Stretched at full length on my back, and having read in astronomical works that, looking upwards from a dark hole dug in the earth, the stars might be seen shining at mid-day, I covered my face with my cap, and peered upwards at the sky through a small hole in the crown. But my philosophy was suddenly interrupted by the solution of another remarkable fact, and of more personal moment than the scintillation of the stars, by finding I had put my head in an ant's nest. I started to my feet, affirming that I had never been so unwary before. But I am a believer in predestination, and know that this accident could no more fail of occurrence, than that from my cradle, in harmony of order, it should fail being traced, link by link, to the instant at which it came upon me. See, now, its consequences. No sooner had a score of angry ants been brushed from my hair, in which their irritability had entangled them, than I was gratified with the sight of a herculean salmon that rose completely out of the water, and sprung, like a ravenous cat, at P——'s fly, which he had just withdrawn from the water, intending to change it for another of a brighter colour. The fish leapt about a foot and a half above the surface of the stream, and was the largest salmon I ever saw, weighing, I should think, between fifty and sixty pounds. If sharks inhabit the Faedde river, I would not pledge my word it was not one. I yield, however, my opinion to that of my gallant friend, who is a better sportsman than myself and asserts, without any mental reservation, that

"It was a salmon, sir,—a salmon."

Be it as it may, the difference of classification has nothing to do with my story.

The Norwegians, I know, are a bold people, but may sometimes be taken unawares, as well as other men, and though they live and think in the simple and primitive manner of the Mosaic era, they express the signs and feelings of apathy and surprise, with similarity of silence and spasmodic gestures to Indians and Englishmen. This world, too, is certainly a world of incongruities, and the more I see of it, the more I am biased in that way of reflection; and if any one will take the trouble to look at things as they are, abstractedly, and observe how good, bad and indifferent, black, white and blue, are jumbled together, he will not deny me his assent. It so happened, throughout our travels in Norway, and, indeed, whenever we went on these fishing excursions, that R——, who gave little expression to success in his pastime, nor felt annoyed at failure, invariably obtained the services of the most expert boatmen, while P——, who threw heart and soul into everything he undertook, and always swerved under discomfiture, secured with the same invariableness the aid of the most consummate clowns; and the rewardless termination of his toil, or tact, has been mainly attributable to the thick-headedness of those who should have assisted him with their sagacity. Scarcely, then, had this bulky salmon shown his mouth, literally an ugly one, above the water, than P——'s boatman, instead of keeping silence, and subduing his fears, as any reasonable being would do, raised an immediate shout of horror, and during the paroxysms of dismay, dipped his two sculls negligently into the stream, and in his anxiety to make a few rapid strokes towards the shore, caught, what is nautically called, a couple of crabs, that caused him to lose his balance, and fall, legs uppermost, with a loud crash backwards to the bottom of the pram. His aspiring feet, taking P—— in the flank with the purchase of a crow-bar, raised him from the diminutive poop-deck of the pram on which he was standing; but some part of P——'s apparel giving way to the weight of his body, told its mute love of gravitation, and desire to prevent any further mischief. As it was, P—— narrowly escaped submersion; and his presence of mind alone saved the fly-rod from any more serious damage than a slight fracture of the top joint. The untimely vociferation of the Norwegian interrupted of necessity any plan P—— might have adopted to secure the salmon; for the assault made so unexpectedly on his person seemed, like an electric shock, to pursue its course throughout his whole frame, and rushing to the tips of his fingers sent the rod, at a tangent, bolt into the air.

About sixty yards from the inlet where the yacht was anchored, stood a cottage, tenanted by a woman and her daughters, two girls about fourteen and fifteen years of age, elegant as Indians, in form, and possessing the flowing fair hair, the large, round, loving, languid, blue eye, and the unaffected simplicity of bearing, and native loveliness of their clime. Every morning they brought us milk, eggs, and strawberries, and seemed to find great delight in listening to our language, and, observing the routine of a vessel carried on with all the regularity of a ship of war; for, with their little bare feet that escaped from their blue gowns, and shone on the black rocks, like the white moss of the rein-deer, they would sit for hours on the crags above us, clinging to each other and explaining the reason why the bell struck at certain intervals of time, and why the firing of the evening gun made the flag to fall, as if by magic, from the mast-head to the deck.

On Sunday morning, the 11th of July, we took leave of Faedde, and started, with a foul wind, for the Bukke Fiord. Being in want of bread, we were obliged to anchor off the village, in order to supply our stores; and having accomplished our object with less difficulty than we had anticipated, we set off fairly, at one o'clock, for our destination.

The wind had been increasing the whole morning, and veering two points from the south toward the south-west, now blew with the fury of a gale. The shifting gusts, as they careered down the valleys, taking the head sheets, first, on the weather, then, on the lee, bow, made us more tardy than usual in getting up the anchor. Being the Sabbath, greater crowds of people were abroad than on other days; and we could see, with our telescopes, ladies and gentlemen standing or sitting, in large numbers, in the churchyard, watching our manoeuvres with much interest. On the brows of the headlands, the peasants, both men and women, viewed with surprise our determination to put to sea on such an inauspicious day, and in such stormy time; but when the cutter swung, so that the anchor could be heaved, they could not refrain from loud expressions of praise to see her gallant trim, and the pride of buoyancy with which she swam the baffling waves.

At six o'clock in the evening, when we had stood out five or six miles from the land, a calm fell; and when the sun declined, his disc, expanded by the vapours of the mighty mountains at the mouth of the Bukke Fiord, threw a gleam of golden light from peak to peak that, glancing along the water, even came and danced upon our deck, and dazzled the helmsman with its oblique light.

On Monday morning when I went on deck, I found that we had entered the Bukke Fiord; and the same ravines, chasms, and cascades, identified the sublimity of the scenery with that which I have already attributed to the other Fiords. As we sailed along, the Fiord would expand into the broad surface of a lake, and anon diminish to the narrow breadth of a river hemmed in between two rocky banks. Smiling and still as a sleeping child, and calmer than the watching mother, the water, undisturbed by a breath of wind, lay without a ripple; and no cloud on the pure sky above us intercepted the vertical rays of the sun, that descended with intolerable heat; and, while panting beneath the piercing beams, we turned towards the snow-clad mountains, and strove to bear the warmth by looking on their glistening summits; but the tantalization was still greater to see large patches of snow lying low down between the crevices and deep glens, places where the sun had never shone, and to feel no breath of cool air come to refresh us. Not a human habitation rose to the sight, and no living creature, not even the gull, or smallest bird, broke with its note the solemn stillness.

The pilot told us, that this Fiord had never been fathomed, and he supposed it had no bottom. This was intelligence sufficiently interesting to rouse all on board into activity; and a lead line of eighty fathoms was nimbly brought on deck.

"I have heard say, my Lord," observed the sailing master to R——, "that if a bottle be corked ever so tightly, and lowered to a certain depth in the water, the water will find its way into the body of the bottle. Is that true, my Lord?"

"Of course it is," replied R——.

D—— rather hesitated in his credulity, and to persuade him of the fact, a bottle was tied to the line, and sunk in the water. At seventy fathoms it was drawn up, and to D——'s astonishment the water had nearly filled the bottle to its neck. He took the bottle in his hand, and peering at the cork, which had been driven to float on the water inside, said that some trick had been played.

"I don't think, my Lord," observed D——, "the cork was large enough, and of course the weight of water, at any trifling depth, will force it inwardly."

"You are incredulous as Didymus," said R——. "Here, bring a champagne bottle."

A champagne bottle was brought, cork and all.

"Will you be satisfied now, D——?" continued R——. "It is quite impossible that this cork can be too small; for you see, the upper part of it overhangs the lip of the bottle."

"I see, my Lord," answered D——; "that's all fair enough."

And D—— took a piece of yarn, and lashed the cork at the sides and over the top, having previously with a small stick rammed his handkerchief into the body of the bottle, and wiped it perfectly dry.

"Let it go," said R—— to one of the men, who made the bottle fast to the line, and did as he was commanded. D—— challenged the mate with an equal shilling that the bottle would be water tight; and the mate, like a sage, accepted the bet. As balance to the overlapping cork, we gave the champagne bottle the whole length of the eighty fathoms; and then, drawing it up, found the cork had not been moved an iota; but the bottle was full of water.

D—— shook his head, and paid the shilling.

I do not think D—— will ever doubt any phenomena again, as he is ready to admit the hardest truths of Science, however whimsical they may appear, or sound to him. Indeed he believes most things, and only mistrusts shoals and lee shores, to which he never fails to give a wide berth.

"Now we are about it," said R——, "let us try and find the bottom."

When King told the pilot what we were going to undertake, the old man laughed, and said we might try; but the Fiord was as deep as the mountains were high. Another line of a hundred fathoms was joined to the one with which we had been making the experiments to shake the infidelity of the heterodox D——, and lowered. No weigh was on the cutter; and two leads, being fixed to the line, were thrown over the quarter, and leaving a perpendicular track of froth, descended, hissing through the water. The whole hundred and eighty fathoms ran out; and we seemed as far from the bottom of the Fiord as we were before we commenced. Some idea may be conceived of the amazing depth of these Fiords, when I say, that the yacht was not one hundred and twenty yards from the shore, and the entire breadth of the Fiord about two miles. The pilot again came aft, and through his interpreter, King, informed us that the Fiord had never been plumbed, although the endeavour had been made very frequently by scientific men, and Danish naval officers.

Not many miles from the village of Sand, the place to which we were bound, on one of the sloping woodland swards that cheer by their vivid verdure the loneliness of the Bukke Fiord, a small cottage, thatched with the branches of the fir, may attract the traveller's observation, and if he does not look around attentively he will not see it, for it is low, and sheltered by the spreading arms of an old pine. The waters of the Fiord flow not many feet from its humble threshold; and perhaps, fastened to a stake, a fisherman's pram swings to the changing currents of air. Now, however, as the cutter drifted, rather than sailed, nearer to this green point of land, we saw that the pram had been untied from the stake, and was rowed by an old woman round and round, in an unending circuit, in midway of the Fiord. Often she ceased to row, and unfolding a white handkerchief from her head bared her whiter hair to the burning sky, and waved the signal in the air. Shouting with the shrill voice of her sex and age, she beckoned us to hasten to her aid. Then, hobbling from one end of her pram to the other, and moving quickly from side to side she leaned over and looked steadfastly down in the water, as if something valuable had been lost. When she saw we made no haste, she resumed her seat, and singing a native song that had more of liveliness than melancholy in its burden, again she rowed her pram round the same circle, never deserting the spot, but whistling and chanting by turns, she kept her face turned in one direction, that she might always watch the central surface of the water.

"What means that old woman?" asked R—— of several men who were observing her, and, clustering round the pilot, seemed to be gathering all the information he could give.

"She is mad, my Lord," the sailors made reply.

"Mad!—why mad?" repeated R——.

"The pilot says, my Lord, that she is so, and looking for her husband," the cockswain answered.

"Where's her husband? Is he drowned, eh?" continued R——.

"No, my Lord," the sailor said, twitching up his trowsers, and walking aft towards the quarter-deck; "her husband was a fisherman, and lived hard by, my Lord,—up there. About fifteen years ago the man was bathing hereabouts, and he was eaten up by mackerel; but the old woman thinks, my Lord, he has only dived, and soon will rise again."

And so indeed the legend goes. One morning, fifteen summers past, the poor fisherman plunged into the element, that had been his sole sustaining friend from youth, to bathe, and before scarce fifteen minutes had elapsed, surrounded by a shoal of mackerel, and in sight of home and her who made it home, was devoured by these ravenous fish. When he raised his arms from out the water to show the dreadful fate that threatened him, and to rouse the alarm of his unconscious wife, a hundred mackerel hung, like plummets, from the flesh. The fisherman sank, and was never seen or heard of more. From that morning until to-day his widow, having lost her reason, ever rows her husband's pram about the spot where he perished, in the full persuasion, which she certifies in her song, that he has gone to seek a sunken net, and in a little while will emerge again; and, so, she prays the crew of every vessel sailing by to stay and see the truth of what she speaks.

We arrived at Sand the same afternoon, and after ransacking the little place from house to house, found the proprietor of the salmon river there. With the good nature and extreme courtesy of his countrymen, the Norwegian gave assent that we might angle, and not only favoured my two indefatigable friends with a prolonged dissertation on the peculiarities of the Sand salmon, but offered to undertake any duty that might lessen the difficulties and increase the chances of taking a few of these extraordinary fish.

It seems that the time when a salmon has been caught with a fly in the Sand river is completely beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the village; nor is the task less difficult to snare this crafty species in a net. On our arrival on the banks, or more properly rocks, of the river, the salmon were thrusting their heads, like the bubbles of a boiling pot, above the water; and leaping from one ledge of rock to a higher, they were striving to make their way, in battalions, up a foss, that was of no great height, but poured down its waters in a compact flood with the din of a larger cataract. Persuaded as we had been of the improbability that success would attend our sport, our spirits became more buoyant as our attendant, by his despairing tone, made our prosperity less likely.

All the most famous fishermen have visited this little river of Sand, and after adopting every mode, all of them have failed to take the fish. Although the salmon float within sight and reach in the most transparent stream, they will not touch the fly, be it thrown even on their noses. The only reason that can be given for this notorious fact is, that the salmon, when they leave the sea, are generally gorged, and do not desire, or seek for food until they have travelled some distance up the rivers; for it is equally well ascertained that the farther the first foss is removed from the mouth of a salmon river, the more voracious are the fish. Now, the foss, or fall of the Sand river, is scarcely five hundred feet from the shore of the Fiord, and the water is salt, or, at least, brackish; and salmon are not caught in salt water.

It was certainly most annoying to my two companions, to see thousands of the finest fish gamboling in the crystal water, not far from their feet, and to throw their flies with the accumulated nicety of four Waltons, absolutely in the teeth of these obstinate creatures, without the semblance of success. I, myself, took R——'s rod, which with weariness of hope he had laid on the ground, and seeing a splendid salmon two feet below the surface of the stream, moving his fins slowly to resist the current and remain stationary, I placed the fly above his head, allowing the bait to sink gradually till it touched the top of his snout. The fish did not, verily, alter the motion of its fins, either more slothfully or quicker; but with perfect indifference permitted me to keep the fly dangling before its eyes as long as I pleased.

To fish, therefore, at Sand was an absurdity; but having heard that the Fiord abounded with seals, and wild fowl of every denomination, we hoisted a square sail on the gig, and turned privateers.

The village of Sand is inclosed on three sides—north, east, and south—by mountains; but before it, to the west, spread the broad waters of the Fiord. The fragrant smell of uncultured flowers, the freshness of the morning air, the serene loveliness of the sky and calm water, on which the mountains with their peaks of snow were distinctly reflected, even to the diminutive waterfall, and the whole solemn, yet sweet character of the scenery, pressed upon me with an indefinite feeling of delight and awe; and, sometimes yielding to the eternal aspirations and impulsive passions of the soul, my heart heaved with gratitude, that I had opportunity, health, and youth to see and feel with ardour the infinity of God's good creation; and, then, I would relapse into the humility of man's condition, the recollection of his trivial existence; and the combination of excessive beauty filled my mind with sadness.

Arming ourselves with two guns and a rifle, we scoured the Fiord for many miles round. No sooner did we fire at one seal that rose on the gig's bow, than another would poke his rat-like head above the water, at the stern, and a third and fourth on either beam. The report of our guns was incessant; and the multitudes of crows, wild geese, ducks, eagles, and gulls that croaked, and screamed, and whirled about above our heads, to hear the echoes rattling among their silent fastnesses, were incalculable.

Our seal-hunts, however, were most entertaining, and the excitement relaxed not for an instant. The seal dives as soon as it is fired at, or alarmed; but cannot remain for a prolonged period under water, nature making it compulsory that the animal should ascend to the surface for respiration. Having selected a particular seal, that appeared nearly as large as a sheep, we were determined, by dint of perseverance, to hunt it down. We divided our force in such a manner, that, rise where the animal would, one of us must immediately see it; for R—— took the starboard side of the gig, P—— went to port, and I stood at the stern, while the two sailors, one being a crack shot, kept watch a-head. None of us spoke; for the seal is as quick of hearing as of sight, and timid to a proverb; but it was arranged, that, whoever saw it first was to fire. We kept the boat broadside on, that is to say, her bow and stern faced either shore, and her two sides swept, up and down, the entire length of the Fiord. Regardless of myriads of gulls that flew close round our heads, screaming angrily, we abated not in attention to the water; and watched with straining eyes for the score of bubbles that usually precede the rising of a seal; and the water being brilliant and smooth as a looking-glass, they could not escape notice.

Up came a sleek head not twenty yards from me, and down it went again, just in time before my rifle ball struck the eddying water; and at the same instant both barrels of R——'s gun, discharged one after another, made the drum of my ear ring.

"Two of them," he murmured. P—— and the sailor fired almost immediately; but the seals were too quick for them. As fast as we could load, these creatures kept rising around us; and they only seemed to dive in order to spread the tidings below amongst their friends, for they increased in numbers at each emersion. After firing a great quantity of shot and powder to little purpose, we were making up our minds to attack a rock covered with gulls, when a large seal rose within reach of our oars, but sunk again the moment it discovered our propinquity. In a few minutes afterwards, it bounced, head first, to the top of the water, five-and-twenty or thirty yards from the boat; and R—— and I having granted P—— the preference of first shot, he gave the seal's full face the fuller benefit of a double charge of duck-shot. We never saw the seal again, although we loitered about the spot for an hour in the hope of finding its carcass. The cockswain persuaded us that the seal was dead to a certainty; but that P—— had stowed such a locker of shot in its head, it was too heavy to float.

The rock, moving like a huge living mass, being so thickly covered with gulls, now attracted our attention; but we did not purpose to destroy them for the mere sake of slaughter; for R—— had bought a couple of young eagles a few days before, and it was necessary to procure food for them.

"Let's pull to the rock," observed R——, "and see what we can do there."

"I assent," said P——; "but we had better pull round to leeward, and take them by surprise. What do you say, cockswain?"

"Yes, your Honour," replied the man, "we shall never be able to near them as we pull now. Give the rock a wide berth, and get under the lee, as your honour says."

"Pull away, then," said R——, to the two sailors; "but don't make a row with your oars in the water."

The cockswain kept his eye on the rock, and, every now and then, hinted to me the course I should steer; for I had taken the tiller.

"Port a little, your Honour," he said, in a voice hardly above a whisper. The gig obeyed her helm instantly. We gradually came near to the rock; and passing abreast of it, we could see the gulls basking in the hot sun; some, standing on one leg, having the other drawn up under the wing, and looking apathetically at us, while others arranged the feathers of their tails, or breasts, with their bills, much after the same fashion as ducks do, when they have been swimming in ponds, or dabbling in puddles.

"Put your helm to starboard, your Honour," said the cockswain to me in a quiet voice, "and bring her head right round."

I did as desired; and the men pulling noiselessly, the boat glided towards the rock, like a needle to a magnet. The gulls had all clustered to windward, and not one could be seen to leeward.

"I have no shot," I observed to R——, who sat just before me; "but only balls."

"Never mind—they will do," R—— replied; "more credit to you if you kill any."

Letting the tiller ropes loose, I allowed the boat to choose its own course, and began to ram down my bullets. I tried two at a time. With a slight grating, the keel of the gig touched a sunken piece of land, and almost at the same time, its weigh was stopped entirely by the stem coming in gentle contact with the main rock.

Like so many cats, we now crawled, without a sound, from the boat; and P—— being the first to step on the rock, slipped back into the water. The gurgling of the water as it ran over the tops of his jack-boots, and the floundering P—— made to recover himself, alarmed two gulls, and they flew, screaming, into the air. We crouched to the bare rock; and these two sentinels, not distinguishing us from the colour of their roosting place, took a few gyrations, and then re-perched themselves on the rock. Aided by R—— and me, and the two sailors, P—— was got out of the water; but it was no easy matter to accomplish this, for his jack-boots had filled, to the brim, with water, and added considerably to his natural weight.

We now stood fairly on the rock, prepared to encounter any given, or ungiven quantity of birds or beasts.

"I say," observed R—— to me, in a low tone, "take a stone, or piece of moss, or mud, or anything, and shy it amongst them—just for a start."

The cockswain, who was close behind me, had overheard R——, and being more active than I, picked up a small pebble; and by way of giving warning to R—— and P——, said, under his breath,

"Helm's a-lee, your Honour."

The clicking of their triggers answered the signal; and the missile stone was tossed over the highest part of the rock in the midst of the placid gulls. With the shrill screams of a thousand imps they darted into the air.

"Blaze away, your Honours," shouted the cockswain, and mounting to the top of the rock, endeavoured with an oar, which he handled like a flail, to knock down every gull that came within reach. We all three fired at the same instant, and some dozen gulls made a summerset in the air, and with flapping wings and dangling legs, fell into the water. Those that were not killed outright, screeched piteously as they floated on the water. Their unscathed companions, with all the affection and courage of the brute creation, hovered over their fallen kinsfolk, and descending close to them, strove to bear them away with their beaks. Each time we fired, the shock appeared to drive the gulls at a distance from us, as a discharge of heavy artillery might cause a regiment of soldiers to swerve backwards; but, as soon as the powder cleared away, these pugnacious birds returned to the vicinity of the rock, screaming loudly; and some of them were audacious enough to pounce upon our caps, and wreak their vengeance by giving us one or two hearty pecks. The cockswain, working like a telegraph with his swinging oar, generally contrived to pick off these skirmishers.

"Load, your Honours, load," exclaimed the sporting cockswain;—"here they come again."

And a whole shoal of gulls, like a troop of Arab cavalry, came, flying with the speed of a whirlwind, to the attack. As soon as they were within gun-shot, R—— and P—— gave the van the contents of two tolerably good charges of large duck-shot, and I sent a couple of bullets, making the third brace, right into a small division of the approaching multitude. The surface of the water now appeared like a field of turnips that had forced their bulky white bodies above the earth, so thickly was it strewn with disabled and defunct gulls.

"Had those gulls not better be picked up?" said R——, while loading his gun, to the cockswain.

"No, my Lord; let them be," replied the cockswain with as much excitement in his face and manner, as if we had been bombarding a strong citadel. "As long as there's one on the water, the others will always come back; it's their love for one and t'other, my Lord."

A bevy of wild ducks now scoured the sky to windward, and quacking all together, whirled round about in the air, and describing each circle smaller and lower than the preceding one, approached the rock.

"Keep your weather eye up, your Honour," exclaimed the cockswain from his commanding point to P——, who had not seen the advancing ducks; "keep your weather eye up. Here they come; here's provender, your Honour."

His remembrance, no doubt, returned to the eagles on board, and which, by the bye, had been committed to his care. But the ducks kept a pretty good elevation, being more timid, or wary than the gulls; and my rifle now came into play. I took a random shot at the entire group just as it was making a masterly evolution; and a drake, evidently the general commanding, having ceased his quacking, and tumbling in tee-totum style to the water, sufficiently proved how correctly I had, for the first time, done my duty. The uproar of furious gulls and routed ducks was never heard in these silent Fiords since the Flood to such a clamorous extent; and I would not venture to say that the echoes were not as surprisingly loud as the cries of the birds themselves. Urged on by the entreaties and gesticulations of the warlike cockswain, the slaughter lasted for an hour; but seeing that we had killed an ample quantity to feed the eagles for some days, and remembering that powder and shot could not be bought among the mountains of Norway, we retreated from the rock, and getting into the boat, began to gather our game. This occupied some little time; and after collecting a decent boatful, we lighted our meerschaums, and floated homewards.

We might have proceeded nearly half way, when P—— suddenly dropped the pipe from his mouth, and seizing his gun, fired it towards the shore, from which we were not twenty feet, without uttering a word.

"Be quick—load!" he said, at last, to both of us, ramming down his own charge as fast as he could. "Here's a seal."

"Where?" I asked,—"where?"

"Why, there," and he fired without any other explanation a second time at the, apparently, bare rock.

"I see him, and here goes," said R——, and taking a deliberate aim, fired also. "Missed him," he murmured.

I just caught a glimpse of the seal's flat tail, as the animal slided from the rocky shore into the water.

"We have him," said P——, with brightened eyes, "if we act properly."

"There he is!" shouted one of the sailors, with a set of lungs that might be needful in a gale, as the seal rose about ten feet from the spot where it first sank.

"Don't make such a confounded row; you'd frighten the devil!" said R——, to the seafaring Stentor.

"Beg pardon, my Lord," replied the man, in a low voice, and touching his hat with a sheepish look.

"Keep the boat broadside on," observed R—— to the cockswain.

R—— had scarcely spoken, when the water bubbled a little, and the seal's black snout, with dilating nostrils, rose close under the gig's gunwale. The water whirled in eddies, and his tail, as he turned, appearing slightly above the surface, showed me that the seal had seen us, and dived again.

"He must come up in a minute; so, look out," whispered P——; and the triggers of both barrels of his gun clicked, as he breathed the fact and admonition. Fortunately the day was very calm, and the least disturbance, the fall of the thistle's down, marred the bright surface of the Fiord.

The head of the luckless seal soon peeped slowly up, a short way astern of the boat, and before his eyes had risen above the water to take a horizontal glance at us, P—— sent a handful, or so, of small shot into his nose. Down popped the little dark proboscis speedily as thought.

"He hadn't much fresh air then," said R——, laughing at the promptitude with which P—— saluted the appearance of the unfortunate seal.

"No; that's the way to do it," answered P——, smiling. Then turning to the sailors, he said,

"Back astern."

The boat was accordingly backed, and so silently, that only the silvery sound of the water as it fell, drop by drop, from the oars, contended with the natural trickling of the ripples as they murmured under the ledges of rock.

"Here he comes," whispered R——, "close on our quarter."

The seal rose, like a cork, up to its fore fins as if it had suffered much torture from long retention of its breath, and, swifter than thought, R——'s gun flashed, and with a sharp report seemed to take a bucket of water from the Fiord, and fling it into the air. When the light gray smoke of the powder had rolled in a revolving cloud from the space intervening between us and the spot where the animal was observed, the water was white with froth, but no sign of the seal could be seen.

"By Jove! that's odd. I thought I had killed him to a certainty," said R——, somewhat surprised.

"Yes, my Lord, you hit him," observed the cockswain, consolingly. "I saw him reel over to port."

"That's all right," said P——, "in that case he is done."

Once more two large bubbles, the spiteful heralds of the seal's advent, rose to the top of the water, and then burst with a slight sound.

The purple dye of blood tinged the water, and immediately afterwards the wounded seal, with lacerated fin, buoyed itself sluggishly to sight. Its heavy breathing, expressive of pain, could be heard by all of us in the boat; and levelling both their pieces, R—— and P—— fired together. The seal rolled over with a moan, not unlike the faint lowing of a calf, and floating in a pool of blood, rather than water, expired without a struggle. Rowing the boat to the spot, the cockswain and his messmate used their whole strength to pull the animal on board, its dimensions not being contemptible. We reached the yacht about midnight, proud of our day's sport.

Although it was the noon of night, it was light as at six o'clock in the afternoon; and, indeed it is not an easy thing to tell the hour of the day without referring to a time-piece; for there is but a very slight difference in this part of the globe, during the summer months, between the darkness of night and the transparency of day. This may sound paradoxical enough; but the fact is no less true for all that. It would be hardly necessary to observe, that the heat during the night in Norway is sometimes more oppressive than during the day; and simply, I should imagine, because, before the setting and rising of the sun, sufficient time is not given to allow the ascending vapours to carry off the fervour retained by the earth; and added to which the sun does not sink at any period during the summer eighteen degrees below the horizon. His rays therefore assist in keeping up the hot temperature until two or three hours have elapsed, and then his great red face again begins to parch every thing that dares come within its range. Norway being also a very rocky country, absorbs the heat with wonderful facility, and as every one may know, is disinclined to part with it. Returning home at half-past twelve, or one, just before sunrise as I sometimes did, by some shadowed path along the mountains, I have placed my hand on the rocks, and found them still warm. The day, on the contrary, though exposed to the direct power of the sun, has the atmosphere always cooled by the wind, which is kept in motion more actively the hotter become the sun's rays, the heat being a circulating medium of itself. Indeed the departure of the sun is the signal for the wind's flight likewise; and the night is generally painfully calm.

There is also another phenomenon that may rivet the observation of an inhabitant of a more Southern latitude, and convey as much sublimity to the mind, as it may be strange to the outward senses. I refer to the appearance of a great Northern city at night. I shall not easily forget Bergen, when for the first time, I walked through its streets at three o'clock in the morning, and saw a bright sun in a blue sky shining over it. Not a sound, beside my own footstep, disturbed the stillness; and when I turned my eyes from the long, deserted avenues of streets and closed windows of the houses, towards the mountains that droop sullenly over the town, and sought there for some living sign to assure me that I was not absolutely alone, not a bird or insect chirped or flitted on the wing. I felt amid this desolation as if wandering in the fabled City of Death; nor do I think that any man, the most elastic of disposition, could bring to his heart any other feelings than those of awe and sadness, when walking, as I did then, in the glare of day through the thoroughfares of a populous city, he witnesses the silence and solemnity that pervade it. I am glad that I have seen Bergen at midnight, for I would see everything in this curious world; but the reflections that troubled my mind were so much more than the sight was worth that I have no desire to look again.



CHAPTER XVII.

THE DANGEROUS STRAITS—BRITISH SEAMANSHIP—THE GLACIERS OF FOLGEFONDE—BERGEN—HABITS OF THE FISHERMEN—THE SOGNE FIORD—LEERDAL—ARRIVAL AT AURON—A HOSPITABLE HOST—ASCENDING THE MOUNTAINS—THE TWO SHEPHERDESSES —HUNTING THE REIN-DEER—ADVENTURE ON THE MOUNTAINS —SLAUGHTERING DEER—THE FAWN.

The time was now drawing to a close that we had purposed to spend in Norway, because we desired to return to England and be present at the regattas which usually take place towards the latter part of July, or commencement of August along the southern coast of England; and therefore it became necessary that we should move with more expedition from place to place than we had hitherto done. A great many plans had suggested themselves to us, and it was a wish to carry them out that had enticed us in the first instance to Scandinavia; some we had already fulfilled, but there were others as important in the list of pleasure not yet realized. Moreover, our provisions, both for our personal use and for the use of the yacht's company, were dwindling to scarcity; and among these barren mountains no bread or meat could be bought. Bidding farewell, therefore, to the beautiful village of Sand, and to the kind hearts that increased its beauty, we made all sail the subsequent day for Bergen.

Siggen, the loftiest scion of Norwegian mountains, soon towered with conic form before and above us; and taking a shorter and different course than the one we had previously steered, we were spectators, as we proceeded, of the most magnificent scenery that the imagination could conceive. We were so fortunate as to keep a fine strong wind the whole way; and our pilot, who was an old and expert mariner, did not hesitate to contend with the rapid currents that flow between the thousand islands which obstruct the narrower and more unfrequented channels of the Bukke Fiord. The cutter, too, retained her celebrity for swiftness, and during her passage to Bergen showed her aptitude to overcome every emergency.

There are, half way between Sand and Bergen and within sight of mighty Siggen, two small islands of rock, disunited by a narrow channel not three hundred yards broad, and between which the stream rushes from a northern to a southern direction with much fleetness and force. It was necessary to pass through this channel; and if any difficulty could have arisen in our pilot's mind as to the efficiency of the yacht in making good her passage to Bergen, and unwarranting his boldness in selecting a path out of the ordinary track, it was the remembrance of this little strait.

On Friday morning, the 16th, two days after we had left Sand, the two islands, each with its solitary cottage belonging to some fishermen, hove in sight. The wind blew nearly due north, and was, as sailors say, "dead on end" for us. As the cutter came up to the islands, we saw a fleet of Norwegian vessels at anchor, waiting a change of wind to attempt the passage.

While the pilot and D—— held a short consultation regarding the capabilities of the yacht, she had already glided, with the noiseless speed of a spirit, into the midst of native brigs and Dutch barges, for they cannot be called, ships. The beauty of the cutter, and the English ensign streaming from the peak, combined with the strange place and novelty of a vessel like the yacht, were quite enough to cause conjecture and excitement among the crews of the different Norwegian and Dutch craft, and to crowd their decks with spectators. The proud, swan-like appearance with which the cutter sailed towards the channel, still more moved their astonishment; and when the first eddy caught the yacht on her weather bow and swung her to leeward, they were satisfied of the impudent attempt we were contemplating.

Every sail of the yacht flapped, and the skilful management of the helm alone prevented the boom from jibing. The pilot now saw that the task was not one which the Iris would, as he had hoped, surmount with ease, and going as far forward as he could, stood on the weather bow as if to re-consider what he was about to undertake. Fixing his eyes long and steadily on the swift flowing water, he appeared to think that, should the wind fail, or the strong current bear us back, the danger was manifest.

During the old pilot's meditation, D—— had mechanically taken his position aft, close to the helmsman on the weather quarter. More fairly, the cutter now started a second time, and, standing well up, promised to fetch the very centre of the passage. The gaff-topsail shook.

"Keep her well full," said D—— to the helmsman. The man kept her half a point more free. The current boiled, and eddied, and bubbled, as all swift running water will do; and when again it caught the cutter's bow, we could all feel the shock just as if she had touched a sand-bank.

"Blow, sweet breeze," said D——, half to himself, half aloud; and casting his eyes, alternately from the flying jib and foresail to the swelling gaff-topsail, stooped down and looked under the boom at the land.

"Steady,—the helm," exclaimed the pilot, as he still stood to windward, holding the bulwarks and bending slightly over the bow.

"Steady, sir," answered the helmsman.

Scarcely had the man made answer, than a puff filled every stitch of canvass, and the cutter yielding to its pressure, leaned over and shot, like a shaft, right into the middle of the channel.

"She'll do it now," said R—— to D——.

"She will, my Lord," replied D——, "if this puff holds ten minutes."

The wind did hold; and behaving well on this, her first tack, and edging up in the wind's eye whenever she could get the chance, the impatient cutter seemed willing to clear the channel on her second tack. The pilot made much of the narrow berth, and ran close to the shore.

"I suppose the water is pretty deep here, eh?" asked R——, addressing himself to D——.

"Oh! yes, my Lord; or the pilot would——"

"'Bout!" shouted the pilot, cutting D—— off in his reply.

"'Bout!" echoed the helmsman.

"Put the helm hard up," continued the pilot excitedly, in a louder voice; "she mustn't shoot."