A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden Part 12

"I saw the moon behind the hills retiring, And thought the while--'Oh! would I were but there!'

Then could my eye examine, without tiring, That radiant thing, how large, how round, how fair.

"Wond'ring, I saw the Sun of G.o.d depart, To slumber in the golden lap of Even; And, from the East again in beauty dart, To bathe in crimson all the field of heaven.

"I thought on Him, the Father all-bestowing, Who made me, and that silver orb, on high, And all the little stars, that, nightly glowing, Deck'd, like a row of pearls, the azure sky.

"To Him, with infant piety, I faltered The prayer my tender mother taught me: 'Oh! gracious G.o.d! be it my aim unalter'd Still to be wise and good, and follow Thee!'

"For her I pray'd, and for my father, too, My sisters dear, and the community; The king, whom yet by name alone I knew, And mendicant that, sighing, totter'd by.

"Those days were matchless sweet; but they are perish'd, And life is th.o.r.n.y now, and dim, and flat; Yet rests their memory--deeply--fondly cherish'd; G.o.d! in thy mercy, take not--take not that."[1]

That the placid and serious beauty of Esrom Lake might be enjoyed, undisturbed, in intimate union and rare purity, some monks of the Cistercian order built, in days of yore, a monastery in the island, the ruins of which now alone remain; and it would do the eye good to see the beautiful spot where these monks raised their dwelling.

On such an evening as the one of which I am now almost a part, a light might have been seen dancing strangely round the trunk of a beech, the oak of Denmark. It was no will-o'-the-wisp produced by exhalations of the earth; for, now it would shine brightly, and at the next moment vanish, as if it had mingled with the old tree's leaves. Reappearing, the light would a.s.sume an oscillating motion for a short time; then revolve with such rapidity, that it would seem a continuous circle of fire; and, at last, as if wearied with its gyrations, burn with the upward quivering glare of a candle. Suddenly, a slight puffing noise, like the ignition of a small quant.i.ty of gunpowder, stole on the night, and the beech, without noise, fell withered to the ground. In its stead stood the figure of a man hid in the travelling hood and mantle worn by the peasants of those days. Folding the mantle close to his form, the man moved with quick steps towards the monastery of Esrom; and, arriving, knocked gently, at the gates. He sought admission, and said that his name was Ruus, and that the abbot had engaged him to be cook's apprentice. The lateness of the hour pleading in his favour, a monk, doubting not the truth of his a.s.sertion, admitted the stranger, who entered without further question on the duties of his humble office.

Being one day alone with the master-cook, Ruus showed so much disobedience, and raised the anger of his superior to such a pitch, that he received chastis.e.m.e.nt severely for his contumely. At this Ruus felt wroth; and, having previously placed a cauldron of water on the fire, and perceiving the water boiled, he seized, in the apparent frenzy of the moment, the master-cook by his ankle and the nape of his neck, and thrust him head foremost into the hissing liquid. Tearing his hair, and putting on the hypocritical garb of innocence, Ruus ran hither and thither screaming, and lamenting in the face of all his saints the irretrievable misfortune which had happened to his master. By such deception, leading the friars by the nose, Ruus caused them to see combined in him tenderness of heart and guilelessness of conduct, and to make him straightway their master-cook. This was precisely the elevated point of trust to which Ruus had aspired, since his entrance into the monastery was urged by the resolution to work out its destruction. The victuals of the friars, made savoury by every herb and spice Ruus could take from the abundant hand of Nature, or steal from the art of man, were luscious to the extreme of taste; and, delivering themselves up to the enjoyment of all earth's good things, the friars allowed fasting and prayer to slip from their memories. Nay, the legend even tends to the utmost limit of delight, and a.s.serts, that Ruus introduced the most beautiful women to the caresses of this holy fraternity; and so ingratiated himself highly with the abbot, that the old man desired nothing more than that Ruus should become one of their order, and remain for ever master-cook of Esrom monastery. Ruus consented; and, from that moment, quarrels and wickednesses marred the unanimity, and crept stealthily through all the cloisters of the monastery; and the little, childish, coaxing form of sin, by daily toleration and soft endearments, grew to such rapid maturity, that the walls of the monastery would have fallen asunder by the pressure of its bulk, and come under the sway of the Evil One, had not the Father Abbot expostulated with his children, and seasonably persuaded them to avoid their vicious ways.

Now, it so happened, that in the cool of one summer's afternoon, Ruus went forth to walk in a wood; and though the air which he breathed was pure, and the generous sun, mindless of good or bad, poured around an equal distribution of his tempered warmth, Ruus, throwing aside, nevertheless, the harsher trammels of honesty, relaxed to his genial depravity; for, observing at a little distance a fine fat cow, he approached and slew her; and, taking on his shoulders a quarter to the monastery, left the remaining three-quarters hanging on a tree.

Merry and content of heart, and chanting a native ditty to some young girl he loved, a peasant, to whom the cow belonged, came soon afterwards to seek her; and, when he saw the three-quarters hanging on the tree, his mirth soon ceased, and with wringing hands, uttering sigh after sigh, he knew no bounds of grief, since his wealth exceeded not the cow's possession; but, his sorrow softening at length into moderation, he became lost in the opposite intensity of feeling; and, stung by anger, resolved to climb another tree, and, watching till the thief should come to take the rest of the animal, beat him to death.

The sun began to sink, the cool breath of evening prevailing over the warmer atmosphere of the day; and, ever and anon, the soft sighing of the air brought to the peasant's ear the faint murmur of voices. While sitting on a lofty tree concealed among the branches, and looking down through the foliage he observed, a.s.sembled round the trunk, a vast number of devil's imps playing their pranks, whispering of Ruus, and telling each other how Ruus designed to invite the old Abbot and his monks to partake of an entertainment in h.e.l.l. The peasant, terrified at all he heard and saw, and, watching his opportunity, descended furtively from his hiding-place, and, repairing on the morrow to Esrom, told his story to the Abbot.

When the Abbot heard the peasant's tale, in wonder and alarm, he ordered the monks to the church, and, amid the solemn tolling of the bell, throwing himself prostrate on the cold pavement, began to read and sing.

Ruus, who had ever shown himself a wayward convert, liked not the lamentable voice of devotional services; and strove to sneak out from the mumbling group, but the Abbot, with resolute horror, seized him by the cloak, and exorcised him, quickly as his tongue would speak, into a red horse; and, by the sanct.i.ty of invested power, constrained him, by way of punishment for his wicked designs, to pa.s.s through the air day after day to England, and without intermission, in blistering summer, or biting winter, to return bearing on his back 320,000 pounds weight of lead for the roof of Esrom Monastery. This Ruus is supposed in the legends of Zealand, to have been the Devil, who, envious of the piety and virtue of the monks of Esrom, a.s.sumed the human form, and gained access to the monastery in the manner, and suffered punishment with the certainty, I have stated.

During the night the wind had been soothed to a mere zephyr; but its object was only to take breath, for this morning, Sunday, it blew a perfect gale, and the sea was lashed, in a short time, to such anger, that no communication whatever could be held with the sh.o.r.e. There were many hundred vessels in the roadstead; and, packed closely together as they were, it was amusing to observe the effect of their masts rising and sinking, and tumbling from right to left, as wave after wave approached and receded from each vessel. At noon, all our cable was veered on the starboard anchor, and got ready for slipping, in consequence of a large brig driving in our way. It became doubtful for some hours, as she drew her anchors slowly home, whether the brig would not come athwart our bows, and, if she had, one of us must have gone to the bottom; and since the brig had so much more bulk, and consequently, weight in her favour, than the Iris could muster, the chances are, that my fleshless skull would have been long ago a resort for c.o.c.kles under the rocks of Cronenborg; but, a friendly wave, full of feeling as of water, struck the brig to windward, and, heeling under the blow, she took a broad sheer on our starboard bow, and dropped clear of us.

At six o'clock in the morning, we got under weigh, and went up the Cattegat, with no particular plan in view, but desirous, if possible, to reach Falkenborg, or some other harbour in Sweden, before night set in.

As the sun rose, however, the wind began gradually to fail, and before noon, a calm prevailed so entirely, that all hope of leaving Cronenborg out of sight to day was dissipated. This being the 24th of May and the Queen's birthday; to commemorate the event and keep our loyalty in good trim, we fired, even under the ramparts of Cronenborg Castle, which is not always liked, a royal salute; and, when we had accomplished about one-half of our Lilliputian cannonade, a large French war-steamer pa.s.sed within thirty yards of us, and, not heeding the approximation of such a terrible and sensitive neighbour, we continued our firing, and sent a broadside right into the Frenchman's larboard ports, much to his astonishment; for antic.i.p.ating more deference to the French flag, the engines were immediately stopped, and a Lieutenant in gold banded cap, and thick moustache, started into sight, showing his chin just elevated above the bulwarks, and eying us with great ferocity over the lee-quarter; but repeating our salute with all the precision of an hour gla.s.s, which R----held, and the apparently sublime ignorance of land-lubbers, Monsieur le Lieutenant seemed to feel some consolation for our breach of etiquette, and paddled away again as hard as ever.

Not a breath of air was abroad, and the Sound lay silent as a lake. In answer to the booming of our guns, from the town of Helsingborg, five miles off, on the opposite coast of Sweden, we could hear the sound of human tongues, and the bay of dogs, come echoing over the sea, so calm was the day. A thousand vessels of all nations, some going up, others returning from the Baltic, the deep blue sky, and the hot sun, reminded me more of the Mediterranean than of the northern climate in which I was wandering.

After we had concluded our salute, R---- ordered a swivel to be charged, and, loading it with a handful of rifle b.a.l.l.s, fired it towards the coast of Sweden. The experiment was tried in order to satisfy our speculations as to the distance our guns would carry. An immense flock of wild ducks, rather more than a mile from us, rose as we fired; but whether the report, or the bullets interfered with their fishing amus.e.m.e.nts, I know not, for we did not see the smooth surface of the water disturbed anywhere. Some of the sailors, however, were fanciful enough to a.s.sert that they heard the b.a.l.l.s strike the rocks on the Swedish sh.o.r.e.

Every other object, except the high land of Sweden, lost to the eye, Cronenborg was still, for a long way, visible; and, as the sun began to descend, the old Castle, throwing its dark shadows almost across the Sound, seemed to stand forth the gigantic symbol of national protection, and type of times gone by.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Translated from the Danish poet, Baggesen.

CHAPTER IX.

ARRIVAL AT FALKENBORG--THE STORM--THE YACHT IN DANGER --SAFE ANCHORAGE--VISIT TO FALKENBORG--LUDICROUS ADVENTURE--A DRIVE INTO THE INTERIOR--GREAT SCARCITY EXPERIENCED BY THE INHABITANTS--DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY--THE DISAPPOINTED ANGLERS--KONGSBACKA--THE YACHT RUNS AGROUND--GOTTENBORG.

aeolus seems to be the same good-natured deity Virgil represents him to have been in the days of aeneas, and open to any supplication which may be preferred to his rocky throne, whether it be by mythological Juno, or material Jack; nor does that royal soother of waves and raiser of wind pay more attention to such poetic prayer and soft promises of a G.o.ddess, as,

"Eole, Incute vim ventis.

Sunt mihi bis septem praestanti corpore Nymphae: Quarum, quae forma pulcherrima, Deopeiam Connubio jungam stabili, propriamque dicabo: Omnes ut tec.u.m meritis pro talibus annos Exigat, et pulchra faciat te prole parentem,"

than he listens to the reflections of two British tars.

"I think, from the scud, we shall have wind from the south'ard, Bill."

"So I think," replies Bill; "and we shall have enough of it, too.

There's a bank of black clouds over the Castle, I don't like."

"Ay, I'll be d-- if it does anything else but blow; but better a good deal than none at all."

"Don't swear," Bill piously answers, "but take what you can catch. We ain't got a black cat aboard; and, so, trust to Providence."

About an hour afterwards the observations of the two sailors were verified; for a strong wind sprung up from the south, and blew without intermission till nine o'clock, when we found ourselves abreast of Falkenborg. The sky, being covered by dark ma.s.ses of flying clouds, made the night, now beginning to set in, more obscure than this season of the year admitted. The coast, though bold, was dangerous and unknown; and we had been told that Falkenborg, though famous for its salmon streams, had no harbour where the yacht might lie with safety, unless, by sailing through a very intricate and narrow channel, we anch.o.r.ed within a reef of rocks stretching three miles from the land. The nearer, therefore, we approached the sh.o.r.e, the more requisite was it to get a pilot on board; but ten o'clock being now near at hand, and the Swedes being notoriously negligent in the performance of their duty as pilots, the chance of speedy relief from our anxious condition was slight indeed.

Hauling our fore-sheet to windward, and tricing up the main-tack, we now shot rocket after rocket with a sharp report high into the darkness, and, the roar of our guns booming above the loud storm, must have reached the sh.o.r.e. For upwards of an hour we lay to, dreading to put the cutter about, lest, in doing so, she should strike; for the reef of rocks I have mentioned was nigh, we knew by the chart; but could not, in the obscurity of night, ascertain the exact position of the vessel.

Again, the rockets rose into the air, and threw a blaze of light around, as they hissed and flew with the velocity of lightning from the main shrouds, and then burst, a hundred feet above our heads, into myriads of blue, and green, and red sparks, which, curving like a feather, descended towards us, their gently-floating appearance mocking the turbulence of the elements, and our own inquietude. The guns, too, bellowing, an instant after, with the loud tongue of distress, seemed, when their echoes struck with angry force against the elevated points of land, to upbraid the quick exhaustion and placid beauty of the rockets.

With this land on our lee the wind still continued to blow with unabated fury, and, seeing that no a.s.sistance could be obtained without resorting to other means, King, with two men, offered to put off in a boat, and seek the aid we desired. These gallant fellows, in the teeth of a tremendous sea, jumped into a small boat, and, taking several red and blue lights to show, at intervals, their position, rowed, as well as they could calculate, in the direction of the town of Falkenborg.

For two hours, the fate of King and his two companions, was unknown to us, until the whisper pa.s.sed from man to man on board, that a light was imagined to have been seen. An answering signal was immediately ordered to be made, and a man, running half up the shrouds, burned a blue light; and, instantly, another blue light shone brightly about three miles to windward, on our starboard quarter, then a second followed, and a third; and, to satisfy all doubt, a fourth gleamed steadily through the night.

It had been arranged, that King should show a light for every man he might have in the boat, so that if he should chance to find a pilot, a fourth light would immediately convey the intelligence to us.

It was impossible for us to do anything more than lay to as long as we could, and, to meet the boat, was utterly impracticable. In a shorter time, however, than could be imagined, from the heavy sea running, the little boat, taken, like a cork, on the top of a wave half way up our mast, then carried down again so near our keel, that, a rope could hardly reach her, jumped, and sank, and tumbled by some agency or other, for the men did not pull, to the lee-gangway, and our three men leaped on board with a Swedish fisherman. To our questions the Swede replied, through King, that he was not a pilot, and would not attempt to take the cutter within the reef until daylight, and that we must weather out the gale where we were. These were no gratifying tidings to hear on such a dark and boisterous night; but, in this part of Europe, Aurora soon shows her rosy face; and, before I was up the following morning, the yacht was safely at anchor in comparatively smooth water.

The reef of rocks, which forms the only roadstead at Falkenborg, circles in the shape of a horse-shoe, having but one inlet. It is sunk half a foot under water, so that a heavy surf is always broken before it reaches a vessel lying in the centre of this curious bay. The channel into it is not more than twenty or thirty feet in breadth.

After breakfast, we rowed ash.o.r.e in the gig. In compensation for the abatement of wind, the rain fell determinately, and in such big drops, that, not all the coats and cloaks we put on, could keep us dry. P---- however, had gone by daylight into the town, and hired a carriole, which was to take us some distance into the neighbouring country, where, it was said, a celebrated salmon-stream ran.

On our arrival in the town of Falkenborg, a guard of several men, with drawn swords, received us; but what their motive was in honouring us with their protection, we could not conceive. Wherever we went, these men kept close to our heels, nor faltered in the strictest observance of every military evolution. This seeming honour amounted, at length, to extreme pertinacity, and became offensive to our freedom; for, it not only excited the curiosity of numberless dogs, that barked, and the admiration of ragged children, who pointed at us as we pa.s.sed; but, if R----, or P----, or I, walked into a fisherman's hut, or any humbler dwelling, to inquire the way, a man, with unsheathed sword, and scowling brow, would step from this redoubted phalanx, and place himself on the threshold, watching minutely every action. Tormented at length to anger, by the pursuit of this file of armed men, P---- asked them what they meant; but receiving, of course, no reply to his common, yet, to them, incomprehensible question, he determined to seek out the Mayor, and represent to that functionary the nuisance to which we were subject.

On reaching the Mayor's residence, our complaint was laid very forcibly by P----, who was not a little nettled before that old gentleman, who, shaking his grey hairs, replied, as well as he could, in French, that the antic.i.p.ated arrival of an English yacht at Falkenborg had been communicated to him some days ago, and it was, at the same time, hinted the object of the Englishman on board that yacht, was to fish. An order was therefore issued by the owner of the salmon-streams near Falkenborg to prevent any foreigners from angling on his property, and, in pursuance of that order, the Mayor, fancying us to be the real Simon Pures, which, by the bye, we were, had directed much attention should be paid us, and no lat.i.tude given to our movements.

A short remonstrance being made to the inconveniences we felt by the obstinate attendance of this body guard; and on our simple a.s.sertion, without pledging our honour, that we would not molest, by fly or net, two or three rivers which were mentioned, it was promulgated by the Mayor himself, from his library window, to the populace below, consisting of four women, the man who was to drive our carriole, forty half naked urchins, and twice as many curs, that, the battalion of six men was dismissed, and the rear of the three Englishmen should be annoyed no longer.

This misunderstanding being set at rest, we got into our carriole, and started to perform a journey of ten miles into the interior of the country. The harness, which attached the two horses to our vehicle, had not an inch of leather from one end of it to the other. The collar was a plain, flat piece of wood; the traces were wood; the bit was wood; the shafts, of course, were wood; and the reins alone relieved the monotony of appointment by being of rope. Small wooden pegs supplied, by some ingenuity I could not fathom, the absence of buckles. The carriole itself had not even a piece of iron to act in any way as a spring, and the agony we suffered when this wretched machine creaked, and squeaked, and jolted over the stones, is indescribable; and, to the eye, it was one of the clumsiest pieces of carpentry I ever met with; nor do I hesitate in saying, that an approximation to a civilized condition was more evident among savages I have seen, than in this first glimpse of Sweden. I could hardly persuade myself I was not more than six hundred miles from London; and when the driver began to talk to me about the result of the war in China, and ask if George the Third was dead, I was not at all astonished that the Baron Munchausen could write such travels as he did.

We arrived about three o'clock at the river where salmon were said to abound; but when the evening brought the labour of an entire day to its close, neither R---- nor P---- were able to speak to the truth of that abundance, for they had not even a _bite_ between them. It was our original intention to sleep at a cottage on the banks of this river; but it seemed to be inhabited by a patriarch, the father of so many suspicious-looking sons, grown in want to maturity, that we thought the most prudent plan was to return and rest for the night at Falkenborg.

Resuming our place of purgatory in the carriole, we were soon galloping on our way home; for the Swedes, like the Norwegians, drive at a tremendous pace, and it is astounding how these carrioles, so barbarously joined together, scouring over ruts and stones, do not tumble to pieces.

At every river we had to cross, a large boat, like a coal barge, without stem or stern, is to be found, and stowing carriole, horses, and everything else connected with them into this huge ferry boat, the driver, by means of a rope made fast and extending from one bank to the opposite one, draws boat and cargo across, and, reaching the sh.o.r.e he desires, remounts his box, and, heeding not from which quarter the next traveller may come, drives off, and leaves the barge where he did not meet with it. I do not know how a wayfarer, following in our track, contrives to reach our side of the water; but I fancy some person, unseen, must be left in charge of these ferries, and rows across in a skiff, or other smaller boat when necessity requires.

Pa.s.sing along we saw several horses dying on the roadside from hunger; and one poor brute, that we observed, in the morning, lying in a ditch, was quite dead when we reached the same spot in the evening. Our driver, who was an intelligent man, and, having been a volunteer in the English service, spoke our language fluently, said, that all the oats and corn which could be spared had been shipped within a few months to England, to allay the threatened famine there; and the animals in the country were starving from the deficiency of all kinds of grain. The pastures, we could ourselves see, were dry, and in many parts burnt to chaff, while the present summer beginning with oppressive heat, and the preceding one having been equally unfavourable to the pasturage, the scarcity of food was severely and fatally felt by all cattle.

"Every thing, Sir," said the man, "would have gone on well, had the king forbidden corn to be sent to England, for Sweden can feed its inhabitants; but when we send away any part of the crop, we feel the loss very much."