A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden Part 22

"Come, there's no doubt now," observed the Consul, turning round towards me.

"No," I answered; "but they don't suppose I can get on board without a boat."

"You can have mine, with pleasure;" and the Consul, addressing his little son, desired that a boat should be kept in readiness.

"Oh! there! look there," exclaimed two, or three ladies, pointing towards the cutter.

"Ay, the anchor's away," said the Consul; and the yacht, with flapping jib, began to move, like a colossal swan with erected crest, proudly through the water.

The main-sail being well brailed up, the two boats were hauled alongside to the davits, and while they were being hoisted on them, a third gun was fired. The ladies, delighted with the flash and thundering of the guns, begged me to linger a little longer, that another gun might be fired; but fearful that R---- would play some mad prank, and stand out of the fiord without me, I promised the fair dames, that the next time I came to Norway, I would comply with their request, and never leave them, or Larvig again.

The Consul's eldest son soon rowed me to the yacht. When I stood on deck, and looked towards the sh.o.r.e, I could see the white handkerchiefs of those whom I had just left, waving through the dusky air.

"There are some of your loves," said R---- to me.

"They do not wish you well less than they do me," I replied.

The separation from Larvig was the feeling of a second regret I confessed since my departure from England. Dear old Larvig! It is the green oasis where recollection, ever loving, turns to rest; and where the springs of Friendship's warm simplicity, may quench the thirst of him who sighs for Sympathy upon the Desert of Society.

At midnight we cleared the Larvig Fiord, and shaped our course for Christiansand. The weather had been sultry and calm; and at three o'clock in the morning, a tremendous thunder-storm spent the princ.i.p.al part of its anger upon us. The rain descended as if it had been spouted at the yacht through water-pipes; and the uproar of the thunder among the mountains, and the frequency and vividness with which the lightning gleamed, showing every object on the sea and land, were so terrific, that, each man turned in his hammock, and rubbing his eyes, wished to know what all the noise and light on deck were about.

"Lord! how it thunders!" I heard one man growl, as the peal awoke him.

"The lightning's no better," answered another, as a strong, red flash followed close after the sledge-hammer blow of the clap. The officer of the watch gave some command in m.u.f.fled tones, and immediately afterwards the man at the helm muttered in a gruff voice,

"Seven bells."

When the hour had been struck, the silence was again profound; and only the pattering of the drops of rain on the deck, as the storm receded, could be heard.

The next morning, before I was up, there was an altercation on deck; and the word "stuff" seemed to prevail over every other.

"Here, D----," I heard R---- exclaim to the sailing master, "just look here;" and then a short pause ensued, until D---- reached the after part of the yacht, where the jolly-boat had been secured on deck.

"As long as you fellows can stuff yourselves," R---- continued, "that's all you care about; but, after that, my property may go to the devil."

Then there was a dialogue, in an under tone, explanatory of something that had gone wrong.

"I am sure, my Lord," pursued D----, "I am as careful as I can be, and I endeavour to make every man the same."

"It's all very fine to say so," answered R----, "but I wish you would act after the same fashion; for here's a salmon I ordered to be cured at Larvig, for the purpose of sending to England as a present; and just because not one man would take the trouble to throw a piece of tarpaulin over it last night, to keep off the rain, it is perfectly spoilt."

The cured salmon had been placed in the jolly-boat the evening before, and orders were strictly given, that it should be covered during the night; but the attention paid to those orders amounted to what I have related. The salmon, however, was hung up in the shrouds, and after a great deal of trouble and attention, it was sufficiently preserved to arrive in England, three weeks afterwards, and to command the praise of every one who tasted it.

At two o'clock in the afternoon we entered Christiansand Harbour; and taking our old berth a little to the westward of the castle, fired a salute, to let our friends know we had returned. Several gentlemen came on board, and made many inquiries about our travels; and when they had learned all, arrangements were made for us to fish in the Toptdal River, at Boom, as long as we liked.

Early on Monday morning we weighed anchor, and reached up the fiord as far towards the mouth of the Toptdal River, as the depth of water would permit; and after an hour's sail, the yacht was brought up in a beautiful little bay, about three miles from Christiansand, and about four from Boom.

From a sky azure and warm as in an oriental clime, not a cloud was reflected on the smooth, transparent water, and scarcely a breath of air stirred the leaves of the trees. So absolute was the stillness, that the voices of fishermen, who dwelt among the rocks, could be heard in conversation, although their forms were diminished by distance to the size of a rook.

At five o'clock we were at Boom again, and our friend the Anglo-Norwegian was shaking us by the hand. His eyes sparkled with delight at the renewal of our acquaintance; and promising us the best of sport, he led us towards the cottage in which we had lodged on our first visit. The peasant, our landlord, came forth to the cottage door, pipe in hand, to salute us; while his wife gazed at us through a small window; and, when she caught our glance, smiled, with a sunnier language on her face than she could have uttered with her tongue, the sincerity of her joy to see us once more. I felt as if I had been a long time a wanderer, and had returned home. The three beds in the cottage were ordered to be got ready for us, and a lodging in a neighbouring farm-house was secured for the four men who had rowed the gig.

The fish did not take the fly willingly, for only one or two were caught between R---- and P----; but the amazing number of salmon that kept leaping out of the water, during the whole afternoon, bade us not despair of being more prosperous on the morrow. The Toptdal River is the property of a celebrated merchant resident at Christiansand, and he derives a considerable income from the sale of fish caught in it. It is one of the most famous salmon streams in the south of Norway; and its celebrity may in some way be tested when I state, that, two and three hundred salmon have been taken in the nets in the course of one day at Boom, and the same quant.i.ty has been continued through several successive days. Great numbers are still caught, but not in such mult.i.tudes as formerly; and the diminution is ascribed to the circ.u.mstance of no law existing in Norway to protect, or rather, preserve the salmon at certain seasons; and poaching has been, of late years, so extensive, that unless the Government take a little more care of a fish that has become almost a staple commodity of the country, and arrest the nefarious system at present without bounds, the extinction of salmon in the southern rivers of Norway must be immediate and complete.

Indeed, we visited some places which a few years ago were famous for the beauty, size, and multiplicity of their salmon; but we were told on our arrival, that, not a fish was now to be caught or seen, from the mouths to the sources of these rivers.

Early in the morning, by daylight, I heard R---- and P---- pulling on their jack-boots, and winding and unwinding their tackle. The clicking noise of their reels awoke me.

The Toptdal River is uninterrupted by rapids from Christiansand up to our cottage, but as I mentioned, there is before the door a tremendous fall, and a pool of great depth has been formed, by the eternal force and action of the tumbling water. This pool is nearly circular, and about a quarter of a mile in circ.u.mference. 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," a.s.sented 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 c.o.c.k, flapping his wing, stood a tip-toe, and crew most l.u.s.tily. 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 circ.u.mfluous R---- with his long tackle, that hissed when he cast it with the petulance of an angry switch, appeared an ocean G.o.d, 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 a.s.siduity 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 ash.o.r.e. 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 appet.i.te 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 sh.o.r.e, 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."