A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden Part 25

"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 alt.i.tude 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 circ.u.mference, 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 apt.i.tude 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 circ.u.mvention 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 pa.s.s 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 gra.s.s. 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 a.s.serts, without any mental reservation, that

"It was a salmon, sir,--a salmon."

Be it as it may, the difference of cla.s.sification 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 a.s.sent. 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 a.s.sisted 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 p.o.o.p-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 a.s.sault 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 anch.o.r.ed, 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 antic.i.p.ated, 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 manuvres 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 sh.o.r.es, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 s.e.x 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, cl.u.s.tering 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 c.o.c.kswain 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.