Three in Norway Part 15

'It had got so late before we gave up the search, and we were such a long way from home, that we determined to go to Gjendebod, at the Western end of the lake, hoping to get a boat there and return to Memurudalen by water. But on arriving there very tired, hot, and hungry, we found that the men had taken their boat down the lake, and would not return until to-day. This was a great blow, for it is quite impossible to walk along the sh.o.r.es of Gjendin, except, as John says, for a bird--and even it would have to fly all the way. Climbing up the mountain again was out of the question, as it is a seven hours' walk from Gjendebod to our camp, so there was nothing for it but sleeping there--a course which was very distasteful to me, as the food is bad, and I had no book with me, no tobacco, no hair-brush, and no fishing-rod.

'To-day I started for home directly after breakfast. We wished to combine a little stalking with the walk, for we had to pa.s.s through some first-rate deer country--all that part, Esau, where you got your first two bucks; but of course we had not much chance of doing anything, as the wind was with us all the way. As you know, deer almost always feed up wind, so by walking against it you are safe from their ears and noses, and also are likely to be warned of their presence by coming on their tracks first. But in walking down wind all this is reversed; you come upon the deer without any warning, and they are almost sure to smell or hear you long before you discover them. Consequently, as we expected, we saw nothing on our way here to-day.'

The Skipper's buck is a very good one, the best that has been killed at present, and there was much joy at his change of luck. But strictly speaking his bad luck has pursued him even in this instance, for if he had not been obliged to shoot when he did, in all probability the rest of the herd would have appeared on the scene, for their tracks showed that they were following the lead of this buck. Besides, there is not the same excitement in a chance shot like this as there is when you first find the deer, and then spend two or three hours in all kinds of uncomfortable modes of progression in order to approach them.

However, when we were in this country before the Skipper had all the good luck, and Esau the bad, the former getting five deer and the latter only two, so that the present state of affairs may be looked upon as the working of retributive justice. When this view of the matter was suggested by Esau to the Skipper, he said, 'Retributive justice be blowed!'

We celebrated the joyful reunion of loving hearts by a skaal, and so to bed, perfectly happy after the events of the day.

_August 27._--We sent the men off this morning with the horse to bring in some of the meat now lying in the mountains, while we went by canoe to Gjendesheim to stay for a couple of days, as we cannot go stalking again till the already slain deer are brought home; the fish in the lake are not rising well after this long spell of fine weather, and with the exception of Esau's 'home coverts' there is no shooting for a fowling-piece at Memurudalen.

Very few tourists find their way to Gjendin, but the season for them is over, and we expected to have the place to ourselves; but how fallible is human prescience! To our astonishment the sportsmen from Rus Vand had already occupied the greater part of the house, having abandoned their own hut for the same reasons which had led us to forsake our camp, and here they were, armed to the teeth with rods and guns.

This seemed unlucky, and although we were outwardly glad to see them, at heart we could not help feeling how inconsiderate it was of them to come and shoot the fjeld and fish the river just when we wanted to do all that ourselves. No doubt they harboured precisely the same feelings towards us.

However, we had dinner together, and introduced the 'boss pie,' now rapidly disappearing, to the notice of our Norwegian friends, and as the meal advanced a feeling of genial contentment crept over us, which seemed to influence all our senses; we began to talk over sport and compare our experiences in various countries and in pursuit of various animals: some of us were good listeners, others fond of talking, but all animated by a love for the same occupation, so that when at length one of the enemy handed round the best of cigars, even the Skipper became so mellow and pleasant that before going to bed we arranged for a joint shoot after ryper to-morrow; and said 'Good night,' feeling that it was quite fortunate that we had all come to Gjendesheim on the same day.

One of our new friends is a Russian, an engineer officer; he speaks not the English, but we were introduced to him as a man who had shot more bears in Europe than any one else living. He has killed forty-two, and looks as though he had been hugged by each one of them before it finally succ.u.mbed. Now he wants to kill a reindeer, and has been attempting the feat to-day; apparently he will be _hors de combat_ for the rest of the week, as he can hardly move for stiffness: he has not been accustomed to the awful walking that stalking round Gjendin entails.

Esau is also rather dilapidated, for he landed at Leirungso on his way down the lake, and walked round the mountain to Gjendesheim, leaving John to bring on his canoe. On his way he was obliged to wade across the Leirungs River, a wide and rapid stream, and just in the roughest part he trod on a loose stone and fell, cutting his knee and making a bad dent in his gun-barrel. Of course he was wet through and a good deal hurt, but hardly enough to account for the frightful state of his temper, till it came out that though he had walked through miles of beautiful ground for ryper, snipe, and duck, he had never got a shot at anything.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE GJENDE FLY.

_August 28._--This was the hottest, most windless and cloudless day that has yet been made. The Russian and F---- went out with Esau and the Skipper to shoot ryper, accompanied by a pointer, which the Norwegians call a bird-hound. A brood was soon found and rose in front of Esau, who with his usual prompt.i.tude got a right and left; whereupon the Russian took off his hat, and bowing profoundly, advanced and solemnly shook hands with him, protesting that he had frequently seen marvellous shooting, but never, never aught like this; at least, that is what we imagined to be the translation of the neat little speech which he made in Russian.

A ryper is easier to kill, if possible, than the tamest young grouse which gets up under a dog's nose on the calmest 12th of August; and Esau thinks fame is like an eel on a night-line, easily caught, but very difficult to hold afterwards.

Satisfied by having witnessed this extraordinary specimen of our skill, the Russian gave up the chase, and returned to Gjendesheim completely exhausted by the heat; but the others went on till the afternoon, now finding a selfish old c.o.c.k, whose fate no one regretted; now a young brood only just old enough to be shot: anon lying down to rest and eat berries, or bathing in the Leirungs Lake, but all the time extremely happy.

F---- was so exceedingly polite that he would _not_ shoot unless birds enough for all of us happened to get up at once, and one brood escaped without a shot being fired, in consequence of our unwonted emulation of his courtesy.

Near Leirungs we were fortunate enough to drive three large broods into the same bit of willow scrub, and had some very pretty shooting as the dog set them one by one; but there was hardly any scent, and the heat soon proved too much for our bird-hound, so we returned to Gjendesheim with a very considerable addition to the larder.

Then followed hours of inability to do anything except lie on our backs with lighted pipes in our mouths, far too exhausted to smoke them; and at last--dinner; and soon the cooler air brought relief and engendered a return of bloodthirstiness, which impelled the gang of sportsmen to sally forth and rake the river till it was quite rough with artificial flies.

This was a trying time, for by some means we have established a most dangerously flattering reputation as fishermen, and were bound to do all we knew to retain it. However, all turned out right; the Skipper went into the lake and got several beauties, and Esau did the same in the river, so that we came in with the best bags by a considerable margin, and could now afford to catch nothing for a whole day without being dethroned from our pedestal.

The river, Gjendinoset as it is called, just in front of the rest-house, is a wonderful piece of water; there are about 150 yards of rapid in which the fish lie, then comes a fall, and below that there are nothing at present but small fish, though the big ones will soon begin to drop down lower for sp.a.w.ning. Consequently we all fish in the first 150 yards, and to-day between 50 and 60 lbs. weight has been taken out; the same quant.i.ty yesterday, and probably for some days before; and the fishing will be even better a few days later, for the Gjende fly is beginning to hatch, and as long as he lasts the fish will rise well.

We have heard so much of this fly that we had been expecting something rather gorgeous, a monster dragon-fly, or at least a second-rate b.u.t.terfly, or a decent imitation of a stag-beetle; and we have been looking up gaudy Scotch and Canadian salmon flies, which we hoped might be pa.s.sable subst.i.tutes; but, alas for the vain hopes of foolish man!

the Gjende fly has come, and he is only a wretched little black beast like a very small, unenterprising, common or garden house-fly of Great Britain. He cannot fly decently; he is apparently devoid of sense; he has no moral, physical, or intellectual attributes for which a human being can learn to respect or love him; but--he _can_ CRAWL. If he alights on the water it never occurs to him to rise again, and he allows the trout, mad with the excitement of a fortnight's prospective gluttony, to scoop him down their capacious throats by companies. If he enters your mouth, which he does with a numerous retinue every time you open it, retreat from that untenable position is the very last thing he would think of; and with what may be a gleam of momentary intelligence he seems desirous of still further increasing his knowledge of the rest of your interior arrangements.

With characteristic obstinacy, unmindful of the teachings of logic, he invariably acts on the fallacious maxim that 'an ink-bottle cannot be so full that there is not room for just one more Gjende fly.' The whole of the river here at the end of the lake, and for thirty yards on each side, is now pervaded by this noisome creature; the water looks as if it were covered with a mixture of soot and tar, the rocks are black and slippery with him, and the atmosphere is charged with him, so that the landscape dimly seen through the cloud looks as if it were dancing.

Gjendesheim itself is unfortunately not quite beyond the zone which he infests, so that the windows look loathsome with crawling blackness; the tablecloth is strewn with the corpses of those who have imbibed the honeyed poison of the paraffin lamp and come to an untimely end, and the remains of the 'boss pie' would warrant a stranger in the belief that it had been composed of currants.

We think Pharaoh must have been a man of extraordinary resolution, or else inane mildness of character, otherwise he would have sacrificed Moses long before the fourth Plague was concluded.

Fortunately the Gjende fly has no insatiable craving for human flesh; the Skipper, indeed, a.s.serted that one fastened on his hand and inflicted a wound that swelled enormously and remained swollen for several days, but the better opinion is that the creature that perpetrated this outrage must have been a viper, though we did not hint this to the Skipper, because he is firmly convinced that whisky is the only remedy for snake-bites, and that it must be taken in large quant.i.ties.

If any one stuck up a rod near the river, in two minutes it looked like a black fir pole with a bunch on the top; and John, who is a man of great entomological knowledge, spent some time in studying this phenomenon. He reported that the flies crawled up for fun, intending to jump off the top ring, but when they got up it was so much higher than they expected that they were all afraid to try, and those at the bottom and halfway up kept jeering at the top ones and calling them names, and jostling them so much that they could not crawl down again. He also said that the swarm in the air was so dense that he wrote his name in it with his finger, and it remained visible for nearly a minute.

Probably it is difficult for a man to speak the exact truth with his mouth full of (_f_)lies.

When it was too dark to fish we sat round the fire and heard a good deal about the various winter sports of Norway, capercailzie stalking, bear hunting, elk and reindeer shooting, and running on skier, the snow-shoes of the country, which are very different from the well-known Canadian shoes, being made of wood, from six to twelve feet long, four inches wide in front, three behind, about an inch and a half thick where the foot rests, thinner at each end, and turned up and pointed in front.

Every district has its own peculiar shape; about here the right shoe is made six feet long, the left one ten or eleven feet, it being more easy to turn if one is shorter than the other: some are made of pine, some of birch, and occasionally oak. The men of the Th.e.l.lemarken are the most skilful runners, but it is now quite a fashionable amus.e.m.e.nt in Christiania during the winter, just as skating is in England.

_Sunday, August 29._--Our Norwegian friends departed for the happy hunting-grounds of Rus Vand this morning, but before doing so they most kindly offered us the hut there any time after this week, at the end of which they are going south. We can hardly expect the present glorious weather, which has now lasted for three weeks, to go on for ever; and when the change comes, a tent will no longer be the abode of comfort and luxury that we at present find it, so that the offer of the hut is most opportune for us.

We parted with great regret from people who have been so kind and hospitable, and many were the expressions of good-will and protestations of eternal friendship, as we shall not see them again till we pa.s.s through Christiania on our return home.

That return home has caused the Skipper hours of anxious thought already: there is to be a wedding in England about the end of next month, at which, although it is not his own, his presence is urgently needed. He knows he ought to go, but hates to leave this blissful life just when the best stalking is beginning; consequently he devotes much time every day to the consideration of the subject, torn by doubts, tortured by terrible misgivings, and hara.s.sed by indecision.

To-day, after being more than usually disagreeable under the malign influence of his conscience, and seeking for inspiration, first in the room at Gjendesheim, walking up and down like Weston; then on the lake paddling like a penny boat; and finally roosting on a rock at the top of the fjeld with his arms folded like Napoleon, and a gruesome scowl on his face, or at least on those portions of it which were visible through the mask of Gjende flies, he at last concluded to commit his fate to the decision of an unbia.s.sed coin, if such could be obtained from any confiding friend.

With great difficulty he persuaded Esau to lend him one ore, value 1/100 of a shilling, which seems on reckoning to be about half a farthing; Esau observing as he gave it, 'It isn't that I'm stingy, old fellow, though of course I don't expect to see it again, but it _will_ throw my accounts out so.' N.B.--Esau's notion of keeping accounts is to put his receipts into one pocket, _and his disburs.e.m.e.nts into another_; if he has a vague idea to within 20_l._ or so of how the money has gone, it will be more than any one expects; that everything he possesses will be spent is a foregone conclusion.

But to resume. The ore coin has no distinct head or tail, so the Skipper named one side heads, and tossed. The thing fell on its edge, and rolled round the table and about the room till it struck the wall, whereupon it fell over 'heads,' and decided that the Skipper must go to the wedding.

So he sat down and wrote a letter saying that they must not expect him, and that he should stay out here the whole time that was originally intended; for as soon as he had dated the letter it occurred to him that it would be childish to allow such a weighty matter to be decided by the whim of a half-farthing coin, which might very likely be interested in the affair in some way, and which, as he truly said, would possibly have turned up 'tails' if it had not happened to fall on its edge and been interfered with by an unauthorized wall.

Having thus acted according to his inclinations, and given his missive to Andreas to post when he leaves Gjendesheim next week, the Skipper became quite pleasant again, and went forth to his fishing 'ever and all so gaily O.'

The ponies of Norway are wonderfully docile and clever; these qualities were well shown to-day in a black one belonging to Jens which came to take F----'s baggage over the mountain to Rus Vand. This pony was brought down near the door of the rest-house, and left standing there without any fastening or any one to look after him. The things were not ready, so he waited about two hours, occasionally wiping off the Gjende flies with his tail when their weight became insupportable, but otherwise never moving. The busy world (consisting of Andreas and Ragnild) pursued their usual avocations around him, goats ran against him, and insects climbed over him, but there he stood placid and motionless as a wooden rocking-horse. At last the baggage was ready, and they brought it out and piled it on his back until we feared he would break, and then Jens turned his head in the direction of Rus Vand, and gave him a gentle push to start him; and he went slowly off up the mountain, choosing the best way for himself, for no one went with him; in fact, Jens did not follow him for about half an hour, but no doubt he was found at the right place in the end. The whole performance reminded one of a clockwork toy, and John remarked as we stood and watched him out of sight over the pa.s.s, 'Now, that's what I call a well-trained pony.'

During our stay here we had the pleasure of forming the acquaintance of an elk-dog. This animal is taken out in a kind of harness to which a rope is fastened, the other end of the rope being attached to the hunter's belt; and his legitimate occupation is finding elk in a forest by scent, and denoting their presence by his behaviour before the hunter gets within range of the elk's eyes, ears, or nose. Mr. Thomas brought him up here hoping to find reindeer with him in the same manner, as he had been unable to get a Finmarker[*] broken to reindeer; but the experiment has not been successful, for the dog has been so carefully trained to elk, that he exhibits a large and lofty contempt for so pusillanimous a creature as a reindeer, and will not confess that he has discovered the existence of such a thing at all.

[Footnote: Finmarker is the kind of dog usually employed for finding reindeer: the name being derived from the district of which it is a native.]

But in addition to the fact that he finds no deer, he is a good deal of trouble from the fastidiousness of his appet.i.te. It appears that he is accustomed to feed on dogs, and when he cannot get dogs he can rough it very well for a short time on boys or any other plain fare; but up here, where dogs are few and boys are extinct, he is having a very poor time of it. The last place where he had a really square meal was at Skjaeggestad, on the journey up, where he was lucky enough to get a whole dog and some portions of boy; since then he has only had limbs s.n.a.t.c.hed off adventurous observers, and altogether seems to be pining for want of proper nourishment. He is about the height of a colley, but with an enormous chest and limbs, a head something like an Esquimaux, a wiry reddish yellow coat, and a most unkindly expression of countenance.

In the absence of sufficient flesh food he appears to be developing a liking for man-diet, so we did not remain long in his society, for which indeed we only craved after we had perceived through a c.h.i.n.k in the door of his dwelling that he was moored to a beam by a kind of anchor chain.

We have often heard that there is a certain amount of danger in the pursuit of the elk; if the hunter is always accompanied by a dog of this kind we can easily understand it. However, he was a very interesting animal, and if we had a National School at Memurudalen we should certainly have tried to buy him, as there is any amount of room for _debris_ there. What a boon he would be in some of the thickly populated districts of England!

In the afternoon we paddled leisurely back to our camp and found it looking prettier than ever, but, alas! our little stream had ceased to run. However, there is another one not more than forty yards away, so we shall not be much troubled by its loss.

_August 30._--The sun still shines upon us from a cloudless sky, and early in the morning, before any breeze springs up, the lake makes a most beautiful picture, with its steep mountain sides and foaming torrents so perfectly reflected in the green unruffled water. But, lovely as it is, its beauty is rather wasted on us now, for it has been just the same for the last three weeks, with the outlines all hard and clearly defined, and none of the graduated effects of distance which we get from the hazy climate at home: in this clear atmosphere the peaks twenty miles away are as bright as those a mile or so beyond the lake.

Probably this is the reason why we so seldom see pictures of Norwegian mountain scenery, and that the few which do appear are often condemned as hard, cold, and unsatisfactory.

The most prominent object in looking towards the lake from our camp is a curious pyramidal mound, about thirty feet high, close to the water's edge. It is so regular in shape that we have devoted many hours of cogitation and argument to the discovery of its history.

John (who is a man of considerable archaeological fame) maintains that it is a funeral barrow in which some ancient Viking was buried, and he wants us to give up our cartridges for the purpose of constructing a mine and blasting him out: we have vainly represented to him that it cannot be a Viking's tomb, because there is absolutely nothing to Vike up here.