Three in Norway Part 23

Bluebeard first took us through the state apartments, which contained many curious and interesting things of all ages, from an axe nearly a thousand years old, to a Birmingham plated teapot won at the Christiania horse show in 1860.

The Toftes boast themselves descended from Harald Haarf.a.ger, and are so proud of their ancestry, that from time immemorial they have never married out of their own family. If dear old Bluebeard may be accepted as an ordinary result of this system, it must be confessed that it has its advantages.

The things that he chiefly delighted to show us were those which had been used by the king during his occasional visits, the most curious being a large stone table made of one enormous slab not more than three-quarters of an inch thick, but very hard and elastic, more like a steel plate than stone; gorgeously embroidered counterpanes and chairs; some very old ploughs and sleighs; and a bra.s.s-bound box with a marvellous representation of Adam and Eve, very evidently before the Fall, and the most remarkable thing in serpents which the wildest flight of human imagination has yet conceived. There were some very nice silver utensils and ornaments, but not many, as most of his plate is kept at his largest farm. All that he had here was in a cupboard with a rubbishy unlocked deal door, standing in John's bedroom; a fact which speaks volumes for the trusting simplicity and total inability to read a man's character from his appearance, caused by a millennium of marrying your cousin once removed. Poor Bluebeard! he little thought what a viper he was nurturing in his bosom, or rather in his chest (his plate chest), and that in that room lay one who could perhaps, if he would, answer the questions--

Who took the Gainsborough?

Who has the Dudley diamonds?

Who stole the donkey? and

Where's the cat?

N.B.--John has now a large collection of ancient Norwegian silver, counterpanes, belts, tankards, knives, and ornaments to dispose of at very low prices if no questions are asked. --ADVT.

_September 20._--We left Bjolstad in carioles on a real road about nine o'clock, Bluebeard himself a.s.sisting in the operation of harnessing the ponies and packing the baggage. Just as we were driving off, a brilliantly original idea occurred to him, and he said, 'Come in and taste my aquavit.' We did not like to refuse an old grey-haired man's simple request, so descended and drank another Skaal to all the usual loyal, patriotic, and festive toasts, and then we drove off murmuring somewhat indistinctly, 'Shkaal Iva' Tofte Shhkaal Iv Toffie Shko Toffy.

Jolly good fler-ole-shole-Toffy.'

All day we drove, and ever as we descended the Hedalen valley with the noisy Sjoa on our right hand, the farming kept improving, and the country becoming more populous; and we saw many families digging potatoes, many pigs roaming free and unmolested as they do in Ireland, and a few men bringing up stores from the town for the long season of snowed-up dreariness now so near at hand. Jens told us that in winter, even so far to the south as Vaage, the sun only rises about eleven, and sets at one o'clock, giving barely three hours of daylight in midwinter; though he said that in the mountains where he spends his time hunting, there is rather more light than in the valleys.

It may be well to explain in what manner so much information was obtained from men whose language was unknown to us, and to whom ours was equally incomprehensible.

The glorious principle of co-operation did it all. The Skipper spoke Norse with great elegance and fluency, but did not understand it at all.

Esau could understand it perfectly, but was unable to express himself in that tongue to even a limited extent; and John could neither speak nor understand a word. Consequently our united accomplishments were equal to meeting any emergency that might arise, even to the disentanglement of such a coil as--

_Brandforsikringsselskabet_, or--

_Sommermaandernepa.s.sagerbekvemmeligheder_,

or any other of the little complex words that an educated Norwegian can construct. It is wonderful to hear the natives launch out into one of these cataracts: they do it fearlessly, and steer through the whole with unflagging fort.i.tude, and very seldom with any fatal results.

The hay harvest seemed to be quite finished except on the roofs of the houses, where some people were still cutting and carrying their crops.

The barley had just been reaped, and was now being dried by the process of impalement, a dozen sheaves, one above the other, being transfixed by a pole stuck into the ground, just as a naughty boy sticks a row of moths on a long pin, or as the unfortunate Bulgarians were supposed to be exhibited during the 'atrocity' scare. Can it be possible that those stories arose from the distant contemplation of a barley-field?

[Ill.u.s.tration: Barley Sheaves: A Norwegian 'Atrocity']

The Norwegians also dry their hay in a different manner from that usually practised in England. They erect high hurdles made of larch poles in lines at intervals all over the field, and on these they hang the hay to dry as we hang towels on a horse, and it is by this means so well exposed to both air and sun that it dries very quickly. No doubt the hurdles are also very useful in spring as a shelter for the young lambs.

The weather kept improving so much that we grew quite jubilant, and the ever-changing scenes that opened before us seemed full of life and brightness, and we looked with a certain amount of pleasure on even the magpies, which sat on the fences in scores, pluming their black-green feathers, and talking things over quietly to themselves. So different from the wary magpie of England, who, knowing that he is an Ishmael, glories in the fact, and shrieks defiance to mankind at the top of his voice and a tree.

For three hours we followed the brawling Sjoa through scenery that would bear comparison with Switzerland, and then we reached the spot where it joins the mighty Laagen, and crossing the latter by a picturesque but discouraging bridge, soon struck the main road, and pulled up for our first change of ponies at Storklevstad, nineteen miles from Bjolstad.

At another place further on we found a shop kept by a Norwegian Yankee, and entered it to buy some sugar-candy, wherewith to appease our cariole-boy. This storekeeper informed us that the emigration from Norway to the States was enormous just now, especially to Minnesota and Wisconsin, and that no less than sixteen men had gone this year from the little village of Vaage--a place which does not strike one as being likely to contain that number of able-bodied men at one time. ola had told us that five of his brethren were in Minnesota, but that he himself had no intention of leaving his native country; and this we thought to be well, for if he were to join them we are convinced that any enterprise in which they might be engaged would inevitably fail with his invaluable co-operation and a.s.sistance--unless perhaps the Skipper could be induced to go out there and occasionally exhort him.

At Listad we lunched off a real white tablecloth; that is to say, we ate not the cloth, but everything eatable that was placed on it.

We also found a note from the Skipper asking us to bring along one or two little things that he had been obliged to leave behind in his hurried flight, just as the allied armies kept finding Napoleon's belongings at different places after Waterloo. The present loot consisted of a coat, sleeping rug, and a towel.

At Kirkestuen we quitted the track for the night, having made fifty miles in about ten hours. This, according to our experience, is a fair rate of progression in Norway; in fact, the traveller is more likely to find the average below this than above, unless he drives the good little ponies faster than they like to go, which is wrong.

Here the three women who kept the station were immensely amused because we asked for coffee with our food, and one of them took upon herself the task of rebuking us for such dissipated habits, and explained at great length that no respectable people ever did such a thing. 'Coffee,' she said, 'should only be drunk during the day, gruel after sunset.' But we persisted in our reckless demand, and they finally gave in, and produced the delicious compound that may be expected at any wretched little dwelling throughout the country.

This was the first place where the papered rooms and iron stoves of modern Norway obtruded themselves on our notice; but in spite of these we were very comfortable, and think that Kirkestuen deserves all the praise which we cannot find lavished upon it in any of the guide-books: it is cheap, comfortable, and clean, and the food is excellent. If the three young ladies who preside over its arrangements wish to send us any little remuneration for this advertis.e.m.e.nt, we are agents for several Central African Missions, to which we could hand it over; or, as 'best aquavit' is a good deal appreciated by the missionaries themselves when they are suffering from certain diseases peculiar to the Central African climate, we would receive that liqueur in cases of not less than three dozen in lieu of money.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

DOWN TO CHRISTIANIA.

_September 21._--The steadily improving weather of our homeward journey is very pleasant, and already we are beginning to almost forget those 'Miseries in Cold and Grey' which were so conspicuous during our last few days at Rus Vand.

To-day we noticed that the whole population of the country appeared to be engaged in the seductive pastime of potato-digging. One family that we pa.s.sed consisted of papa, mamma, and eight children of different ages, all absorbed in this pursuit. The parents had gardening tools, the elder children were using pickaxes and trowels, the younger ones fire-shovels and wooden baking spades, and the mere babies were hard at work with spoons and toasting-forks.

Here and there we detected a few people still making hay, presumably because they had no potatoes. In Norway the hill-sides are so steep and rocky that there is not overmuch room for the cultivation of gra.s.s, so they have to collect it from every available corner where a few sprays of anything green can contrive to exist. As we have mentioned, they are now curing gra.s.s on the house-tops, and to-day we saw a man with a scythe about eighteen inches long, mowing in amongst the stones on the river bank, and in some of the places where he went the scythe blade was the only blade visible to the naked eye. One thing seems certain, that a Norwegian _will_ make hay while the sun shines, even if he can only find rocks out of which to make it.

On this part of our journey we pa.s.sed a great many spotted black and white pigs: these pigs move with a greater dignity of bearing than the ordinary white pig of Scandinavia, and altogether seem to consider themselves superior to him, although they have not a curly tail.

Personally we think there is a certain subtle charm about the curly tail of the white pig, a something that sets him off and renders him more pleasing to the eye of the beholder than is a spotted pig with a straight tail. However, our humble opinion does not seem at all to affect the swagger of the spotted pig.

Near Formo we overtook a rosy-cheeked girl of about eighteen, astride a bare-backed pony: the pony was seized with a spirit of emulation, and insisted on accompanying the carioles for some distance in spite of her efforts to stop it.

The weather was now delightful; the roads were dry and dusty, and the sun was so hot that the long cool shadows of the pine woods which at frequent intervals hedge in the road were quite a welcome relief both to us and our s.h.a.ggy steeds.

Ever as we followed the almost imperceptible descent of the road, the great river Laagen became wider, deeper, and bluer, as it gathered increased volume from the numberless tributaries which flow into it from every hill, till at length at Fossegaarden it plunged over a series of ledges in a splendid succession of falls, and after winding awhile amid fir-clad islands and shaded gra.s.sy banks, it flowed into the Mjosen Lake and was lost, while we on the road above, rounding the last corner and turning to the east, soon found ourselves in Lillehammer, which really looked quite a towny little town.

Esau stopped at Fossegaarden a couple of hours to throw a fly in the tempting-looking water below the falls, and was rewarded at the first cast by a rise from a fish whose peculiar wriggling and rolling soon showed him to be a grayling; and before leaving, the bag was filled with some very fine specimens of this beautiful and delicate fish.

We were greeted as old friends at the Victoria Hotel, where Ivar had already arrived with our things. Then we ordered our own dinner, and told the host to supply Ivar with whatever he wanted regardless of expense (the result of this reckless munificence was a bill for nearly two shillings); and in the happy frame of mind produced on both sides by this course we settled our accounts with him, and giving him all our worn-out garments and some candles and matches, we parted with the last of our henchmen.

By the way, we here found a note from the Skipper asking us to bring home a pair of shooting boots, three socks, and the remains of what had apparently been a pocket handkerchief; but the obvious course that suggested itself was 'give 'em to the men,' and we insisted on Ivar taking these valuables.

_September 22._--With the utmost difficulty, by threats and coercion Esau was induced to leave his bed, and dragged to the steamer in time for her departure, as, if left to his own inclinations, he would have remained in his insidious couch until this globe had performed its diurnal revolution.

As it was, the 'Skibladner' was indulging in a final premonitory shriek before leaving the pier when we came hurrying and stumbling down the hill at all paces, and we only stepped aboard just as she threw off the last detaining rope.

The steamer was at first very empty, but more people joined us at every stopping-place, of which there are about a dozen on the lake. Some of these are little villages, with only the bright roofs and church spire peeping out from among the fir trees; others no more than a landing-stage projecting into the blue waters, and no other indications of life save perhaps a couple of idle fishing boats and a flagstaff.

The morning was so calm and fine, that the grayling playing under the sh.o.r.e made the only break in the otherwise unruffled surface of the lake, and it seemed strange to find ourselves back in summer again, having left winter with its snow and frosts far above us up at Rus Vand only a few days ago.

At Hamar some English people came aboard, so that we had some one to talk to. At every place where the steamer stopped and fresh pa.s.sengers came off in boats to meet us, it seemed to be customary that they should take off their hats to the captain on the bridge as they pulled up alongside: even when we pa.s.sed the smallest places without stopping, merely throwing the mail bag into a boat as we darted by, the fresh-water sailors on the steamer all took off their hats to the fresh-water sailors ash.o.r.e, the latter always returning the salutation; and considering the fact that two steamers pa.s.s every day, this indicates no small degree of politeness.

There is a great amount of character to be noticed among the natives during a voyage on the lake, and although they are badly and even grotesquely dressed (for the pretty old costume has quite disappeared in this part of the country, and its modern subst.i.tute is hideous), still their old-fashioned manners and simple courtesy are very striking; and in spite of their love of a little mild ostentation they are so quiet and well behaved, that they would appear to great advantage if contrasted with the crowd that may be found say on a Greenwich steamer.

At Eidsvold we left the steamer for the train which was waiting to receive us, and about nightfall were once more in Christiania, and after a sumptuous supper went to rest in sumptuous beds, thinking ere we fell asleep of how to-morrow we should again have to submit ourselves to the yoke of civilisation, to discard our flannel shirts for linen ones and stick-up collars, to throw aside our shooting boots, and again bite off our nails, which have grown to their natural length under the soothing influence of a long spell of unworried conscience.