Three in Norway Part 7

The Skipper is devoted to the sport of 'throwing for a rise,' which he thinks the perfection of fishing. It can hardly be pursued with success anywhere but in Norway, for only there do fish seem to rise greedily after a constant succession of fine, hot, sunny days, with never a drop of rain or cat's-paw of wind.

The great charm to him is the extreme delicacy required. You _must_ put on your thinnest cast, your smallest fly, and throw your lightest; and unless you throw a very long line you have not a chance for the beggar.

Then, if he comes at you, you can see him through the calm clear water, and watch the whole performance. You get a rather better chance where two fish are rising close together, as there is some jealousy and compet.i.tion between them, and each of them is likely to rush at your fly without sufficient meditation, lest the other one may get it first.

The Skipper has studied fish from a moral point of view, and says that they are very much like men: and he invariably turns his knowledge of their habits to good account. Throwing for a rise--in a lake like this, where the fish run large--on a calm bright day is decidedly his forte; his motto in fishing being 'far and fine.' Whereas Esau shines more in a rapid stream than elsewhere.

The latter had a great time with the Professor, who he said was a capital fellow, and gave him whisky which they drank 'to better sport;'

and they both agreed that there were no reindeer to be found in the district at present, and the Professor said he was going further north if matters did not mend speedily.

After the fishing and visiting were concluded, we hoisted sails of primitive construction, formed of a rug and a landing net, which, with a fair wind, soon brought us to Gjendesheim.

We think this wind is the chief cause of our misfortune. When we were in these parts before, the wind was always against us whenever we journeyed; and in that year we had first-rate sport, both in shooting and fishing. But this time the wind has always been with us, and we pay for the luxury by getting no shooting and not much fishing. 'No mahtterr--a time will come.'

After food the Skipper with ola went over to Leirungen--a small lake about three quarters of a mile distant. ola carried his canoe, and did not like the job. It gives us considerable satisfaction to make ola do any work, he is so abominably lazy.

It seemed that the tide of luck was already changing, as both he and Esau--who was throwing a fly on the river nearer home--brought in a few nice fish.

Just before bedtime there arrived at the rest-house three Norwegian tourists of the sterner s.e.x, and a young lady the daughter of one of them. The father was a barrister, and the other two were the Lord Chief Justice of what they imagine to be Common Pleas, and a very thin, dried-up student of theology. They all talked English, and the young lady seemed anxious to practise the language.

_August 6._--After a gay breakfast Esau went his way to fish, while the Skipper--ever devoted to the fair s.e.x--offered Miss Louise a cruise in his canoe.

The sun shone brightly as they moved over the quiet waters, and the fish were too lazy to rise, but lay idly thoughtful at the bottom of the lake. The Skipper was very polite to his charming companion, as she sat in a state of blissful comfort amongst the rugs which he had placed for her in the bows of the boat; and no sound was heard but the gentle plash of the paddle in the water, and in the distance the Saeter girl calling home the grazing cows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Skipper takes Miss Louise for a Cruise at Gjendesheim]

But presently a cloud gathered over the mountain tops, and thunder was heard rolling among the distant hills; a gentle breeze stirred the surface of the water, and every lazy fish woke up to seek his food. The Skipper longed to go and fetch his rod. He hinted at this, and at last became impatient; but, by Jove! Miss Louise would not go. There she sat and prattled on, charming, pleased with herself, and utterly unmindful of the rising fish and the fretting Skipper. Time kept pa.s.sing on, till at length her father brought relief by appearing on the sh.o.r.e to call her in to dinner; but then the Skipper had to get his food too, and when he had bolted the humble but indigestible crust and cheese, and rushed out again to seize his rod, he found it too late, as the lake was now dark with clouds, and the fish had left off rising.

Soon after lunch it began to rain like a waterfall, and Esau arrived with a lot of fish--spoils from the Leirungen Ocean, and the result of Spartan indifference to the attractions of woman. There is a shining moral in this tale.

He also brought a romance about a rainbow, which had been so close to him that the two ends met at his feet. The rain hereabouts is very thick.

The evening proved too wet to fish, and this indefatigable young lady captured Esau, and after exhausting all the ordinary topics of conversation, began to show him every kind of puzzle that the mind of man ever conceived, puzzles with coins and puzzles with string; and she puzzled him with matches, and paper, and corks, till the poor young man became perfectly dazzled, and only longed for bedtime to put an end to his misery. Then she asked him riddles, first English and then French.

The Skipper, apparently deeply interested in a book at the further end of the room, overheard Esau's answer to the first French riddle; it was 'Je le donne en haut.'

Presently, when they went up to bed, the Skipper said, 'I didn't quite follow your answer to that first riddle of hers. You said, "Je le donne en haut."' 'Oh! ah!' answered Esau. 'That's idiomatic French, and means a good deal that you don't understand; I always use it to gals, especially when they're pretty.' The Skipper coughed, and turned into his bedroom without saying 'good night.'

We have always been told that the Norwegian aristocracy particularly dislike the English sportsman in Norway. We think, therefore, that our fair friend cannot have been of very n.o.ble lineage. But she was very nice and rather pretty.

She left early next morning, and Esau said he was glad she was gone, as the Skipper was getting entangled with her.

CHAPTER XIV.

JOHN.

_August 7._--We began another day by catching a beautiful bag of fish, and about midday were just starting to shoot our way over to Besse Saeter, when a man came in sight stumbling down the mountain track towards the rest-house. He was red and sunburnt, with a beard of about three days' growth. He was coatless, collarless, and apparently exhausted. On his nearer approach we saw he was an Englishman, and presently when a few yards from us we recognised--John! Not the smart young beau we have always seen him in London; no longer the devotee to society and his club, but an almost unrecognizable John, so sunburnt and hot and hungry. Formal greetings were exchanged: 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?' 'Mr. Stanley, I believe?' and we rushed into each other's embrace.

Then we besought him to refresh himself on fladbrod, milk, and coffee; which he did, largely. After this he became calm enough to give us a brief summary of his adventures since he left England.

He had done the journey from Christiania in very quick time, and had left all his luggage twenty miles behind at Hind Saeter, which is the nearest place to us to which wheeled vehicles can get. From thence he had started at five o'clock this morning. How he found the way is a marvel, but by great good fortune he met a man when he was about three miles out of the track, who put him right; otherwise he would probably never have arrived anywhere.

He has brought additional stores for the camp, as arranged before we left England, and we had left a note in Christiania asking him to call at the shop in Vaage, and try to get a small stove for the tent, or at any rate find out the price of one. Vaage is our nearest village, about fifty miles distant.

When John arrived there, seeing the shop as he drove past, he descended from his cariole and entered. The shop was full of people buying all the necessaries of life; for in these villages there is only one shop, which is a general store for everything. John was a little confused at his first experience of a Norwegian shop, but at last pulled himself together, and seeing a stove standing in the middle of the room, intended for heating the place, he walked up to it, and stroking it gently with his hand, looked round at the people generally and remarked, 'Hvor meget' (How much)? Dead silence not unmingled with awe followed this observation; for those simple rustics thought there was a maniac among them. This perplexed John, and as everybody was staring at him, and he began to find himself in a remarkably tight place, he concluded to make another remark, so asked in Norsk, 'Have you any whisky?' The storekeeper having no licence looked horrified, and said, 'Nei.' So John pursued his advantage by inquiring, 'Have you any aquavit?' 'Nei' was again the answer, and an ominous whisper of 'landsmand' (the policeman) was plainly audible. John thought he had asked enough about stoves to quiet his conscience, and guessed it was time to quit that shop. So rapidly regaining his cariole, he vanished before any of the crowd had made up their minds what to do.

We kept to our plan of going to Besse Saeter, starting as soon as John had finished his lunch, and got several teal and a greenshank on the way. On one little bit of water we spied three teal near the bank, and having both together made a most skilful stalk, got them all.

Arriving at Besse Saeter we found one of the two rooms occupied by two Swedish ladies, who were travelling about by themselves for the sake of their health. One of them spoke English well, and told us they had been up several of the high mountains round, and intended to wander about all the summer.

We three had to be content with the other room, and two beds; odd man out for the whole one. Those who only had half a bed reported it rather a crowd in the morning.

_Sunday, August 8._--Our object in coming to Besse Saeter was to break the journey to a place called Rus Vand, where a Norwegian owns a lake and hut: it is distant about two hours' walk from Besse Saeter, and we had a letter of introduction to Mr. Thomas, the owner, which we were anxious to deliver, so as to obtain leave to fish in the lake, the western end of which comes to within walking distance of our camp in Memurudalen; and the fishing is remarkably good.

Therefore this morning we started to clamber up the steep mountain side that has to be crossed between Besse Saeter and Rus Vand, and skirting the sh.o.r.es of Bes Vand--which lies on a small plateau at the summit--we soon found ourselves scrambling down over the loose stones, and through the willow scrub that covers the uneven slopes approaching the east end of the lake.

From our side of the river--when we reached its banks, while a boat was crossing to fetch us--we saw several men, and a couple of English-looking setters, a pointer, and a target fixed up about 200 yards from the huts, so that the place presented a very sporting appearance.

Mr. Thomas received us very kindly, and at once gave us permission to fish in his lake. Both he and his wife spoke English perfectly, as did another lady staying with them, and as most emphatically did _not_ another sportsman also living there.

These two ladies and two gentlemen were all living in a little two-roomed hut, each room being about nine feet square, and the doorway about five feet high and two wide; the gentlemen's bedroom being also the kitchen. How the ladies managed to turn themselves out in such faultless apparel was a mystery, but it was done, for we saw it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Huts at Rusvasoset]

It is a very plucky thing for ladies to come up here and live for a month, even now when there is a wheel-road (of a sort) to within fifteen miles, but the same thing was done by English ladies ten years ago, when there was no road nearer than forty miles. Are their names not written in the chronicles which adorn the walls of the hut, and carved on the profile fishes which decorate the floor?

In the other hut--which is little more than a boat--there are living Jens Tronhuus, our old stalker; 'Siva,' the man who carried our canoes up the mountain at Sikkildal, and another native, also the dogs; besides bottles and churns, grindstones, pack-saddles, saws, axes, and all the other heterogeneous articles which acc.u.mulate in a place of this kind.

It looked full.

We found the party just sitting down to breakfast after a rather unsettled night, as they had been roused about half-past two in the morning by some one hammering at the door, and found it was a young Norwegian, named, let us say, Coutts, who was making a walking tour, and was more or less lost. They succoured him with coffee and other refreshments and sent him on his way with Jens to guide him. Coutts's intention was to struggle on to Besse Saeter, but we had seen nothing of him there.

We stayed some time at the huts, talking and looking at all the memorable objects that were there under our _regime_ (as we had occupied these huts and had the fishing to ourselves two years previously). There was Esau's celebrated 'biggest trout whatever was seen,' carved on the floor; the Skipper's favourite cast, and the ice safe that we cunningly devised and constructed in the lower hut. The Thomas's are in even worse case than we, for like us they have seen no deer, and they have so many more mouths to feed. However, they have any quant.i.ty of fish, for Rusvasoset is as good a place as the Sjoa at Gjendesheim, which is saying a great deal.

About one we commenced the homeward journey. Two of Jens' sisters had come with us, nominally to see their brother, but really--John a.s.serted--for the purpose of flirting with _him_. He was extremely polite to one of them--though of course he could not speak to her--and would insist on carrying her shawl and other impediments; and he confided to us afterwards that 'women were generally a good deal taken by that sort of mute homage.' She was a dear little girl, and we called her the 'Saeter darlen;' which we believe to be the only Norwegian pun we ever attempted.[*]

[Footnote: John said this pun might be elucidated with advantage to the British public, as he did not believe any one could possibly see it. Who cares? Down it goes, and we can a.s.sure any one who likes to wrestle with it that it is something very good indeed.]

The walk home to Gjendesheim is a long one, and although it was Sunday Esau insisted on making a detour over the marsh with his gun, as he said he had lost his knife there yesterday and wanted to look for it. He arrived late at Gjendesheim with a satisfied air on his face; without his trusty steel, but with his pockets thrust full of too trustful teal, that had adventured themselves within his reach.

At Gjendesheim we found the young Norwegian who had roused up the Thomas's at Rus Vand, and perceived that he was not without some peculiarities of character. Although the weather was as wet and cold as weather could be, he was attired in a suit of white duck clothes like an English mechanic; even his hat was of white duck, and Esau declared afterwards that his boots were made of the same material; that he had a cigar-case and cigars of it, and ordered white ducks for his dinner. The appearance of his head caused us to be very anxious about any little articles of value that we had about us, for it looked as if it had been shaved all over about two days previously to our making his acquaintance. He looked very strong, tough, and active, and no doubt was so, for he had just performed a most extraordinary walking feat. He is going over all the Jotun Mountains by himself, and yesterday morning he started from a place an unknown number of miles away at 6 A.M. He walked all day and all night, till it got dark, at which time he was somewhere near Glitretind, in a country he had never seen, with only a vague notion of where he wanted to get to and a pocket compa.s.s to do it with.

The country about there is perfectly awful to walk over even by day; but he kept at it through the dark, following a torrent up till he crossed the watershed, and following another torrent down till he got to Rus Vand, and staggered into the hut there at 2.30 A.M. almost fainting, for he had had nothing to eat all day: true, he might have got fladbrod at the saeters during the day, but he said he did not care for fladbrod: certainly, he had plenty of chocolate in his knapsack, but he was tired of chocolate. At Rus Vand he got some coffee, as Thomas told us; and then he walked over the mountain with Jens to Besse Saeter, intending to sleep there: but we were snoring at our ease in all the beds of Besse Saeter, and he hated sleeping on floors, so he walked on again to Gjendesheim, arriving there at half-past five this morning.

Then he produced his knapsack, which he said weighed twenty-five lbs.: it seemed to be chiefly filled with packets of most delicious chocolate, some of which he gave us.

We thought him a first-rate fellow, but certainly a little peculiar.

He has been all over the world, and is great at natural history, having stuffed many birds in foreign countries for the museum at Christiania.