Through Finland in Carts Part 10

We pa.s.sed _Niva_; here and there the waters of a lake glinted in the sunshine, or a river wound away to the sea, strewn with floating wood, as though its waters were one huge raft.

The singing ceased; save the merry laugh of the Finnish girl, nothing but the click-cluck-click of the wheels was audible. The guard leaned over her, whispered in her ear, then, as if yielding to some sudden impulse, pressed her to his heart; and, still to the accompaniment of that endless click-cluck-click, implanted a kiss on her full round lips.

For a moment they stood thus, held in warm embrace, muttering those sweet nothings which to lovers mean all the world.

Suddenly the door behind them opened, and one of the singers, nervous and excited from the long practice of his national airs, came upon the bridge to let the gentle zephyrs cool his heated brow.

All smiles, this sunburnt blonde, whose hair fell in long locks, cut off straight, like the ancient saints in pictures, stood before us--his pink flannel shirt almost matching the colour of his complexion.

In a moment all was changed; his happy smile vanished into a glance of deadly hate, the colour fled from his face, leaving him ashy-pale, fire literally shot from his eyes as he gazed upon his affianced bride; but he did not speak.

His hand violently sought his belt, and in a moment the long blade of one of those Scandinavian _puukko_--knives all peasants use--gleamed in the sunshine. For an instant he balanced it on high, and then, with a shriek more wild than human, he plunged the blade deep down into his betrothed's white breast.

Like a tiger the guilty guard sprang upon him; madly they fought while the girl lay still and senseless at their feet, a tiny stream of blood trickling from her breast.

Northern rage once roused is uncontrollable; and there, on the bridge of the moving train, those two men struggled for mastery, till--yes, yes--the light railing gave way, and together the hater and the hated fell over the side, and were cut to pieces by the wheels.

What a moment! a groan, a piercing shriek, rent the air!

Then, with a gasp, hot and cold, and wet by turns, I woke to find it was all a dream!

The run to _Sordavala_ proved a hot and tedious journey of seven hours, but even dusty railway journeys must come to an end, and we arrived at our destination in Eastern Finland about three o'clock.

The crowd at the country station was horrible, and the clamour for cabs, carts, and the general odds and ends of vehicles in waiting to transfer us to our destination, reminded us much of Ober Ammergau on a smaller scale.

This _Sordavala_ festival is really the outcome of an old religious ceremony, just as the Welsh Eisteddfod is a child of Druidical meetings for prayer and song. In ancient days bards sang and prayed, and now both in Finland and in England the survival is a sort of musical compet.i.tion.

Our Eisteddfod, encouraged by the landed proprietors of Wales, forms a useful bond between landlord and tenant, employer and employed. It is held yearly, in different towns, and prizes are given for choir singing, for which fifty to a hundred voices will a.s.semble from one village, all the choirs joining together in some of the great choruses. Rewards are also given for knitting, for the best national costumes, for solo singing, violin and harp playing, for original poems in Welsh, and for recitations.

In Finland the compet.i.tion, strangely enough, also takes place once a year, and dates back to the old _Runo_ Singers, who orally handed down the national music from generation to generation. Each time the Festival is, as in Wales, held in a different town, the idea being to raise the tastes of the populace, and to encourage the practice of music among a thoroughly musical people. Clubs or choirs are sent from all corners of Finland to compete; the old national airs--of which there are hundreds, ay thousands--are sung, and that unique native instrument the _Kantele_ is played. For hundreds of years these _Runo_ Singers have handed on the songs of their forefathers by word of mouth, and have kept their history alive.

It was _Elias Lonnrot_ who collected these _Kantele_ songs. For years and years he travelled about the country gathering them together by ear and word of mouth, and, having weeded out the repet.i.tions, he edited the famous epical _Kalevala_, and later collected quant.i.ties of other lyric ballads from the heathen times, and published them as _Kanteletar_. Thus much ancient music and verse was revived that had almost been forgotten.

But of this we must speak in the next chapter.

That Finland is thoroughly musical may be inferred from the dozens of choirs sent to the _Sordavala_ Festival from all parts of the country.

The peasant voices, in spite of being but slightly trained, or at all events trained very little, sing together wonderfully. Indeed, it was surprising to find how they could all take their proper parts, and keep to them; but the supreme delight, perhaps, of the Festival was the student corps, composed of fifty men from the University of _Helsingfors_, who sang together most beautifully, the choir being conducted by one of themselves. They had some glorious voices among them, and as they sang the national airs of Finland, marching backwards and forwards to the park, their feet keeping time with their music, the effect of their distant singing in the pine-woods was most enthralling.

Strangely enough, when they went to sing on the public platform raised in the park for the occasion, they wore evening dress and white gloves.

Dress-clothes are somewhat of a rarity in Finland, as they are in many other continental countries; but there they stood in a semicircle on the dais, each man with his white velvet student cap in his hand, and, to the spectators, standing a little in the distance, the effect of snowy-white shirt, white gloves, and white cap shown up in the glancing sunbeams by black clothes, was somewhat funny.

The performers met with tremendous applause, and certainly deserved it.

Although German students often sing beautifully, and are indeed famous for their rendering of the _Volkslieder_, those from _Helsingfors_ sang as well if not better.

We often dined at the same hotel where they lodged, during the week, and when they marched in they sang a grace. After they had finished their dinner, they generally, before leaving, sang two or three songs by special request of visitors dining at the various tables.

Morning, noon, and night those students sang! Small bands of them went to meet the trains coming in, if they expected friends, and stood upon the platform l.u.s.tily singing their welcome. They went to see other friends off, and, amidst much doffing of caps, they sang farewell songs.

They marched in torchlight processions--although the torches were not very successful when all was daylight--and everywhere they went they met with the greatest enthusiasm.

Modern singing at the Festival, in parts and glees, was very good, showing the great musical talent of the people, while especially delightful were the out-of-door concerts. Another charm of the Festival consisted in the exhibition of peasants' work.

As we entered the museum where we were to hear the _Kantele_ Concert, we stood transfixed. At a bare wooden table a quite, quite old man with long-flowing locks was sitting with his elbows on the boards, his hands stretched over his _Kantele_, which he was playing delightfully.

The small flat musical instrument reminded one of the zither of Tyrol, while the strange airs bore some similarity to the bagpipe music of Scotland, at least in time, which, like the piper, the old man beat with his foot. His blue eyes were fixed on the wall opposite, with a strange, weird, far-off look, and never for one moment did he relax his gaze. He seemed absolutely absorbed by his music, and as the queer old figure--a sort of Moses with his long beard--played his native instrument, amid the quaint trappings of the museum for background, we felt enthralled by the sombre surroundings and curious apparition, who might have been _Wainamoinen_ himself, the mythological G.o.d of music in Finland.

Others followed; they all played charmingly, and their usually sombre faces seemed quite changed by the sounds of music. Music has always played an important part in the history of Finland--for good be it owned, and not, as Tolstoi suggested, to arouse the vilest pa.s.sions.

Look at the faces of the people dowered with such legends. The _Runo_ Singers live in another world from ours. Theirs is the land of poetry and romance; theirs the careless, happy dream of life. The things of this world, the sordid littleness, the petty struggles, the very fight for bread, they wot not of, for they are content with little. Socialism and Syndicalism have not robbed them of life's joys.

They sit and sing, and dream. See the far-away look on yon man's features; see how intensely he gazes on some vision painted visibly for him on the blank wall. His very face and mind seem transported to other realms. As the song rises and falls his expression alters, and when he strikes those stirring chords on the _Kantele_ and speaks of bloodshed and war his whole being seems changed.

We noticed one peculiarity with the _Runo_ Singers, viz., that each vocalist repeated the whole line twice. For instance--

"The old man fished." All the others took up the word "fished," and then every one present sang the whole of the line a second time in company with the original singer, again repeating the word _fished_ at the end alone. After that the original singer took up the next line by himself, his friends repeating the last word, ere joining him in the repet.i.tion of the line itself.

This seemed to be a speciality, for we noticed it again and again, and, as the performers all chanted well together, the effect was delightful; at the same time the practice unduly lengthens the progress of the songs, some of which go on for hours in a dull, monotonous recitative.

We always had to cross the river at _Sordavala_ whenever we went out to dinner, or attended any of the concerts, as our home was on one bank and the representations and restaurant on the other, and one old Russian boatman was particularly attentive in waiting about for us at the hours when he thought it likely we should require to be ferried over. His bark was decorated, like all the other craft at _Sordavala_, with silver birch, which, as we knew, is sacred in Finland, and great branches of its silver boughs were cut to ornament the _kuiru_ (native boats). It was wonderful what a pretty effect this gave, for they were not little boughs, but great branches stuck on the rowlocks in such a manner as to make the boat appear a veritable bower. When several craft were on the water together, they had the effect of a beautiful picture, with the red and pink shirts of the boatmen, and the white or black handkerchiefs over the women's heads.

Our old Russian was a wonderful-looking individual, with s.h.a.ggy grisly locks which fell in regular ringlets upon his shoulders--the sort of man one would love to paint. Every wrinkle upon his face was italicised by dirt, and his faded red shirt appeared a dream of colour for an artist's eye. He was much interested in us all, and at last he ventured to ask Frau von Lilly where the ladies came from.

"England," she replied in Russian.

"Ah! I know about England," he returned; "it has many big towns, and they are strong towns. England is much afraid that our Tzar might take those big towns."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, _I know_; but the ladies do not look English, they are so dark. Is it the fierce sun of their country that has burned them so black?"

We laughed; we had heard of many things, but not often of "the fierce sun of England."

"_You_ are not English?" he went on, addressing our friend.

"No," replied Frau von Lilly, "I am a Finlander."

"You? Why, you speak Russian, and you are dark, too; your face is not like a Finn's, it is not wide enough, and your hair is too black. He,"

pointing to Grandpapa, "is a Finlander, and looks like one."

Fancy such observations from an old Russian boatman. The same wonderful interest in our concerns and welfare was, however, evinced on all sides.

The whole town of _Sordavala_ had positively thrilled with excitement when the Committee of the Fete learned that some English people were coming to their Festival. Instantly that Committee wrote to say they would do everything they could for the visitors' "komfort," which they certainly did. They gave us the best rooms in the place, they opened their museums for us that we might view them, privately, they gave us _Runo_ singing entertainments with ourselves for sole audience, they found seats for us in the theatre when every seat was sold, and they treated us in all ways as though we had been princesses. But everything we said was noted, and everything we did cautiously watched; therefore for a short time we tasted something of the horrors of that publicity which must be the bane of existence to royalty.

Long after we had left _Sordavala_ we happened to refer to that town when conversing with some friends.

"Isn't it amusing?" one of them observed. "I saw in the paper the other day that some English people who went to _Sordavala_ for the Festival, had written beforehand a letter to the Manager of the Committee to say "they required a suite of apartments, not higher than the third floor, with a bathroom."

We could not help smiling. It was the old story of "The Three Black Crows" over again! We had been the only English people at the Festival, we had never written a line ourselves to any member of the Committee; a native friend had done so for us, however, saying "that rooms would be required for three ladies, two English, and one Finnish."

One of the features of the Festival which interested us the most was a representation, at a little improvised theatre, of a typical modern Finnish play, by Finnish actors.