PAN

I

These last few days I have been thinking and thinking of the Nordland

summer, with its endless day. Sitting here thinking of that, and of a

hut I lived in, and of the woods behind the hut. And writing things

down, by way of passing the time; to amuse myself, no more. The time

goes very slowly; I cannot get it to pass as quickly as I would, though

I have nothing to sorrow for, and live as pleasantly as could be. I am

well content withal, and my thirty years are no age to speak of.

A few days back someone sent me two feathers. Two bird's feathers in a

sheet of note-paper with a coronet, and fastened with a seal. Sent from

a place a long way off; from one who need not have sent them back at

all. That amused me too, those devilish green feathers.

And for the rest I have no troubles, unless for a touch of gout now and

again in my left foot, from an old bullet-wound, healed long since.

Two years ago, I remember, the time passed quickly--beyond all

comparison more quickly than time now. A summer was gone before I knew.

Two years ago it was, in 1855. I will write of it just to amuse

myself--of something that happened to me, or something I dreamed. Now, I

have forgotten many things belonging to that time, by having scarcely

thought of them since. But I remember that the nights were very light.

And many things seemed curious and unnatural. Twelve months to the

year--but night was like day, and never a star to be seen in the sky.

And the people I met were strange, and of a different nature from those

I had known before; sometimes a single night was enough to make them

blossom out from childhood into the full of their glory, ripe and fully

grown. No witchery in this; only I had never seen the like before. No.

In a white, roomy home down by the sea I met with one who busied my

thoughts for a little time. I do not always think of her now; not any

more. No; I have forgotten her. But I think of all the other things: the

cry of the sea-birds, my hunting in the woods, my nights, and all the

warm hours of that summer. After all, it was only by the merest accident

I happened to meet her; save for that, she would never have been in my

thoughts for a day.

From the hut where I lived, I could see a confusion of rocks and reefs

and islets, and a little of the sea, and a bluish mountain peak or so;

behind the hut was the forest. A huge forest it was; and I was glad and

grateful beyond measure for the scent of roots and leaves, the thick

smell of the fir-sap, that is like the smell of marrow. Only the forest

could bring all things to calm within me; my mind was strong and at

ease. Day after day I tramped over the wooded hills with Æsop at my

side, and asked no more than leave to keep on going there day after day,

though most of the ground was covered still with snow and soft slush. I

had no company but Æsop; now it is Cora, but at that time it was Æsop,

my dog that I afterwards shot.

Often in the evening, when I came back to the hut after being out

shooting all day, I could feel that kindly, homely feeling trickling

through me from head to foot--a pleasant little inward shivering. And I

would talk to Æsop about it, saying how comfortable we were. “There, now

we'll get a fire going, and roast a bird on the hearth,” I would say;

“what do you say to that?” And when it was done, and we had both fed,

Æsop would slip away to his place behind the hearth, while I lit a pipe

and lay down on the bench for a while, listening to the dead soughing of

the trees. There was a slight breeze bearing down towards the hut, and I

could hear quite clearly the clutter of a grouse far away on the ridge

behind. Save for that, all was still.

And many a time I fell asleep there as I lay, just as I was, fully

dressed and all, and did not wake till the seabirds began calling. And

then, looking out of the window, I could see the big white buildings of

the trading station, the landing stage at Girilund, the store where I

used to get my bread. And I would lie there a while, wondering how I

came to be there, in a hut on the fringe of a forest, away up in

Nordland.

Then Æsop over by the hearth would shake out his long, slender body,

rattling his collar, and yawning and wagging his tail, and I would jump

up, after those three or four hours of sleep, fully rested and full of

joy in everything ... everything.

Many a night passed just that way.