[Illustration: BEAR-HUNT.
_Front._]
FOREST SCENES
IN
NORWAY AND SWEDEN:
BEING
Extracts from the Journal of a Fisherman.
BY
THE REV. HENRY NEWLAND,
RECTOR AND VICAR OF WESTBOURNE,
AUTHOR OF “THE ERNE: ITS LEGENDS AND ITS FLY-FISHING,” ETC. ETC.
The Second Edition.
LONDON:
G. ROUTLEDGE & CO. FARRINGDON STREET;
NEW YORK: 18, BEEKMAN STREET.
1855.
TO MY MUCH-ESTEEMED FRIEND, THE PUBLIC.
MY DEAR PUBLIC,—
I have frequently heard you remark, in that quaint and pithy manner so
peculiarly your own, that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
If you should happen to find the book which I here present to your notice
to be really of such a character as your friend Jack might have written
under these distressing circumstances, I am afraid I cannot plead this
very sensible observation of yours as my excuse; for I must confess,
which I do with thankfulness, that in my time I have enjoyed quite as
much play as is good for me, or for any one, in this working-day world of
ours. On this point, therefore, my book must stand on its own merits.
But, as I am extremely solicitous of your good opinion, and should be
very sorry to see you err on the opposite extreme, imagining, as indeed
you might, that mine has been “all play and no work,” I must request you
to look at the Parson at home as well as the Parson abroad,—in short, to
read my “Confirmation and First Communion,” as well as my “Forest Life;”
a proceeding which, if it does not benefit you, my dear Public (and I
sincerely hope it may), will, at all events,—through the medium of his
Publisher,—benefit, and that materially,
Your faithful Servant,
THE AUTHOR.
WESTBOURNE VICARAGE, _July 7th, 1854_.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION _Page_ 1
CHAPTER I.—Preparations 8
CHAPTER II.—The Voyage 18
CHAPTER III.—The Shipwash Sand 26
CHAPTER IV.—The Landfall 38
CHAPTER V.—Christiansand 49
CHAPTER VI.—The Torjedahl 61
CHAPTER VII.—The Encampment Mosse Eurd 78
CHAPTER VIII.—Making a Night of it 92
CHAPTER IX.—The Hell Fall 108
CHAPTER X.—Departure from Torjedahl 122
CHAPTER XI.—The Mountain March 141
CHAPTER XII.—The Homestead 158
CHAPTER XIII.—The Church 172
CHAPTER XIV.—Breaking up the Encampment 193
CHAPTER XV.—Eider Duck Hunting 203
CHAPTER XVI.—The Coasting Voyage 220
CHAPTER XVII.—Gotheborg 238
CHAPTER XVIII.—Trollhättan 253
CHAPTER XIX.—Gäddebäck 267
CHAPTER XX.—Wenern 280
CHAPTER XXI.—The Meet 295
CHAPTER XXII.—The Commencement of the Skal 305
CHAPTER XXIII.—The Satterval 318
CHAPTER XXIV.—Making another Night of it 333
CHAPTER XXV.—The Watch Fire 349
CHAPTER XXVI.—Beating out the Skal 367
CHAPTER XXVII.—The Ball 377
CHAPTER XXVIII.—The Wedding 389
CHAPTER XXIX.—Homeward Bound 402
FOREST LIFE: A FISHERMAN’S SKETCHES IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN.
INTRODUCTION.
Sketches in Norway and Sweden! Are they fact or fiction? are they to be
instructive or simply entertaining? These are questions which the public
has a right to ask, and which the author means to answer as truly as he
can. He hopes there will be a little of both. At least, in making this
selection from his own and his friends’ journals, he has had both these
objects in his eye, and he trusts he has been able to keep his eye upon
them both at the same time, and that without any very great amount of
squinting. The framework which he has adopted is that of a very popular
description of authors—the historical romancers, and, if he might venture
to say so, of a certain equally popular historian: that is to say,
fiction founded upon fact. He has laid down absolute facts, or what he
believes to be facts, for his groundwork, and has dressed them up to suit
his fancy.
These Northern Sketches are, in truth, a continuation of a former work,
“The Erne, its Legends and its Fly-fishing;” as the expedition which
gave rise to them was in every respect the same as the old Belleek
fishing-association, with a simple change of scene. They are therefore
written upon the same plan, which the author has found extremely
convenient and very suitable to his purpose.
That purpose was not only to preserve the recollections of a most
enjoyable time, but also to convey as much real information on the
subjects treated on as he could compass; and with such an object before
him, absolute fiction would have been useless.
His descriptions, therefore, in that book were real descriptions, his
anecdotes, real anecdotes—the incidents of the story did actually happen;
his instructions in the art of fly-fishing and the hydrography of the
river were the results of his own experience, and the fairy legends
were his own collections. Unless these things had been true, his book
would have been merely a book of entertainment,—and he was ambitious of
something beyond that. Everything of this kind, therefore, was recorded
accurately; and in the few instances in which the requirements of the
story compelled the author to transplant his incidents, their real
localities were always given.
All this was important to the public, or, at least, as important as the
subject itself; but it was of no consequence to any one, except for the
gratification of mere curiosity, to be able to identify the precise
Captain A. who broke the weirs of the Laune, while such information
would not have raised Captain A.’s character at the Horse-Guards. The
Liberal member for B. might enjoy the recollection of the row he got up
at Kildoney, but might not find it convenient to be reminded of it on the
hustings. Attorneys might look askance at Barrister C., who for a whole
summer had directed his studies to the practice of Club-law; while Parson
D., who had passed three months of his life waist-high in the Erne, might
possibly expect, were he identified, to have cold water thrown upon him
by his Bishop for the rest of his life.
With all these matters, interesting enough to the characters themselves,
the public had nothing whatever to do: it was sufficient for them that
they had their information and their story; and, provided the incidents
of that story happened to some one, it signified little to them, which,
of all the letters of the alphabet, composed his name. The public should
feel grateful to any fisherman who has truly revealed the silks and
feathers of his favourite fly; it is what very few fishermen will do: let
them be satisfied with that: they shall never know—they have no right to
know—which of all the “Squires” that haunted the Erne it was who landed
the “Schoolmaster” on the “Bank of Ireland.”
In the present sketches the author has not so much reason to conceal the
names of his characters; he can hurt no one. He has no rows or “ructions”
to record; more’s the pity, for there is nothing so interesting to
read about. Still, there are advantages in carrying out the same plan:
first, it makes the continuation obvious—some of the Erne characters
are again introduced: and this is not a fiction; for when rail-roads
began to multiply, and sporting cockneys began to infest the innocent
Erne, frightening its salmon and exacerbating its proprietors, that
pleasant coterie of fishermen, who, in earlier and better times, were
wont to concoct their punch and tell their stories at Mother Johnstone’s
fire-side, and hang their great two-handed rods upon her hospitable
brackets, actually did betake themselves to the exile of foreign lands.
But, in the second place, it conveys the same information in a more
entertaining manner: the author is able to piece his characters; making
them, like _Mrs. Malaprop’s_ Cerberus, “three gentlemen at once,” by
combining into one the incidents that happened to many. The author has
thus availed himself of other journals and other note-books besides his
own, and has been able to appropriate their contents, and to distribute
whatever was characteristic of the country, into a series of connected
sketches, instead of perpetually changing his locality and introducing
new characters. He by no means intends to identify himself with his
fictitious Parson, nor will he even undertake to say, that he was himself
in all instances personally present whenever the Parson comes upon the
scene: he will answer for the truth of nothing beyond the detached
incidents and descriptions.
Neither can these Sketches be used as an itinerary. Now and then,
though not often, names of places have been even suppressed or altered,
and incidents transplanted. They will, indeed, give glimpses—slight,
but true as far as they go—of northern scenery, costume, travelling
peculiarities, and, above all, sport. They will contain practical hints
and available directions, but it is only in a general way. They are
not at all intended as a guide-book, nor will they at all supersede the
indispensable Murray.
The traveller, following upon the author’s footsteps, will find himself
lost at two points of the narrative—the village of Soberud, and the
locality of the Skal. In the former of these the reason is evident
enough—the author wishes to convey an idea of what sort of men the
Norwegian clergy are, not to draw the attention of subsequent travellers
to any individual clergyman. In the case of the skal there is another
reason. Although Mr. Lloyd, the author of “Northern Wild Sports,” being
a great hunter, has always contrived to get a shot at the bear, it is,
nevertheless, true, that an ordinary man sees about as much of a skal as
a regimental officer does of a battle—that is to say, he sees about a
dozen men on each side of him: and, it may well happen, that the share
of any given individual in the most successful of skals, will amount
to hearing a great deal of firing, and, at the end of three or four
days’ hard work, seeing five or six carcasses paraded at the nearest
village. In order, therefore, to give his readers a graphic sketch of a
skal, without violently outraging probability, it was necessary for the
author to _make his ground_, that is to say, to imagine ground of such a
description that it was possible for his characters to see what was going
on. It is not altogether fictitious either, for the traveller will find a
good deal of it in the Toftdahl Valley, though this was never, so far as
the author knows, the scene of a summer skal.
Similarly, also, though there is no such village as Soberud, that
being the name of a district near Larvig in which Sir Hyde Parker’s
fishing-lodge is situated and where the author caught a good many
salmon and trout, yet the traveller will be able to patch together
the fictitious country from real and actual elements. The church is
Hitterdahl—but as there is no lake at Hitterdahl, one has been borrowed
for it from the country between Larvig and Frederiksvärn—the “Lake of the
Woods” is, really, about four miles north-east of the village of Boen;
the little lake where the diver was shot, together with the forest about
it, about as far to the west of the same place; and the dark sombre pine
wood is, really, situated in the valley of the Nid. This last has been
slightly altered to suit the locality, for it is next to impossible to
lose oneself in the Nid forest, the river itself being sufficient guide;
but the rest is all drawn as accurately as the author’s recollections,
aided by his journals, will enable him to depict it. With respect to
the characters, Tom, Torkel, and Jacob were attendants on the author
and his companions, and, though “a little rose upon,” to use a nautical
expression, are drawn from actual life, and in their own proper names.
The Captain and Parson, as has been said before, are not to be considered
actual characters; that is to say, characters responsible as having
done and said all that they are represented to have done and said, but
merely as pegs upon which to hang the author’s personal experiences, or
pieces of information which he may have received. The same may be said
of Birger. It was necessary to associate with the party an intelligent
Swede, and Lieut. Birger was chosen to fill that office. Bjornstjerna
is wholly fictitious. Hjelmar is a real character; and his adventure
in the Najaden frigate was related by him exactly as they are conveyed
to the reader, the steamer following out among the islands the precise
track of the chase. The author, however, will not undertake to say that
the actual name of Hjelmar will be found on the watch and quarter bills
of the frigate, though Hulm was actually her captain, and was actually
buried near Lyngör, where his monument may be seen to this day. Moodie is
a real character, though his name, also, is fictitious; or, rather, it
is derived from a nick-name that the author understands he has acquired
either by his courage or his foolhardiness: the appellation Modige,
which is pronounced very like our English name, Moodie, is translatable
either way. He does not, however, live at Gäddebäck, which is the name
of a house formerly occupied by the celebrated Mr. Lloyd, the author
of “Wild Sports of the North,” and “Scandinavian Adventures,” to whose
kindness the author is indebted for his being able to describe, from
experience, the fishing of the Gotha, which is drawn as accurately as
the author’s recollection served him. The traveller need not, however,
fear the quicksand which engulphed poor Jacob; that scene, and a very
ridiculous one it was, occurred on the Torjedahl just below Oxea. The
fisherman is cautioned not to be guided in his choice of a river by the
author’s success on the Torjedahl. It is too clear, too much overhung,
and too steadily and regularly rapid to be a first-rate river under any
circumstances. There are few shallows in it, for there are no tributaries
below the Falls of Wigeland, and no salmon can get above them; therefore,
its breeding-ground is very limited indeed; probably the flats of Strei,
Oxea, and Mosse Eurd, form the whole of it. The author’s success must be
attributed to the fact of his fly having been the first of his kind that
ever floated on those transparent waters.
The songs which are put into the mouths of the different characters,
are really Norwegian or Swedish, and are given as specimens. They are
translations by Hewitt, Forester, Knightley, and others. Scandinavia has
always been remarkable for its lyrical poetry from the earliest times;
and the _Gammle Norgé_ of Bjerregaard, which is given in chapter viii.,
would seem to show that the cup of poetic inspiration which Odin stole
from the keeping of Gunlauth, and stored up in Asgard, is not yet empty.
By far the best of the modern poets of the North is Grundtvig, but his
subjects are, for the most part, of a nature too solemn for a work so
light as this; a short specimen from his hymns is given in chapter xviii.
The Evening Hymn, in chapter xxiii., though in common use in Norway, is
not Norwegian; it belongs to the ancient church, and is said to be as old
as the days of Ambrose and Augustine.
The legends are collected from all manner of sources: many of them
from Tom and Torkel, some from the Eddas and Sagas, some from Malet
and Knightley; they are all, however, legitimate Scandinavian legends,
believed implicitly by some one or other.
One word about the voyage out. It signifies little to the public when and
where those incidents really happened—whether in the North Sea, or in the
Bay of Biscay, or in the Mediterranean; but it signifies to them a great
deal, to know that these things actually did happen once, and may happen
again at any time.
The main incidents adapted to that fictitious voyage are strictly and
literally true. A large steamer was upon one occasion in the precise
situation ascribed to the _Walrus_,—and—in the absence of its skipper,
who for the time had mysteriously disappeared—was saved by the promptness
of one of the passengers, precisely as is described in the narrative.
And it is also true that the same vessel, after a run of not more than
five hundred miles, did find herself fifty miles out of her course.
The compasses, no doubt, being in fault, as they always are on such
occasions—poor things!
These are important matters for the public to be made acquainted with;
for the public do very frequently go down to the sea in steamers, and
therefore any individual reader may at any time find himself in the very
same situation.
The author has enlarged upon this, in the faint hope of drawing attention
to these matters. He would suggest that some sort of superintendence
would not be altogether superfluous, and that it is not entirely right
that the lives of two or three hundred men on the deep sea should
be entrusted to a skipper not competent to navigate a river, nor be
committed to a vessel so parsimoniously found as to be unable to
encounter casualties which might happen any day in a voyage to Ramsgate.
On a subject so important as this, the author thinks it his duty to state
that these incidents, extraordinary as they may appear, are in no way
fictitious; that they did happen under his own eye; and that the mate,
the only real sailor on board, did request of him, after the escape, a
certificate that he, at least, had done his duty. If that man should
be still alive, he possesses a most unique document, a certificate of
seamanship, signed by a clergyman of the United Church of England and
Ireland.
The skipper’s name the author does not think it necessary to record. He
is not likely to be employed again; for he is one of those who have since
immortalised themselves in the public prints, by losing his vessel—a
circumstance which, it will readily be believed, did not excite any very
great feelings of surprise in the mind of the author.
CHAPTER I.
PREPARATIONS.
“In every corner
Carefully look thou
Ere forth thou goest.”
_Hávamál._
There is no saying more true than that “he who would make a tour abroad,
must first make the tour of London.” There are miscellaneous articles
of appropriate clothing to be got together; there are bags, knapsacks,
portmanteaus, to be fitted. Above all, there are passports to be
procured; than which no plague more vexatious, more annoying, or more
utterly useless for any practicable or comprehensible purpose, has been
devised by modern ingenuity.
But if this is a necessary preliminary on ordinary occasions, much more
is it necessary when the contemplated expedition has for its object
sporting, and the northern wildernesses for its contemplated locality. In
addition to the cares of ordinary travel, there are now tents, blankets,
cloaks, guns, rifles, to be thought of; rods, reels, gaffs, lines, to
be overhauled and repaired; material-books to be replenished, and the
commissariat department to be adequately looked to. Deep and anxious, yet
not without their pleasures, are the responsibilities which rest on the
shoulders of him who undertakes the conduct of such an expedition as this.
Such were the thoughts that crossed the mind of the Parson, as—business
in his musing eye, care on his frowning brow, and determination in his
compressed lip—he stood under the archway of the Golden Cross; his hands
mechanically feeling for the pockets of his fishing-jacket, which had
been exchanged for a clerical frock-coat more befitting the locality,
and his mouth pursing itself up for his habitual whistle, which, had he
indulged in it where he then stood, might have been considered neither
appropriate nor decorous.
“Don’t you think this list rather a long one,” said the Captain, who
had now joined him from the interior of the hotel, holding in his hand
a pretty closely-written sheet of foolscap. “These are all very good
things, and very useful things no doubt, but how are we to stow them, and
how are we to carry them? Yours is anything but light marching order.”
“Why should it be?”
“My principle is, that no traveller can be too lightly equipped.”
“And a very good principle, too,” said the Parson. “Heavy and useless
incumbrances are the invariable attributes of travelling Englishmen. You
may know them by their endless train of household goods, as you would
know a snail by its shell.”
“I believe,” said the Captain, “that foreign rail-roads are regulated
precisely so as to tax us English tourists. Travel on whatever line you
please in England, except that grasping Brighton and South Coast, and you
may take just exactly what luggage you like; while abroad, the fare is
so low and the charge for luggage so high, that an Englishman generally
pays double; while the Frenchman, whose three spare collars and bottle
of hair-oil are in his pocket; and the German, whose great tobacco-bag
and little reticule of necessaries are so constructed as to fit the
allowance, are permitted to go free.”
“Upon my word, I do not object to the tax; it is a tax upon folly.
What can be so absurd as such a miscellaneous collection as Englishmen
generally carry with them? What can a traveller want beyond a dry suit of
clothes and half-a-dozen shirts and stockings?”
“There is a slight incongruity between your words and your actions,” said
the Captain, holding up the list.
“Tush! put that paper into your pocket, and tell me what we are going to
do. When I went on my reconnoitring expedition to Norway last year, my
fourteen-foot rod, my fly-book, and a change of clothes constituted all
the cares of my life; and I contend, as you do, that no traveller whose
object is information has any business with more. But we are going now
more in the character of settlers: we are not going to explore, but to
enjoy that which has been explored for us. Why should we not, therefore,
take whatever may make life enjoyable?”
“Only for fear we may be called upon to choose between leaving them
behind or leaving our purpose unaccomplished,” said the Captain.
“Do you think I have calculated my ambulances so badly? But come along.
We must consult Fortnum and Mason first. I can explain all that on our
road.
“Considering how wild and uninhabited the greater part of the country
is, both in Norway and Sweden,” the Parson resumed, as they crossed the
pavement under Nelson’s pillar, “it is astonishing how easily you may
travel, and how little impediment are your _impedimenta_. The posting
regulations are admirable. On every road there are posting stations
at convenient distances, and, by writing to these, the traveller may
command, at stated prices, every horse and cart in the district.”
“And at moderate prices?” said the Captain, whose means were not so
abundant as to make him indifferent to expense.
“No, not at moderate prices; for I do not call a penny an English mile a
moderate price, and this is what you pay in Sweden; and in Norway it is
not more than three-halfpence, except in favoured spots in the vicinity
of towns, where they are permitted to charge three-fold. My plans,
therefore, are these. We are not going to travel, but to visit certain
fishing stations, most of which are at no great distance from the coast;
let us take, therefore, everything that will make us comfortable at these
different settlements. As long as we coast, we have always traders of
some sort or other, and generally as nice and comfortable little steamers
as you can desire. When our road lies along the fjords or lakes, boats
are to be had from the post stations on the same terms as you get the
carts, a rower reckoning the same as a horse; and when we want to take
to the land, we have but to order as many carts as will hold our traps.”
“And how do we travel ourselves?” said the Captain.
“There is no carriage in the world so pleasant for fine weather as the
cariole; and I propose that we each buy one. If we have to get them new,
they do not cost above thirty specie-dalers—that is to say, about seven
or eight pounds—with all their harness and fittings, in the very first
style; and you may always sell them again at the end of your journey.
That is the way the natives manage, and they are terrible gadabouts.
You always find some jobber or other to take it off your hands. But the
chances are that we shall meet with a choice of second-hand carioles to
begin with. I gave twenty specie-dalers for mine last year, and sold it
for fifteen. Drammen is the place for these things, up in Christiania
fjord: it is the Long Acre of Norway.”
“What sort of things are these carioles?—Gigs, I suppose, to carry two.”
“Not they—barely one: and no great room for baggage either. A
Scandinavian is of your way of thinking, and does not trouble himself
with spare shirts. One horse draws one man, and that is all. If your gig
carries two, you are charged a horse and a half for it. In Sweden they
have a sort of light spring waggon, drawn by three horses, which will
take our followers admirably, with as much luggage as we like to stow;
and by having the collars of the harness made open at the top, they will
do for all the variety of horses we may meet with on our road. This is
better than the Norwegian mode of engaging the farm carts; for in this,
so much time is lost at every stage in restowing luggage, that it becomes
a serious hindrance. However, in Norway we must do as the Norwegians do.
The light waggon would make a very unpleasant conveyance down some of
their mountain roads.”
“And how do you manage crossing the fjords and lakes?”
“Easily enough. Every ferry-boat will take a cariole; and as for
coasting, a cariole ranks as a deck passenger—that is to say, about ten
skillings for a sea mile, you paying for your own passage in the cabin
about twenty.”
“You travellers get so confoundedly technical. What the deuce do you mean
by a sea mile and a skilling? And how am I to compare two things neither
of which I know anything about?”
“A regular traveller’s fault,” said the Parson. “There is not a book
written that does not abound with these absurdities. Well, a skilling is
a halfpenny in our money, and a sea mile is four of our miles, and a land
mile eight, nearly.”
“Pretty liberal in their measures of length,” said the Captain.
“Why, they have plenty of it, and to spare; as you will find when
you come to travel from one place to another. But their money is not
plentiful, and they dole it out in very small denominations indeed.”
“But here we are at Fortnum and Mason’s; and now for the stores.”
“I observe, you always go to the most expensive places,” said the Captain.
“That is because I cannot afford to go to the cheaper ones,” said the
Parson. “On such an expedition as this, you should never take inferior
stores. One hamper turning out bad when unpacked at the end of a thousand
miles or so of carriage, will make more than the difference between the
cheapest and the most expensive shop in London. But, to show you that I
do study economy, I will resist the temptation of these preserved meats;
and, let me tell you, it is a temptation, for up the country you will
get nothing but what you catch, gather, or shoot. This, however, is a
necessary,” pointing to some skins of portable soup; “there is not a
handier thing for a traveller; it goes in the smallest compass of any
sort of provisions; it is always useful on a pinch, and some chips of
it carried in the waistcoat pocket on a pedestrian expedition, make a
dinner, not exactly luxurious, but quite sufficient to do work upon.
This we must lay in a good store of; in fact, if we have this, we need
not be very anxious about anything else. Other things are luxuries:
this is a necessary of life. Tea we must take: there is nothing more
refreshing after a hard day’s work, and you cannot get it anywhere in the
country. At least, what you do meet with is altogether _maris expers_,
being a villanous composition of dried strawberry leaves and other home
productions. Oil, too—we must take plenty of that; we shall want it for
the frying-pan.”
“Have they no butter, then?” said the Captain.
“Yes, they have, and in great plenty too; of all varieties of quality,
from very bad, down to indescribably beastly. They call it smör,
pronouncing the dotted _o_ like the French _eu_; and I can assure you
their very best butter tastes just as the word sounds.”
“Well, then, I vote for some of these sardines, to take off the taste.”
“With all my heart,” said the Parson; “they flavour anything, when they
are not made of salted bleak, as they generally are—so does cayenne
pepper. We may as well have some cocoa paste, and a Bologna sausage or
two may prove a useful luxury.”
“What do you say to a cask of biscuits?” said the Captain. “What sort of
bread have they?”
“Do you recollect that old story told of Charles the Twelfth, when he
said of the bread brought to him, that it was not good, but that it might
be eaten? No one can tell the heroism of that speech who has not eaten
the Swedish black bread, which is generally the only representative of
the staff of life procurable. It is gritty, it is heavy, it is puddingy;
if you throw it against a wall it will stick there—and as for sourness,
O, ye gods! they purposely keep the leaven till it is uneatably sour, and
then fancy it becomes wholesome.”
“Well, I suppose it does,” said the Captain. “The Squire used to say,
that everything that was good, is unwholesome or wrong; and I suppose the
converse is true. But why not take the biscuits?”
“Because we can get that which will answer our purpose perfectly when
we arrive at the country, and that without the carriage, and at a much
cheaper rate. There is not a seaport town in all the coast where you may
not get what they call Kahyt Scorpor, a sort of coarse imitation of what
nurses in England feed babies upon, under the name of tops and bottoms.
They are made of rye, and are as black as my hat; but they are very good
eating, keep for ever, and are cheap enough in all conscience, being from
four to six skillings to the pound, that is to say, threepence. In Norway
they call them Rö Kovringer.”
“We will take some rice, which very often comes in well by way of
vegetables in a kettle of grouse soup; and a good quantity of chocolate,
which packs easily, and furnishes a breakfast on the shortest possible
notice. And this, I think, will do very well for the commissariat
department of our expedition.”
“And now for arms and ammunition,” said the Captain.
“Everything we are likely to want in that department, we must take with
us—guns, of course. Shot certainly may be got at Christiansand, and the
other large towns; up the country, though, you will get neither that nor
anything else: but powder can be got nowhere, at least, powder that does
not give you an infinity of trouble in cleaning your gun, on account of
the quantity of deposit it leaves. That little magazine of yours, with
its block-tin canisters and brass screw-stoppers, will hold enough for us
two, unless we meet with very good sport indeed, and in that case we must
put up with the manufacture of the country.”
“And for guns?” said the Captain. “I shall certainly take that little
pea-rifle I brought from Canada. I want to bring down a bear.”
“We shall be more likely to get a crack at a seal, where we are going,”
said the Parson. “Bears are not so plentiful in Norway as is generally
supposed. People imagine that they run about in flocks like sheep;
however, it is possible that there may be a bear-hunt while we are there.
As for rifles, I own I am partial to our own English manufacture. Those
little pea affairs are sensible things enough in their own country, where
one wanders for weeks on end through interminable forests and desolate
prairies on foot, and where a pound of lead more or less in your knapsack
is a matter of consequence: but where we have means of transport, I see
no great sense in them. A pea, no doubt, will kill, if it hits in the
right place; but, like the old Duke, I have myself rather a partiality
for the weighty bullet. However, each man to his fancy. The great merit
of every gun, rifle, or pistol, lies behind the stock,—a truth that
dandy sportsmen are apt to forget; a pea sent straight is better than a
two-ounce ball beside the mark.”
“Well,” said the Captain, laughing, “I think I can hold my little Yankee
pretty straight; but we shall want shot-guns more than rifles. I may as
well take that case I had from Westley Richards, if you do not think it
too heavy.”
“Not at all; you can always leave the case behind, and take one gun in a
waterproof cover when we go on light-armed expeditions. This will furnish
us with a spare gun in case of accidents. I shall take my own old one,
and a duck gun—which last will be common property, and I think with this
we shall be pretty sufficiently armed. Pointers and setters are of no
great use, unless it is a steady old stager, who will retrieve; for you
must recollect there is no heath, and very little field shooting. The
character of the country is cover, not very thick anywhere, and in many
places interspersed with glades and openings. We shall do better with
beaters: a water-dog, however, is indispensable. Lakes and rivers abound,
and so do ducks, teal, and snipes.”
“Have you thought about tents?” said the Captain.
“Well,” said the Parson, “I am not sure that tents are indispensable,
and they certainly are not a little cumbersome. While we are fishing we
can do very well without them: by the water-side we can never be without
a cottage of some sort to put our heads under if it should come on bad
weather, for every house in the whole country stands on the banks of
some lake or river. I must say, though, when you get up into the fjeld
after the grouse and the ducks, or, it may be, bigger game, it is another
affair altogether. You may then go twenty or thirty miles on end without
seeing a human habitation, unless you are lucky enough to meet with a
säter, and you know what a highland bothy is, for dirt and vermin. But,
even in the fjeld, I do not know that we should want tents; you can have
no idea of the beauty of a northern summer’s night, and the very little
need one has of any cover whatever. I remember, last year, standing
on one of their barrows, smoking my pipe at the foot of an old stone
cross, coeval, probably, with St. Olaf, and shadowing the tomb of some
of his followers that Hakon the Jarl thinned off so savagely. It was
deep midnight, and there was not a chill in the air, or dew enough on
the whole headland to fill the cup of a Lys Alf. The full round moon was
shining down upon me from the south, while a strong glowing twilight was
still lighting up the whole northern sky, where the sun was but just hid
under the horizon. The whole scene was as light as day, with the deep
solemn stillness of midnight all the while. I could distinctly make out
the distant fishing-boats; I could almost distinguish what the men were
doing in them, through the bright and transparent atmosphere; but at the
same time all was so still that I could hear the whistle of the wings,
as flight after flight of wild-fowl shot over me in their course to
seaward, though they were so high in the air that I could not distinguish
the individual birds, only the faint outline of the wedge-like figure in
which they were flying. I remember, that night, thinking how perfectly
unnecessary a tent was, and determining not to bring one; and, that night
at all events, I acted up to my conviction; for, when my pipe was out, I
slept at the foot of the old cross till the sun warned me that the salmon
were stirring.”
“All very pleasant, no doubt,” said the Captain; “very enjoyable indeed:
but does it never rain at night in this favoured land of yours?”
“Upon my word, it does not very often,” said the Parson; “at least, not
in the summer-time. Besides, you cannot conceive how well the men tent
themselves with pine-branches.”
“I do not quite like the idea,” said the Captain. “It is all very well to
sleep out when anything is to be got by it; but, when there is nothing to
be got by it but the rheumatism, to tell you the honest truth—unlucky, as
the old women say it is—I rather prefer contemplating the moon through
glass.”
“Well, I will tell you what we can do,” said the Parson, “and that will
be a compromise. We can get some canvas made up into two lug sails.
These will help us uncommonly in our passage over lakes and fjords, for
their boats are seldom well provided in that respect; and when we get to
our destination, lug sails—being square, or, to speak more accurately,
parallelogrammatical—will make us very capital gipsy tents, with two
pairs of cross-sticks and a ridge-pole, which we shall always be able
to cut from the forest. I think we may indulge ourselves so far. As for
waterproof jackets, trousers, boots, and so forth, I need not tell you
about that: you have been out before, and know the value of these when
you want to fish through a rainy day. We shall not have so dripping a
climate here as we had in Ireland, certainly, but we shall have one use
for our waterproof clothing which we had not there, and that is, when we
bivouac, vulcanised India-rubber is as good a defence against the dew and
the ground-damp as it is against the rain. A case of knife, fork, and
spoon apiece is absolutely necessary, for they do not grow in the fjeld.
A light axe or two, and a couple of hand-bills, a hammer and nails,
which are just as likely to be wanted to repair our land-carriages as
our boats. If you are at all particular in shaving—which, by-the-by, is
not at all necessary—you may as well take a portable looking-glass. You
will not find it so easy to shave in the reflection of a clear pool—a
strait to which I was reduced when I was there last year. And now, I
think, we have everything—that is to say, if you have taken care of the
fishing-tackle, as you engaged to do.”
“I have not taken care of your material-book.”
“No,” said the Parson; “but I have taken very good care of that myself.
Fly-making may be a resource to fall back upon, if we meet with rainy
weather, and my book is well replenished.”
“Everything else,—rods, books, reels, gaffs, and so forth,—I have packed
in the old black box which we had with us at Belleek, with spare line,
and water-cord, and armed wire, and eel hooks, and, in fact, everything
that we can possibly want; and a pretty heavy package it makes, I can
assure you.”
“Well,” said the Parson, “we may go to sleep now with a clear conscience.
But so much depends upon a good start, that a little extra trouble, on
the first day, will be found to save, in the end, a multiplicity of
inconveniences.”