THE TORJEDAHL.
“Foresight is needful
To the far traveller:
Each place seems home to him:
Least errs the cautious.”
_Hávamál._
“And now for work,” said the Parson, as, somewhat late on the following
morning they rose from a breakfast as substantial and plentiful as had
been the supper of the night before. The ordinary meals of a Norwegian
are, in fact, three good substantial dinners per diem, with their
proportionate quantity of strong drink: one at nine or ten, which they
call “Frökost”; one at two or three, which is termed “Middagsmad”; and
one in the evening, called “Afton.” But, whatever they call them, the
fare is precisely the same in all; the same preliminary glass of brandy,
the same very substantial hot joints, the same quantity of sweetmeats,
and, at Christiansand at all events, the same liberal supply of fish. Tea
and coffee are not seen at any of them, but generally form an excuse for
supernumerary meals an hour or so after the grand ones.
The strangers were not yet acclimated; they lounged over their morning’s
meal as if the recollections of their yesterday’s supper were yet green
in their memories. Not so the natives. No one would suppose that they had
supped at all—they ate as if they had been fasting for a week.
All things, however, come to an end,—even a Norwegian’s breakfast;
and the Parson stood in the porch receiving English Tom’s report from
the custom-house, and cataloguing the packages as they arrived. These
included two dogs; one a very handsome brindled bay retriever, called
“Grog,” belonging to the Captain; the other an extremely accomplished
poaching setter, his own friend and constant companion. These, wild with
joy at their newly regained liberty and restoration to their respective
masters, from whose society they had been separated during the whole
voyage, were grievously discomposing the economy of Madame Ullitz’s
well-ordered house.
A small assortment of necessaries was packed in deal covered baskets
or boxes,—for they looked as much like the one as the other. This
manufacture is peculiar to the country, and is equally cheap and
convenient. These, with the rods, guns, ammunition, and boat furniture,
including the sails which were to form tents on the occasion, together
with Madame Ullitz’s liberal supply of provisions (among which the rö
kovringer were not forgotten), were arranged in the porch, and one by one
were transferred by the boatmen to the bridge quay, where the boats were
lying. The weightier articles were consigned to the keeping of Ullitz,
and were lodged in his ample store rooms.
“Now, Captain,” said the Parson, as they stood on the bank of the noble
river, “do you take a spare boat and a couple of hands, and pull as far
as the first rapids; let Torkel be one of them, and he will show you the
place. There is on the left bank of the river, a sort of rude boat canal,
which is not always passable. If we can contrive to get through it, we
will sleep at Oxea to-night: but, if the boats require to be hauled over
land, we must be satisfied with that for one day’s work, return here to
sleep, and carry our things over land to-morrow morning. It will take
me a couple of hours, at the least, to fit these things, but I shall be
ready for you by the time you return. And, to tell you the truth,” he
added, in a whisper, “I wish you could take Birger with you. He is doing
nothing but laugh and joke; and he makes the men so idle, that I shall
get on twice as well without him. Set him to harl for salmon—anything, to
get rid of him. It will be of use, too; for if he meet with anything down
here we may be sure that Wigeland is alive with fish. You will see a reef
of rocks on the right bank, a quarter of a mile above the town: it is
not a bad throw—set him to work there.”
Birger was delighted at the idea, and, as the Parson would spare none of
the boats or boatmen, he took a small praam that belonged to one of the
men, and prepared to accompany the Captain on his expedition.
Birger certainly was no fisherman: he could but just throw a clumsy
fly, and had never caught a salmon in his life, or seen one, except at
table: but harling is a science open to the meanest capacity. It is the
manner in which cockney sportsmen catch their salmon in the Tweed, and
consists of traversing and re-traversing the width of the river, with a
rod and twenty yards of line hanging out of the stern of the boat. The
fly thus quarters the water backwards and forwards without any exertion
of the fisherman, and even the salmon that seizes it effectually hooks
itself before the rod can be taken in hand. On the Tweed, the fisherman
has actually nothing to do, but to pay his boatmen, who, by choosing
their own course, perform the very little science which this operation
requires. In the present case, Birger, having to manage his own boat,
was far more the artificer of his own fortune; but his success depended
on his skill, not as a fisherman, but as a boatman—an accomplishment in
which no Northman is deficient,—rather than on his science and dexterity
as a fisherman.
As soon as the exploring party had left, the Parson, with his lieutenant
and interpreter, Tom, and the remaining three boatmen, addressed himself
seriously to work. Every Norseman is a carpenter; indeed, every Norseman
may be set down as a Jack-of-all-trades; and under Tom’s interpretership
they very soon began to understand what was wanted.
Under the starboard gunnel of each boat, and close to the right-hand of
the sitter, were screwed two copper brackets for the gun, protected by
a short curtain of waterproof. On the opposite side was a sort of shelf
or ledge for the spare rods; and in the stern-sheets a locker for books,
reels, powder-flasks, odds and ends, and, above all, any little store of
brandy that they had,—an article which it was very dangerous indeed to
have loose in the boat.
Norwegian boats are built like whale boats, with both ends alike, which
is not altogether a convenient build for harling—a mode of fishing,
which, however much to be deprecated in known rivers, is very useful,
indeed almost indispensable, to explorers. To remedy this, a ring and
socket was fixed on each quarter of the boat, in order to receive the
butt of the rod, and to hold it in an upright position when the fishermen
should be otherwise engaged. Under the thwarts of each boat were
strapped an axe, a handbill, a hammer, and a bag of nails; and several
coils of birch rope were stowed forward. Birch rope, which is a Swedish
manufacture from the tough roots of the birch tree, is peculiarly adapted
to these purposes, since it has the property of floating on the water,
which hempen ropes have not.
Upon the principle of “business first and pleasure afterwards,” so long
as anything remained to be done, the Parson had scarcely raised his eyes
from his work, or thought of anything else; and so well and so ably had
he been seconded, that everything was completely fitted, provisions
brought down and stowed, and all ready for starting, a full half-hour
before the time specified. His friends were, however, still absent; and
thus, having nothing to do, he left the men to take care of the boats,
and lounged across the beautiful bridge that connects the town with the
opposite shore.
The bridge of Christiansand may well be called beautiful; not, indeed,
as a piece of architecture, for it is built, like almost everything in
the country, of wood, though with a solidity that would put to shame
many of our buildings of far more durable materials. Its beauty lies in
its situation, spanning as it does with its eleven broad flat arches,
the clear swift stream of the Torjedahl. The depth was such that ships
of some burthen were lying on each side of the bridge, the centre
compartment of which was moveable; but so clear was the water, that
the very foundations of the piers could be seen as the Parson looked
over the parapet; and among them a beautiful school of white trout, as
clearly defined as if they had been swimming in air, which, much to
his satisfaction, he discerned working their way up from the sea. This
sight was doubly satisfactory, for he had been ominously shaking his
head at the peculiar ultra-marine tint of the waters,—a sight in itself
abundantly beautiful, as any one who has seen the Rhone at Geneva can
testify, but far from welcome to the eyes of a fisherman, as indicating,
beyond a doubt, the presence of melted snow.
The Parson had reached the last arch, and was sitting on the parapet, on
the look-out for the returning boats; admiring in the meanwhile the quiet
little amphitheatre which forms the last reach of the Torjedahl after
its exit from its mountain gorge, and scanning the quaint, old-fashioned
town, with its dark-red wooden houses, overtopped by its heavy cathedral,
on the tower of which the Lion of Norway, and the Axe of St. Olaf, were
glittering in the sun; and occasionally peering into the gabled sheds of
its dockyard, from each of which peeped out the bows of a gun-boat,—that
formidable flotilla which, during the late wars, had hung on our Baltic
trade like a swarm of musquitos, perpetually dispersed by our cruisers,
and as perpetually re-united on some different and unexpected point.
Beyond this was the island citadel, a place of no strength, indeed, for
the strength of Norway does not lie in its fortifications, but a point of
considerable beauty in the eye of an artist. The whole of this picture
to seaward as well as to landward, was set in by a frame of miniature
mountains—not hills, nor anything like hills, but real fantastically
shaped mountains, with peaked heads, some of them showing their bare
rocks, with little splashes of mica slate sparkling like diamonds, but
most of them covered with dark fir to their very summits, only shooting
out occasionally a bare cliff, so arid and so perpendicular that no tree
could find root on it.
So intently was the Parson gazing on the scene, that it was some time
before he caught sight of Birger’s praam, which was rapidly approaching
the place where he was sitting, and some time longer before he made out
the very uncomfortable position in which his friend was placed. Birger,
dexterous enough in the management of a boat, even that most ticklish
of boats, the Norwegian praam—a dexterity which any one will appreciate
who has ever attempted the navigation of a Welsh coracle, or can picture
to himself what it is to be at sea in a washing-tub—had proved an apt
scholar in the science of harling; and the Captain, having seen him make
two or three traverses without upsetting his boat or entangling his
flies, had proceeded on his mission and left him to his own devices. The
boat was hardly out of sight when a heavy fish rose at the fly. Birger
seized his rod, as he had been directed, but in his agitation forgot
to secure his paddles, both of which dropped overboard, and, unseen
and unheeded, set out on an independent cruise of their own,—and thus
the salmon, of course, had it all his own way. It so happened that he
headed to seaward, and the light praam offering very little resistance,
and the stream, which was sweeping stilly and steadily at the rate of
three or four miles an hour, forwarding him on his way, there was every
probability of his reaching it.
No sooner had the Parson realised the true state of things, than he
rushed across the bridge for his boat; but the bridge was by no means a
short one, and the Parson was at the farthest end; and long before he
reached it, salmon, Birger, praam, and all had disappeared under one of
the centre arches.
The boatmen had, of course, lounged away from the quay, probably to the
nearest brandy shop; but the Parson sprang into a boat, cut the painter,
seized the paddles, and shoved off furiously into the stream.
Fortunately, this had been seen by the Captain, who was at that moment
returning; and he, though of course perfectly unaware what was the
matter, changed his course, and dashed through the nearest arch, in
pursuit.
By this time the praam was fairly at sea; but the boats were nearing her
fast, and the Captain, having the advantage of oars, passed the Parson’s
boat, and then, checking his speed, lest he should capsize the friend he
meant to aid, grappled the praam with his boat-hook, and, winding his
own boat at the same time, towed her quietly and steadily to a little
sandy beach. Upon this, both he and Birger landed. The latter, whose arms
were aching as only a salmon-fisher’s arms can ache, was glad enough to
transfer his rod to the Captain.
The Parson calling in vain for a gaff, which implement in the hurry had
been left in one of the other boats, threw himself into the water, which
there was not much over his knees. But the salmon, seeing his enemies on
every side, collected his energies afresh, as that gallant fish will do,
and rattled off fifty yards of line into the deep blue sea before the
Captain could turn him. He had, however, a practised hand to deal with.
Slowly and carefully did the Captain reel him up, guiding him to the spot
a little above where the Parson was standing as still and motionless as
the rocks around him. There was as yet a considerable current, arising
from the flow of the river, and the Captain, taking advantage of this,
let the fish tail down quietly and inch by inch, to where the Parson was
standing motionless and stooping so that his hands were already under
water. Slowly, and without effort, the fish came nearer and nearer, till
at last, gripping firmly with both hands the thin part just above the
insertion of the tail, the Parson, half-lifting the fish from the water,
dragged him to land, and, despite his struggles, threw him gasping on the
snow-white beach.
“Well done, Birger!” said the Captain, laying his rod against a rock, and
running down, steelyard in hand; “there is the first fish of the season,
and you are the prize-man.”
“Hurrah,” said Birger, admiring his own handiwork,—for the steelyard had
given a full two-and-twenty pounds,—“this is the first salmon I ever
caught in my life; and upon my word, when I had him, I thought I had got
hold of Loki himself.”
“And upon my word,” said the Parson, “it looked as if Loki had got hold
of you; I thought he was taking you off to his own realms. If we had
not come up, you would have been by this time half way to the Midgard
Serpent!”[5]
“Well,” said Birger, “it took all the Œsir together to land the
aboriginal salmon; and, I must say, Thor himself could not have handled
him better than you did.”
“What is your story?” said the Captain; “sit down there and tell it
us. You will lose no time,” he added—for Birger, having once tasted
blood, looked very much as if he wished to be at work again—“you will
lose no time, I tell you, for I must crimp this fish for our dinners.
Who can tell if we are to catch another to-day? Parson, lend me your
crimping-knife; I left mine in the boat.”
The Parson produced from his slip-pocket that formidable weapon,
called by our transatlantic brethren a bowie knife; and the Captain,
having first put the fish out of his misery, proceeded to prepare him
scientifically for the toasting-skewers.
“Now, Birger, for the story. So much I know, that it is something
about diabolical agency. Loki, I believe, is the Devil of Scandinavian
mythology.”
“Not exactly,” said Birger; “though we must admit that he and his
progeny, the Wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent, are the origin of
evil, and will eventually cause the destruction of the world. But Loki
really was one of the Œsir, or gods, and had sworn brotherhood with Odin
himself; and thus, though he often played them mischievous tricks, they
seem to have associated with him, as one is in the habit of doing with a
disreputable brother-officer—not exactly liking him, far less approving
of his ways, but still consorting with him, and permitting him to be a
participator of their exploits. At last, however, when he had gone so
far as to misguide poor blind Hodur, so as to make him kill Baldur, they
determined that this really was too bad. Baldur was a general favourite;
everything good or beautiful, either in this world or in Asgard, was
called after him; and the unanimous vote was, that Loki should be brought
to justice, and made to suffer for this. Loki, however, who rather
suspected that he had gone too far, himself, was no where to be found. He
had quitted Asgard in the form of a mist,—whence, I presume, we derive
the expression ‘to mizzle,’—and had betaken himself to the great fall
called Fränängars Foss, where he lived by catching salmon;—for Loki, it
is said, was the first inventor of nets.”
“I have not a doubt of it,” said the Captain. “I always did think that
those stake nets must have been invented by the Principle of Evil
himself.”
“Well, so it was, at all events,” said Birger. “Odin, however, one day,
while sitting upon his Throne of Air, Hlidsjälf, happened to fix his eye
upon him—I say eye, for you know Odin had but one, having left the other
in pledge at the Mimir Fountain. No sooner did he see him, than he called
to Heimdall, the celestial warder, to blow his horn, and summon the gods
to council at the Well of Urdar.
“Loki, perceiving that something was suspected, burnt his nets, and,
changing himself into a salmon, took refuge under the fall; so that,
when the gods arrived at Fränägngar, they found nothing but the ashes
of the nets. It so happened, however, that the shape of the meshes was
left perfect in the white ash to which it was burnt, and the god Kvasir,
who, I presume, must be the god who presides over the detective police of
Heaven, saw what had happened, and set the gods weaving nets after the
pattern of the ashes.[6]
“When all was ready, they dragged the river; but Loki placed his head
under a stone—as that clever fish, the salmon, will do,—and the net
slipped over his smooth, scaly back. The Œsir felt him shoot through, and
tried another cast, weighting the net with a spare heap of new shields,
which the Valkyrir had brought the day before from a battle-field, in
order to mend the roof of Valhalla. Loki, however, leaped the net this
time gallantly, and again took refuge under the foss.
“This time the gods dragged down stream; Thor wading in the river behind
the net. Thor did not mind wading; he was obliged to do that every day
that he went to council, for the bridge of Bifrost would not bear him. In
the meanwhile Vidar, the God of Silence, in the form of a seal, cruised
about at the river’s mouth.
“Loki had thought to go to sea and take refuge with his daughter,
Jörmungard the Serpent, but, in assuming the form of a salmon, he had
assumed also, of necessity, the natural antipathies and fears of the
fish. He turned at a sight so terrible to a salmon, and again sprang
over the net. But Thor was ready for him, and while he was in the air,
caught him in his hand, just above the insertion of the tail; and you
may observe that salmon have never yet recovered from that tremendous
squeeze, but are finer and thinner at the root of the tail than any fish
that swims.”
“Well,” said the Captain, “that is quite true; it is a fact that every
salmon-fisher knows; and he knows also that the root of the tail is the
only part of the salmon by which it is possible to hold him, and that
it _is_ possible to hold him by that the Parson showed you just now
practically. But it is very satisfactory to find out the reason of such
things, particularly when the reason is such a very good one. What did
the gods do with Mr. Loki when they had got him; crimp him, and eat him?”
“They could not kill him,” said Birger, “because of the oath of
brotherhood which Odin had one day incautiously sworn with him (I
presume, when they were both drunk); so they laid him on his back on
three pointed rocks in a cave, and bound him with three cords which they
afterwards transformed into iron bars; and there he will lie, shifting
himself, every now and then, from side to side, and producing what
mortals call earthquakes, until that day, known only to the Nornir, when
the twilight shall fall upon Asgard, and the conflagration of the world
is at hand.”
“Serve him right, too,” said the Captain; “I am delighted to hear that
the inventor of salmon-nets perished—like Perillus and other rascals—by
his own invention. I hope the gods will keep him purgatory, or whatever
they call it, as long as rivers run toward the sea. However, here is
our Loki (holding up, by the tail, the scored salmon), and, as we have
not been geese enough to swear brotherhood with him, he will do for our
dinner. What shall we do, in the meanwhile, to crimp him?”
“Make him fast to the boat, and tow him a-stern for ten minutes,” said
the Parson; “the water of the Torjedahl is cold enough to crimp a live
fish, let alone a dead one. And, I will tell you what: let Torkel go with
the praam for the other boats, and meet us on the left bank, just above
the bridge. I want to show you a view of our route to-day that is worth
seeing.”
So saying, he led the way up a steep, rugged path, just discernible among
the rocks of the rugged ridge which divides the amphitheatre in which
Christiansand is situated from the wild coasts of the Fjord; and, passing
through a sort of natural opening cut in the summit ridge, pointed to the
scene before them. “There,” said he, “what do you think of that?”
Birger was an artist; and, anxious as he was to begin his career as a
fisherman, his ever-ready sketchbook was drawn out of his pocket; nor
did he express a wish to move till the rugged foreground upon which they
stood, the luxuriant park-like middle distance, with its clumps of trees,
and dark-red houses, and neat English-looking church, and the background
of fir-clad mountains, range beyond range, and the deep narrow gorge
through which their journey lay, which the blue lake-like river seemed to
fill from side to side, were transferred to the paper.
A few minutes’ walk brought them to where the boats were waiting, with
the whole house of Ullitz, handmaidens and all, who had come to see them
off. Hand-shaking all round—the fishermen took their places—the boats
shoved off—Marie threw after them her kid slipper, for luck, (for that
custom is of Scandinavian origin)—English Tom gave three cheers, after
the manner of her Britannic Majesty’s navy—and the expedition started on
its voyage up the Torjedahl.
The Parson, who was anxious to reach the proposed encampment at Oxea,
while there was yet light to pitch the tents, would suffer no harling,
notwithstanding Birger’s remonstrances, until the first rapids had been
safely passed; and, indeed, with the exception of the single throw where
the Lieutenant had hooked his fish that morning, that part of the river
was scarcely worth the trouble.
The rapids, however, which had been surveyed beforehand by the Captain,
were passed, under his skilful pilotage, in much less time than had been
allotted for the operation, and then, with one consent, the flies were
thrown upon the water.
Above the rapids, the river forms what is technically called a “flat;”
a spot carefully to be sought out by the exploring fisherman, as the
likeliest to reward his search. A flat is where the water rolls on with
its acquired velocity and the pressure of that which is behind it, rather
than on account of any declivity in the bed through which it flows. In
the present instance, indeed, the bed of the river actually rose instead
of sinking, for the ridge of rocks which form the head of the rapids, had
retained the stones and loose earth washed down in the winter floods.
This gradually shallowed the whole river, spreading it out, at the same
time, like a lake, so as to fill the level of the valley from mountain
to mountain. These rose abruptly on either hand, in bare, inaccessible
cliffs, as if they had been forced asunder by some convulsion of Nature,
to make room for the rush of waters, and exhibited a bare splintered face
of rock.
At the end of an hour—for the Parson would allow no more—all fears were
at an end for that night’s supper; no other salmon, indeed, had risen,
but trout after trout had been handed into the boats, some of them, too,
of a very respectable size: even Birger had not been without his share of
success.
But the stream was strong, the day was waning, many miles intervened
between them and their camping-ground, the Parson was inexorable; so the
casting-lines were exchanged for harling-tackle, and the squadron formed
in order of sailing.
The difference between a common casting-line and the harling-tackle which
one rod in each boat should carry in every exploring expedition, consists
principally in the length of the gut. The harling line carries five or
six flies, in order to show, at once, as great a variety as possible of
size and colour, and is joined to the reel-line by a swivel, in order to
prevent it from kinking—while two, or, at the most, three, flies will be
found quite sufficient for casting.
The order of march was this:—Birger led, with his gun in his hand, ready
for a stray duck or teal, many of which would whistle over their heads,
as evening drew on. He was directed to keep, as near as possible, to the
middle of the stream; while, on either flank, and about twenty yards
behind him, came his two friends, with one rod in each boat for harling,
while, with the other, they whipped into the likely ripples. Shooting and
fishing, however, were made altogether a secondary condition to progress:
they might catch what they could, and shoot what they could, but the
rowers were to pull steadily forward.
And thus they opened reach after reach of the beautiful river, for the
most part pent in by inaccessible cliffs, on which the birch trees seemed
to grow on each other’s heads, and to support above them all a serrated
crest of spruce and fir. But, now and then, they would come to little
semicircular coombs, where the mountain wall would recede for a space,
leaving flats of twenty or thirty acres, which were carefully cultivated
to the very water’s brink, and planted at the roots of the mountains with
white poplar, the dried leaves of which were to serve for beds in the
summer and hay in the winter. Here would be dark-red wooden houses with
overhanging eaves, and tidy, compact, little farmsteadings, with their
granaries, and store-rooms, and cattle-sheds, all complete in themselves:
and they had need be, for they were completely isolated from the rest
of the world. There was no road, not even a footpath; no possibility of
ingress or egress, except that which the river afforded. The mountains,
except here and there, were inaccessible; and at every turn of the river,
seemed to beetle over it, shutting out each little amphitheatre from its
neighbour. The winter is the Torjedahler’s time of liberty: then it is
that their vehicles are put into requisition; then it is that their corn
and cattle, if they produce any beyond their own consumption, are brought
to market; for the river, which has hitherto been their boundary, forms
now their railroad and frost-constructed channel of communication.
The shadows were darkening on the clear river, and the arms of even
Norwegian rowers were beginning to ache, when the last point was rounded;
and the Parson’s joyous shout gave notice that their camping-ground was
at last reached; and at the welcome signal, the lines were reeled up with
alacrity, and the boats’ heads were directed to the shore.
The spot had been selected by him and Ullitz the year before, partly as
lying conveniently near to Mosse Eurd, their proposed head-quarters,
which it was considered expedient to reach before noon on the morrow,
in order to afford time for their men hutting themselves and foraging
out the resources of the place; but principally from its own beauty and
convenience.
So precious is level land by the banks of the river, that it is rare to
find any portion of it uncultivated of sufficient extent for such an
encampment as they required. But here, at the foot of a winter torrent,
whose dry bed gave access to the uplands in summer, and brought down
rocks and uprooted trees in the winter, was a rough plain, formed, no
doubt, originally from the debris brought down by the torrent, but now
covered with short turf and cranberry-bushes, with a few thick, bushy,
white poplars, the leaves of which had not yet been stripped for hay;
while here and there a graceful birch-tree formed a natural tent with its
weeping branches.
“Tom, bring the sails with you,” said the Captain, who had leaped ashore
to reconnoitre the ground; “we will have our tent under this rock.”
“Capital place!” said Birger; “and bring the axe with you, Tom, as well:
that fir will make a first-rate ridge-pole, and it blocks up the place
where it stands.”
The Captain, not accustomed yet to the trifling value put upon timber,
hesitated to chop up a very promising young tree,—which, indeed, was
unnecessarily large for the purpose, and which stood but very little in
the way, after all.
“Why,” said Birger, “the very best fir-tree that ever grew is not worth a
specie daler here; and as for that stick——” substituting the action for
the word, he struck deep into its side, and in a dozen strokes or so it
came crashing down among the under-stuff.
There was no lack of fuel: there never is in Norway, where outsides of
timber float down the rivers unheeded; and trees, uprooted by the winter
storms and land-slips, rot where they fall. Before half the things were
out of the boats, three or four fires were throwing round their cheerful
light, some for cooking, some for wantonness, for the evening was
anything but cold. Birger, however, who, as a Swedish soldier, had had a
good deal of experience in bivouacking,—an exercise to which they are all
regularly drilled,—set his own two men to gather and pile fuel enough to
last through the night; observing that they would all find it cold enough
before morning, when those scamps had burned up the fuel at hand.
The Captain and the Parson were occupied in collecting and weighing the
fish, and apportioning them and the other provisions among the men, while
Jacob, the courier, seated on a stone, apart, was plucking and preparing
half-a-dozen teal that Birger had shot during the passage. These, to the
Parson’s surprise, he deliberately cut in pieces, and consigned to the
great soup-kettle, along with a piece of salt-beef from the harness cask,
and various condiments which he made a great secret of.
It may be observed that in Norway fresh meat is seldom eaten, unless
it be on grand occasions, or by those who are well to do in the world.
October is called in the north the Slaughtering Month, and every family
there is occupied in salting, not only for winter, but for the rest of
the year. A harness cask, therefore,—that is to say, a small cask with a
moveable head, containing salt-beef or pork in pickle,—is a very common
thing to meet with, and in fact had formed the _pièce de resistance_ of
Madame Ullitz’s stores.
“Look here, Jacob, my man,” said the Captain; “I will show you a trick in
cookery that has never reached Gottenborg yet, nor London neither, for
that matter; it is worth a hogshead of your teal-soup.”
He called to Tom, who had been preparing under his superintendence
certain square sods of turf, and some long white skewers; which, in
the absence of arbutus—in Ireland considered indispensable on such
occasions,—he had been directed to cut from the juniper.
Birger’s salmon, the flakes of which had actually curled under the cold
of the waters, preserving all their curd between them, was cut into what
he technically termed fids; each one of these was spread open by the
skewers and fixed upon the turfs. These the Captain ranged round a great
heap of hot embers, which he had raked from the fire, and set English Tom
to turn as they required, basting them pretty freely with salt and water.
The remaining fish had been given to the men, by whom they were subjected
to a variety of culinary operations; one of which was making soup of
them; and the fires began to grow bright and cheery in the increasing
darkness, when Jacob paraded his kettle of teal-soup, and Tom set before
each of the fishermen a turf of toasted salmon.
In return, they received the men’s rations of brandy, the only part of
the provisions on which any limitation was affixed. This in Norway,
perhaps, was considered but a small modicum: it would have been, however,
quite enough to make twice the number of Englishmen roaring drunk.
The men collected round their fires, looking like so many gipsies;
provisions were dispatched in enormous quantities, pipes were lighted,
horns produced and filled with pure brandy, in which each man drank “du”
with his neighbour,—an ancient Scandinavian ceremony, which entitles
the drinkers henceforward to address one another in the second person
singular, and to consider themselves on terms of intimacy.
In the meanwhile, the principal personages of the expedition sat at
the door of their tent, for which the Captain received his due meed of
praise, he having brought the canvas. They tempered their brandy with a
little water, after the custom of their country, and they smoked somewhat
better tobacco than the Norwegians; but after their kind, they indulged
in very nearly the same relaxations as their attendants.
And thus fell the shades of night upon the first day of the expedition.