THE HELL FALL.
“If thou hadst not been leading a life of sin—
The sun shines over Enen—
Thou wouldst have given me water thy bare hand within—
Under the linden green.
Now, this is the penance that on thee I lay:
Eight years in the wood shalt thou live from this day,
And no food shall pass thy lips between,
Save only the leaves of the linden green;
And no other drink shalt thou have at all,
Save the dew on the linden leaves so small;
And no other bed shall be pressed by thee,
Save only the roots of the linden tree.
When eight long years were gone and spent,
Jesus the Lord to Magdalene went—
Now shall Heaven’s mercy thee restore—
The sun shines over Enen—
Go, Magdalena, and sin no more
Under the linden green.”
_Svenska Folk-visor._
Whether the Spirits of the Flood and Fell considered themselves
complimented by the homage which had been paid to them, or whether things
would have turned out exactly the same had there been no offering at
all, is a mystery of mythology which we will not take upon ourselves to
determine. Certain it is, that when the next morning was ushered in with
a soft westerly breeze and a dull cloudy sky, interspersed with bright
transient gleams of joyous sunshine, such as salmon love, the Nyssar got
the credit of it all. Not that the Norwegians were at first aware of the
extent of their blessings, for the barbarians are all unversed in the
mysteries of fly-fishing, but they were not long in finding it out, from
the smiling looks and congratulatory expressions of their employers.
Englishmen might have felt dull and heavy after the consumption of such
enormous quantities of brandy: English heads might have ached, and
English hands might have felt shaky during the operation of getting
sober. Thor himself could not have risen from the challenge cup, set
before him by Loki Utgard, with more complete self-possession than did
Tom and Torkel, and the mighty Jacob. Sleep and drink had fled with the
shades of night, and it was a steady hand that served out the coffee that
morning.
The party had long separated to their respective pursuits, for the
impatience of the fishermen and the actual dearth of provisions in the
camp did not allow of idling.
Towards noon the breeze had entirely sunk, and the sun, having succeeded
in dispelling the clouds, was shining in its summer strength into the
confined valley, concentrating its rays from the encircling rocks upon
the channel of the river, and pouring them on the encampment as on the
focus of a burning-glass.
It was not, however, a depressing, moist, stewing heat; there was a
lightness and elasticity in the air unknown in southern climes, or if
known at all, known only on the higher Alps, and in the middle of the
summer. Men felt the heat, no doubt, and the thermometer indicated a high
degree of temperature; but there was nothing in it enervating, nothing
predisposing to slothfulness or inaction; on the contrary, the nerves
seemed braced under it, and the spirits buoyant. Work and exercise were a
pleasure, not a toil; and if the Parson did stretch himself out under the
shade of the great birch tree, it was the natural result of a well-spent
morning of downright hard work. Wielding a flail is a trifle compared to
wielding a salmon rod; and he and the Captain had, both of them, wielded
it that morning to some purpose, for the salmon had not been unmindful
of the soft breeze and the cloudy skies, but had risen to the fly with
appetites truly Norwegian.
Jacob and Torkel, with one of the boatmen in the distance, were up to
their eyes in salt and blood, cleaning, splitting, salting, and otherwise
preparing the spare fish for a three days’ sojourn in the smoking-house;
while three or four bright-looking fresh run salmon, selected from
the heap, and ready crimped for the kettle or toasting skewers, were
glittering from under the green and constantly-wetted branches, with
which they were protected from the heat of the day.
Birger, who was much more at home with his gun than with his fishing-rod,
had gone out that morning early, attended by his two men, in order to
reconnoitre the country, and see what its capabilities were; for the
Parson’s report had been confined to its excellencies as a fishing
station. The Captain was still on the river; every now and then distant
glimpses of his boat could be seen as he shifted from throw to throw, and
occasionally condescended even to harl the river, by way of resting his
arms. Such a fishing morning as they had enjoyed, is not often to be met
with, and the Captain would not take the hint which the cloudless sun had
been giving him for the last half-hour.
The Parson, whose rod was pitched in a neighbouring juniper, and whose
fly, a sober dark-green, as big as a bird, floated out faintly in the
expiring breeze, was stretched at full length on the turf, occupied, so
far as a tired man who is resting himself can be said to be occupied at
all, in watching the motions of a little red-headed woodpecker, that was
darting from branch to branch and from tree to tree, making the forest
ring again with its sharp succession of taps, as it drove the insects
out of their hiding-places beneath the outside bark. Taps they were,
no doubt, and given by the bird’s beak, too, but by no means like the
distinct and deliberate tap of the yellow woodpecker, every one of which
may be counted: so rapid were they, that they sounded more like the
scrooping of a branch torn violently from the tree, and so loud, that it
was difficult to conceive that such a sound could be caused by a bird
comparatively so diminutive.
The woodpecker, which seemed almost tame and by no means disconcerted
by the presence of strangers, pursued its occupation with the utmost
confidence, though quite within reach of the Parson’s rod.
“Take care,” said the Parson, as Torkel approached, “do not disturb it.”
“Disturb what?” said Torkel.
The Parson pointed to the woodpecker, which was not a dozen yards from
them. The bird paused a moment, and looked at them, but evinced no
symptoms of timidity.
“What, the Gertrude-bird?” said Torkel; “no one would disturb her while
working out her penance, poor thing! She knows that well enough; look
at her.” And, in truth, the bird did seem to know it, for another loud
rattle of taps formed an appropriate accompaniment to Torkel’s speech;
though Birger and the Captain at that moment came up, the one with his
last fish, the other with a couple of ducks, a tjäder, and two brace
of grouse, of one sort or another, which he had met with during his
morning’s exploration.
The Parson nodded to the Captain, congratulated Birger, but, ever ready
for a legend, turned round to Torkel.
“What do you mean by a Gertrude-bird, and what is her penance?” said he.
Birger smiled—not unbelievingly, though; for the legend is as well
known in Sweden as it is in Norway; and few people, in either of these
countries, who believe in anything at all, are altogether sceptical on
matters of popular superstition.
“That bird,” said Torkel, “or at least her ancestors, was once a woman;
and it is a good lesson that she reads us every time we see her. God
grant that we may all be the better for it,” he added, reverentially.
“One day she was kneading bread, in her trough, under the eaves of her
house, when our Lord passed by, leaning on St. Peter. She did not know
that it was the Lord and his Apostle, for they looked like two poor men,
who were travelling past her cottage door.”
“‘Give us of your dough, for the love of God,’ said the Lord Christ; ‘we
have come far across the fjeld, and have fasted long!’
“Gertrude pinched off a small piece for them, but on rolling it on her
trough to get it into shape, it grew and grew, and filled up the trough
completely. She looked at it in wonder. ‘No,’ said she, ‘that is more
than you want;’ so she pinched off a smaller piece, and rolled it out as
before; but the smaller piece filled up the trough, just as the other
had done, and Gertrude put it aside, too, and pinched a smaller bit
still. But the miracle was just the same; the smaller bit filled up the
trough as full as the largest-sized kneading that she had ever put in it.
“Gertrude’s heart was hardened still more; she put that aside too,
resolving, so soon as the strangers had left her, to divide all her dough
into little bits, and to roll it out into great loaves. ‘I cannot give
you any to-day,’ said she; ‘go on your journey, and the Lord prosper you,
but you must not stop at my house.’
“Then the Lord Christ was angry; and her eyes were opened, and she saw
whom she had forbidden to come into her house, and she fell down on her
knees; but the Lord said, ‘I gave you plenty, but that hardened your
heart, so plenty was not a blessing to you; I will try you now with the
blessing of poverty; you shall from henceforth seek your food day by day,
and always between the wood and the bark.[15] But forasmuch as I see your
penitence to be sincere, this shall not be for ever: as soon as your back
is entirely clothed in mourning this shall cease, for by that time you
will have learned to use your gifts rightly.’
“Gertrude flew from the presence of the Lord, for she was already a bird,
but her feathers were blackened already, from her mourning; and from that
time forward she and her descendants have, all the year round, sought
their food between the wood and the bark; but the feathers of their back
and wings get more mottled with black as they grow older; and when the
white is quite covered the Lord Christ takes them for his own again. No
Norwegian will ever hurt a Gertrude-bird, for she is always under the
Lord’s protection, though he is punishing her for the time.”
“Bravo, Torkel,” said the Parson. “I could not preach a better sermon
than that myself, or give you sounder theology.”
“You seem always on the look-out for a superstition,” said the Captain.
“So I am,” said the Parson. “There is nothing that displays the
character of a people so well as their national legends.”
“But do you not consider that in lending your countenance to them, and
looking as if you believed them, you are lending your countenance to
superstition itself?”
“Well,” said the Parson, “what would you have me do? laugh them out of
it, like Miss Martineau? And if I succeeded in that, which I should
not, what should I have done then? Why, opened a fallow for scepticism.
Superstition is the natural evidence of the Unseen in the minds of the
ignorant; to be superstitious, is to believe in a Being superior to
ourselves; and this is in itself the first step to spiritual advancement.
Inform the mind, teaching it to distinguish the true from the false, and
superstition—that is to say, the reverence for the unseen—brightens into
true religion. Take it away by force, or quench it by ridicule, and you
have an unoccupied corner of the soul for every bad passion to take root
in. Superstition is the religion of the ignorant.”
“Well, there is truth in that,” said the Captain. “When a boy becomes
a man, he will not play prison-base, or go a bird’s-nesting; but
prison-base and bird’s-nesting are no bad preparation for manly daring
and gallant enterprise.”
“Very true; and when the boy is capable of the latter he will leave off
his prison-base and bird’s-nesting without any trouble on your part.”
“There are good superstitions as well as bad,” said Birger. “To be afraid
of thinning down a noxious bird, like the magpie, as our people are,
because the devil has them under his protection, is a bad superstition.
It is a distrust in the power and providence of God; but, though it is
equally a superstition to imagine that one bird is more a favourite with
God than another, yet the boy who, in your country, in the ardour of his
first shooting expedition, turns aside his gun because
Cock-robins and kitty-wrens
Are God Almighty’s cocks and hens;
or, in our country, from the Gertrude-bird, because she is working
out the penance which Christ has imposed upon her, has, in so doing,
exercised self-denial, has acknowledged the existence of a God, and has
admitted the sanctity of His protection. Many a superstition has as good
a moral as a parable, and this is one of them.”
The approach of dinner at once scared away the Gertrude-bird, and put an
end to Birger’s moralising; and as they discussed the pink curdy salmon,
the produce of the morning’s sport, and revelled in the anticipation
of strawberry and raspberry jam, the fumes of which every now and then
were wafted to them from the kitchen, and in the certainty of roast game
and smoked fish for future consumption, they laid their plans for the
afternoon’s sport.
The sun was still shining in its strength and cloudlessness, and bade
fair so to shine for the rest of the day; and the breeze, which had been
for some time failing, had now sunk into a perfect calm. No salmon or
trout were to be caught by the usual means—that was clear enough. Jacob,
however, who had procured what might be called with great propriety a
kettle of fish, for he had borrowed from a neighbouring farm-house one
of the kettles in which they simmer their milk, and had got it full
of minnows and other small fry—proposed setting his långref. This was
unanimously assented to, for occupation is pleasing, and so is variety;
and eels, pike, and flounders, which were likely to be its produce, were
no bad additions to a larder less remarkable for the variety of its
provisions than for their abundance.
But the grand scheme was one proposed by the Captain, who had been
reconnoitring the higher parts of the river, and had discovered a very
likely place for a bright day, but one which could not be reached from
the shore, or by any of the ordinary means of propelling a boat. It was
a fall terminating, not as falls generally do, in a huge basin, but in a
shoot or rapid of considerable length, like a gigantic mill race, which,
after a straight but turbulent course of a couple of hundred yards, shot
all at once into the middle of a round and eddying pool. It was called
the Hell Fall, probably from its fury, for the word is Norske; but
possibly also, from Hela’s Fall, Hela being the Goddess of Darkness; and
well did the yawning chasm, through which the waters rushed, deserve that
name, overshadowed as it was by its black walls of rock. It was upon this
that the Captain had reckoned; whatever were the case with the rest of
the world, sunshine or storm must be alike to it, and to the tenants of
its gloomy recesses.
The Captain was confident the thing could be done, and the Parson was
as confident that if it could be done, and the fly introduced into the
numerous turn-holes round which the water boiled and bubbled, the rapid
would require neither cloud nor wind to make it practicable. And Birger,
who was a great man at contrivances, asseverated strongly that it should
be done.
The first job, however, was to set the långref, and that was a mode of
poaching with which they were all familiar. The långref, a line of two or
three hundred fathoms in length, with a snood and a hook at each fathom,
was baited from the minnow kettle, and coiled, so that the baited hooks
lay together on a board; and one end having been made fast to a stump
on the landing place, the boat was pulled diagonally down and across
the stream, and the line gradually paid out in such a manner that the
hooks were carried by the current, so as to hang free of the back line;
the other end, which came within a few yards of the farther bank, was
anchored by a heavy stone, backed by a smaller one, and the whole affair
left to fish for itself.
In the meanwhile, some of the men had been sent forward with ropes, and
with the boat-hooks and oars belonging to the expedition; for, though
boats are always procurable in a place where the river forms the usual
means of communication, their gear is not always to be relied on in cases
of difficulty.
The fishermen selected their short lake rods, as better adapted to the
work they were going about than the great two-handed salmon rods with
which they had been fishing that morning; and having fitted fresh casting
lines, which, in consideration of the work they were going about, were
of the strongest twisted gut they could find, they took the path up the
river.
“I wonder what are the proper flies of this river,” said the Captain. “In
Scotland every place has its own set of flies, and you are always told
that you will do nothing at all, unless you get the very colours and the
very flies peculiar to the river.”
“You seem to have done pretty well on this river, at all events,” said
Birger, “without any such information.”
“No information is to be despised,” said the Parson. “The oldest
fisherman will always find something to be learnt from men who have
passed their lives on a particular stream, and have studied it from their
boyhood. There is, however, only one general principle, and that will
always hold good. By this the experienced fisherman will never be at a
loss about suiting his fly to the water. Here is the Captain now; we
have had no consultation, and yet I will venture to say that we are both
fishing with flies of a similar character. What fly did you catch your
fish with, this morning, Captain?”
“I have been using my old Scotch flies,” said the Captain, “such as they
tie on the Tay and Spey,[16] and the largest of the sort I could find.”
“To be sure you did; and tell Birger why you did not use your Irish
flies.”
“They were too gaudy for the water,” said the Captain.
“That, Birger, will give you the principle,” said the Parson. “The
Captain has been very successful with flies belonging to another river;
now, look at mine, which I tied last night, while I was waiting till
you came home from sacrificing to Nyssen. Except in size, this is as
different as possible from the Captain’s; and yet its principle is
precisely the same; mine is a green silk body, black hackle, blackcock
wing, no tinsel, and nothing bright about it, except this single golden
pheasant topping for a tail. Now, the Tay flies are quite different to
look at; they are mostly brown or dun pig’s wool bodies, with natural
red or brown hackles and mallard wings; but the principle of both is the
same; they are sober, quiet flies, with no glitter or gaudiness about
them; and the Captain shall tell you what induced him to select such as
these.”
“I chose the largest fly I could find,” said the Captain; “because the
water here is very deep and strong; and as the salmon lies near the
bottom, I must have a large fly to attract his attention; but I must not
have a gaudy fly, because the water is so clear that the sparkle of the
tinsel would be more glittering than anything in nature; and the fish,
when he had risen and come near enough to distinguish it, would be very
apt to turn short.”
“You have it now, precisely,” said the Parson; “the depth of the water
regulates the size of the fly, and the clearness of the water its
colours. This rule, of course, is not without exceptions; if it were,
there would be no science in fishing. The sun, the wind, the season,
the state of the atmosphere must also be taken into consideration; for
instance, this rapid we are going to fish now, is the very same water we
have been fishing in below, and therefore just as clear, but it is rough,
and overhung by rocks and trees. I mean, therefore, to put on a gayer fly
than anything we have used hitherto. But here we are,” he said, as they
looked down upon the rush of waters, “and upon my word, an ugly place it
is.”
The Parson might well say that, for the waters were rushing below with
frightful rapidity. Above them was the fall, where the river, compressed
into a narrow fissure, shot through it like an enormous spout, into a
channel, wider certainly than the spout itself, but still very narrow;
while the perpendicular walls reminded the spectators of an artificial
lock right in the middle of the stream; at the very foot of the fall, was
a solid rock, on the back of which the waters heaped themselves up, and
found their way into the straight channel by rushing round it. In fact,
without this check, their rapidity would have been too great for anything
to swim in them; and as it was they looked anything but inviting.
“A very awkward place!” said the Parson! “and how do you mean to fish
this?”
“Come away a little from the roar of the waters,” said the Captain, “and
I will explain my plans. You see that flat ledge of rock below us, just
above the rush of the water; that spot we can reach by means of the rope.
Make it fast to that tree, Tom: you learned knotting in the English navy,
you know.”
Tom grinned, and did as he was told, and the Captain ascertained the
strength of his work practically, by climbing down the face of the rock,
and reconnoitring personally the ledge he had pointed out.
“Now,” said he, when he had returned, “we will get the boat as near as
we can to this rush of water, and then veer out a rope to her from this
rock: birch ropes will float, and the stream is quite sufficient to carry
it down. If we make the boat fast to this, we may command every inch of
the rapid, and you see yourself, how many turn-holes are made by the
points of the rock which project from either side. You may depend upon
it, every one of these contains a salmon, and the water is so troubled
and covered with foam, that not one of these fish will know or care
whether the sun is shining or not.”
“I think your reasoning is sound enough,” said the Parson; “but if the
boat capsizes, the best swimmer in Norway would be drowned, or knocked to
pieces against these rocky points.”
[Illustration: HELL FALL.
p. 119.]
“But what is to capsize the boat? I am not going to take young hands with
me; we all know our work; at all events, I mean to make the first trial
of my own plan myself, you have nothing to do but to stand on the rock,
and haul up the boat.”
The Parson looked at Birger.
“I do not think there is much danger,” said he; “and if the Captain will
manage the rod, I will see to the boat. Tom shall take the other oar.”
“Well,” said the Parson, “you have left me the safest job; but I do not
quite like to see you do it. However, I suppose you will; so here goes to
see that you run no more danger than is absolutely necessary.” So saying,
he eased himself down the rope to the flat rock, followed by Torkel and
Pierson, who had previously thrown down a coil of birch rope; while the
Captain, Birger, and Tom went down to the place below the rapid, where
the boat was moored to a stump of a tree that grew over the river.
The birch rope floated on the top of the racing water, and soon reached
the great turn-hole below the rapid, where the current was not so furious
but that the boat could easily be managed. After one or two misses,
Birger caught the end of it with his boat-hook, and, passing it round all
the thwarts, secured it to the aftermost one; placing an axe in the stern
sheets, in which the Captain had seated himself with his short lake-rod
in his hand, Tom sat amidships with the paddles, while Birger himself
stood forward with the boat-hook, to fend off from any point of rock that
the eddies might sheer the boat against.
When all was ready, he waved his cap—for no voice could be heard amid the
roar of water—and the Parson and his party began steadily hauling on the
rope. The boat entered the dark cleft, and, though her progress was very
slow, cut a feather through the water, as if she were racing over it.
Tom, by dipping one or other paddle, steered from side to side, as
he was bid; and the Captain threw his fly into the wreaths of foam
which gathered in the dark corners; for in the most furious of rapids,
there will always be spots of water perfectly stationary, where the
eddies, that have been turned off by projecting rocks, meet again the
main current; and, in those places, the salmon will invariably rest
themselves, accomplishing their passage, as it were, by stages.
From side to side swung the boat—now at rest, now hauled upon by the
line, according to the messages which Birger telegraphed with his cap;
but, for some time, without any result, except that of convincing the
Parson that the dangers he apprehended, were more in appearance than in
reality; so that they were beginning to think that their ingenuity would
be the sole reward of their pains. At length, there was a sudden tug at
the line, the water was far too agitated to permit the rise to be seen,
and the Captain’s rod bent like a bow.
“Haul up, a few fathoms,” said he, raising his rod so as to get his line,
as much as possible, out of the action of the water, which was forcing it
into a bight. “Now, steer across, Tom, to the opposite side. We must try
the strength of the tackle—‘Pull for the half,’ as we say in Ireland.”
The fish had not attempted to run, knowing that its best chance of safety
was in the hole in which it lay, but had sunk sulkily to the bottom.
No sooner, however, did the boat feel the current on her bow, than she
sheered across to the opposite side; and the Captain, stopping his line
from running out, drew the salmon by main force from its shelter, who,
feeling the strength of the current, for a moment attempted to stem it;
but soon, the Captain, adroitly dropping his hand, turned tail and raced
away, downward, with the combined velocity of the stream, and its own
efforts.
The Captain paused a moment, to make sure that the fish was in earnest,
and then cut the rope; and boat, fish, and all, came tumbling down the
rapid into the turn-hole below.
Once there, it became an ordinary trial of skill between man and
fish—such as always occurs whenever a salmon is hooked in rough water—and
that the Captain was well up to. It was impossible for it again to head
up the dangerous ground of the rapid, or to face the rush of the waters
with the strain of the line upon it; so it raced backwards and forwards,
and up and down in the deep pool, while Tom took advantage of every
turn to paddle his boat quietly into still water. At last, the Captain
succeeded in turning his fish under a projecting tree, upon which the
Parson, who, as soon as he had seen the turn matters were likely to take,
had shinned up the rope, and hurried to the scene of action, was standing
gaff in hand to receive it.
“Well done, all hands!” said the Captain, as the Parson freed his gaff
from the back fin of a twenty-pound salmon, and Birger hooked on to the
tree, and brought his boat to shore. “Well done, all hands! it was no
easy matter to invade such territories as that; but one wants a little
additional excitement after such a fishing morning as we have had.”
“I think we may set you down as _bene meritus de patriâ_,” said the
Parson; “it is just as well to have a fresh resource on a bright
afternoon like this; the time may come when we may want it.”
“Now, then, for another fish,” said the Captain; “Birger shall try his
hand at the rod this time.”
Birger would have excused himself on account of his want of skill, but
was very easily persuaded, and, thus they took turns, now securing a
fish, now cutting a line against an unseen rock, now losing one by
downright hard pulling, till, when the light began to fail, and the
dangers to grow more real from the darkness, they made fast their boat
to the stump, and returned victorious to the camp, having added three
or four fish to their store, and those the finest they had caught that
day.[17]