THE MEET.
“A various scene the clansmen made—
Some sate, some stood, some slowly strayed,—
But most, with mantles folded round,
Were couched to rest upon the ground—
Scarce to be known by curious eye
From the deep heather where they lie;
But when, advancing through the gloom,
They saw their chieftain’s eagle plume,
Their shout of welcome, shrill and wide,
Shook the steep mountain’s steady side,—
Thrice it arose, and lake and fell
Three times returned the martial yell.
It died upon Rochastle’s plain,
And silence claimed her evening reign.”
_Lady of the Lake._
Evening had already begun to close in, and the dark branches of the
firs, which for the last five or six miles had canopied the road, were
beginning to grow darker still, when the carioles emerged from the great
forest into a green park-like glade, studded with feathering clumps of
birch and spruce; and rattled up to the door of the little inn that stood
on the borders of it, which was the place appointed for the meet.
The inn, which, after all, was little better than a post-house, was
evidently not large enough to contain a tenth part of the crowd collected
in front of it; nor did the half dozen wooden houses, which formed the
village, afford much more extensive accommodation.
Few, however, of those there assembled seemed to care much about the
matter; the evening was warm, the sky was clear, and the stars were
beginning to twinkle merrily through the calm blue sky; the good green
wood was shelter enough for the hardy peasants and their equally hardy
landlords, and would have been shelter enough though the ground had been
white with snow.
Fires were beginning to rise here and there, bringing into view the
gipsy-like groups collected round them, as they sat, stood, or lay at
full-length upon the turf—some busied about the little tin kettles,
in which they were mixing their rye gröd, some bringing in fuel,
some returning from the inn and the temporary stalls that had been
established round it for the sale of bread, cheese, butter, brandy,
and other necessaries; though most of the party had brought good store
of provision in their own bags. Some—and they mostly the elders of the
parish—were quietly smoking their pipes, and discussing the events of
former skals, and prophesying good or bad of the present one, according
as their dispositions were sanguine or the reverse; but all were talking,
laughing, hand-shaking, imparting or listening to little pieces of
domestic news, or parish scandal—for, in the forest parishes, (and in
Sweden most parishes are of that character), a skal brings together men
who have but few other opportunities of meeting.
A few old stagers, indeed, were trying to get one good night’s sleep, in
order to prepare themselves for the fatigues of which the morrow was but
the beginning, and were stretching themselves on the turf, with their
feet towards their fires; but new arrivals were continually rousing them
up, and some fresh Calle Jonsen, or Swen Larssen, or Nils Ericsen, would
be continually dropping in with fresh inquiries, fresh news, and fresh
greetings.
From the windows of the inn, which were wide open, a broad, bright
glare of light was streaming across the glade, obscured now and then by
the shadow of some great head and shoulders—for the room was full of
people,—but strong enough, notwithstanding, to light up the boughs of the
old lime trees that shaded the porch, glittering among their soft green
leaves, as if they really were what the Swedes suppose them to be, the
roosting places of the Spirits of Light.
This was evidently the head quarters of the skal, where the generals
and field officers were holding high council, receiving information,
arranging plans, and issuing orders; and Birger, springing from his
cariole and throwing the reins of his horse to his schutzebond, or
post-boy, and committing, with utter recklessness of consequences, the
whole department of quartermaster-general, and commissary-general to
boot, into the hands of Jacob, rushed into the room, followed by his
three friends.
This opportune reinforcement was greeted with shouts of welcome: Birger
himself was an old friend of the Ofwer Jagmästere, and had, before this,
signalized himself as a hunter. Englishmen are invariably popular both in
Norway and Sweden; and besides, the value of English rifles, and English
sportsmen to carry them, was universally acknowledged. Moodie, however,
was the great prize; he had been now, for four years in the country,
and had been there quite long enough to be known and appreciated as the
best shot and the most sagacious and inventive leader in the province.
With a natural turn for the chase in all its varieties, he had thrown
himself, heart and soul, into the business of bear hunting, had studied
it theoretically and had worked out his theories practically, till he was
universally acknowledged to be a fair match for the “gentleman in the
fur cloak, who has the wisdom of ten and the strength of twenty,” as the
Swedes periphrastically term their great enemy, the bear.
He had remained in the porch for a minute or two, giving some directions
to his followers, so that the greetings, and introductions, and first
inquiries had a little subsided when he entered; but the moment his
well-known green cap was seen in the doorway, there arose such a shout of
welcome, that it made the flitches of bacon and strings of onions tremble
from the rafters.
“Modige! Modige!”[49] for so they had naturalized his name into a word
which, in their language, signifies courageous.
The well-known cry was caught up among the parties out of doors, and
echoed back again from tree to tree, while the glare of the camp-fires
shewed dark shadows of insane figures, waving arms and hats, aye, and
handkerchiefs, too, for every woman who can possibly slip away from home,
turns out on a skal.
“Modige! Modige!” again came thundering and screaming back in all sorts
of voice, old and young, male and female; now dying away, then bursting
forth, as some distant post took it up again.
“Upon my word,” said the Ofwer Jagmästere Bjornstjerna, speaking in
French, out of compliment to the strangers—for this language, though
utterly despised in Norway, is pretty generally spoken among the Swedish
aristocracy; “upon my word, the people have decided the matter for us;
I wanted some one to take charge of the hållet, and was going to offer
you the command the moment I saw you, but the people seem to have taken
the matter into their own hands now; you cannot possibly refuse, you are
elected by acclamation.”
“I am delighted to be of any use,” said Moodie,—in fact, he did look
delighted in good earnest,—“and will do my best; but you are aware that I
am not very familiar with the ground here.”
“Never mind that,” said Bjornstjerna; “we will soon find some one to be
your quartermaster-general; what we want is, a man that the people look
up to, who knows his business, and is accustomed to command.”
“How many shall I have under me in the hållet?”
“We cannot spare you above five hundred,” said Bjornstjerna; “but the
ground is easy enough, at least so far as the hållet is concerned. See
here,” and he produced a rough but well-executed military sketch of the
ground, which he had surveyed and mapped that morning; “this plain is the
country we mean to drive,—there is about three miles of it in length,
that is to say,” he added, parenthetically, nodding to the Englishmen,
“what you would call in your country, one or two-and-twenty. On the
west, as you see, it is bounded by the river which I have marked here
in blue; this, in its course, expands into these two lakes, and just
by the water-side the country is comparatively open, with a few farm
houses and hamlets about it; the forest, however, closes it all round,
getting thicker as you approach the mountains. On the east is this range
of heights which, as luck will have it, I find are scarped by nature
into cliffs, so that nothing but a bird can get up them—except at these
passes, which I have marked on the map with a cross. These are mostly
the dry or half-dry beds of torrents, and by the side of almost all
of them there is a passage into the upper fjeld, practicable for men,
and, consequently, for beasts also, when they are frightened. At this
point, where we intend stationing our dref, the range of hills is about
six of your miles distant from the line of the river, but it gradually
approaches it; and at this point, where there are some falls and rapids,
the distance is very trifling—not above a thousand eller—somewhere about
half an English mile; and, besides, there is a spur of rock here which
causes the falls of the river, and upon this the forest is very thin and
open. Here I propose placing you with the hållet. You will establish
yourself on the reverse slope of the spur, so that our shot will pass
over your heads; you will then only have to clear away sufficient of the
under-stuff from the front of your position to give you a fair shot at
anything that attempts to cross.
“About a thousand or fifteen hundred eller in front of your position, and
parallel to it, runs a cow-track to the upper säters, which, upon the
whole, is pretty open, and upon which you may as well set a hundred or
two of your men, to improve to-morrow into a shooting line. Here we shall
take our stand after we have driven the country. There is a thickish bit
between this path and your position; the game will not object to enter
it, and if they do, we ought to get every one of them, for to the left
the rock is absolutely perpendicular, and on the right the rapids are
such that nothing can cross them.”
“You have no skal-plats?” said Moodie.
“Why this is a skal-plats,” said Bjornstjerna, “rather a large one, to be
sure; but we shall not run much risk of getting our men shot in driving
it, because you will be on the reverse slope; and, by the way, you must
be very particular in cautioning all your skalfogdar to keep their men
from showing themselves on the crest of the hill. I did at one time think
of making a skal-plats here, on the banks of this lower lake, and driving
from both ends at the same time; but the ground is not favourable; a
good deal of it is cleared, and every bear will make for the roots of
the mountains, where the under-stuff is thickest; they cannot get up the
perpendicular cliffs, to be sure, but we should have them creeping up a
little way by the branches, and then stealing back as soon as the dref
has passed the place,—upon the whole, though, I think my present plan is
the best.”
“I really think it is,” said Moodie, “as far as I can judge from seeing
it on paper; but you seem to have a pretty large country to drive, not
less than twenty miles English in length. What number do you muster?”
“Not above fifteen hundred or two thousand at the most,” said
Bjornstjerna, “though I have called out five parishes; but look at the
place, it seems cut out for a skal,—half-a-dozen boats will guard the
river, which is navigable in its whole length till you come to the rapids
which flank your position, and not a bear will go near the houses, as
you know, or face the open ground, if he can possibly help it,—so much
for our right flank; while for the other, a small picket at each of the
water-courses, will be quite sufficient to guard them till the dref
has passed, and then the picket can either strengthen the other guards
farther on, or reinforce our line, or join you at the hållet, according
as they are wanted. Then, since the cliffs keep approaching the river, in
proportion as we drive forward so our line will be strengthened by the
men closing on each other, till, in the end, when the beasts begin to
break out, we shall be able to send you a reinforcement of two or three
hundred men, for we shall have more than we want.”
“That will do,” said Moodie; “we shall have a glorious skal, I see, and I
give you great credit for making the most of your men.”
“The truth is, I have quite as many men as I want—I have never been at a
loss for them; what I have been at a loss for, hitherto, is officers,
for the Indelta has been unexpectedly summoned to Stockholm, and with
them I have lost almost every man who knows how to command.”
“Why not wait till they come back?” said Birger; “they never keep the
Indelta out for more than three weeks, and I am sure the ‘Fur-clothed
Disturbers’ would wait for you:” (no Swede ever mentions the bear’s name,
if he can possibly help it).
“Yes,” said Bjornstjerna, “but after that the militia is to be called
out, and if I get my officers I should lose my men—aye, and two-thirds of
the women, too. How many women do you think would turn out, if you took
away all the men between the ages of twenty and twenty-five? And let me
tell you that the women, though the law does not allow us to press them
into the service, are just as useful as the men,—and in the dref, where
all you want is to drive the game forward, a great deal more so, for they
talk twice as much, and their screams, and squalls, and laughter, are
heard as far again as the men’s shouts. O, by the Thousand! I had rather
lose my men than my women. But you gentlemen are a perfect Godsend; I
shall do very well for officers now. Herr Modige is kind enough to take
the hållet, and, whether you like it or no, Master Lieutenant, you will
have the charge of that skal-arm which furnishes the pickets.”
“Well, I suppose I must obey my superior officer; I wish they treated us
Lieutenants of the Guards as well as they do those of England, and then I
should be Captain as well as you—commanding you, perhaps, if I happened
to be senior.”
“Would you, my boy? I would have you to know that I rank a Colonel now,—I
write ‘Hof’ before my name.”
“Upon my soul, old fellow, I congratulate you; I do not know any one who
deserves it better.”
“No more do I,” said Bjornstjerna, “and I must say that it is not often
that the Förste Hof Jagmästere shows such a specimen of discrimination.
However, to business. Along the left flank of the dref, you will see
that in the course of our beat there are some fifteen or twenty places
where game can escape by climbing up the water courses. At each of these
you will post a picket, strong or weak, according to the nature of the
ground. Herr Länsman, can you furnish the Lieutenant with a man who knows
the country?”
The Länsman, or tax-gatherer, who in these remote districts acts as
police officer, and is, in fact, the sole representative of majesty,
offered his own services in that capacity.
“Very good,” said the Ofwer Jagmästere, “then you will point out the
particulars; but, to help you, I have marked all the more practicable
passages with red crosses. Here, however, is your principal danger—in
fact, it is that which made me hesitate about establishing the hållet
where it is. You see where this cow-path leads to the hills—the path, I
mean, which I have just pointed out to Herr Modige as the place where I
wish him to arrange the shooting line; carry your eye onward to where it
ascends the hills; that is an easy pass, such as you can ride up, and it
is so close to the hållet that any beast that turns at the line, would
naturally dash at the opening. Here you must post a very strong force.”
“I cannot do better than put my English friends there,” said Birger, who
saw at a glance that this was the very crack post of the whole line; “I
will venture to say that their rifles will not allow anything to pass
alive through that opening, from an elk to a rabbit.”
“Hush, not a word about elks,” said Bjornstjerna; “neither they nor stags
must be touched—the new law is very strict about that.”
“It is very difficult to tell one beast from another, in the thick
juniper,” said Birger; “I never could myself.”
The Ofwer Jagmästere laughed, but put on an official frown.
“Do you know, Birger,” said the Parson, “I should like to be your
aide-de-camp better than to hold any definite post; I could carry your
orders, you know.”
“And deliver them in English or French,” said Birger; “I shall have a
very effective aide-de-camp indeed. However, if you like it, I will give
you the post, and I think you are right; you will see more in that way
than in any other, and you can reinforce the post of danger whenever you
are tired. Indeed, you may as well consider it your home during the
skal. Would the Captain, then, take charge of that point?”
The Captain was quite willing, and promised to give a good account of it.
“Well, then,” said Birger, “I shall not want Piersen to-morrow, so you
may have him, and your own man Tom, and Jacob for cook. The Parson
will probably take Torkel, but I dare say the Länsman can find you an
intelligent Swede, who knows the ground and can understand a few words
of English, and three or four fellows for sentries; that will be quite
enough for you, for the Parson and Torkel will join you, and be under
your orders before there is anything serious.”
Here the Ofwer Jagmästere spoke a few words in Swedish to Birger, who
laughed and replied—“No, no, certainly not; I am confident he would
consider it an honour of no small magnitude to bear a commission in our
service. The fact is,” continued he, addressing the Captain, “everything
in these skaller is arranged according to military discipline, and
everyone here has military rank. And as you have to command a picket, you
would not object to hold a temporary commission, not quite equal to your
own in the English service.”
“Object!” said the Captain, “O, no—delighted, of course!”
“Then give me your cap,” said Birger. “Hand me over that chalk,
Bjornstjerna;” and he wrote upon its peak the mystic letters, “S.F.,”
being the initials of Skal Fogde; and accordingly the Captain took rank
as full sergeant in the Swedish army.
“Now, then,” said the Jagmästere, “as I have arranged matters so
satisfactorily here, I will start at once for Lysvik, where I have
ordered the dref to assemble. I shall have enough to do to-morrow
morning, as you may imagine,—what with numbering the men, and appointing
their skalfogdar, and seeing them at their stations, the commander
has no easy life of it. As for you, Moodie, I need not tell you your
business—you know it as well as I do myself,—but begin appointing your
skalfogdar the first thing to-morrow. You need not wait for your full
complement of men, they will drop in in the course of the day; but
as your best men are sure to be the first, appoint at once; at twelve
precisely write the numbers in their hats, as they stand, and we will
fine all that come later than that. That, Mr. Länsman, must be your
business; but first of all look out for Lieutenant Birger fifty of your
best men. That,” turning to Moodie, “will leave you nearly five hundred,
which is quite as much as you can want, as the boats will be manned from
my party. You, Birger, will march at daybreak, for I must have every
picket posted by twelve, at which time we move forward with the dref.
Now, Lönner, my horse, as quick as you please, for we have seven quarters
to go before we sleep.”
The Ofwer Jagmästere might almost be said to “exit speaking,” for he
continued his speech into the porch, and the last words were lost in the
canter of his little hog-maned pony, as he floundered off, followed by
Lönner and a couple of orderlies, together with the Länsmen of the two
other parishes, who had met him by appointment at Ostmarkand, and now
formed his personal staff.
Moodie, who was now in command, hesitated for a moment whether he
should exercise it by clearing the inn for the sleeping accommodation
of himself and friends, but, on turning the matter over in his mind,
the interior looked so dirty and stuffy, and was withal so redolent of
tobacco, brandy, and aniseed, while the exterior was so fresh and green,
and the moon was shining down so softly, and the air was so still, and
the camp fires so bright and inviting, that, with universal consent and
approbation, he adjourned the divisional head-quarters to a spreading
fir-tree, whose branches were illuminated by a fire worthy of a General;
while the provident Jacob, who had tilted the carioles on end, to form
a sort of screen, spread out before them the contents of his ambulatory
larder.
This was soon discussed, and then a quiet pipe, a moderate horn of brandy
and water, a hopeful good night, a roll in their cloaks, and before their
heads were well on their knapsacks, the whole four were in the fairy land
of sleep and forgetfulness.