MAKING ANOTHER NIGHT OF IT.
“Unstable are autumn nights,—
The weather changes
Much in five days—
Still more in a month.”
_Hávamál._
“Praise the day at eventide,
The wife when she is dead,
The sword when thou hast proved it,
The maid when she is married,
Ice when thou hast crossed it,
Ale when thou hast drunken it.”
_Ibid._
Probably their couches were softer than usual,—probably the fact of their
being under a roof where the sun could not shine on their faces, might
have prolonged their slumbers; but the fact is, the cock, had there been
one at the sœter, which there was not, would have “had his boots on”[55]
a very long while before either the Parson or his follower had opened
their eyes; and when they did open them, it was some time before either
of them could recollect where they were. Swedes are not over fond of open
air, and though their glazed windows in the towns are large enough and
numerous enough to prove that no ingenious chancellor of the exchequer
had ever devised a tax upon their light, yet in the fjeld, where glass is
scarce, windows are scarce too, and the few that there are, are generally
stuffed with hay. In the present case, though the sun was well above the
trees, there was not light enough to see the smoky rafters over head,
or the scarcely less dirty strings of flad bröd which were dangling
from them; but all round the building there was a perpetual ringing of
bells, from the great cracked bass to the little tinkling treble; the
sheep, scared by the noises and the fires, had wandered home during the
night, and the cows were collecting round the door of the sœter in hopes
of being milked, which hopes, for one or two of them, at least, were
speedily realized,—for Torkel, taking the bucket that had been well-nigh
drained over night, proceeded very composedly to milk them, just as if he
were in his own sœter in the Tellemark, observing quietly that new milk
was better than old.
In Sweden, as well as in Norway, every animal turned out on a mountain
pasture has a bell round its neck; certain _esprits forts_ (all of whom
do it, notwithstanding, as well as their more credulous neighbours)
assert stoutly that it is to enable the girls to find them among the
trees; but as cows generally keep together, and sheep do so, invariably,
one bell would be quite sufficient for the purpose. The more probable
solution is that given honestly in the Tellemark: that the bells are tied
on to prevent the Trolls from milking them in the night,—for no Troll, as
is well known, can abide a bell.
While Torkel was in the midst of his operations as deputy dairyman, and
the Parson was looking on, half doubting the propriety of the thing,
and half inclined to put a stop to it, a sound of laughing and talking
was heard behind the fence, and three girls, none of them more than
eighteen or twenty, came clambering over it. Torkel did not seem the
least in the world disconcerted, nor did they on their part testify the
smallest surprise or displeasure, though one of them was the proprietor’s
daughter, and temporary mistress of the hut, and the others were her
servants; but after exchanging a few joking observations relative to
their respective modes of passing the preceding night, and the young
ladies’ taste for field sports, they all set to work milking in earnest,
and provided for the sportsmen a better breakfast than they were likely
to have achieved by their own unassisted efforts; nor could they be
prevailed upon to accept any payment, beyond laughingly insisting upon
the intruders carrying out every bit of hay, rebuilding the hay-cock,
sweeping out the room, and putting everything tidily into its place;
till the Parson detected Miss Lilla eyeing, with evident admiration,
a pair of Tellemarken shirt-buttons,—round hollow silver balls, about
the size of a grape-shot, with which he had decorated his broad-flapped
hat. These, after a good deal of pressing, she permitted the “Herr
Englesk” to fasten on the red silk handkerchief which formed her very
becoming head-dress, and they parted mutually pleased, Lilla remarking
politely—as the Parson, shouldering his gun and taking off his hat after
the manner of the natives, bade her farvel (for the word is Swedish no
less than English)—“Jeg er ret lykkelig ved at kunne berede dem denne
lille Tjeneste,” which, as Lilla was a pretty girl, Torkel condescended
to understand and interpret,—a thing which he had often professed himself
utterly unable to do when the speaker was a bearded man, and informed
the Parson that she was very happy in finding such an opportunity of
rendering this trifling service.
The Parson’s Swedish was at an end with his “farvel;” all he could do in
return was to bow and smile, and wave his hand, as he vaulted over the
rail and left the hospitable sœter behind him.
Their journey through the forest was little more than a counterpart of
that of yesterday,—now traversing spaces roofed with gloomy fir, and
beech not less gloomy when you see their undersides only and breathe
nothing but the confined air below them,—now breathing freely in a glade
or svedgefall, and gathering a handful of whorts or cranberries by the
way,—now pushing through a belt of under-stuff, thick enough to conceal
an elephant, but all the time meeting with very little game. Indeed,
skals are not by any means the likeliest times to find the smaller game,
and even the larger lurk unseen till the very end of them. Torkel had
cracked off the Parson’s rifle at a Lo, as he called it—that is to say, a
lynx,—that jumped up from under his feet and dashed into a thicket, but
with very little effect beyond frightening it, though the beast was twice
as large as a fox and twice as red. The parson had brought down a hen
“capercailzie,”—but that was the whole of their morning’s sport.
For some time the under-stuff had been unusually thick, and had formed a
considerable impediment to their progress; they had persevered through it
for about half a mile, and the wood gave no signs of becoming more open,
when Torkel stopped, and looked right and left of him through the stuff,
as if to find an opening.
“We must be skirting the border of a svedgefall,” said he, “where the air
comes in freely; these hazels would never grow in the close forest,—let
us edge a little to the right, we are taking the belt end-ways.”
“The right!” said the Parson; “that seems even thicker than where we are
now.”
“That is the very reason,” said Torkel; “the nearer the svedgefall, the
more air,—the more air the closer the understuff.”
The Parson thought this remarkably good reasoning, and set himself boldly
to face the difficulty, instead of shrinking from it,—a proceeding which,
were it generally followed in our course through life, would seldom fail
to meet with its reward.
It did not on this occasion, at all events, for after a hundred yards or
so of hard struggle, they suddenly emerged into an open plain of some
miles in length, and a good half mile across. It was not a svedgefall,
as Torkel had imagined, but the clearing formed by an old fire, the
effects of which nature had already, in a great measure, succeeded
in repairing; for a coarse grass, gemmed with all manner of flowers,
covered the greater part of it, through which the spiræa raised its
feathery head; large tracts were vividly green with young birches, as
yet hardly higher than the grass, but closely set, as if planted in a
nursery;—here and there the cranberry threw a gleam of crimson into
nature’s carpeting, while the epilobium—an absolute tree compared to the
dwarf plants around it—showed, with its thickly set flowers, a mass of
lilac; and the fox-glove (in Sweden a holy flower), bent its head and
rang its fairy bells, inaudible by mortal ears, whenever a good angel
passed it by on his errand of mercy. A few great mournful dead trees were
still stretching out their helpless and blackened branches, like the old
and ruined families after a revolution, sorrowful remembrances of the
glories which had passed away; but most of these had dropped where they
had stood, and were already concealed by the vigorous young undergrowth,
which was springing up all the more vigorously because the soil had been
for ages fertilized by the leaves of their predecessors.
The Parson sat down exhausted on one of these remains of fallen majesty,
and fanned himself with his broad-leafed hat, while Torkel, standing on
the highest point he could find, cast a look up and down the opening,
which seemed as silent and as destitute of animal life as any part they
had hitherto traversed.
“There is something,” said he; “I see it move—I am sure there is
something alive there.”
The Parson was up in an instant, with his telescope in his hand.
“There it is,” said Torkel, “on the farther edge, just under the high
trees—that tall dead trunk with a forked head is exactly in the line;
look there, I see it move now as plainly as possible.”
“I have got it now,” said the Parson, “and it is a bear, too, if ever I
saw one in the Zoological Gardens.”
“Hush!” said Torkel; “do not say that, or we shall never get a shot at
it.”
“Why?” said the Parson; “it is almost out of sight, let alone out of
hearing.”
“That does not signify,” said Torkel, “that animal is wiser than any of
us; whether it has a fylgia, or guardian[56] spirit, like us, is more
than I can say, but it is the truth, that if ever you name its name you
will get no shot at it, and fortunate for you if you do not meet with
some piece of ill luck into the bargain.”
“Well, well,” said the Parson, “I will take care in future; but what am I
to call him?”
“Call him Old Fur Jacket! or call him The Disturber! or call him The Wise
One! anything you like, only do not call him what you have done just
now. I hope no mischief will come of it.”
“There are two,” said the Parson; “there is a little one—I see it plainly
enough, now that they have got clear from that patch of epilobium. What
on earth is the old—pshaw!—the Old Wise One about? she seems to be
administering a little wholesome discipline to young Fur Jacket;”—and he
handed the glass to Torkel.
“She has been frightened,” said he, “she has been roused out by the dref,
and she is making her cub get up into the tree; they very frequently
do that when they suspect they will have to run or fight for it. Young
Wilful does not seem to know what is good for him, and must be flogged
into it. Just like our own younkers,” said Torkel, philosophically,
taking another look through the glass.
“It is not very good for him just now,” said the Parson, “with our eyes
upon him. If he once gets up he is a lost Fur Jacket.”
“And up he gets,” said Torkel, “and receives a parting benediction from
his mother’s paw across his stern, just to freshen his way, as Tom says.
And now how to get a crack at the Old Lady? if we were on the other side
we might do it easily enough, but the stuff here is not high enough to
hide us; those brutes have eyes sharp enough to see through a mill-stone.”
“Had we better not watch her? perhaps she will think that which is good
for young Hopeful will be good for her; we shall have her climbing,
herself, next.”
“Not she, she knows better; the branch that is very good protection to a
little lump of brown fur, she knows well enough, would not do for a beast
almost as big as a cow,—you will not catch her up a tree, and you need
not expect it.”
“What is to be done then? there she is still.”
“I do not know anything better than to keep along this edge, till we put
a mile or so of ground between us and her, and then to cross; and the
sooner we start the better, for she will not stay long after she has
disposed of her young one.”
“Good!” said the Parson, “and now for finding the place again;”—and he
took out his compass and placed it on the fallen trunk. “That forked
tree bears to us exactly E. by N.; when we come down the other side and
bring it W. by S., we shall not be very far from the place; and then the
northern edge of that large clump of epilobium will give us the exact
mark. And now to get there as quick as we may.”
They had not proceeded a couple of hundred yards when they met with a
brook which intersected the opening nearly at right angles.
“This will do,” said Torkel, jumping into it, for it was not much more
than knee deep, and clear as crystal. “The fall of the ground, the bed of
the stream, and the stuff that always grows on the banks, will be quite
sufficient cover for us.”
On they went, stooping, sometimes splashing through the water itself,
sometimes creeping on hands and knees under the bank, resting for a while
behind some friendly rock or stump, then creeping on again, till at last
they neared the opposite side; and then, seeking the shelter of the
trees, they took a few minutes’ rest—for going on all-fours is anything
but a comfortable mode of progression. Slowly and warily they advanced,
peering about, moving from tree to tree, and looking closely into every
bush before they showed themselves. There was the place evidently enough;
the north corner of the epilobium was near enough to the forked tree
to make a capital mark—there could be no mistake as to the locality;
besides, the bear’s tracks were evident enough on some soft ground; but
no living creature was to be seen. The bear had either heard them, or
smelt them, or, having provided for her young one, and being restless and
anxious on account of the noises that had roused her at first, had gone
on to some thicker cover.
“That comes of calling the beast by his name,” said Torkel, half sulkily;
“never do that again, at least not in the fjeld. Well, never mind, we
will have young Innocence, at all events; the reward is half as much for
a cub as it is for an old one.”
“That is all you think about,” said the Parson.
“No it is not,” said Torkel; “I like the sport itself as well as any
man living—I love it for its own sake; but I should not mind a few of
their yellow notes, either, to be turned into honest, hard Norwegian
specie-dalers, and laid up for the winter,—at least, just now, for Lota’s
sake. Fancy what a set of scoundrels these Swedes must be, when they have
to print on all their notes, ‘Whoso forges this shall be hanged’—we do
not do that in Norway.”
“No,” said the Parson, “you are none of you clever enough to forge—the
_Norges Bank’s Representativ_ is quite safe in such clumsy hands as
yours.”
“There he sits, just in that fork close to the trunk,” said Torkel, who,
if he had not, as the Parson insinuated, skill enough in his fingers to
forge a note, had quickness enough in his eyes to see through a log of
timber, if a bear had been hiding behind it. “There is young Innocence!
Oh! do not spoil his skin with that small shot. Here is the rifle. Put
the ball in under his ear,—that will not hurt him.”
It did not seem to hurt him, in good truth, for he never moved an inch
on receiving the shot, though the blood dripping down the tree showed
that the ball had reached its mark. The cub remained perfectly dead, but
supported by the fork in which he was sitting.
“What is to be done now?” said the Parson; “I do not see how to get him
down, for the trunk is too big to swarm up, and we have not a branch for
twenty feet; but it will never do to leave him there.”
“Leave him!” said Torkel; “O no! that would never do. I think we may get
up into that tree, though, with a little management.”
There was growing, within a few yards of the great tree which the bear
had selected, a small thin weed of a fir, which, coming up in the shade,
had stretched itself out into a long branchless pole with a bunch of
green at the top, in its legitimate aspirations after light and air.
Torkel, disengaging the axe which he usually carried at his back, notched
it on the nearer side, and then, seeing its inclination would carry it to
the great tree on which the cub was hanging, cut vigorously. In a minute
or two the little fir sank quietly into the yielding arms of his great
neighbour, and formed with its trunk a rough ladder. Up this Torkel,
having paused for a moment to see if it had finally settled, climbed
as readily as any bear in the forest. He was soon seen worming himself
through the spreading branches, and slipping down to the fork; and the
little lump of bear’s fat, about the size of a two-year-old hog, came
squashing down upon the turf.
Small as it was for a bear, it was impossible to carry it; so they tied
its hind legs together, and hung it upon one of the dead trees in the
open, the Parson having first pinned upon its snout a leaf which he had
torn out of his note-book, and had written Torkel’s name upon it.
Torkel, however, was mistaken about his share of the yellow notes,
though the Parson did not suffer him to lose by it. Every bear killed in
a skal is the property of the Ofwer Jagmästere; a regulation which is
found to be absolutely necessary, in order to prevent men from breaking
their ranks and hunting the likely places independently,—a proceeding
which would ensure the loss of every bear except the particular animal
which was the object of immediate pursuit. Of this Torkel was not aware,
because in Norway skals such as this seldom or never take place, not
only because the ground is generally too difficult, but principally
because the inhabitants are too widely scattered to be easily collected
in sufficient numbers, and a great deal too lawless to be managed if they
could.
With all the complacency which the consciousness of having done a good
action confers, they proceeded on their journey, which, as their course
happened to lie lengthways of the opening, was easy enough. Hot, and the
least little bit in the world fatigued, they sauntered along on the shady
side of the glade, till they began to discover that the whole country had
become shady, and that a little sun, if it was to be had, would be just
as pleasant. In fact, it had become extremely chilly.
“There goes Thor’s hammer,” said Torkel, as a crash of thunder burst over
their heads, echoing from tree to tree; “we need not fear the Trolls
now, every one of them is half-way to the centre of the earth by this
time.”
“I wish we had nothing worse to fear,” said the Parson; “but this gradual
darkening looks a great deal more like a spell of bad weather than a
sudden storm. I wish we knew where the Captain’s post is.”
“We cannot be within seven or eight miles of that,” said Torkel; “and
I really do think that we are going to have a wet night, and plenty of
mist into the bargain. It will be perfectly impossible for us to find
the post, knowing so little of the country as we do. We had better hut
ourselves at once. If we had been on the hill we might have seen this
coming, but down here it was impossible, with no sky visible, except that
which is right over our heads.”
“Well,” said the Parson, “if it is to be, we may as well halt at once. So
off with your havresac, and turn to. This spreading fir will do as well
as any for our canopy.”
Torkel was a man of deeds, and his assent and approbation were
demonstrated by his throwing down his havresac and forthwith selecting
and cutting down a young fir for his ridge-pole; and,—while the Parson
was securing the locks of the guns with handkerchiefs, and such like
extemporaneous expedients,—for the gun covers had, of course, been left
with the baggage,—he had already cut down two pair of cross timbers to
lay it on. The Parson, with his hand-bill, aided him vigorously, and
the more so that the rain had now begun to patter sharply from leaf to
leaf, and it was very evident that no long time would elapse before
it found its way to their localities below. The frame-work of the hut
was arranged, and branches of the fir and beech, and coarse grass and
juniper,—in fact anything that could be collected on the spur of the
moment,—was laid on as thatch, while Torkel hastily drew together and
chopped up the driest stuff he could find for the fire.
The rain was now coming on in right earnest, and the night was
prematurely setting in. The drops came through thicker and thicker, each
one as big as a marble; and the sportsmen, with jackets more than half
wet through, crept disconsolately into the unfinished hut, in order, as
Torkel said, to make themselves comfortable.
The first piece of comfort which was discovered was that the havresacs,
which had been thrown off at the beginning of the hutting operations,
had been left where they were thrown, and were by this time wet through
and through, together with every morsel of bread that they contained.
The supper was not luxurious, and, as neither was greatly disposed for
conversation, they laid themselves up in the warmest corner they could
find, and courted forgetfulness, as well as rest and refreshment, in
sleep.
The Parson, as an old fisherman, had been pretty well accustomed to a
minor description of roughing it. The boxes of dried poplar leaves of a
Norwegian cottage, or the heaps of hay of a sœter-farm were to him as
feather beds. A rainy day, too, he had often hailed as remarkably good
fishing weather, but a night’s bivouac, sub-Jove, and that Jove pluviali,
was rather a new thing to him; and his cloak, too, miles off, under the
charge of the faithful Jacob. One habit, however, he had picked up in his
travels, which stood him in good stead now, and that was the habit of
“making the best of it.”
Bad was the best; the fuel was wet and scanty, and the fire soon went
out; and Torkel’s house, run up hastily and after dark, was as little
water-tight as if it had been built by contract. Before midnight the
Parson was roused up, first by detached drops and then by little
streamlets falling on his face and person, and wet and chilled, he lay
counting the hours, and envying Torkel, who snored comfortably through it
all.
Morning came at last—it always does come if we wait long enough for
it,—and a dull and misty light began to struggle in through the opening
of the hut, and through several other openings also, which, during the
past night had officiated, though uncalled for, as spouts for the water.
Still the rain fell, not in showers, not violently, for there was not a
breath of wind, but evenly, quickly, steadily, as if, conscious of its
resources, it meant to rain for ever; while the big drops from the fir
branches kept patter, patter, on the soppy ground, and the mist hung so
low that you could scarcely see the branches they fell from.
“Hang that fellow, he will sleep for ever,” said the Parson; “come, rouse
out Torkel, ‘show a leg,’ as Tom says, it is broad daylight now, and high
time for us to be moving.”
Torkel stretched himself and rubbed his eyes, and looked stupid; his
thoughts had not returned from his native Tellemark, and his prospects of
a “home and pleasing wife,” on the banks of the Torjedahl, of which, in
all probability, he had been dreaming.
“Come, Torkel, rouse up my boy,” said the Parson, kicking him; “here
is the tail end of the brandy-flask for you, and when that is gone, we
must find our way to where more is to be had.” The hint of brandy had
the desired effect of waking up the old hunter; for even his iron frame
was none the better for the night’s soaking. The brandy, however, put
them both in good-humour, and having extracted from their havresacs that
which had once been excellent kahyt scorpor, but which now were black
soppy lumps of dough, they made an extempore breakfast, seasoned by some
chips of Fortnum and Mason’s portable soup, a piece of which the Parson
invariably carried with him, but which, as there was now no possibility
of lighting a fire, they were obliged to suck or eat as they could.
“Now Mister Torkel, _en route!_ hvar er väga til hållet? we must get
there before we taste brandy again, that is certain; pray Heaven they
have not broken up the skal, and left us alone in our glory. That is our
direction,” continued he, looking at his pocket-compass, “but the thing
is to keep it, in this thick wood and thick weather, when no one can see
a dozen yards before his nose.”
Every one who has been out in a fog knows the propensity the traveller
invariably has to work round in a circle, and to return to the spot from
which he started. True, in the present case, the compass was a safeguard
against this, but to consult the compass when walking or riding requires
time, the needle does not settle itself to the north without a good deal
of vacillation; and here the lie of the country gave no assistance
whatever; it was not a plain, certainly, for it was very uneven, and
occasionally rocky, but there was nothing like hill, or any continuous
direction of declivities, which could form a guide. Here and there were
dense brakes, every leaf and twig of which, overcharged with moisture,
showered down its stores upon them, and there was no possibility of
picking the ground, where the only chance of finding the track lay in
keeping the compass course. No brook had been met with of sufficient
volume to render it probable that it had come from behind the hills; and
besides, it was more than probable that the watercourses, which formed
the only communications with the pickets above, were much too full now to
be practicable.
As hour after hour wore on, and the forest seemed always like that
through which they had started in the morning, the Parson was more than
once tempted to follow the course of the running water, and to make his
way down to the river, upon the chance of at least a shelter and a meal
at one of the farm-houses; but the hopes of effecting a junction with his
friends, and still more with his baggage, kept him to his course, though
the hållet—as Virgil’s Italy served poor Æneas—seemed to be continually
going backwards as he approached it.
“Hallo!” said Torkel at last, who was then a little in advance, “what
have we got to now, a svedgefall, or a sœter? the fjeld is much clearer
here. Oho, I see! this will do; look here, this juniper was cut only
lately, and here is another stump, and the branches all carried away,
too, and there is a tree that has got its lower boughs trimmed; we have
got to the shooting line at last.”
“Upon my word, I think we have,” said the Parson; “and if so, we must
turn short up to the left, and the Captain’s post cannot be far from us.”
“Unless they have broken up the skal,” said Torkel.
“If they have, I am sure we shall find some one here, left to guide
us; Lieutenant Birger knows that we are to make for this spot. Here is
something, at all events,” as they came in sight of a line of peeled
saplings, right across the path, which had for some time begun to ascend
rather rapidly. “This will do, I am sure;” for now a peasant, who had
been sitting cowering under the rock, with a soldier’s musket in his
hand, the lock of which he had covered with a sack that had evidently
done duty with the carioles, came forward to meet them.
He was not very communicative, however, for he could not speak English,
and would not understand Norwegian; but, at all events, they learnt to
their comfort that the post was there still, and, after ten minutes sharp
pull up a steep but very open and practicable pass, they came in sight of
the Captain’s watch-fires, situated in the gorge of it.
“Home at last!” said the Parson.
“And high time, too,” said the Captain. “There, pick those wretched
flowers out of that hat of yours, and let us see whether we cannot make
you look less like a drowned rat.”
“You have not broken up the skal, then?” said the Parson.
“Oh, no! nothing like it; the rain came on late in the evening, and
they could not have broken it up then if they wished, for the men would
not have had time to go home, and might just as well make themselves
comfortable where they were.”
Comfortable! thought the Parson, shrugging his wet shoulders, and
thinking of his own comforts during the night past.
“And this morning,” continued the Captain, “the weather-wise say that the
rain will not last; and as they have driven so much of the country, and
fairly disturbed the game, the Ofwer Jagmästere sent for some brandy—not
enough to make the men drunk, but as much as is good for them,—and they
are to keep their fires burning and make all the noise they can, and so
keep the game within the ring till the weather clears.”
“And where did you hear all this?” said the Parson.
“Oh, Birger is here,” said the Captain; “he came in about two hours ago,
as wet as you are; he is asleep in the other tent. Did you not see a row
of barked bushes as you came up?”
“Yes,” said the Parson, “that I did, and I hailed them as the traveller
did the gibbet,—the first mark of civilisation I had seen; but I cannot
say that I understand what they mean.”
“It was Birger’s plan,” said the Captain, “they have done it pretty
continuously along the line of the dref; it is intended to look like a
trap, and to prevent the game from coming up the pass during the rain,
when we cannot trust to our rifles. We have had half-a-dozen wolves here
last night; there is one of them,” pointing to a carcase which two of
the men were skinning. “I was not ready for them, that is the truth,
for I was eating my supper. I ought, certainly, to have had a brace of
them, but this gentleman was a little in the rear of his party, and the
Devil took the hindermost,—at least my little pea-rifle did. And there
are a couple of foxes; Tom says their skins are valuable. I picked them
off during the night. I am pretty sure we had a bear, too, early this
morning; but he turned, whatever he was, before I could get a sight of
him.”
“No wonder, with that fire,” said the Parson.
“Why, we do want to keep them in,” said the Captain; “besides, who is to
do without a fire in such weather as this? There—had you not better go
and make yourself comfortable. Jacob has brought your knapsack and cloak:
you will find them there in the tent—(by-the-bye, what do you think of
the use of tents now?) After that I suppose you will be ready for dinner?”
“You may say that,” said the Parson; “it is little beside biscuit sopped
in rain that we have had this day. Tom,” he shouted, “mind you take care
of Torkel there; going without his grub is a serious thing to one of your
country, and a still more serious thing going without his brandy.”
“As for your wet clothes,” continued the Captain, “there is no help for
that. Birger’s are much in the same mess, but we have a fire big enough
to dry anything, if the rain would only hold off. In the meanwhile
you must keep under canvas; those lug-sails of yours keep the wet out
capitally. You see, I have used them for roof, and have built up walls to
them with fir-branches and junipers.”
“Upon my word,” said the Parson, “it is quite luxurious, and so is this
dry flannel shirt—Heaven bless the man who invented flannel shirts,—I
should have been dead with cold by this time, if I had been wearing a
linen one. Hallo, Jacob! you look rather moist; what is the state of the
larder?”
Whatever the state of the larder was, the Captain had determined it
should be a mystery, for he knew well that nothing unfits a man for
subsequent work so much as a hearty meal after great fatigue upon little
sustenance. As soon, therefore, as he heard that they had eaten little
or nothing since their breakfast at the sœter on the preceding day, he
gave a private sign to Jacob, and nothing whatever was forthcoming but a
good strong basin of portable soup, smoking hot, with a couple of kahyt
scorpor bobbing about in it; and, early as it was in the day—for it was
not more than four in the afternoon,—the Parson was well satisfied to
scoop out a bed in the dry moss of the tent, to draw his fur cloak over
him, and to seek in sleep the rest which he needed quite as much as he
did the food.