THE BALL.
“Truly my brethren—truly my dear sisters—do you know how it
seems to me—why it seems to me that no one can get along till
he has taken a draught—How so? Eh? Your health, dear soul—
Here’s to you day and night,
New raptures, new delight.
Strike up with the fiddles! beat the drums! a stout pull at the
pot!
Here’s to ye as is fit,
The reckoning day endeth it.
The big bottle hail ye,
The drums beat reveiller,
At one draught down send it,
The reckoning will end it.
Kajsa Stina stands a drawing,
All my heart is clapper-clawing,
From the pot my fingers thawing—
Thus I sing my dying song.”
_Fredman’s Epistle to Kajsa Stina, Karl Bellman._
Never had the arches of the old forest rung with such shouts and screams,
and roaring songs, and bursts of laughter, as they did on the evening
of the great skal. A few of the elderly people, but a very few, had had
enough of it, and went off quietly to their homes as soon as they were
released from duty; as for the rest, no one could have supposed that
they had been worked off their legs, and kept from their natural sleep,
and drenched to the skin for the last three or four days and nights;
they were not over-clean, certainly, though some of the youngsters had
contrived, somehow or other, to smarten themselves up for the occasion;
but the rest made a great contrast to the women, those at least who
had taken no active part in the skal,—their white woollen jackets, or
scarlet or green spencers covered with embroidery and buttoned down the
front with silver knobs, formed a pleasing relief to the dinginess and
raggedness of active service. As for the unfortunate buglers, who,
most of them, were general musicians, and would play upon anything that
was wanted, these, without the least regard to their previous fatigues,
which had been even greater than those of the beaters, were placed upon
barrels, or carts, or stumps of trees, fiddling and clarionetting for the
bare life, while men and women tore in wild polska round them.
Some travellers have characterized the Swedish dances as indecent;
whether they are so or not, English papas, and mamas, and maiden aunts
are very competent judges, for they are precisely the English polka, as
we call it (dropping the s for convenience of pronunciation); the English
polka is, in reality, the national peasant dance of Sweden; and in their
own country the Swedes dance it with all their hearts and souls as well
as their limbs and bodies—not sliding and mincing as we do, but downright
pounding, so as to leave the print of the foot, and especially the heel,
on the yielding turf.
It might seem difficult to provide refreshments for such a ball-room
in such a place, where the dancers mustered somewhere about two
thousand strong—but in truth they were no way nice. The game, which
Bjornstjerna had very liberally given up to them, formed a good part of
these refreshments, a few sheep—“really sheep this time,” the Captain
observed,—with a good supply of rye-meal made into stirabout, formed
the solids, and these, though, with the exception of the game, they did
not grow in the forest, were easily procurable, for the families of
the combatants, knowing that a party of English gentlemen were engaged
in the skal, and rightly conjecturing that their hearts would be open,
had brought their stores to the meet, and all of these stores were not
exactly solids; the barrels on which the fiddlers were standing were
intended for something better than rye-meal: in fact, corn brandy, and
a hot fiery liquor which they make out of potatoes—very beastly to the
taste, but quite as efficacious in producing drunkenness as the very best
Cognac—was in plenty, and, the restrictions of the skal being at an end,
there was every prospect that the men would fully indemnify themselves
for their previous abstinence.
Birger and Moodie were stamping, and polking, and hurrahing, and kissing
their partners with the best of them, and the Captain, also, was not
altogether unsuccessful in his _coup d’essai_; as for the men, Tom and
Piersen had altogether forgotten the inferiority of the Swedes to the
true Norwegians, and Jacob’s long streaming coat tails had gone quite mad.
Torkel, alone, stung by some jest from his friend Tom, about the peculiar
duties and system of self-denial proper for an engaged man, crept up
rather discontentedly to the fire, at which the Parson was standing and
talking over the events of the day with Bjornstjerna.
In Norway, which in reality is a republic, and not a monarchy, there
is a great deal of independence and equality among all ranks, which is
not by any means the case in Sweden; but even in Sweden, a skal is a
time of saturnalia; and besides, Torkel, though in some measure acting
in the capacity of a servant, was, in reality, the son and heir of a
sufficiently wealthy proprietor; and the Englishmen, whom he ranked
infinitely higher than he did the very first of Swedish nobility, having
treated him all along more as a companion than anything else, he felt not
the least shy of the Hof Ofwer Jagmästere, though he added the title of
Count to his official honours,—and therefore entered very readily into
conversation.
They were turning over the skins of those beasts the bodies of which
were already undergoing a conversion into soup; most of these had been
purchased by the party, and were laid aside for packing; but the lynxes
and the filfras, and some others, which are not considered good for
eating, were still hanging by their heels to the lower branches of the
tree.
The filfras was a curious animal, about three feet long, but low in
proportion to its length, with great splay feet, well calculated to form
natural snow shoes—in fact, he leaves a track almost as large as that of
a full-grown bear, and upon the whole, very like one, and climbs trees
even better and quicker than his big brother. The present specimen had
been detected on a tree, and being wounded while in the act of passing
from one branch to the other, had come to the ground; but, wounded as
he was, he had fought gallantly for his life, and had bitten so severely
the first man who attempted to handle him, that he was obliged to leave
the skal and go home. The filfras is a harmless beast enough, so far as
sheep and cattle are concerned, and lives chiefly upon hares and such
game, which, though his eyesight be not very quick, a remarkably keen
scent enables him to tire down—he himself, in return, is even detected
by his own scent, which is perfectly perceptible to human nostrils, and
extremely disagreeable,—few dogs can be got to run him.[60]
The lynx, though of the tiger race, is a very harmless beast unless
attacked; he may carry off a young lamb now and then, but very seldom
kills his own mutton—it is not for want of spirit, for he fights like
any tiger when driven into a corner; throwing himself on his back, he
polishes off the dogs as fast as they come near him. A pack of English
fox-hounds might settle his business, as they probably would that of his
Bengal cousin himself; but there is not a dog in Sweden that would look
him in the face.
“It is a great pity,” said Torkel; who was examining the shot-holes in
the bear-skins.
“What is a great pity?” said the Parson.
“Why, to mob to death all these fine beasts, that might have given people
no end of sport in the winter.”
“And eaten up no end of sheep and oxen,” said Bjornstjerna.
“Ah! well!” that did not strike Torkel very forcibly; he had, it must
be confessed, led hitherto a rather miscellaneous sort of life; he knew
a great deal more about hunting than he did about farming, and regarded
the depredations of the bear—though some of them had been made on his
father’s own farm—much in the light in which an English fox-hunter
listens to tales of murdered geese and turkeys.
The matter which weighed upon his conscience just then was, that poor
Nalle[61] had not received altogether fair play. This had not struck him
during the heat of the chase so very much, but, now that the murder had
been committed, and that he was regarding the result of it in cold blood,
he evidently did not feel quite easy in his mind about it.
“Ah!” he said, “poor fellow,” turning over the skin of Bjornstjerna’s own
bear, which was yet wet with the water of the river in which he had been
killed; “well! we do not do such things in our country.”
“No!” said Bjornstjerna, “you could not get a couple of thousand people
together in your country without knives drawn.”
“But how do you manage it in your country?” said the Parson, who was not
a little afraid that his follower’s nationality would get the better of
his politeness.
“Ah!” said Torkel, “you should see one of our Norwegian bear-hunts in the
winter; it is not an easy thing to get Master Nalle on foot, and he takes
a good deal of looking after; but, when you do get a chance, it is worth
having.
“I remember my brother Nils one day, as he was coming home from church,
took a short cut across the fjeld, and put his eye on a queer-looking
heap in the snow, that he did not rightly know what to make of. While
he was looking at it out came a great fellow—one of the biggest I ever
followed,—as if he would eat him. Down tumbled Nils on his face, and the
Wise One came ploutering through the snow right over him, but went on,
minding his own business, as all wise ones do, and never stopped to look
at Nils.
“It so happened that my brother Nils had nothing but a pair of skarbogar
on his feet (a rough sort of snow-shoe, made of wood and rope), and,
knowing he could not get over the ground very well, never tried to
follow him, but came home quietly and told me what he had seen. The
weather looked fine, and there was neither snow likely to fall, nor wind
likely to drift what was fallen already, so that we knew the tracks would
lie; and the next morning, before it was well light, we had each of us
our pair of skier on our feet, our rifles at our backs, a good iron-shod
pole in our hands to shove along by, and a week’s provision in our
havresacs. I took old Rig[62] with me, in case we should lose the tracks.
“We soon came up with them, and off we went, taking it leisurely—for we
had a long run before us. It requires some little exertion to get up hill
with these skier; they do better for such a country as this than they do
for the rocky and tangled fjeld in Norway; but, on flat ground, you get
along five or six miles an hour without feeling it, and as for down-hill,
you may go just as fast as you like, only for standing still and keeping
your feet.
“For four or five hours the track lay as straight and even in the snow as
if we had been travelling the post road to Christiania. Old Nalle thought
his winter quarters were not over safe, and meant evidently to make a
passage of it, and had just been trotting along in the snow, not looking
right or left of him.
“After that the track came doubled and crooked, as if the old gentleman
had been taking a view of the country, to see whether it would suit his
purpose, before lying down for another nap,—so we had to work it out
painfully, step by step. This was a slow job, for he had taken a turn
to every point of the compass, and had crossed and re-crossed his own
tracks, and had changed his mind so often, that the short winter’s day
began to close, and we feared the light would fail; so we started right
and left of the spot, and succeeded in ringing him before we met again.”
“What do you mean by ringing a bear?” said the Parson.
“Making a circle round his tracks,” said Torkel, “so as to be sure
none lie beyond it; in that case you are independent of a thaw, for you
know that the old gentleman must be within a certain space. When we met
we agreed to leave our friend quiet, and to sleep till morning; so we
cut down a tree or two, and got up a roaring fire in a little hollow to
leeward, where we were sure the bear could not see our light or smell our
smoke, and there we lay, snug and comfortable enough.
“No thaw or mischance of any kind had taken place during the night, and
the next morning we were on the tracks again; for we had marked the place
where we had left off, by setting up one of the poles in it.
“We soon got puzzled, however, and began to be very thankful that we had
brought old Rig. Rig was a sharp fellow,—one of the quickest dogs I ever
met with at picking up a scent, or taking a hint either; his namesake,
when he watched at the gates of Asgard, could not have kept a brighter
look-out. The ground soon got very tangled and sideling, so, as the ring
was but a small one, we determined to give up the tracks, and to hunt for
him with the dog.
“The old fellow was not long in getting a sniff at him, and made noise
enough to wake up the Nornir in the cave of Hela. I pushed on, and before
I could tell where I was, ran my skier one on each side a little hole in
the snow, where the dog was baying,—a place that did not look big enough
for a fox to get in. I could not very well turn, for the points of the
skier were one on each side the trunk of a great twisted birch, at whose
foot the hole was; and I could not see what was in the hole, the snow was
so dazzling in the bright sunshine that everything else looked black. I
began to think that Rig had got hold of nothing better than a fox, and
was beginning to be angry with the dog for making such a row, and running
the chance of giving our real game a hint to steal off. I was looking
down between my skier, with my face as low as my knees, when all at once
I felt the snow heaving up from under me, and over I rolled, head over
heels, and old Fur Jacket with me, and Rig, who had pinned him as he
bolted, on the top of us both.
“The old fellow was a great deal too much taken up with the dog to mind
me; but before Nils could come up, or I could get my legs again, he had
shaken him off, and was dashing through the deep snow at a rate that
kicked it up in a white mist behind him.
“I had kept fast hold of my rifle, all through, and the snow had not done
it a bit of harm; in fact, the frost was so sharp that it came out of the
barrel like so much flour; and besides, we always cover our locks with
tallow after loading. He had got pretty well out of shot before we were
in chase, but for his sins he had taken down-hill, and the ground was
pretty clear, so we slid along after him like Fenrir after the Sun;[63]
when all at once, Nils, who had a little the best of the race, touched a
stump with the point of his skie, and flew up into the air, pitching head
foremost into the snow. It was, luckily for him, deep enough to save him
from a broken head or neck—at least, so I found afterwards, for I had not
time to stop then. As for the dog, he was a mile behind.
“Just at the bottom of the slope, I ran in upon the chase, and he turned
short round when I was not half-a-dozen yards from him. I could no more
stop than I could stop the lightning; so, setting my pole in the snow, I
swerved a little, and just missed going over him, as Nils had done with
the stump.
“By the time I had curved round, I found he had taken advantage of his
chance, and was going up again, travelling three times as fast as I could
hope to do, for skier are desperate bad things up-hill. However, mine
had seal-skin upon them, luckily, for in our mountainous country we are
obliged to do something to prevent slipping back; but, for all that, he
was getting much the best of it, so I took a cool shot at him, and heard
the ball strike just as if I had thrown it into a piece of dough, but he
never winced, or took the least notice.
“However, Nils had managed to pick himself up, and I saw him and Rig
together a good way above us, so I waved my cap and shouted: you can
hear a shout in the winter half-a-dozen miles off. Nils changed his
course, so as to cut us off. I followed, loading as I went. By-and-bye
the old fellow seemed to find out that he had enemies on both sides of
him, for he stopped, and growled, and looked back at me, and showed
his teeth. Just then Nils made a noise above, by breaking through some
understuff; and he turned, and came at me with his mouth open, charging
down-hill as hard as he could lick. It was ‘neck or nothing’ with me now,
I knew that, for there is no turning or dodging on skier, going up-hill,
so I rested my rifle on the fork of a branch, and, waiting till he had
come within a dozen yards of me, I shot into his mouth. Lord! it seemed
as if somebody had given him a lift behind; his hind-quarters rose up,
and his head went down, and he came sliding along the snow on his back,
wrong-end foremost. I could not move right or left, hampered as I was,
and he took me just across the shins with his huge carcass, breaking one
of my skier, and carrying me with him as if I were riding in a sledge;
but when we got to the bottom he never tried to hurt me, for he was as
dead as Baldur.
“That was something like a chase, and we turned a pretty penny by it,
too; we got four specie for sealing his nose, and fourteen for his skin,
to a young Englishman who wanted to prove to his friends at home that
he had killed a bear, and gave two specie over the market price for the
shot-hole; and, for ourselves, we had lots of fat, most of which, by
the way, had got melted in the race, and had to be frozen again before
we could carry it; and, for solid meat, the scoundrel weighed hard upon
four hundred pounds. We had pretty hard work in getting him home, for in
those two days we had run on end more than thirty of your English miles,
besides the turns. We had to go home and fetch a sledge for him, and my
sisters had a pretty job of salting when we got him there; Kari said that
our work was not half so hard as hers.”
“It is a curious thing, much as I have been in your country, I never saw
a skie,” said the Parson; “I do not even know what sort of things they
are.”
“It would be strange if you had,” said Torkel; “we never keep them at the
sœters, for the plain reason that we do not use them in summer at all,
nor inhabit the sœters in the winter. You have been very little in any
of our permanent winter homesteads since you have been here, and if you
had happened to put your eye upon half-a-dozen long pieces of wood, with
leather straps to them, the chances are, you would never have thought
of asking what such very ordinary-looking articles were. I will answer
for it, Herr Moodie has plenty of them at Gäddebäck; but they are, most
likely, stowed away at the top of the house, in the winter store-room,
where you would never think of going. They are long, thin strips of
wood, of a triangular form, about three or four inches broad, with their
points curved up for a foot or so, to clear the obstacles. In this flat
country they make the left-foot skie, which is of fir, ten or twelve feet
long; the right one is generally of ash, and not above five or six feet
in length, or they would never be able to turn in them. I, myself, like
them best both of a size, and not above five or six feet long,—only then
you must have them broader, to prevent sinking in the snow. This is a
disadvantage, certainly, still they are much handier to dodge about the
trees with, than those unwieldy concerns they have here. Mine are a pair
of old military skier, and there are none better.”
“What! do the soldiers use them?” said the Parson.
“That they do,” said Torkel. “I was always a good runner on skier, but
I learnt a good many clever tricks at drill, when I was serving my time
of duty in the militia. Our rifle regiment have all two light companies
of skielobere, and are drilled to light infantry movements on skates.
I did not like much being called out in the depth of winter for drill,
and not a little did I grumble at the hard work they put us to,—scaling
mountains, which we are obliged to do in skier, like ships beating to
windward; and then charging down them among trees and stumps,—swinging
this way and that, to keep one’s rifle out of harm’s way, and then
suddenly called upon to halt and fire,—and preciously punished are we if
the piece is not ready for action. However, I did not know what was good
for me; I have been twice the man ever since after the bears and winter
game.”
“I suspect,” said the Parson, “that is pretty nearly the whole use of
your skate-drill; it must be a pretty thing to see in a review,—but he
must be a gallant enemy who undertakes a winter campaign in Norway,
unless he is descended from the Hrimthursar themselves.”
“Well! I cannot stand this any longer,” said Moodie, coming up; “half the
party are drunk, and the rest are half-seas over; and there’s the Captain
pounding away to his own whistling, for the last fiddler has just dropped
off his empty barrel. It is time to go to bed.”
“Bed, yes! but where are we to find it: Jacob, I suppose, is by this time
numbered with the dead drunk.”
“You may swear to that, and Tom also; I saw him very near his end an hour
ago.”
“Well I do not care, for one,” said the Parson; “my bed is here,” and he
pulled out of his cariole his trusty mackintosh, and folding one of the
sails to his own length, he spread the mackintosh upon it. “I shall sleep
here luxuriously; and Torkel, bring me the cushion of the cariole seat. I
will not forget to tell Lota how faithful you have been to her this day.
Good night, all of you; we have work before us to-morrow.”
And so they had,—for the sun was not yet far above the horizon, when the
carioles were bumping along the forest roads to the southward.
At Amal, Torkel, with good wishes from all, and presents from some of
the party, took his leave to prepare for what Tom called the amending of
his life, and parted on his separate road through Fjall, and laid under
contribution a market boat from Wagne to Frederickshald, where he hoped
to find a vessel to Tonsberg, or Larvig, on the Norwegian coast. The
party proceeded leisurely along the western coast of the lake, to enjoy
for some time longer the hospitalities of Gäddebäck.
But the days began to shorten, and the joyous Scandinavian summer to come
to its close. It was necessary to think of the homeward passage, in time
to allow fine weather and sunny days for a leisurely cariole journey
along that most picturesque of countries, the southern coast of Norway.
Torkel’s wedding day, too, was approaching, and the party were under
a half engagement to old Torgensen, which tallied very well with the
necessity of reaching Christiansand for their homeward passage. “Time and
tide wait for no man,” and a forebud having been laid to Strömstad, the
carioles, accompanied as far as Wenersborg by Moodie, rolled away on the
road to Uddevalla.
One piece of luck attended them,—they were not yet to part from Birger,
for it so happened that his royal highness the Crown Prince, was to
pay his usual state visit to Christiania, on which occasion he was to
be attended by Count Birger, our young scamp’s father, whose daughter,
Birger’s sister, held also some appointment in the establishment of the
Princess. Birger, therefore, was able to consult his pleasure and his
duty at once, in going to Norway; to enjoy the coasting journey with
his friends, and then to meet his family at Christiania after their
departure.