JOHN.
_August 7._--We began another day by catching a beautiful bag of fish,
and about midday were just starting to shoot our way over to Besse
Sæter, when a man came in sight stumbling down the mountain track
towards the rest-house. He was red and sunburnt, with a beard of about
three days' growth. He was coatless, collarless, and apparently
exhausted. On his nearer approach we saw he was an Englishman, and
presently when a few yards from us we recognised--John! Not the smart
young beau we have always seen him in London; no longer the devotee to
society and his club, but an almost unrecognizable John, so sunburnt and
hot and hungry. Formal greetings were exchanged: 'Dr. Livingstone,
I presume?' 'Mr. Stanley, I believe?' and we rushed into each other's
embrace.
Then we besought him to refresh himself on fladbrod, milk, and coffee;
which he did, largely. After this he became calm enough to give us a
brief summary of his adventures since he left England.
He had done the journey from Christiania in very quick time, and had
left all his luggage twenty miles behind at Hind Sæter, which is the
nearest place to us to which wheeled vehicles can get. From thence he
had started at five o'clock this morning. How he found the way is a
marvel, but by great good fortune he met a man when he was about three
miles out of the track, who put him right; otherwise he would probably
never have arrived anywhere.
He has brought additional stores for the camp, as arranged before we
left England, and we had left a note in Christiania asking him to call
at the shop in Vaage, and try to get a small stove for the tent, or at
any rate find out the price of one. Vaage is our nearest village, about
fifty miles distant.
When John arrived there, seeing the shop as he drove past, he descended
from his cariole and entered. The shop was full of people buying all the
necessaries of life; for in these villages there is only one shop, which
is a general store for everything. John was a little confused at his
first experience of a Norwegian shop, but at last pulled himself
together, and seeing a stove standing in the middle of the room,
intended for heating the place, he walked up to it, and stroking it
gently with his hand, looked round at the people generally and remarked,
'Hvor meget' (How much)? Dead silence not unmingled with awe followed
this observation; for those simple rustics thought there was a maniac
among them. This perplexed John, and as everybody was staring at him,
and he began to find himself in a remarkably tight place, he concluded
to make another remark, so asked in Norsk, 'Have you any whisky?' The
storekeeper having no licence looked horrified, and said, 'Nei.' So John
pursued his advantage by inquiring, 'Have you any aquavit?' 'Nei' was
again the answer, and an ominous whisper of 'landsmand' (the policeman)
was plainly audible. John thought he had asked enough about stoves to
quiet his conscience, and guessed it was time to quit that shop. So
rapidly regaining his cariole, he vanished before any of the crowd had
made up their minds what to do.
We kept to our plan of going to Besse Sæter, starting as soon as John
had finished his lunch, and got several teal and a greenshank on the
way. On one little bit of water we spied three teal near the bank, and
having both together made a most skilful stalk, got them all.
Arriving at Besse Sæter we found one of the two rooms occupied by two
Swedish ladies, who were travelling about by themselves for the sake of
their health. One of them spoke English well, and told us they had been
up several of the high mountains round, and intended to wander about all
the summer.
We three had to be content with the other room, and two beds; odd man
out for the whole one. Those who only had half a bed reported it rather
a crowd in the morning.
_Sunday, August 8._--Our object in coming to Besse Sæter was to break
the journey to a place called Rus Vand, where a Norwegian owns a lake
and hut: it is distant about two hours' walk from Besse Sæter, and we
had a letter of introduction to Mr. Thomas, the owner, which we were
anxious to deliver, so as to obtain leave to fish in the lake, the
western end of which comes to within walking distance of our camp in
Memurudalen; and the fishing is remarkably good.
Therefore this morning we started to clamber up the steep mountain side
that has to be crossed between Besse Sæter and Rus Vand, and skirting
the shores of Bes Vand--which lies on a small plateau at the summit--we
soon found ourselves scrambling down over the loose stones, and through
the willow scrub that covers the uneven slopes approaching the east end
of the lake.
From our side of the river--when we reached its banks, while a boat was
crossing to fetch us--we saw several men, and a couple of
English-looking setters, a pointer, and a target fixed up about 200
yards from the huts, so that the place presented a very sporting
appearance.
Mr. Thomas received us very kindly, and at once gave us permission to
fish in his lake. Both he and his wife spoke English perfectly, as did
another lady staying with them, and as most emphatically did _not_
another sportsman also living there.
These two ladies and two gentlemen were all living in a little
two-roomed hut, each room being about nine feet square, and the doorway
about five feet high and two wide; the gentlemen's bedroom being also
the kitchen. How the ladies managed to turn themselves out in such
faultless apparel was a mystery, but it was done, for we saw it.
[Illustration: The Huts at Rusvasoset]
It is a very plucky thing for ladies to come up here and live for a
month, even now when there is a wheel-road (of a sort) to within fifteen
miles, but the same thing was done by English ladies ten years ago, when
there was no road nearer than forty miles. Are their names not written
in the chronicles which adorn the walls of the hut, and carved on the
profile fishes which decorate the floor?
In the other hut--which is little more than a boat--there are living
Jens Tronhuus, our old stalker; 'Siva,' the man who carried our canoes
up the mountain at Sikkildal, and another native, also the dogs; besides
bottles and churns, grindstones, pack-saddles, saws, axes, and all the
other heterogeneous articles which accumulate in a place of this kind.
It looked full.
We found the party just sitting down to breakfast after a rather
unsettled night, as they had been roused about half-past two in the
morning by some one hammering at the door, and found it was a young
Norwegian, named, let us say, Coutts, who was making a walking tour, and
was more or less lost. They succoured him with coffee and other
refreshments and sent him on his way with Jens to guide him. Coutts's
intention was to struggle on to Besse Sæter, but we had seen nothing of
him there.
We stayed some time at the huts, talking and looking at all the
memorable objects that were there under our _régime_ (as we had occupied
these huts and had the fishing to ourselves two years previously). There
was Esau's celebrated 'biggest trout whatever was seen,' carved on the
floor; the Skipper's favourite cast, and the ice safe that we cunningly
devised and constructed in the lower hut. The Thomas's are in even worse
case than we, for like us they have seen no deer, and they have so many
more mouths to feed. However, they have any quantity of fish, for
Rusvasoset is as good a place as the Sjoa at Gjendesheim, which is
saying a great deal.
About one we commenced the homeward journey. Two of Jens' sisters had
come with us, nominally to see their brother, but really--John
asserted--for the purpose of flirting with _him_. He was extremely
polite to one of them--though of course he could not speak to her--and
would insist on carrying her shawl and other impediments; and he
confided to us afterwards that 'women were generally a good deal taken
by that sort of mute homage.' She was a dear little girl, and we called
her the 'Sæter darlen;' which we believe to be the only Norwegian pun we
ever attempted.[*]
[Footnote: John said this pun might be elucidated with advantage
to the British public, as he did not believe any one could
possibly see it. Who cares? Down it goes, and we can assure any
one who likes to wrestle with it that it is something very good
indeed.]
The walk home to Gjendesheim is a long one, and although it was Sunday
Esau insisted on making a détour over the marsh with his gun, as he said
he had lost his knife there yesterday and wanted to look for it. He
arrived late at Gjendesheim with a satisfied air on his face; without
his trusty steel, but with his pockets thrust full of too trustful teal,
that had adventured themselves within his reach.
At Gjendesheim we found the young Norwegian who had roused up the
Thomas's at Rus Vand, and perceived that he was not without some
peculiarities of character. Although the weather was as wet and cold as
weather could be, he was attired in a suit of white duck clothes like an
English mechanic; even his hat was of white duck, and Esau declared
afterwards that his boots were made of the same material; that he had a
cigar-case and cigars of it, and ordered white ducks for his dinner. The
appearance of his head caused us to be very anxious about any little
articles of value that we had about us, for it looked as if it had been
shaved all over about two days previously to our making his
acquaintance. He looked very strong, tough, and active, and no doubt was
so, for he had just performed a most extraordinary walking feat. He is
going over all the Jotun Mountains by himself, and yesterday morning he
started from a place an unknown number of miles away at 6 A.M. He walked
all day and all night, till it got dark, at which time he was somewhere
near Glitretind, in a country he had never seen, with only a vague
notion of where he wanted to get to and a pocket compass to do it with.
The country about there is perfectly awful to walk over even by day; but
he kept at it through the dark, following a torrent up till he crossed
the watershed, and following another torrent down till he got to Rus
Vand, and staggered into the hut there at 2.30 A.M. almost fainting, for
he had had nothing to eat all day: true, he might have got fladbrod at
the sæters during the day, but he said he did not care for fladbrod:
certainly, he had plenty of chocolate in his knapsack, but he was tired
of chocolate. At Rus Vand he got some coffee, as Thomas told us; and
then he walked over the mountain with Jens to Besse Sæter, intending to
sleep there: but we were snoring at our ease in all the beds of Besse
Sæter, and he hated sleeping on floors, so he walked on again to
Gjendesheim, arriving there at half-past five this morning.
Then he produced his knapsack, which he said weighed twenty-five lbs.:
it seemed to be chiefly filled with packets of most delicious chocolate,
some of which he gave us.
We thought him a first-rate fellow, but certainly a little peculiar.
He has been all over the world, and is great at natural history, having
stuffed many birds in foreign countries for the museum at Christiania.
The Skipper had the next room to his, and told us that at bedtime he
washed himself all over, cleaned his teeth, and brushed his hair: he
then stayed in bed till eleven o'clock next morning, when he rose and
went through the whole performance again. Now we did not mind him
washing, or brushing his teeth; we even respect him for doing it; but
brushing his hair was a simple insult to common sense, and a wicked
waste of time; for not a bristle on his head--whether hair, moustache,
or beard--was more than an eighth of an inch long, and all of it was
much stiffer than any hair-brush yet made. It was suggested that perhaps
he was only combing his hair-brush with his head; and with this
explanation we had to rest content.
We luxuriated on meat to-night, for they have actually caught and killed
a sheep.
We fish with considerable success now at every odd moment of the day, as
the canoes are moored to the shore, not six yards from the house; and it
takes no time to get into them and push out into the deep lake, or hover
about the brink of the long rapids where the lake begins to be a river.