ANOTHER FISHING EXCURSION--LANDING A SALMON--THE
CARRIOLE--BOATS ROWED BY LADIES--DEPARTURE FROM
LARVIG--CHRISTIANSAND HARBOUR--RETURN TO BOOM--
SINCERE WELCOME--ANGLING AT THE FALLS--THE FORSAKEN
ANGLER--A MISUNDERSTANDING--RECONCILIATION--ST.
JOHN'S DAY--SIMPLICITY OF MANNERS.
On Tuesday morning, at three, I joined R---- and P----, and took a
second trip up the river, to indulge in this pastime of angling.
When we arrived on our fishing ground, the salmon were seen springing
two or three feet out of the water into the air, a sign not always good
for the sportsman; for the Norwegians say, that when the fish begin to
leap out of the water, they are moving up the river, and disinclined to
take food. It was entertaining to observe them, as they leaped in
various places, from rock to rock, up the stream of the Foss; and
although they would be brought back by the immense volume of water,
nothing disheartened, would repeat the leap again and again. Seated in
the pram, I watched in the clear stream, the caution with which some of
the salmon approached the fly, and after darting away from it, returned
and sported round it, as if perfectly aware of the deceitful manner by
which the hook was hid; but in a reckless moment, just as the fly was
moved along the top of the water, resembling the living insect with such
exactitude that I could be deceived, they would make a sullen plunge,
and then as if aware of the foolish act they had committed, secure their
death by running away with the whole line before they could possibly
feel the hook. A slight jerk is given to the tackle, and their doom is
sealed.
I saw one salmon caught through his own folly; for had he been less
violent, he might have gratified his curiosity by tasting the fabricated
fly, and could, when he found that it was nothing more than a macaw's
feather, have quietly spitten it out; but as soon as the hook lanced his
lip, the fish made a leap of several feet above the surface, and on
falling into the river again, shot like a silver arrow, towards any weed
or rock he saw, sheltering himself behind it, as if he deemed this
retreat secure. But when he felt a motive power, over which he had no
control, gently drawing him by the head from his old abode, and the
consequent slight, shooting pang of the hook, away he flew, right up
towards the pram, flapped his tail furiously to the right and left, and
then bounced about his native pool, indignant of the vile trick that had
been played him. R----, was soon rowed to the bank, and I stood by his
side gaff in hand.
"Look out," said R----, in an under tone; and, turning up the sleeve of
my coat, I gave the gaff the full length of the handle. The fish,
however, saw me move, and like a flash of lightning, clove the water to
its lowest depth. The line passed with such rapidity between R----'s
thumb and forefinger, that it almost cut them off.
The manoeuvring of ten minutes more brought the salmon within a few
feet of the bank, and crawling through the rushes, I remained ready to
perform my part of the tragedy. Near and nearer, turned on his back, and
panting laboriously, the fish allowed himself to be drawn towards the
shore. Lowering the gaff slowly into the stream, till I guessed it was
two or three inches below the fish, and then making a sudden lunge, I
pierced the soft part of the stomach a little behind the two fore fins,
and lifted the salmon from the water.
"You did that devilish well," exclaimed R----, hurrying up to remove the
hook. The salmon plunged in every direction violently; and it was with
great difficulty I could keep my hold of the gaff.
"Make haste," I said, "or he will be off the gaff; see, how the flesh of
the stomach is ripping!"
And so it was. The weight of the salmon was sufficient to tear the
tender part of the flesh under the stomach, and the longer I held the
fish from the ground to allow R---- to remove the hook, the more
probable it appeared, that, the salmon by his furious struggles, would
lacerate and divide the flesh, and fall from the gaff.
"Poor wretch!" said R----, as he strove to unfasten the hook from the
ligaments of the jaw, "I am keeping him in his pain a long time; but I
can't help it."
"I must put him on the ground," I observed, when the fish by its
struggles nearly twisted the gaff from my hand.
"No; for heaven's sake, don't!" exclaimed R----. "He'll knock both of us
into the water if you do. There," continued R----, holding the hook, at
last, in his hand, and cleansing it from slime and gore on the cuff of
his coat, "put him down;" and opening a clasp-knife, he ran the blade
into the crown of the salmon's head. The creaking sound of the bone as
it yielded to the passage of the sharp knife, like the cutting of a
cork, made my teeth ache. The fish stirred not; but the blood trickled
from his mouth in small bubbles, and stretching out all his fins, as a
bird would stretch its wings to fly, a spasmodic shudder succeeded, and
then the fins gradually relaxed and adhered close to his sides, while
the blood still oozed from the mouth and gills, and striking his tail
once or twice on the ground, the salmon seemed to fix his round,
staring, glassy eye on me, as if in accusation of the torture I had
caused, and gaping, died.
"If I ever gaff another fish, may I be gaffed myself," I said.
"Fish do not feel so acutely as you imagine," replied R----, wiping the
penknife on his handkerchief with the coolness of an anatomical
operator; "all the quivering you observe is not from actual pain, but
merely from muscular action."
"Well, I am not surgeon enough to know that," I answered; "but if you
talk for three years, you will never persuade me that a fish does not
feel, as well as every other creature, in proportion to its size, the
anguish of bodily torture as sensibly as you, or I."
"Never mind arguments," cried R----, "here, let's see what he weighs."
And R---- drew from his coat-pocket, a small balance that he always
carried about with him, and hooking the defunct salmon on it, held it
up.
"Twenty-two pounds to a fraction," he said; and took a little book from
his other pocket, and noted down the weight. Casting up the figures to
himself in a sort of whisper common to all calculators, R---- observed
aloud, when he had concluded his addition,
"I have killed forty-five pounds myself. That's not so bad, eh? Come
on;" and hurrying into his pram, was rowed away.
I did not remain much longer on the bank of the river, and desiring a
change, I walked towards the road that ran parallel with the stream. A
Norwegian peasant, driving a carriole soon overtook me, and asking him
in the most grammatical and simple manner I could, if he were returning
to Larvig, he made me a long speech in reply; but beseeching him in my
second address to give me a monosyllabic answer, either affirmatively or
negatively, as I was a foreigner, the man bowed his head till his chin
came in contact with the bone of his chest, and said,
"Ja!"
I then asked him if he were as desirous of letting his carriole, as I
was of hiring it; and he again said,
"Ja!"
I tendered several small silver coins, amounting to an ort, a piece of
Norwegian money equivalent in value to eight-pence sterling, and begged
the peasant to tell me if the offer were sufficiently generous. He
counted the coins in the palm of my hand. When he had done so, he
smiled, and said,
"Ja, tak;" and shaking hands with me, he gave me the rope reins.
The carriole is an elegant, comfortable, but most unsociable vehicle;
for it is as unfit to hold two persons, as an ordinary arm-chair. To sit
properly in a carriole, you should be rather round-shouldered, as its
shape is not unlike half a walnut, scooped out. The post-boy sits
behind, or stands up, as a groom does in England; but his position must
be uncomfortable in the extreme, as the carriole has no springs, and
bounds and jumps heavily over ruts and pebbles, causing him to fidget at
intervals, and make an exclamation of discomfort most irregularly. The
shafts and wheels are slight, and the body painted uniformly of a
chocolate colour. The foot-board is not larger than a tea-tray, about
six inches square, and in order to reach it, the legs are so extended as
to bring the tip of the toes and the apex of the knees on the same
plane. Nor does the driver look down on his horse, as he would in
England; but the eye has a level view along the back of the animal, and
his neck, or wooden collar obstructs any further perspective.
I could not make the man, or skydsgut, as he is called, who accompanied
me, understand ten consecutive words I spoke; but asking a multitude of
questions, I thought I must have collected a multitude of information.
Disliking the dulness of my companion, I drove at a swift pace, but the
skydsgut did not seem to like it, and several times I could guess from
his manner, that he was expostulating with me. The Norwegians love their
horses with the strong, feminine devotion of Arabs, and it is not an
uncommon sight to see the skydsgut, if he be a boy, burst into a
passionate fit of tears should you lash his horse twice in a mile. He
will strive to tell his grief, but if the language of his sorrow be not
understood, he will cover his face with his hands, and weep aloud by the
road side. The Norwegians have given Englishmen the credit of being
impatient travellers, and from their desire to pass over the greatest
quantity of ground in the smallest quantity of time, they are said to
use the whip more frequently than is necessary. I do not know that this
is an incorrect opinion. As one man has peculiarities that another man
has not, so one nation may be noted for eccentricities, of which another
nation is devoid; and, for my own part, I am inclined to think, that,
however superciliously Englishmen may regard the usages and habits of
foreigners, there are no people who give strangers a truer idea of
maniacs than Englishmen themselves.
R---- and P----, returned in the evening with a boat full of salmon, and
one fine fish, weighing nearly thirty-two pounds, was smoked and
prepared to be sent as a present to England. I passed the whole of the
subsequent day at Larvig, and the Consul begged, that as I was alone, I
would dine with him. I accepted his invitation. After dinner, in the
cool of the afternoon, his daughters, two very lady-like and pretty
girls, requested me to join an excursion they were about to make across
the fiord, to the opposite shore. These ladies would insist upon rowing
the boat the whole distance, upwards of two miles, themselves. I
objected for a time; but when they told me it was the custom of the
country, and, that the art of sculling was as much an accomplishment as
the softer allurements of the harp, or guitar, I felt more reconciled,
and fully appreciated an honour that could never be offered to me again.
At half-past ten o'clock, shortly after we had returned from our trip,
and while I was standing on a high rock, from which an extensive view of
the fiord could be seen, and talking to the Consul and several ladies, a
gun was fired from the yacht.
"His Lordship is returned," said the Consul to me, "and I think that is
for you."
"If it be so, they will fire again," I replied. The echo of the cable,
as the men began to heave it, left the Consul's conjecture no longer
chimerical; and after a little while, the flash and report of another
gun leaped one after the other, from crag to crag, through the dusk of
evening, and whirling above our heads, bounded over the summit of the
mountain.
"Come, there's no doubt now," observed the Consul, turning round towards
me.
"No," I answered; "but they don't suppose I can get on board without a
boat."
"You can have mine, with pleasure;" and the Consul, addressing his
little son, desired that a boat should be kept in readiness.
"Oh! there! look there," exclaimed two, or three ladies, pointing
towards the cutter.
"Ay, the anchor's away," said the Consul; and the yacht, with flapping
jib, began to move, like a colossal swan with erected crest, proudly
through the water.
The main-sail being well brailed up, the two boats were hauled alongside
to the davits, and while they were being hoisted on them, a third gun
was fired. The ladies, delighted with the flash and thundering of the
guns, begged me to linger a little longer, that another gun might be
fired; but fearful that R---- would play some mad prank, and stand out
of the fiord without me, I promised the fair dames, that the next time I
came to Norway, I would comply with their request, and never leave them,
or Larvig again.
The Consul's eldest son soon rowed me to the yacht. When I stood on
deck, and looked towards the shore, I could see the white handkerchiefs
of those whom I had just left, waving through the dusky air.
"There are some of your loves," said R---- to me.
"They do not wish you well less than they do me," I replied.
The separation from Larvig was the feeling of a second regret I
confessed since my departure from England. Dear old Larvig! It is the
green oasis where recollection, ever loving, turns to rest; and where
the springs of Friendship's warm simplicity, may quench the thirst of
him who sighs for Sympathy upon the Desert of Society.
At midnight we cleared the Larvig Fiord, and shaped our course for
Christiansand. The weather had been sultry and calm; and at three
o'clock in the morning, a tremendous thunder-storm spent the principal
part of its anger upon us. The rain descended as if it had been spouted
at the yacht through water-pipes; and the uproar of the thunder among
the mountains, and the frequency and vividness with which the lightning
gleamed, showing every object on the sea and land, were so terrific,
that, each man turned in his hammock, and rubbing his eyes, wished to
know what all the noise and light on deck were about.
"Lord! how it thunders!" I heard one man growl, as the peal awoke him.
"The lightning's no better," answered another, as a strong, red flash
followed close after the sledge-hammer blow of the clap. The officer of
the watch gave some command in muffled tones, and immediately afterwards
the man at the helm muttered in a gruff voice,
"Seven bells."
When the hour had been struck, the silence was again profound; and only
the pattering of the drops of rain on the deck, as the storm receded,
could be heard.
The next morning, before I was up, there was an altercation on deck; and
the word "stuff" seemed to prevail over every other.
"Here, D----," I heard R---- exclaim to the sailing master, "just look
here;" and then a short pause ensued, until D---- reached the after part
of the yacht, where the jolly-boat had been secured on deck.
"As long as you fellows can stuff yourselves," R---- continued, "that's
all you care about; but, after that, my property may go to the devil."
Then there was a dialogue, in an under tone, explanatory of something
that had gone wrong.
"I am sure, my Lord," pursued D----, "I am as careful as I can be, and I
endeavour to make every man the same."
"It's all very fine to say so," answered R----, "but I wish you would
act after the same fashion; for here's a salmon I ordered to be cured at
Larvig, for the purpose of sending to England as a present; and just
because not one man would take the trouble to throw a piece of tarpaulin
over it last night, to keep off the rain, it is perfectly spoilt."
The cured salmon had been placed in the jolly-boat the evening before,
and orders were strictly given, that it should be covered during the
night; but the attention paid to those orders amounted to what I have
related. The salmon, however, was hung up in the shrouds, and after a
great deal of trouble and attention, it was sufficiently preserved to
arrive in England, three weeks afterwards, and to command the praise of
every one who tasted it.
At two o'clock in the afternoon we entered Christiansand Harbour; and
taking our old berth a little to the westward of the castle, fired a
salute, to let our friends know we had returned. Several gentlemen came
on board, and made many inquiries about our travels; and when they had
learned all, arrangements were made for us to fish in the Toptdal River,
at Boom, as long as we liked.
Early on Monday morning we weighed anchor, and reached up the fiord as
far towards the mouth of the Toptdal River, as the depth of water would
permit; and after an hour's sail, the yacht was brought up in a
beautiful little bay, about three miles from Christiansand, and about
four from Boom.
From a sky azure and warm as in an oriental clime, not a cloud was
reflected on the smooth, transparent water, and scarcely a breath of
air stirred the leaves of the trees. So absolute was the stillness, that
the voices of fishermen, who dwelt among the rocks, could be heard in
conversation, although their forms were diminished by distance to the
size of a rook.
At five o'clock we were at Boom again, and our friend the
Anglo-Norwegian was shaking us by the hand. His eyes sparkled with
delight at the renewal of our acquaintance; and promising us the best of
sport, he led us towards the cottage in which we had lodged on our first
visit. The peasant, our landlord, came forth to the cottage door, pipe
in hand, to salute us; while his wife gazed at us through a small
window; and, when she caught our glance, smiled, with a sunnier language
on her face than she could have uttered with her tongue, the sincerity
of her joy to see us once more. I felt as if I had been a long time a
wanderer, and had returned home. The three beds in the cottage were
ordered to be got ready for us, and a lodging in a neighbouring
farm-house was secured for the four men who had rowed the gig.
The fish did not take the fly willingly, for only one or two were caught
between R---- and P----; but the amazing number of salmon that kept
leaping out of the water, during the whole afternoon, bade us not
despair of being more prosperous on the morrow. The Toptdal River is
the property of a celebrated merchant resident at Christiansand, and he
derives a considerable income from the sale of fish caught in it. It is
one of the most famous salmon streams in the south of Norway; and its
celebrity may in some way be tested when I state, that, two and three
hundred salmon have been taken in the nets in the course of one day at
Boom, and the same quantity has been continued through several
successive days. Great numbers are still caught, but not in such
multitudes as formerly; and the diminution is ascribed to the
circumstance of no law existing in Norway to protect, or rather,
preserve the salmon at certain seasons; and poaching has been, of late
years, so extensive, that unless the Government take a little more care
of a fish that has become almost a staple commodity of the country, and
arrest the nefarious system at present without bounds, the extinction of
salmon in the southern rivers of Norway must be immediate and complete.
Indeed, we visited some places which a few years ago were famous for the
beauty, size, and multiplicity of their salmon; but we were told on our
arrival, that, not a fish was now to be caught or seen, from the mouths
to the sources of these rivers.
Early in the morning, by daylight, I heard R---- and P---- pulling on
their jack-boots, and winding and unwinding their tackle. The clicking
noise of their reels awoke me.
The Toptdal River is uninterrupted by rapids from Christiansand up to
our cottage, but as I mentioned, there is before the door a tremendous
fall, and a pool of great depth has been formed, by the eternal force
and action of the tumbling water. This pool is nearly circular, and
about a quarter of a mile in circumference. A large rock, considerably
above the level of the water, stands in the middle of this pool; and
perched on it the sportsman may presume that he has attained the most
choice position for angling. From this rock, made slippery by the
ascending spray of the cataract, Mr. H----, the gentleman to whom I have
referred as the proprietor of this river, is wont to fish; and he is
allowed to be one of the most distinguished and sagacious anglers in the
vicinity of Christiansand or Boom.
Pursuant to the mode of the country, and the recommendation of the
natives, my two companions embarked in a pram to seek the piscatory
treasures of this pool. The surface of the water was not so clear and
smooth as at Larvig; for it boiled and eddied, and the wrath of the
thundering cataract made it white as Parian marble. R---- and P----,
notwithstanding the difficulty of throwing their flies daintily, from
the uneasy motion of the pram, discovered another more serious obstacle
to this united possession of the same pram; for, now and then, P----'s
silver pheasant fly would buz very close to R----'s right ear, and
R----'s white moth fly would hover around and settle at last on P----'s
pepper-and-salt cloth cap, and whisk it into the water. In short, the
danger of proximity in fly fishing was as obvious as the deductions of
any mathematical problem. The union could not exist. A remedy was to be
found; and P---- sat down on the grating over the well of the pram, and
gave himself to contemplation. His inquisitive mind lost no time.
"Hollo!" he suddenly exclaimed, "there's that rock; can't I get on it?"
"Let's pull and see," assented R----; and the boatman was desired to row
towards it. When the pram was driven by the force of the whirling stream
against the rock, P---- jumped on it, but nearly slid off on the other
side.
"Oh! ah! this is capital," he said, raising himself cautiously by the
aid of both hands. "This will do."
And having, after several efforts, stood upright, he commenced
untwisting his line from the rod.
"All right?" asked R----, impatient to begin.
"Yes, all right," replied P----; and away the pram, borne by the
thousand intertwining currents, shot with R----.
The high peaks of the mountains now began to shine in the rising sun,
and, like the ebbing surface of an ocean, the line of light gradually
descended towards the valley. One by one, the cattle came forth from
their sheds; and the cock, flapping his wing, stood a tip-toe, and crew
most lustily. Under the weather-vane, on the farm-house roof, the
pigeons trimmed their feathers, and cooed. Unfelt the coolness of the
morning air, (for they were hot with exertion,) and regardless of moving
shadows, or cooing doves, my two friends gave up the sense of hearing to
their reels, and that of seeing to the career of the little zinc hooks
at the end of their gut lines. When I looked at the insular P----, and
his active rod, I thought him like to Archimedes who had found his
extramundane spot of ground, and, as he threw the fly, and bent his back
to let it touch the water lightly, was endeavouring to fasten his lever
to the base of the adjacent mountain in order to consummate his wish of
raising the world; and the circumfluous R---- with his long tackle, that
hissed when he cast it with the petulance of an angry switch, appeared
an ocean god, who had selected a shorter route to the North Cape by the
Toptdal River, and was urging his reluctant grampuses up the cataract.
R---- and P---- might have angled for five hours, and the result of
their assiduity was as diverse as pain is to pleasure, whatever the
Stoics may have said to the contrary; for P---- caught fifteen salmon,
and R---- not one. Disappointed, no doubt, that such trifling profit
should succeed to so much labour, R---- wound up his ten or twelve
yards of cat-gut, and desired the boatmen to row ashore. It was now
eight o'clock; and when people rise at two in the morning, it does not
require much calculation to tell how keen the appetite must become when
it has grumbled five hours in vain for aliment. P----, however, was
callous to hunger, or thirst; and as he made capture after capture, all
thought of food decreased in an inverse ratio. When R---- had alighted
from the pram, the boatman drew it up on the shore, lest it should get
adrift, for it was the only available pram at Boom; and touching his
slouch hat, signified to R---- his intention of going to his morning
meal. R---- consented. We sat down on a piece of timber by the river's
brink, and R---- watched his successful fellow-angler. P----'s very soul
seemed to be diving about in the pool entirely unconscious of every
earthly thing but salmon.
"By Jove! there's another bite," exclaimed R----, as P----'s reel spread
the tidings with the tongue of a Dutch alarum clock. After a little
play, the salmon ceased to live in the Toptdal River.
"I can't tell how he manages," said R----, in a sort of soliloquy. "I
don't get a rise in two days. My flies must be bad; or, I think, P----
always takes the best place." And R---- pulled his fly-book from his
pouch, and began to examine the flies attentively, one by one, from the
largest to the smallest.
"Your flies are very good," I observed; "but you have not application.
Look at P----; he is part of that rock, apathetic to every idea of life,
but the idea that he sees his fly."
"A great deal of it is luck," answered R----; "but let us go to
breakfast. I am preciously thirsty; I must swill something."
We both rose, and walked towards the cottage. The sun had now risen
above the tops of the mountains, and shone brightly in the very centre
of the valley through which the Toptdal River wound. Not a cloud spotted
the sky, and the declining languid motion of the atmosphere gave token
of a torrid noon. Entering into jocular conversation with our
Anglo-Norwegian friend, who was bustling about the cottage on our
behalf, we became so intimate and open-hearted, that R---- begged him to
partake of breakfast if he had not eaten his own; and seating himself in
the third vacant chair, the Norwegian did as much justice to our
hospitality, as the hungry steer does to clover. Time wore on, for the
shade of the tall trees became short and shorter; and when our little
stout Northern guest went from under the cottage roof, to give some
orders to a labourer, I observed that the huge flaps of his felt hat
sheltered his round projecting van and bulbous flank, and, that, to the
contemplative man with downcast eye, his whole frame, fat though it
were, would appear quashed into a circular shadow moving along the
ground.
After breakfast, R---- lit his pipe, and the Norwegian made a quid both
round and opaque, and bowing to us, stuffed it into his mouth. Its
proper arrangement with his tongue kept him silent for a second, and in
that second, we heard the prolonged, faint call of a man in distress;
but it was so indistinct, that the gentle rustling of the juniper leaf
interrupted our attention to it.
"Is not this delicious?" observed R---- to me; and the gray-blue
tobacco-smoke spouted, like a small fountain, from his mouth. "In London
I should be just thinking of getting out of bed, and here I have been up
these nine hours, and eaten like a bricklayer."
"I should not mind living here, and like this, all my life," I answered,
"and paddling about on that river."
"Ja," interposed the Norwegian in a broken dialect, but he thought
himself a good English scholar; "dat is goot, but you not tak care you
roltz down de foss; one old vomans roltz down de foss."
"Ah?" said I.
"Ja," replied the Norwegian; "she row one praam cross de top of de foss,
and de praam roltz over, and she vas drowntz."
The same dull, faint, long cry, fell on our ears; but we took no heed of
it, for our native companion said it was the signal shout of huntsmen in
the mountains.
"Did you ever find the old woman's body?" I asked.
"Ja," the Norwegian answered, twisting his quid from the left to the
right cheek, "she vas foundtz; and vat is droltz de bags of flour she
have in de praam, dough dey been long timetz in de vater, vere quite
drytz--de middle quite drytz."
"And what did you do with them?" I asked.
"I eatz dem," said my friend.
Again the long, low cry stole mournfully through the still air, and it
moaned like a melancholy spirit of the night that had been left behind
by its fellow spirits, as they hurried from earth at dawn of day, and
which, concealing itself in some mountain cavern, was wailing their
absence, and telling the torture it suffered from the glaring light.
"I say, old cock, have you any goblins in this place?" asked R----,
walking close up to the Norwegian, and blowing the smoke from his pipe
so voluminously in the little man's face, that he coughed till he nearly
spat his quid out of the window.
"Nej, nej," replied the Norwegian, as soon as he could breathe to speak,
in a tone of surprise that R---- should suppose such a thing. The
Norwegians are superstitious, and believe as confidently in ghosts, as I
do in the heat of fire.
"What the devil then," continued R----, "is that confounded groaning
about? Some fellow has committed murder. You had better go and see."
"Nej, nej," remonstrated the Norwegian, scratching his head, and moving
nervously in his chair at the suggestion. The Norwegian was stable as
his mountains; and R----, laughing at the man's apparent terror, resumed
his seat, and increased the generation of his genuine Latakia
tobacco-smoke.
It was now mid-day; and the hollow sounding tread of human feet clad
thickly, made R---- and me turn our eyes towards the threshold of the
cottage. Cased, like a shrimp-catcher, up to his hips in water-proof
boots, his landing-net, gaff, and fishing-rod, borne on his left
shoulder, P----, the very picture of impersonated anger, stood before
us. Dashing landing-net, gaff, fly-book, and his only fly-rod on the
table, regardless of crockery,
"A pretty trick you have played me!" he thundered out. We had never
given P---- a thought until the moment we saw him, nor did we, for one
instant, remember that, like Robinson Crusoe, he had been left on a
desert rock, and that the doleful cry might be his.
"It's now twelve," P---- continued angrily, "and you have quietly eaten
your breakfast, and allowed me to remain on that rock since six
o'clock."
"But my dear fellow," said R----, "could you not call for the boat?"
"And what have I been doing these four hours?" P---- exclaimed. "No;
it's just like you both; if you can satisfy your confounded
selfishness, the devil may take any one else's comfort."
"A boat would have put off to you," persisted R----, "if you had hailed
some of the workmen about."
"What nonsense that is," said P----, with wrath. "Do you think I stood
there like a fool, and held my tongue? Of course I hailed every one I
saw; but I should like to know who could hear me, stuck, as I was, close
under that Fall."
"Well, my dear fellow," answered R----, in a pacifying tone, "I tell you
the truth, I never thought of you until I saw your face at that door."
"That's just what I say; so long as you are comfortable, every one else
may go to the deuce;" and P---- snapped his finger, and walked to the
window. "Besides that," he added, "I am your guest, and entitled to look
for a little more respect."
"Oh! hang the respect," replied R----, quickly.
"Then you may fish alone," said P----; "for I'll be hanged if I will
stand being treated in this kind of way. Suppose, for one moment, you
had been in my place, and I had forgotten you, what would you have said
and felt? the case is the same."
"Why didn't you come ashore with me?" R---- asked, getting rather testy
himself; "am I your nurse? Am I to wait and watch for you?"
"Yes, you ought," said P----; "I would have done it for you. I can't
fish and have my eyes about me, in all quarters, at the same time. I
think it cursed unmannerly of you both."
R---- looked at me with one of his comic faces, and I looked at him.
"As to my manners," R---- answered aloud, "whether they be vulgar, or
whether they be genteel, I take no credit to myself; for an extra
allowance was made for my education, that I should be polished brightly
like a gentleman, and if you perceive a failure on that score, the fault
is not mine, but the preparatory school's. Moreover, if a man has any
mental, or personal defect, it is hardly fair to make allusion to it,
and by wounding his feelings to seek the gratification of anger."
R---- gave me a wink, as much as to say, "I have the weather-gage of
him." P---- spoke not in reply; but continued standing at the window,
and, with his back to us, looking out upon the fatal rock and cataract.
"We have left you a couple of eggs," observed R---- pacifically.
"You had better send them back to the hen to be hatched," P---- replied.
"Come, my dear fellow," continued R----, "don't let such a little thing
part us. Your being left on the rock was quite an oversight. Exercise a
christian spirit, and drink this delicious coffee."
Pouring out a cup of coffee, R---- held up the Norwegian wine-bottle of
milk by its long neck, and said to P----, "do you like a little, or a
good deal, of milk?"
"Oh! middling;" and moving from the window, P---- walked towards the
table.
"There," said R----, pushing the cup across to P----, "there's some real
Mocha for you."
P---- raised the cup to his lips.
"Capital!" he exclaimed, taking breath after a long pull.
"So it is!" reiterated R----, expelling a tremendous and satisfactory
cloud of smoke that took the shape of a balloon, and ascending towards
the cottage beams, puzzled me, by its great dilatation, to think, how
such a gigantic volume of sooty exhalation, as Dr. Johnson would say,
could be compressed into a small compass, like R----'s mouth.
When pacification took place, and conciliatory explanations were made
over and over again, R---- and P----, tumbling out their flies,
commenced to repair those that had been damaged by the fish, and
manufactured others, more suitable to the transparent water, and the
timidity of the salmon. While they were thus engaged, I loitered about
in the open air.
The day was hot to oppression; and it required no flight of the
imagination to forget that the country was Norway, and fancy myself in
the interior of Congo. Numerous insects, that flew with a droning noise
about me, and a multitude of adders basking in the sun, or hurrying
through the grass as I approached, gave new force to the illusion.
In the afternoon R---- and P---- caught thirty or forty salmon between
them. Such success made them determine to remain for some days longer at
Boom; but being desirous of a change of scene, as well as recreation, I
returned to the yacht, and sleeping on board that night, went the next
morning to Christiansand.
It was the 24th of June, known as St. John's Day; and on my arrival at
Christiansand, I learned that the festival was commemorated with great
ceremony by the Norwegians. Along the tops of the mountains, ever where
the eye wandered, piles of faggots, and old boats were collected
together, like funeral pyres. Men and women, children and dogs,
congregated in multitudes around them, watching for the set of sun; and
when the weary god sank down to rest, and with closing lids gave
darkness to the earth, a hundred bonfires simultaneously blazing forth
on the summits of the mountains, strove to reach his throne in the
meridian, and imitate the day. The sight was certainly fine, but could
not be compared with an ancient warlike and similar custom among the
Scottish Highlanders.
I called on some ladies and gentlemen whom I knew at Christiansand, and
learned a usage prevalent among the Norwegians, that should still more
endear their simplicity of heart, and the truthfulness of their
character, since it is void of all the artfulness and social fiction of
England. Approaching the house of a family, from the different members
of which we had received much kindness and hospitality, a servant met me
at the door, and while she was endeavouring to explain how much her
mistress was engaged, the eldest daughter of my fair hostess made her
appearance, and extending her hand to me, said, shaking her head,
"Herr, kan icca ta imod;" which meant, that I could not be received.
This is the usual phrase; and it tells you the simple fact, that the
lady of the house is at home, but her domestic occupations press upon
her so much at the moment, that she is unable to receive you.