Three in Norway, by Two of Them

See end of text.

August 25.—

Still the same glorious weather, rather too glorious for our purling rivulet, which has now dwindled away to a mere thread of water, while even the larger stream on the hill behind the tent, which we use for bathing, is showing a marked decrease in volume.

The Skipper and Öla went out stalking directly after breakfast, and Esau climbed up on to Bes Hö to shoot ryper. John went over to Rus Vand to fish, and had a pleasant day. He managed somehow to drop his native ‘tolle kniv’ into the lake, and of course immediately discovered that that knife was the most precious thing he possessed, in fact, the only thing he cared about in this world; though until it fell into the lake, he had regarded it with very unenthusiastic feelings—feelings of tolle-ration, the Skipper said. So he undressed and dived for it for a long time, and at last was lucky enough to recover it.

It would have been a pleasing sight to a spectator, if any could have been present, to watch John playing at being a seal all by himself in Rus Vand, or standing on a rock poised on one leg like a heron, with his head sideways and keen eye piercing the cerulean wave. And it was good to see his proud bearing as he returned to camp with the ‘tolle kniv’ slung jauntily at his waist, and carrying over his shoulder the scaly spoil snatched from the vasty deep, as we used beautifully to word it in Latin verses—meaning the fish he had caught.

 

At 8 P.M. the Skipper had not returned, so we dined, and then sat round the fire wondering what could have happened to delay him; and as time went on and still he never came, we began to get very uneasy; there are so many dangers by which the reindeer hunter may be overtaken—avalanches, crevasses, fogs, snowdrifts, broken limbs, or getting lost. We could only hope that none of these had happened to the Skipper, and at eleven o’clock gave up any hopes of his return that night and turned in, there being then a very decided fog a short way up the Memurua valley.

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SKIPPER’S RETURN.

August 26.—

At breakfast-time the drover who had accompanied us to shoot ryper at Gjendebod arrived here on his way towards lower and more genial regions for the winter. We always feel that we are killing more game than we really need, and here was an outlet for our superfluous meat, so we gave him half a deer, and he went homewards rejoicing greatly.

We had sent Ivar up to the drover’s den in Memurudalen at daybreak to see if our missing ones had found their way to it and spent the night there, but he now came back without having found any traces of them. However, under the cheering influence of the morning sun we soon became resigned to their fate, and Esau so far regained his spirits that he crossed the glacier torrent with a gun, and penetrated the birchwood on the other side, to what he called ‘shoot the home coverts.’ He presently brought back a woodcock, which had got up about fourteen times before he killed it, and each time he had thought it was a fresh cock, so that he had had a regular sporting morning after it, ‘seeing lots of cock get up, shooting at two, and killing one of them,’ the wood being so thick that it was almost impossible to get even the snappiest of snap-shots at the agile bird.

Esau then busied himself with the construction of a rack to hold all our guns and spare rods, cleaning rod, &c., with a shelf near the bottom for books, and another one whereon each man might keep his little valuables, such as pipes and watch, fly-books and reels. This contrivance was chiefly formed of birch boughs of peculiar shape, and when finished and placed in its proper position at the further end of the tent just behind our pillows, it presented a truly noble appearance.

Lunch-time passed, and still the Skipper had not returned, so we decided that he must be defunct, and proceeded to write his epitaph, preparatory to organising a search expedition to bring in his remains.

Here is one touching little poem:

This is another:

While we were still lingering over these beautiful and appropriate sentiments, and deliberating as to whether they should be cut on a stone or only on wood, the corpse suddenly walked into the tent and announced that he wanted something to eat. We soon got over our natural disappointment at the waste of a good epitaph, and really welcomed him quite warmly, much more so when Öla appeared laden with the tit-bits of a reindeer buck. Then we set food before the Skipper, and after he had feasted he related unto us his story.

‘I left camp yesterday morning determined to beard the savage untamed reindeer of the mountains in his lair, and soon came on very fresh tracks, which we followed for some time, and at each step seemed to get “hotter,” as the children say, and the indications of deer being near got more and more encouraging. However, by one o’clock we had seen nothing, so sat down behind a little rocky eminence to have our ‘spise.’ Mine was a particularly good lunch, as I had spread some gravy from the ‘boss pie’ on my slice of bread and butter, and this with the icy cold snow-water was very grateful after a four hours’ walk uphill under a scorching sun.

 

‘Öla also seemed to devour his food with considerable relish. So we had been sitting there some time, happily silent, as we cannot talk each other’s tongue, and I was just preparing to move on, and putting my knife back in its sheath, when we heard a slight snort quite close to us.

‘Öla immediately peeped cautiously over an adjacent stone; then he pushed my rifle into my hand and whispering the magic word “Reins,” pointed to another stone a few yards away, whither he wished me to crawl. To unsling my cartridge-bag lest it should jingle, and creep to that stone, was what the novelists call the work of a moment: then I raised my head va-a-ry gingerly, and saw forty yards away a single four-year-old buck standing broadside to me with his head in the air, sniffing suspiciously, and his whole attitude denoting uncertainty and caution. This buck, as we found out afterwards from the spoor, had walked up to within ten yards of us as we sat at lunch; then he must have either heard me or smelt Öla, probably the latter, for Öla seldom washes his hands, never his blood-stained hunting coat; and when I encountered his gaze he had evidently just decided that this was not a good place for reindeer to be about in. This was an excellent frame of mind on his part, but he arrived at it a couple of seconds too late: my rifle was levelled, and the shot hit him just above the heart. At that distance the express bullet smashed a portion of him about as big as a hat, so that he rolled over stone dead, and had no time for lingering glances or last words. Half an hour more, and he was skinned, gralloched, put in a hole and buried under a heap of stones, to remain there until we need his flesh and send the horse to bring him home. Then we built a little cairn to mark his resting-place for future use, and wandered on in search of the rest of his party.

‘Very soon we came on the tracks of four other deer, one of them only a calf, but although we followed the spoor all the afternoon we never came up with them: probably they were near enough to hear my shot when I fired, and at once betook themselves to remote regions.

 

‘It had got so late before we gave up the search, and we were such a long way from home, that we determined to go to Gjendebod, at the Western end of the lake, hoping to get a boat there and return to Memurudalen by water. But on arriving there very tired, hot, and hungry, we found that the men had taken their boat down the lake, and would not return until to-day. This was a great blow, for it is quite impossible to walk along the shores of Gjendin, except, as John says, for a bird—and even it would have to fly all the way. Climbing up the mountain again was out of the question, as it is a seven hours’ walk from Gjendebod to our camp, so there was nothing for it but sleeping there—a course which was very distasteful to me, as the food is bad, and I had no book with me, no tobacco, no hair-brush, and no fishing-rod.

‘To-day I started for home directly after breakfast. We wished to combine a little stalking with the walk, for we had to pass through some first-rate deer country—all that part, Esau, where you got your first two bucks; but of course we had not much chance of doing anything, as the wind was with us all the way. As you know, deer almost always feed up wind, so by walking against it you are safe from their ears and noses, and also are likely to be warned of their presence by coming on their tracks first. But in walking down wind all this is reversed; you come upon the deer without any warning, and they are almost sure to smell or hear you long before you discover them. Consequently, as we expected, we saw nothing on our way here to-day.’

The Skipper’s buck is a very good one, the best that has been killed at present, and there was much joy at his change of luck. But strictly speaking his bad luck has pursued him even in this instance, for if he had not been obliged to shoot when he did, in all probability the rest of the herd would have appeared on the scene, for their tracks showed that they were following the lead of this buck. Besides, there is not the same excitement in a chance shot like this as there is when you first find the deer, and then spend two or three hours in all kinds of uncomfortable modes of progression in order to approach them.

However, when we were in this country before the Skipper had all the good luck, and Esau the bad, the former getting five deer and the latter only two, so that the present state of affairs may be looked upon as the working of retributive justice. When this view of the matter was suggested by Esau to the Skipper, he said, ‘Retributive justice be blowed!’

We celebrated the joyful reunion of loving hearts by a skaal, and so to bed, perfectly happy after the events of the day.

August 27.—

We sent the men off this morning with the horse to bring in some of the meat now lying in the mountains, while we went by canoe to Gjendesheim to stay for a couple of days, as we cannot go stalking again till the already slain deer are brought home; the fish in the lake are not rising well after this long spell of fine weather, and with the exception of Esau’s ‘home coverts’ there is no shooting for a fowling-piece at Memurudalen.

Very few tourists find their way to Gjendin, but the season for them is over, and we expected to have the place to ourselves; but how fallible is human prescience! To our astonishment the sportsmen from Rus Vand had already occupied the greater part of the house, having abandoned their own hut for the same reasons which had led us to forsake our camp, and here they were, armed to the teeth with rods and guns.

This seemed unlucky, and although we were outwardly glad to see them, at heart we could not help feeling how inconsiderate it was of them to come and shoot the fjeld and fish the river just when we wanted to do all that ourselves. No doubt they harboured precisely the same feelings towards us.

However, we had dinner together, and introduced the ‘boss pie,’ now rapidly disappearing, to the notice of our Norwegian friends, and as the meal advanced a feeling of genial contentment crept over us, which seemed to influence all our senses; we began to talk over sport and compare our experiences in various countries and in pursuit of various animals: some of us were good listeners, others fond of talking, but all animated by a love for the same occupation, so that when at length one of the enemy handed round the best of cigars, even the Skipper became so mellow and pleasant that before going to bed we arranged for a joint shoot after ryper to-morrow; and said ‘Good night,’ feeling that it was quite fortunate that we had all come to Gjendesheim on the same day.

One of our new friends is a Russian, an engineer officer; he speaks not the English, but we were introduced to him as a man who had shot more bears in Europe than any one else living. He has killed forty-two, and looks as though he had been hugged by each one of them before it finally succumbed. Now he wants to kill a reindeer, and has been attempting the feat to-day; apparently he will be hors de combat for the rest of the week, as he can hardly move for stiffness: he has not been accustomed to the awful walking that stalking round Gjendin entails.

Esau is also rather dilapidated, for he landed at Leirungsö on his way down the lake, and walked round the mountain to Gjendesheim, leaving John to bring on his canoe. On his way he was obliged to wade across the Leirungs River, a wide and rapid stream, and just in the roughest part he trod on a loose stone and fell, cutting his knee and making a bad dent in his gun-barrel. Of course he was wet through and a good deal hurt, but hardly enough to account for the frightful state of his temper, till it came out that though he had walked through miles of beautiful ground for ryper, snipe, and duck, he had never got a shot at anything.

CHAPTER XXV.
THE GJENDE FLY.

August 28.—

This was the hottest, most windless and cloudless day that has yet been made. The Russian and F—— went out with Esau and the Skipper to shoot ryper, accompanied by a pointer, which the Norwegians call a bird-hound. A brood was soon found and rose in front of Esau, who with his usual promptitude got a right and left; whereupon the Russian took off his hat, and bowing profoundly, advanced and solemnly shook hands with him, protesting that he had frequently seen marvellous shooting, but never, never aught like this; at least, that is what we imagined to be the translation of the neat little speech which he made in Russian.

A ryper is easier to kill, if possible, than the tamest young grouse which gets up under a dog’s nose on the calmest 12th of August; and Esau thinks fame is like an eel on a night-line, easily caught, but very difficult to hold afterwards.

Satisfied by having witnessed this extraordinary specimen of our skill, the Russian gave up the chase, and returned to Gjendesheim completely exhausted by the heat; but the others went on till the afternoon, now finding a selfish old cock, whose fate no one regretted; now a young brood only just old enough to be shot: anon lying down to rest and eat berries, or bathing in the Leirungs Lake, but all the time extremely happy.

F—— was so exceedingly polite that he would not shoot unless birds enough for all of us happened to get up at once, and one brood escaped without a shot being fired, in consequence of our unwonted emulation of his courtesy.

Near Leirungs we were fortunate enough to drive three large broods into the same bit of willow scrub, and had some very pretty shooting as the dog set them one by one; but there was hardly any scent, and the heat soon proved too much for our bird-hound, so we returned to Gjendesheim with a very considerable addition to the larder.

Then followed hours of inability to do anything except lie on our backs with lighted pipes in our mouths, far too exhausted to smoke them; and at last—dinner; and soon the cooler air brought relief and engendered a return of bloodthirstiness, which impelled the gang of sportsmen to sally forth and rake the river till it was quite rough with artificial flies.

This was a trying time, for by some means we have established a most dangerously flattering reputation as fishermen, and were bound to do all we knew to retain it. However, all turned out right; the Skipper went into the lake and got several beauties, and Esau did the same in the river, so that we came in with the best bags by a considerable margin, and could now afford to catch nothing for a whole day without being dethroned from our pedestal.

The river, Gjendinoset as it is called, just in front of the rest-house, is a wonderful piece of water; there are about 150 yards of rapid in which the fish lie, then comes a fall, and below that there are nothing at present but small fish, though the big ones will soon begin to drop down lower for spawning. Consequently we all fish in the first 150 yards, and to-day between 50 and 60 lbs. weight has been taken out; the same quantity yesterday, and probably for some days before; and the fishing will be even better a few days later, for the Gjende fly is beginning to hatch, and as long as he lasts the fish will rise well.

We have heard so much of this fly that we had been expecting something rather gorgeous, a monster dragon-fly, or at least a second-rate butterfly, or a decent imitation of a stag-beetle; and we have been looking up gaudy Scotch and Canadian salmon flies, which we hoped might be passable substitutes; but, alas for the vain hopes of foolish man! the Gjende fly has come, and he is only a wretched little black beast like a very small, unenterprising, common or garden house-fly of Great Britain. He cannot fly decently; he is apparently devoid of sense; he has no moral, physical, or intellectual attributes for which a human being can learn to respect or love him; but—he can CRAWL. If he alights on the water it never occurs to him to rise again, and he allows the trout, mad with the excitement of a fortnight’s prospective gluttony, to scoop him down their capacious throats by companies. If he enters your mouth, which he does with a numerous retinue every time you open it, retreat from that untenable position is the very last thing he would think of; and with what may be a gleam of momentary intelligence he seems desirous of still further increasing his knowledge of the rest of your interior arrangements.

With characteristic obstinacy, unmindful of the teachings of logic, he invariably acts on the fallacious maxim that ‘an ink-bottle cannot be so full that there is not room for just one more Gjende fly.’ The whole of the river here at the end of the lake, and for thirty yards on each side, is now pervaded by this noisome creature; the water looks as if it were covered with a mixture of soot and tar, the rocks are black and slippery with him, and the atmosphere is charged with him, so that the landscape dimly seen through the cloud looks as if it were dancing.

Gjendesheim itself is unfortunately not quite beyond the zone which he infests, so that the windows look loathsome with crawling blackness; the tablecloth is strewn with the corpses of those who have imbibed the honeyed poison of the paraffin lamp and come to an untimely end, and the remains of the ‘boss pie’ would warrant a stranger in the belief that it had been composed of currants.

We think Pharaoh must have been a man of extraordinary resolution, or else inane mildness of character, otherwise he would have sacrificed Moses long before the fourth Plague was concluded.

Fortunately the Gjende fly has no insatiable craving for human flesh; the Skipper, indeed, asserted that one fastened on his hand and inflicted a wound that swelled enormously and remained swollen for several days, but the better opinion is that the creature that perpetrated this outrage must have been a viper, though we did not hint this to the Skipper, because he is firmly convinced that whisky is the only remedy for snake-bites, and that it must be taken in large quantities.

If any one stuck up a rod near the river, in two minutes it looked like a black fir pole with a bunch on the top; and John, who is a man of great entomological knowledge, spent some time in studying this phenomenon. He reported that the flies crawled up for fun, intending to jump off the top ring, but when they got up it was so much higher than they expected that they were all afraid to try, and those at the bottom and halfway up kept jeering at the top ones and calling them names, and jostling them so much that they could not crawl down again. He also said that the swarm in the air was so dense that he wrote his name in it with his finger, and it remained visible for nearly a minute.

Probably it is difficult for a man to speak the exact truth with his mouth full of (f)lies.

When it was too dark to fish we sat round the fire and heard a good deal about the various winter sports of Norway, capercailzie stalking, bear hunting, elk and reindeer shooting, and running on skier, the snow-shoes of the country, which are very different from the well-known Canadian shoes, being made of wood, from six to twelve feet long, four inches wide in front, three behind, about an inch and a half thick where the foot rests, thinner at each end, and turned up and pointed in front. Every district has its own peculiar shape; about here the right shoe is made six feet long, the left one ten or eleven feet, it being more easy to turn if one is shorter than the other: some are made of pine, some of birch, and occasionally oak. The men of the Thellemarken are the most skilful runners, but it is now quite a fashionable amusement in Christiania during the winter, just as skating is in England.

Sunday, August 29.—

Our Norwegian friends departed for the happy hunting-grounds of Rus Vand this morning, but before doing so they most kindly offered us the hut there any time after this week, at the end of which they are going south. We can hardly expect the present glorious weather, which has now lasted for three weeks, to go on for ever; and when the change comes, a tent will no longer be the abode of comfort and luxury that we at present find it, so that the offer of the hut is most opportune for us.

We parted with great regret from people who have been so kind and hospitable, and many were the expressions of good-will and protestations of eternal friendship, as we shall not see them again till we pass through Christiania on our return home.

That return home has caused the Skipper hours of anxious thought already: there is to be a wedding in England about the end of next month, at which, although it is not his own, his presence is urgently needed. He knows he ought to go, but hates to leave this blissful life just when the best stalking is beginning; consequently he devotes much time every day to the consideration of the subject, torn by doubts, tortured by terrible misgivings, and harassed by indecision.

To-day, after being more than usually disagreeable under the malign influence of his conscience, and seeking for inspiration, first in the room at Gjendesheim, walking up and down like Weston; then on the lake paddling like a penny boat; and finally roosting on a rock at the top of the fjeld with his arms folded like Napoleon, and a gruesome scowl on his face, or at least on those portions of it which were visible through the mask of Gjende flies, he at last concluded to commit his fate to the decision of an unbiassed coin, if such could be obtained from any confiding friend.

With great difficulty he persuaded Esau to lend him one öre, value 1/100 of a shilling, which seems on reckoning to be about half a farthing; Esau observing as he gave it, ‘It isn’t that I’m stingy, old fellow, though of course I don’t expect to see it again, but it will throw my accounts out so.’ N.B.—Esau’s notion of keeping accounts is to put his receipts into one pocket, and his disbursements into another; if he has a vague idea to within 20l. or so of how the money has gone, it will be more than any one expects; that everything he possesses will be spent is a foregone conclusion.

But to resume. The öre coin has no distinct head or tail, so the Skipper named one side heads, and tossed. The thing fell on its edge, and rolled round the table and about the room till it struck the wall, whereupon it fell over ‘heads,’ and decided that the Skipper must go to the wedding.

So he sat down and wrote a letter saying that they must not expect him, and that he should stay out here the whole time that was originally intended; for as soon as he had dated the letter it occurred to him that it would be childish to allow such a weighty matter to be decided by the whim of a half-farthing coin, which might very likely be interested in the affair in some way, and which, as he truly said, would possibly have turned up ‘tails’ if it had not happened to fall on its edge and been interfered with by an unauthorized wall.

Having thus acted according to his inclinations, and given his missive to Andreas to post when he leaves Gjendesheim next week, the Skipper became quite pleasant again, and went forth to his fishing ‘ever and all so gaily O.’

The ponies of Norway are wonderfully docile and clever; these qualities were well shown to-day in a black one belonging to Jens which came to take F——’s baggage over the mountain to Rus Vand. This pony was brought down near the door of the rest-house, and left standing there without any fastening or any one to look after him. The things were not ready, so he waited about two hours, occasionally wiping off the Gjende flies with his tail when their weight became insupportable, but otherwise never moving. The busy world (consisting of Andreas and Ragnild) pursued their usual avocations around him, goats ran against him, and insects climbed over him, but there he stood placid and motionless as a wooden rocking-horse. At last the baggage was ready, and they brought it out and piled it on his back until we feared he would break, and then Jens turned his head in the direction of Rus Vand, and gave him a gentle push to start him; and he went slowly off up the mountain, choosing the best way for himself, for no one went with him; in fact, Jens did not follow him for about half an hour, but no doubt he was found at the right place in the end. The whole performance reminded one of a clockwork toy, and John remarked as we stood and watched him out of sight over the pass, ‘Now, that’s what I call a well-trained pony.’

During our stay here we had the pleasure of forming the acquaintance of an elk-dog. This animal is taken out in a kind of harness to which a rope is fastened, the other end of the rope being attached to the hunter’s belt; and his legitimate occupation is finding elk in a forest by scent, and denoting their presence by his behaviour before the hunter gets within range of the elk’s eyes, ears, or nose. Mr. Thomas brought him up here hoping to find reindeer with him in the same manner, as he had been unable to get a Finmarker* broken to reindeer; but the experiment has not been successful, for the dog has been so carefully trained to elk, that he exhibits a large and lofty contempt for so pusillanimous a creature as a reindeer, and will not confess that he has discovered the existence of such a thing at all.

* Finmarker is the kind of dog usually employed for finding reindeer: the name being derived from the district of which it is a native.

But in addition to the fact that he finds no deer, he is a good deal of trouble from the fastidiousness of his appetite. It appears that he is accustomed to feed on dogs, and when he cannot get dogs he can rough it very well for a short time on boys or any other plain fare; but up here, where dogs are few and boys are extinct, he is having a very poor time of it. The last place where he had a really square meal was at Skjæggestad, on the journey up, where he was lucky enough to get a whole dog and some portions of boy; since then he has only had limbs snatched off adventurous observers, and altogether seems to be pining for want of proper nourishment. He is about the height of a colley, but with an enormous chest and limbs, a head something like an Esquimaux, a wiry reddish yellow coat, and a most unkindly expression of countenance. In the absence of sufficient flesh food he appears to be developing a liking for man-diet, so we did not remain long in his society, for which indeed we only craved after we had perceived through a chink in the door of his dwelling that he was moored to a beam by a kind of anchor chain. We have often heard that there is a certain amount of danger in the pursuit of the elk; if the hunter is always accompanied by a dog of this kind we can easily understand it. However, he was a very interesting animal, and if we had a National School at Memurudalen we should certainly have tried to buy him, as there is any amount of room for débris there. What a boon he would be in some of the thickly populated districts of England!

In the afternoon we paddled leisurely back to our camp and found it looking prettier than ever, but, alas! our little stream had ceased to run. However, there is another one not more than forty yards away, so we shall not be much troubled by its loss.

August 30.—

The sun still shines upon us from a cloudless sky, and early in the morning, before any breeze springs up, the lake makes a most beautiful picture, with its steep mountain sides and foaming torrents so perfectly reflected in the green unruffled water. But, lovely as it is, its beauty is rather wasted on us now, for it has been just the same for the last three weeks, with the outlines all hard and clearly defined, and none of the graduated effects of distance which we get from the hazy climate at home: in this clear atmosphere the peaks twenty miles away are as bright as those a mile or so beyond the lake. Probably this is the reason why we so seldom see pictures of Norwegian mountain scenery, and that the few which do appear are often condemned as hard, cold, and unsatisfactory.

The most prominent object in looking towards the lake from our camp is a curious pyramidal mound, about thirty feet high, close to the water’s edge. It is so regular in shape that we have devoted many hours of cogitation and argument to the discovery of its history.

John (who is a man of considerable archæological fame) maintains that it is a funeral barrow in which some ancient Viking was buried, and he wants us to give up our cartridges for the purpose of constructing a mine and blasting him out: we have vainly represented to him that it cannot be a Viking’s tomb, because there is absolutely nothing to Vike up here.

The Skipper says it is a glacial moraine, ‘any donkey can see that at a glance;’ and Esau holds to the opinion that it is an artificial mound put up for ancient regiments of Gjendin yeomen and Memurudalen militia to practise archery at. Possibly none of these theories give the correct solution; but, whatever its origin, it makes a capital rifle butt for our occasional shooting. Esau was heard to irreverently remark, as he aimed at it with the Skipper’s rifle, ‘he guessed an express bullet would rouse old Jarl Hakon out of that,’ but nothing particular followed.

To-day the Skipper composed an Irish stew as a pièce de résistance, which, when it came to table, was unanimously voted the best of all the excellent dishes on which we have feasted here. After dinner we made an enormous fire for the sole purpose of warmth, as the nights are now very cold, and during this fine weather after sunset a strong draught sets down our valley towards the lake. We have ascertained that a like draught blows down each of the other valleys running into Gjendin, making the lake a centre. That in ours begins gently directly the sun has set, and increases in strength until it amounts to a stiff breeze; and as it comes direct from the vast snow fjelds, it is a disagreeably chilly blast, which freezes that side of our bodies remote from the fire, and leads us to envy the happy condition of a leg of mutton attached to a roasting-jack. That, ‘o nimium fortunatum!’ enjoys equally in every part the genial warmth, while man has no mechanical arrangement by which his immortal soul can be rendered blissful through the medium of a temperate body.

In the morning a breeze begins to blow out of the lake into all the valleys; illustrating on a small scale the cause of land and sea breezes all over the world. The Skipper and John (who is a man of profound science) have elaborated a theory explaining the exact reason of this interesting phenomenon; but as their explanation is entirely opposed to the teachings of Dr. Brewer and the opinions of Professor Tyndall, and involves a rearrangement of existing notions concerning radiation and the movements of the heavenly bodies, we think it best to exclude it from these pages, as this is not a simply scientific work, and we have no desire to hurt the feelings of even the above-named misguided philosophers.

CHAPTER XXVI.
DISASTER.

August 31.—

We have got quite tired of writing ‘Another beautiful day,’ and in future shall bring notebooks to Norway with these words ready printed at the top of each page.

The Skipper paddled away to Gjendebod, to bring home the deerskin which he had left there to dry. He returned with a splendid bag of the best trout that ever came out of Gjendin, and that means the best in the world; but he was in a state of great indignation because he had been charged 5s. 6d. for beds, dinners, and breakfasts for himself and Öla when they stayed there a few nights ago. This is the result of living in a cheap country for two months: to the ordinary Englishman it would not appear an exorbitant hotel bill, especially when the hotel (!) is fifty miles from a town, and only open for two months in the year.

Just at bedtime Esau crawled into the tent saying that he had strained his back in lifting a stone: he was in such pain that he could hardly stand, and was white and shivering. We undressed him and put him to bed, and then produced the liniment from the ‘medicine chest,’ by which name we dignify the cigar-box which contains our little stock of drugs. Then John spent an hour viciously rubbing remedies into his victim’s back, as one rubs oil into a bat, so that Esau presently groaned out, ‘Thanks, John, I think that will do, I feel a great deal better now;’ and certainly he did seem to experience a kind of relief as soon as the rubbing stopped. After this we turned in.

September 1.—

Esau spent a sleepless night, and this morning could not move. Thereupon John nobly closed with him for another half-hour’s rubbing, which had a decided effect, and after giving him some breakfast, we carried him out and made a comfortable bed for him under the Sycamine tree, and there left him with the library and all his belongings in easy reach.

At midday John returned from fishing to lunch with the invalid, and we wondered how all our friends in England were getting on with the partridges, and almost wished we were there for a few minutes, as we pictured to ourselves Eddie and Jack both talking sixteen to the dozen at lunch over beefsteak pie and beer (fancy beer, John!); old Blank, with two young dogs tied to him, perspiring over the downs; and the Major sitting with his cigar aboard the yacht at Cowes, and thinking how snug his birds were lying down Gorseham way, not to be disturbed till his return next month to shoot at them, while all the time the Furzely boys were walking them up, and making them as wild as hawks.

After lunch, John accomplished what has long been his great desire, the ascent of the sugar-loaf mountain across the Memurua; and after boiling a thermometer at the topmost peak, burying a pocket handkerchief (thoughtfully borrowed from Esau, who was too unwell to refuse him anything), and ‘carving his name on the Newgate Stone with his Tollekniv fine tra la,’ he returned in raptures about the view, and overcome with sublime and poetical emotions, which did not subside until he had poured forth his soul to his two friends at dinner.

The Skipper stalked without success, though he found the tracks of a good herd that had only just passed over the ground. Though the day was so pleasant, he had not exactly enjoyed his walk, for he could not help being filled with gloomy forebodings about Esau; picturing to himself the difficulties that would arise in getting men to carry the invalid down to Christiania in a litter, with him yelling at every step. But behold, how untrustworthy a thing is imagination! when the Skipper arrived in camp, he was agreeably surprised to find the object of his solicitude sitting up and actually stirring the rice for the curry, so marvellous had been the effect of John’s lubrication; assisted by the support to his back of a kind of splint composed of birch bark, a towel, and two straps.

September 2.—

John ate new bread again for dinner yesterday, and the Skipper was aroused in the middle of the night by a claw reaching out from the adjoining bed, which clutched his pillow and rug and tried to drag them away; the whole of this being accompanied by blood-curdling groans and hideous yells. He became more peaceful after a short time, but the Skipper is now in mortal fear lest John should again suffer from indigestion, and again stretch out that gruesome claw, and grabbing him by the hair, drag him forth from the tent, and with demoniac shrieks stamp the life out of his frail body, while he makes the quiet valley re-echo to his triumphant mocking laughter. This, the Skipper asserts, would be only one step beyond his conduct of last night.

The latest scientific observations have caused us to re-classify the different altitudes thus:—First, the country of high cultivation and wild strawberries; above that the zone of uncleared pine forests and most of the berries; then the belt of stunted birches and black game; higher still, that of cows and goats; and above that, the country where reindeer flourish and snow lies all the year round. This takes us to the summit of all things earthly, and in this zone there is hardly any vegetation. Beyond it is the region of eagles, but in the present incomplete state of human knowledge we have been content to explore this highest zone by letting our spirits soar aloft without our bodies.

Gjendin is just at the highest point of the stunted-birch belt, and when the wind gets into the N.W. the thermometer, without waiting to reflect, falls a great distance very hurriedly. John, having no sheepskin, suffers a good deal from the cold at night; and the haughtiness of his spirit is so far broken that he now sleeps in two pairs of trousers, three shirts, and a coat, besides all his rugs. A few short weeks ago he turned from us with an air of aristocratic nausea when we were getting into bed clothed in a single shirt and pair of trousers, donning for his part a linen nightshirt, an effeminacy previously unheard of in camp life.

These things are changed now, and it is difficult to persuade him not to go to bed with his boots on; but it has to be prevented on account of the new bread.

The monotony of an uneventful day was only broken by the occasional rubbing of Esau’s back, amidst the victim’s agonised appeals for mercy, as he thinks it is rubbed away to the bone. However, the effect is magnificent, and he can now hobble about camp and be useful to a certain extent.

MENU.—September 2.
Vins. Onion Sauce.	Truite à l’Irlandais. Salmi of Ryper. Woodcock à l’Oven. Compote of Rice and Wimberries.	Légumes. Crumpets.

After dinner we dug a small hole in the floor of the outer tent, in which we placed a spadeful of red-hot embers from the fire. This is a capital device for obtaining warmth in a tent, as there is no smoke, and the embers keep glowing for a very long time; possibly it might be dangerous in a very close-fitting tent, but ours is airy, not to say hurricany.

Round this fire we sat and talked and smoked until bedtime, hoping against hope for a few more days of sunshine; but when we turned in, the wind was howling and moaning along the hill-side in a very ominous and unpleasant manner.

CHAPTER XXVII.
A CHANGE.

September 3.—

‘Forty below Nero’ was the probable position of the thermometer during the night. Esau declares that his back is quite well, but it is suspected that he only does this in order to avoid the administration of further remedies by John.

However, we consider this such a successful cure that we here give our recipe for strained backs to an expectant world, not as a sordid advertisement, but from pure philanthropic motives.

‘Take the patient and place him on a grassy spot in the sun, and lubricate with oil; rub this in for three hours with the hand; seize his wrist and feel the pulse (if you can find it), displaying at the same time a large gold watch; look profound; mutter inwardly. Now shift him gently to a shaded position; and having lighted a fire to the windward, prepare and cook thereon fourteen or fifteen pancakes, and administer while hot (as a mixture, not a lotion). Take care that the aroma of each cooking pancake is wafted in the direction of the patient. Carry this principle throughout all his nourishment. Explain to him that deer abound in the neighbouring mountains; show him quantities of fresh-caught fish and newly killed ryper; ensure a week of fine weather, and if this do not cure him he must be a malade imaginaire.’

Notwithstanding the improvement, of course Esau was not fit to go stalking, and this and other reasons suddenly induced us to leave Memurudalen to-day for good, and go to Gjendesheim on our way to Rus Vand. So we made a last gigantic pie, packed up, lunched, and then pulled down the tent, which had been standing so long now on the same spot, and embarked everything on board our two canoes and the Gjendesheim boat, which had been lent to us. Then the whole fleet sailed from these hospitable shores ’neath a stormy sky, with cold wind and rain, and the towering heights of Memurutungen all wrapped in angry clouds, frowning blackly above us.

It was quite sad to leave the snug little corner where we have spent such a happy, careless time, with all the comforts which we have added gradually to our temporary home; and the valley looked very desolate without the tent, the cheerful fire, and ‘the meteor flag.’

Esau’s last act was to fill two brass cartridge cases with water and hammer them firmly into each other; the air-tight boiler so formed he put into the fire under the oven, and after waiting a short time for the explosion, forgot all about it and went away without telling any one. Just then John arrived at the spot to see if there were any loose belongings lying about, and was horrified to observe the oven suddenly elevate itself into the air and disappear among the clouds with a loud report. His mind at once reverted to the happy life of a landlord in co. Limerick, but he soon realised the true state of affairs, and came down to the lake muttering something about ‘tomdamfoolery,’ a Norwegian word which expresses censure of the silly custom of practical joking.

This morning we found a merlin sitting just outside the tent door; it had evidently been stuffing itself with scraps of offal from the camp until it was perfectly stupid and could scarcely fly. Esau wanted to knock it on the head at first, but more humane feelings came over him, so he fetched his rifle and shot it for an hour or so, till at length the bird, wearied by the constant noise, retired into the birch woods, and we saw it no more.

There are usually several ravens near the camp, which come down to ‘carry off carrion,’ but otherwise there are not many birds here: the most common are buzzards and kestrels, which abound; two eagles, which are generally soaring above Memurutungen; a pair of ospreys occasionally flying about the lake; a rough-legged buzzard seen once, a few merlins, and a small short-tailed red hawk, with whom we are not acquainted; sometimes black-throated divers and scaups on the lake, and a few fieldfares and redwings in the birch woods. We have found many nests of the latter in the trees, and one of a fieldfare in a bank.

What rare times all the birds and beasts of prey will have for the next few days in Memurudalen! only to be equalled by the early days of the Australian gold fever. Nuggets of inestimable value in the shape of heads, tails, and other portions of reindeer, ryper, duck, and trout—intermingled with other delicacies, such as potato skins, jam and marmalade pots, and whisky bottles—will from time to time be unearthed amidst shrieks of triumph. ‘Claims’ will be run up to a fabulous price, and many a battle royal will be fought in that happy valley where we have spent a month of peace. As we depart in mournful silence, brooding over the days that are no more, we see in fancy the numerous bright eyes which from lairs and eyries are watching our every move, their owners all ready to swoop down on our débris as soon as we have passed out of sight.

The lake was very rough, and we were quite afraid of being swamped and losing our baggage from the magnitude of the big little waves; but luckily the boat took our heaviest things, or we should not have been able to venture; and so the canoes, lightly loaded and with all sail set, rode gallantly o’er the foaming billows, and we all got safe to Gjendesheim. The cheery fire in the room, with its bare wooden walls and benches, made a picture which seemed the perfection of comfort after the chilly tent and the freezing N.W. wind.