Our procedure with pancakes is for every man to fry and toss his own; the frying of the first side is easy enough, but the tossing requires skill, for we do not allow the mean practice of helping the delicacy over with a knife, indulged in by some weak-spirited cooks.

John’s first became a mangled heap of batter under his repeated efforts, and was finally eaten by him in that condition; his second ascended towards the heavens most gracefully when he tossed, and was absent for some minutes, but unfortunately he failed to hold the pan in the right place on its return, and it fell on the ground, where it was immediately seized and devoured by Ivar. The third was a complete success, and so were the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh; the eighth stuck to the pan, and was a failure; and after that he got along all right to the thirty-fourth, when he had another partial failure, owing to over-confidence. This made him more careful, and all the rest were quite perfect. When we had finished we gave the rest of the batter to the men, who fried it all in one huge pancake, about two inches thick.

We notice that all the diaries agree for once; the following note occurs in all:—

‘Pancakes for dinner to-day; the other two fellows over-ate themselves.’

We told John this morning of his adventure with the boat and fishing line during the night, so he ate all the new bread at lunch, thereby laying its restless spirit long before bedtime; no doubt he and his dinner will slumber more peacefully to-night.

It may be remembered that we brought a lot of fish slightly salted with us from Gjendesheim. Ever since our return here we have caught plenty of fish every day, and as we prefer fresh food to salt, the Gjendesheim fish which were placed in a little barrel have been neglected. Five or six days ago we noticed an unpleasant odour, and found that it proceeded from this barrel, the fish being in an advanced stage of decomposition, and the men told us they were making ‘raki fiske,’ a thing which they informed us in Norwegian is ‘real jam.’ We were very angry, and gave orders that the whole thing should at once be thrown into the glacier torrent. After this the affair faded from our minds, but yesterday we again noticed a suspicion of the same smell, and this morning it was so powerful that we began to invent theories to account for it.

John, who is a man of great scientific attainments proved to his own complete satisfaction, that it proceeded from the bodies of prehistoric reindeer which had been engulfed by an avalanche ages ago and entombed in the glacier until now, when at last their decaying corpses were being washed down the stream.

He said Huxley had often observed the same thing and told him about it.

Esau’s theory was that the glacier itself was decomposing. ‘Look what a long time it had been standing exposed to the air, and most likely in a damp place; everybody knew that snow water was not good to drink, witness the goître of Switzerland; and why was it not good? Simply because it was putrid, and now that the hot sun was shining upon it, no wonder it smelt a little.’

He concluded his remarks by inquiring who Huxley might be, and was just setting off up the valley with a bottle of Condy’s fluid to pour over the glacier, when the Skipper, who had wandered down to the Memurua River instead of arguing, suddenly rushed back with his fingers tightly holding his nose, and shaking his fist at Öla, said something that began with ‘Dab,’ and went on with other unknown words.

At last we gathered from his expressions that the barrel of ‘raki fiske’ had not been thrown into the torrent at all, but our villanous retainers had secreted it near the stream, intending to have a feast as soon as it should have become rotten enough to please their cultivated taste. Truly a Norwegian has the nastiest notions of food. Now the ‘raki fiske,’ barrel and all, is buried a yard deep, a long way from here, and life is again pleasant, but we have little doubt that Öla and Ivar will come back and root about and dig it up after we have left the country say a month hence: it ought to be in perfect condition by that time.

CHAPTER XXI.
FISHING.

August 20.—

The first thing this morning we sent Öla to Gjendesheim with some venison for the people there, who have been very kind in sending milk, eggs, rice, onions, &c. to us. We have more meat than we shall be able to eat if the weather continues as fine and hot as it is at present.

We three walked over the mountain to spend the day at Rus Vand, taking our lunch with us. We got there about half-past ten, and the fish were then rising well, so we separated and commenced fishing, the Skipper and John taking the north side of the lake, Esau the south. After catching a few fish the rise stopped, as it always does on these lakes about midday.

 
An Exciting Moment in Rus Lake Shallows

There is no doubt that on a Norwegian lake the fisherman should above all things ‘make haste while the fish rise.’ It is all very well for the ancient sportsman to remark, ‘Take your time, my young friend, there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.’ It is no doubt true enough; but at this time of year they will not rise to fly for more than about a couple of hours twice a day, and if you do not make the best of your opportunities then, where are you? Put yourself in the place of the fine old veteran three-pounder who has got into the habit of taking his meals at regular hours for fear of spoiling his digestion, and has selected the hours between 10 and 12 A.M. and 4.30 and 6.30 P.M., because he knows from long experience that these are the most likely times to find flies on the water. He has come in from roaming in deep waters to the shades of the rocky coast, and has a certain appetite to allay after his bath and morning stroll. There he waits, and thinks of old times, and of how fat and shiny his tummy became the last hot summer there was, when flies were plentiful, and he had not to resort to this abominable device of catching small trout and eating mice* to keep him in daily food, as he nearly always has to do now that the summers are so wet, and he is no longer active enough to compete with his younger relations in the struggle for existence. ‘What times those were, and how he wishes he were a year or two younger again, and not crippled with useless length; and, by George! now he comes to look at his reflection against that stone, he’s getting quite yellow and bilious under the belly, and——’ But he can’t stop to moralise, there is a luscious March Brown of unusual solidity skating right over his pet rock, and he can’t let it pass. So up he comes and gulps it down, with a lazy flop of his tail that leaves quite a swirl on the lake surface. ‘Why, the thing’s got no flavour, and how I’ve hurt my jaw with it!’ Poor old chap, his day is over, and after ten minutes’ struggle he has left his favourite haunt to be occupied by another tenant, and is safe in the landing net, a good three-pound fish, but, like most of those who have reached this size, not quite in as good condition as he was at 2½ lbs., and just a shade longer than he ought to be. Don’t stop to gaze at him, put him in the bag with all speed—it is necessary to hurry up and fish on while the rise lasts.

* We have found as many as three mice in the stomach of a Rus Vand trout.

But all this time the hours have been slipping away, and we have lunched, and smoked, and sketched till the rise began again soon after four, and though there was a strong cold west wind, the change seemed to encourage the fish to feed more greedily than usual, for trout are terrible Radicals, and rejoice in any alteration of the existing condition of things.

 
Esau’s Best Day among the Trout

Our old experience of Rus Vand taught us that one side was sporting-looking and interesting, while the other was bleak and ugly; but Esau, who took the ugly side, had much the best of it to-day, as the place seemed alive with fish, and he kept catching them all the time, so that his little ten-foot rod was continually to be seen in the form of a hoop, from which position it reassumed the perpendicular in a way that reflects no little credit on Mr. Farlow.

When we met again at the end of the lake on our way home, we found that we had twenty fish, weighing just 44 lbs., of which Esau had caught fifteen weighing 32½ lbs., the Skipper four of 9 lbs. weight, and John, who was very unlucky, only a single two-and-a-half-pounder. The smallest of the bag was a little over a pound, the largest three pounds, which was reached by more than one; and nearly all were caught in water so shallow that the dorsal fin of the fish was often visible in his mad rushes hither and thither; this made it extremely difficult to prevent the tail-fly being hung up on a rock whenever the fish was hooked on the dropper, and not a few were lost in this manner. All were caught on two patterns of fly, namely——No, philanthropy has limits, and no man can expect to be told patterns of flies. Go to Norway, and the time and trouble spent in acquiring that knowledge will be amply repaid by the pleasure that no one could fail to derive from a visit.

No doubt, with the usual discontentedness of man we shall regret for ever that we did not all go to the ugly side of the lake, of which Esau was obliged to leave the best piece untouched as he came back, from sheer inability to carry any more fish over the rough ground. But the ways of fish are inscrutable; we hardly ever caught any number on that side before, and probably shall not do so again. It was just Esau’s day. Kismet.

After weighing our catch, we cleaned them and cut off their heads to lighten them for the journey over Glopit, and even without this extra weight we were a good deal troubled and felt overburdened on the uphill side, which is terribly steep and rough, only just practicable for a man on foot.

When we got back to camp we found that Öla had not returned from Gjendesheim, which caused us some sorrow, as Esau wanted to go out stalking on the morrow, and could not go alone. At least, he would be extremely unlikely to see any deer, for the reindeer being exactly the same colour as the mountains among which they live, it is almost impossible to see them before they see the enemy and depart hastily.

These native hunters are wonderful at the profession, and seem to know by instinct when they are in the vicinity of deer, as if they could feel their presence in the air. No doubt they really see indications that we should never observe, for they always begin to go cautiously, crouching and peering over rocks when deer are about, long before we amateurs are aware from the ordinary signs of footprints, nibbled reindeer flowers, or newly moved stones, that there is likely to be any sport.

see caption

ON THE TOP OF GLOPIT. RETURNING FROM RUS LAKE.

August 21.—

It was cold and windy last night, so we turned into bed early and lay in luxurious comfort while John read out choice bits, all of which we know by heart, from the works of Mark Twain. We all think Mark Twain the best writer for camp life that has yet been discovered, and we have three or four of his books here. Besides these our library of light literature consists of Shakespeare, Longfellow, Dr. Johnson’s Table-talk, and novels by Whyte Melville, Walford, and Thackeray. But Mark and William get more work than all the rest.

It is quite dark now during the night, and we have made a wooden chandelier out of a curiously bent piece of birch wood, which holds two candles and hangs down from the ridge pole by a string. In the daytime it is hoisted up to the roof, but at night we let it down till it swings about two feet above our heads as we lie in bed. This contrivance is capital for reading, and also affords considerable diversion to the last man into bed. The candles are just too high to be reached with a puff easily from a recumbent position, and yet we persistently try to blow them out without moving. Just as sleep is creeping over two of the wearied sportsmen, the last man begins blowing and cussing at these candles every night regularly. The scene is generally this. Skipper and John just dropping off to sleep. Esau lies down, makes himself extremely comfortable, and then—puff, whoo, whew, puff,—gasp for breath, rest a moment. Pouf. Chandelier swings round under the impulse of the strong wind thus created. Esau makes a brilliant flying shot at one candle, as it circles swiftly past. Skipper: ‘Thank goodness.’ Pause. Esau: Poof, whoo, whoof. John: ‘Dash it all, get up and put it out.’ Esau: ‘Get up yourself.’ Skipper: ‘Let me blow it out.’ Pouf, puff, whoosh. Chandelier swings madly round, drops grease on John’s nose. John: ‘Tare an ’ouns.’ Throws tobacco pouch at it, more grease all over the place, tobacco pouch rebounds from tent into Esau’s mouth. Recrimination for five minutes. Chandelier at last stationary. Everybody at once: ‘Puff, boo, pouf, whew, —— it, —— it, pouf, —— it, —— the —— thing — — — pouf. Thank goodness;’ and we all turn over with a sigh of relief, to repeat the performance the following night.

Öla not having turned up, there could be no stalking, so the beautiful morning was wasted. The Skipper got so angry about it that he said he would go in his canoe to find the absentee, and take at the same time a lot of our surplus fish for the people at Gjendesheim.

Leaving the tent on its grassy sunlit lawn he walked down to the edge of the great lake, and turning over the smaller of the two canoes, which were lying bottom uppermost, launched her and got in with rod and fishing bag, and pushed off into the deep. Opposite to the place where the canoes were drawn up, and apparently only a hundred yards distant though really more than a mile away, were the snow-capped mountain steeps that rise almost perpendicularly from two to three thousand feet out of the lake; and for these he made, gradually becoming a mere twinkling speck till he faded out of sight from the tent. The lake was as smooth as glass, only occasionally rippled as some monarch of the deep, excited for once in his life by some specially fascinating fly, condescended to make a rush for it instead of the gentle suck by which he usually took his food, and the Skipper paddled leisurely along within twenty yards of the rocks, with his rod bending over the stern, and trailing behind a couple of flies in the hope of catching a trout without the trouble of angling for him.

It is very pleasant to be alone once in a way in this overcrowded world. Not alone as it is possible to be in England, but absolutely alone, with no living thing near except the trout, the insects, and one’s image in the water. Oh, blessed Norway! when we get back to the turmoils, troubles, and pleasures of a London season how we shall long for you! There is only one word to express this existence, and that is Freedom—freedom from care, freedom from resistance, and from the struggle for life. What a country! where civilised man can relapse as much as seems good to him into his natural state, and retrograde a hundred generations into his primeval condition.

But we forget that the Skipper is coasting up towards Gjendesheim in search of the miscreant Öla.

He proceeded for a couple of hours, catching a few fish now and then, but presently as midday approached, the sun became too hot to be pleasant, the fish would not move, and the Skipper began to get impatient and annoyed at not meeting Öla. After a while a black speck with two flashing arms appeared rounding a promontory; this was Öla in the boat. The Skipper was boiling with rage under the influence of various incentives as he approached. Öla, like most Norwegians, was calm, placid, and utterly unconscious of the flight of time and the shortness of life. The Skipper had been primed to exploding point by his two friends before starting, and as he had now paddled five miles from home without meeting the adversary, he was, to put it mildly, ‘indignant.’ So, when he found Öla smoking serenely, and sculling along as though his brief span were going to stretch through the unending cycles of eternity, he gave way to the most horrible outbreak of temper in English, which must have lasted four or five minutes, and then telling the caitiff in Norwegian to take the fish to Gjendesheim and return to camp by five o’clock whatever the weather might be, he turned and left that hardy Norseman open-mouthed and bewildered, looking as though he had seen the Strömkarl, or had had an interview with his mother-in-law.

Then a great wind arose, and blew against the Skipper all the way home, but he arrived in the most beatific frame of mind in spite of it; the relief of the storm of temper and bad language had been so great to him, that he was filled with a blessed joy. He said it was the most invigorating and refreshing pastime he ever indulged in, for Öla could not understand a word of it, and therefore no remorse could follow the outburst, not a thoughtless expression or hasty word could go home to his heart and there rankle, to recoil on some future occasion, but the whole vial of pent-up wrath could be emptied on its object without fear of retribution.

The explosion must have been something very fine to enable the Skipper to make light of the head-wind, for a wind on Gjendin is not to be scoffed at in any boat, and least of all in a cockle-shell of a canoe. The mountains are so high and steep that the lake lies as it were in a trench, and any wind always draws straight up or down the length, and soon gets a big sea up. All the Norwegians we have seen say it is the height of madness to go on Gjendin at all in such boats, the sudden squalls are so dangerous; and neither of our men can be persuaded to go a yard in them.

Esau and John, for want of better employment, after fishing a little, began to bake, and had laid out a goodly show of dainty confections, two dozen rolls, four wimberry tarts, a lot of biscuits, and a venison pie of the ordinary size (9 inches diameter). When the Skipper returned it was decided to make another, as we imagine the meat has a better chance of keeping when hoarded up in pies than when left in its raw state.

So we each took our usual share in the construction of a PIE, before which all other pies should be as nought.

It was made in our largest baking tin, 12 inches across, and contained nearly a hind quarter of venison, our last six eggs, a heart, a liver, and about 1½ lb. of bacon. The crust was put on about nine o’clock, and after we had all gazed at it and unanimously agreed that it was the ‘boss pie,’ we bore it proudly but gingerly to the oven, heated by John seven times hotter than before, and now gaping to receive it; a great full moon rose up from behind the mountains and seemed to smile on our good work; the bright fire shed a red glow over the three figures bending o’er the simmering treasure, and a more peaceful, domestic group it would be impossible to conceive.

About eleven John and the Skipper turned in, but outside could be seen for some time the solitary form of Esau still crouching over the expiring embers of the oven, and tending with a mother’s care the tempting food that he already tasted in imagination.

see caption

BAKING BY NIGHT IN MEMURUDALEN.

Most of the berries of the country are now just at their best, and Memurudalen is a grand valley for all of them, except of course the strawberry and raspberry, which will not grow at this altitude. But we have ‘klarkling’ (the English crowberry) in great abundance; blau bær (wimberry), the finest and best ever seen, in quantities; also ‘skin tukt,’ another blue berry rather larger than a wimberry, and with a thicker skin and wonderful bloom on it; this we think does not grow in England. Then less numerous are a berry something between a raspberry and a red currant, but of better flavour than either of them; and the great and glorious ‘mölte bær’ (cloudberry); to say nothing of ‘heste bær,’ and ‘tutti bær,’ and several others of unknown names. The last one grows in England, but we have forgotten its name; they make jelly from it here, and prize it highly for its acid taste.

See end of text.

CHAPTER XXII.
MEMURUDALEN.

Sunday, August 22.—

We woke up this morning with a bright sun shining through the canvas of the tent, and making it intolerably hot inside; and as we threw open the door of the inner compartment, the fragrant aroma of the ‘boss pie’ was wafted to us on the morning air.

We spent the morning in quiet Sunday fashion, chiefly in lying under the shade of an awning made with rugs which we call the ‘sycamine tree,’ and eating wimberries and cream. Besides this we perpetrated a great deal of high art; every one was seized with the desire of sketching the camp, and so we sat around on pinnacles like so many pelicans, libelling the unfortunate place from every position whence it could be seen.

It is looking very comfortable just now. The tent itself is pitched in an angle of a steep little cliff which effectually protects it from cold winds at one side and the back, and at the other side we have put up a thick fence of birch branches to temper the storm to the sleeping-tent. We find it very convenient to have the two compartments: the inner one is only used for sleeping in, and always immediately after reveillé is plunged in an apparently hopeless confusion of rugs, sheepskins, mattresses, and boots, with here and there a book or a hat protruding (to use the Skipper’s beautiful simile) like brickbats in a dust-heap. After breakfast all the bedding is dragged out to be aired on the rocks, and the tent generally tidied.

But the outer tent is always a picture of order and neatness, for here we keep our stores, boxes of flour and biscuits, cartridges, cooking utensils, tools, whisky, and potatoes. One of the boxes was made specially under Esau’s directions to be used as a table: the top and bottom are both hinged, and so when the box is put on its front and these two lids opened it makes a very good large table; the lids are held up by a batten screwed underneath them, and for greater security we have added two legs. But at present the weather is so pleasant that we always feed outside, a few yards from the tent and nearer to the oven.

On the extreme left, as the penny showman says, you will observe one of the meat safes, the other one ‘thou canst not see, because it’s not in sight,’ being close to the back of the tent. Also behind the tent may be faintly seen the mustard and cress garden, always covered with a sheet by day to save it from the heat of the sun, and with the same sheet by night, to guard it from the cold, so that the poor thing never gets any light, and does not flourish very exceedingly. None of the mustard seeds have as yet grown up as big as the one in the parable, but when one does we mean to make a lot of salad out of it, enough for all the camp.

Above the middle of the outer tent are three things which look like lightning conductors, but are only our rods, which are always stuck in the ground there when not in use. At their foot under the rock is the egg larder, neatly constructed of stones and turf, with a wooden lid; and hanging from the cliff hard by is a very pretty and curious spider’s nest made of paper, like a miniature wasp-nest, about two inches in diameter.

High up in the centre is ‘the meteor flag of England,’ engaged in its customary occupation of ‘yet terrific burning,’ there being absolutely no Dutch Boers here. Underneath its shelter are many forked poles with cross-bars, all made from the birch with which the valley abounds just here, and on which clothing of some sort is always hanging out to dry; so that the place looks like a laundry-ground, and deceives even the ravens, which come down in swarms from the mountains in search of maids’ noses to devour. In the midst of these poles may be seen the oven, with its flue reaching halfway up the hill, and its two openings, the lower one for fuel, the upper for food.

see caption

THE CAMP IN MEMURUDALEN.

Right in front of the tent is the fireplace, a long trench in the ground, faced with stones of such a size and shape that they form apertures suitable for our numerous pans; and simmering by the fire is the perennial soup. Nearer to the front is the wood pile, and nearer still the board on which the cooking things are placed after washing up. In front again of this is the little stream which supplies us with water, now rapidly beginning to fail under the influence of the long drought: it may be noticed that the engineers have changed its course in several places for greater convenience in getting water, and to give more room on the camp side.

The foreground is a mass of juniper, wimberries, skintukt, crowberries, and rocks, and then comes about thirty yards from the tent the Memurua torrent, all thick and milky from the glacier, cold as Christmas, fishless, uninteresting, not drinkable, only useful as a refrigerator for milk, and only agreeable to look upon from a distance, but faithfully keeping up the unceasing roar that is customary among such torrents. This river makes the waters of the lake too cold to bathe in and too cheerless for fish to abide in near our camp, but it does not come into the picture, partly because it runs in a ravine, but more because it was right behind the artist.

The lake itself is to the extreme right, with unclimbable snow-capped rocky mountains forming the opposite coast.

To-day we dined at 4 P.M. in order to get an uninterrupted evening’s fishing, but the experiment was not a success and will not be repeated, for it spoilt the dinner and we caught no fish. On returning to camp at night rather cold, very cross, and exceedingly hungry, we agreed that the best antidote for these dangerous symptoms would be hot soup, so John put the pot on the fire while the Skipper and Esau were attending to the tent and domestic duties.

Soon the caldron was heated and brought into the tent, and the eager crowd drew near with cups and spoons, and one lifted the lid, while another plunged his cup into the steaming savoury mess. And then arose a great cry of horror and desolation, and the sleeping valley rang with the wail of men in despair, for John had put the wrong pot on the fire, and we had been presented with boiling dirty water in which the dinner-things had been washed up; while all the time the soup pot was quiet, untouched and cold in the corner of the tent where it is kept.

But three hungry men are not to be balked of a meal on which their hearts are set by any trifle like this, so we all commenced with a will to stoke that fire up and put that other pot on, and we got our soup and were snugly packed in bed long before the gentle August moon had sunk to rest behind the sheltering mountain tops.

The Skipper, by the way, is very much exasperated with this same moon just now. He says she is a fraud, for this morning when we got up, there she was high in the heavens.

‘What right,’ he wants to know, ‘has this moon—any moon, in fact—to be up there blinking away in the middle of the day when we have plenty of sun to light us? forward, dissipated thing! and then probably after this week we shall have ever so many nights without any moon at all, and all the earth left in total darkness to take care of itself; while here we are to-day with an absurdly round moon at one end of this comparatively diminutive valley, and a most extravagantly blazing sun at the other.’ The whole thing is ridiculous, he says, and it must be confessed that there is some justice in his complaint; though no doubt there could be a good deal said on the other side.

August 23.—

While Esau went out after deer the other two crawled up the mountain and over to Rus Vand to fish, and had a good day. Two of the Skipper’s fish were three pounds each, but, like most of the biggest fish, not in that beautiful condition which the smaller ones always show. The Skipper is sure that the old worn-out fish creep up to the stony shallows at the western end of the lake to die in a sunny spot, just as we men creep away in our old age to Bath, Cheltenham, Cannes, or Algiers, to breathe our last in a warm place, thereby taking one step in the direction of the proverbial future.

Esau arrived in camp about half-past seven, quite exhausted, and followed by Öla, also dead beat, and again bearing the heads and skins of two deer, a buck and a doe. He was hailed with fervent joy and many congratulations: it is certainly great luck to fall in with deer on two stalking days in succession, for they are by no means numerous here this year. Dinner was served in a marvellously short time.

Then came Esau’s romance.

‘We walked up the Memurua to the great glacier, and then skirted its south side. We found many fresh tracks, and about two o’clock, when we were seven miles from home, Öla spied three deer chewing stones about three quarters of a mile away. The wind was just in the right direction to allow us to approach them, and they were in capital ground for stalking, full of little hollows and slopes. But there was a serious drawback: on one side was a lake, on the other an impassable precipice; and before we could get into a place out of their sight we should be obliged to cross a narrow strip of ground in full view of them, though perhaps half a mile from them. We sat down and had our lunch, and waited an hour watching for them to lie down, and at last they did so; then we determined to risk the passage of the dangerous strip, and by crawling like serpents and aided by luck got across without the deer seeing us. Then we had to creep along the side of a scandalous precipice for the next half-mile, in no danger of being seen, but with our hearts constantly in our mouths as, despite our care, some stone was dislodged and went clattering down the rocks, sounding to my strained ears as if it must disturb every living thing within a mile. Very slow and difficult was our progress, occasionally dangerous, but at last we arrived at a spot 200 yards from the deer, which were still lying down, and pronounced by Öla to be a buck and two does.

‘This was a very awkward place to shoot from, and I thought I could see my way to a better one much nearer, so tried it and found it was just possible, and after about a quarter of an hour’s worming, I arrived at a place only 100 yards from them. From this I could see both the does well, but only the head of the buck, and so had to lie there an hour waiting for him to get up. Both the does did so twice, offering beautiful shots, but he would not move, and they lay down again. I dare not whistle to make him jump up, for fear the does might possibly be in the way at the moment. So there I lay, miserably uncomfortable, with cramp in every muscle; and at last I tried to crawl to another stone about five yards away, from which I thought I could see to shoot at the buck. When I got to it and peered cautiously over, I was horrified to see the deer some distance away, and running as hard as they could towards a small glacier which was close to them.

 
Esau stalking near Hinaakjærnhullet

‘Of course I instantly lost my head, and jumping up fired at the buck without much aim, and missed him. Then I recovered my senses and made a careful shot at the last doe, knocking her over like a rabbit. The other two were just then out of sight in a hollow, but they appeared directly going up the hill on the snow at a great speed; and getting a broadside shot at the buck I broke his shoulder; after this he went slowly, but still kept on up the hill, and when he was about three hundred yards away I fired two more shots, one of which hit him in the ribs, and the other cut one of his horns off. Then he gave up trying to mount the hill, and turned down towards the lake out of my sight. I ran as hard as I could across the shoulder of the glacier, and saw him standing down below me among the rocks close to the water, and sitting down I fired another shot which killed him.

‘This is not a creditable performance in the shooting line; but my solid bullets have a good deal to do with the matter: either of the first two shots would have stopped him at once if fired from an express with hollow-pointed bullets.

‘The doe is a barren one with a beautiful skin, and very fat, and the buck is the best we have killed at present this year, a four-year-old, what Öla calls a “litt stor bock” (little big buck), which I suppose is the next best thing to the mythical “meget stor bock,” whose footprints we are always seeing, but who carefully absenteth himself whensoever the jovial hunter goeth forth to pursue him.

‘We saw a great deal of fresh spoor to-day, so that we may hope the deer are beginning to come to our part of the country: perhaps the poor things have been very much bullied in other places. Anyhow, they won’t find any better country in Norway than where we went to-day; and the scenery there is glorious.’

Esau was so tired that he fell asleep once in the midst of his exciting narrative, and as dinner was very late we all turned in almost as soon as it was finished.

CHAPTER XXIII.
A PICNIC.

August 24.—

There is a brood of ryper on the brow of the mountain above our camp, which we always put up when we walk over Glopit armed with rods, but never when we take a gun. There were originally eight of them, but one has succumbed to a merlin which hunts up there; and they are remarkably tame, so that when we put them up we throw stones at them, and fully expect to kill them by that means, but somehow they have escaped with their lives until now. This conduct has become unbearable, and we have sworn ‘this day that brood shall die;’ so the first thing after breakfast Esau and the Skipper toiled up the mountain with pockets full of cartridges and guns ready for the slaughter of the innocents. It takes just three quarters of an hour to get to the top; and after reaching it we tramped over some millions of acres in search of that brood, and of course it never obtruded itself on the scene. Finally the Skipper went home in disgust, remarking that ‘he wished every ryper in Norway was at the bottom of Gjendin;’ while Esau said ‘he would stay up there a month or two and find those birds if they were anywhere on our sheet of the Ordnance map.’

The Skipper had hardly walked 200 yards towards camp before he trod on the old cock, who got up observing kek! kek! kekkekkekkek, kurrack: kurrack; kurrack, krackrackackckkkkk! in an extremely indignant tone of voice, and the rest of the family immediately followed him, astonishing the Skipper so much that he missed the lot; and though we marked them down quite near we could not persuade any of them to risk their lives in flight again.

The language used on this occasion scorched the herbage off so large a patch of ground, that John down below thought that Glopit had suddenly commenced a volcanic eruption.

There are two kinds of birds known as ryper in Norway—the fjeld or skarv ryper, which is, we think, identical with our ptarmigan; and the dal or skog ryper, which we believe to be the same bird as the willow grouse of North America. The former of these is not numerous anywhere, but a few are always seen by the reindeer hunter up on the highest parts of the mountains, among the snow and rocks. They do not attempt much concealment, but their grey bodies and white wings are so exactly the colour of their habitation that it is very difficult to see them, as they sit perfectly still on the stones. If you do happen to catch sight of one, in all probability after looking at him for a little you will suddenly be aware that there is a small family of others all about him, and will wonder how they escaped your notice at first. They are not very useful for sporting purposes, as they are never found in great numbers, are too tame to give any trouble, and not particularly good to eat. The skog ryper is the bird which takes the place of the British grouse for the sportsman in Norway: he lives at a lower altitude than the skarv ryper, among the willows, wimberries, and stunted birches. In plumage he is not unlike our grouse, but not quite so red in shade, and with a white wing. During the summer he feeds on wimberry leaves, heather, and occasional bits of willow, and he is then almost if not quite equal to a grouse in flavour, but in winter, when there is nothing but willow to be had, the flesh becomes bitter and not nice to eat: the poor birds are then snared in great numbers, and may be seen hanging in English shops as ‘ptarmigan,’ which with their then white plumage they much resemble. After a good breeding season these skog ryper are very numerous in any favourable place in Norway, but they are so much inclined to lie close, that without dogs it is impossible to do much with them. Gjendin is too steep and desolate for them, but between the east end of the lake and Sjödals Vand there is some first-rate country, and also a little at the west end.

After lunch we all manned Esau’s canoe, which is the largest, because he is the smallest man; and set off down the lake to Leirungsö, the place where the professor’s hut is built at the edge of the waterfall which runs out of a small lake there (not the real Leirung’s Vand, which is further to the east).

The Skipper had noticed a remarkably fine bed of mölte bær there, which we expected to be just about ripe now, and so we had determined to picnic (!) there, forsooth, as if our life were not one perpetual and perennial picnic.

Leirungsö is nearly four miles from our camp, and the professor’s hut is an extremely comfortable and convenient little dwelling, in a most charming situation. Only one thing has been wanting, reindeer: he never found any, and left his hut a fortnight ago for a place further north, where we afterwards heard he had good sport.

After landing, the Skipper and Esau climbed up the valley to the little lake in search of something to shoot, while John remained to bathe and fish at the fall. There were lots of duck on the little lake, and in the rushy swamp at its upper end, and the Skipper put up a large brood of ryper, which we marked into a very small patch of willow scrub surrounded by bare ground. We walked through and through that patch, and threw so many stones into it that we fancy we must have killed and buried most of them, for we only persuaded four of them to fly again, three of which we secured. Our shooting was soon over, and then we gathered a lot of mölte bær, and returned to John, who was getting dinner ready; and after a regal repast of kidneys, reindeer pie, and mölte, paddled home by moonlight, arriving soon after nine.

We beguiled the journey home by songs and accompaniments by the following celebrated artists: Messrs. John, Skipper, and Esau. Among other songs was an original composition by John—air, ‘Bonnie Dundee’—

Esau supplied an encore verse:—